Zelsys was very much content to continue leaning against the transport’s pleasantly cool metal, but she wasn’t one to eavesdrop. When she heard Spliteye mumbling something about a foreigner in her unconscious state, she decided to join Makhus and Sigmund around the firepit. She was curious, but she wasn’t disrespectful of one’s privacy. Even so, she still caught muttered descriptors like “tall” and “brown” as she walked away from the transport.

Neither of the men said anything at her approach, though she almost tangibly felt Makhus’s gaze. It wasn’t tracing her skin or traveling to undue places, but rather jumping between her gun and the cleaver. The three of them sat there in silence as the two men slowly ate while Zelsys periodically switched between watching the fire and what little of the night sky could be seen through the tree canopy.

“Alright, fine. The cleaver’s yours,” Makhus suddenly piped up with annoyed resignation. 

Zelsys gave him a look, one eyebrow raised. She knew he had more to say. “So it is. You want to take a look?” she offered, reaching for the handle, for she knew what his answer would be. A deliberate, controlled nod. The veneer of a self-controlled soldier broke almost immediately when Zelsys put the cleaver in her lap. Staring at the push-saw side with a furrowed brow, the swordsman muttered, “The fuck’s this shit, that looks utterly impractical….”

“It sure saws through bears pretty good,” she laughed.

The sudden flash of two words in her head dragged her into the realm of the waking. 

DELETION SUCCESSFUL

She woke with a stream of drool running down her cheek and her right arm numb up to the bicep, and after a few blinks to clear her eye, she immediately lifted the Tablet to take a look. Much to her relief, it seemed the process had worked, if the projection she was seeing was the one Makhus had seen. “Should’ve asked him what it showed when he woke up before I did it,” she chastised herself.

RECORD OVERWRITE

PLEASE ENTER NAME

Much like Makhus, she chose a name other than her given one. Unlike him, hers was an entirely arbitrary choice. It wasn’t the name of anyone she had looked up to, or anyone who had played a significant role in her earlier life. It was just the name of a girl who she had met perhaps once or twice; a name which she liked and which stuck with her, unlike anything else about the girl.

“Zefaris.”

NAME - ZEFARIS

SEX - FEMALE

 SPECIES - HUMAN (IKESIAN)

FORCE - D

PRECISION - C+

HARDNESS - C

AETHER - D+

TRAITS>

<STORAGE

Not a flicker of surprise crossed her mind at the change in her attributes. “Helping him with that alchemic moonshine setup did improve my aether,” she thought, satisfied by the accuracy of her self-knowledge. The increase of her Hardness was only to be expected considering her circumstances, and she was all too confident in her own marksmanship to be surprised by the Tablet’s judgment of her Precision. Thinking nothing of it, she swiped through the projection to check her traits.

TRAITS

Gunmanship (Rifle Spec.)

Lesser Swordsmanship

Lesser Rubedo Tolerance

Rudimentary Aethermancy

Headpiercer Arts

Type-T Homunculus Eye (Unique) 

“Nothing new huh,” she thought at first glance, focused more on the stiffness of her back as she sat up than what the traits list read. Another swipe to reset the Tablet, and out the transport’s door she went, the device in hand.

“That was fast,” remarked Sigmund as he stood up. “I presume it’s my turn next.” 

With a nod she handed him the Tablet, taking a seat on his spot. Without enthusiasm, she directed her focus towards hand exercises in a futile attempt to make the numbness subside faster. More importantly, it was to give herself something to do besides trying not to look at the bronze, silver filigree adorned statue that sat next to her. Zefaris directed her eye at the border between the firepit’s ash and the forest’s tapestries of luminescent moss, imagining it to be a natural representation of the Exclusion Zone’s slow spread. “Ridiculous. I understand jewelry or even chainmail, but tattooing holy metal into your skin?” she thought, staring dead ahead but unable to help paying attention to the glimmering form in her peripheral vision. 

The fight for self-control was won by Makhus’s voice when he asked, “What name’d you pick?” 

She raised her gaze to meet his, blinking a few times when she realized her eye was as dry as the Exclusion Zone. “Zefaris. You?”

“Makhus.”

A grin parted her lips. “That’s almost suspiciously generic,” she said.

“And Zefaris is suspiciously memorable,” he rebutted. The smell of Viriditas suddenly became stronger, accompanied by ribbons of green Fog rising from the ground next to the still. 

“Uh, the still-” she began, but Makhus had already turned around, turning one of the still’s many valves to shut off output. He stood and strode toward the transport, emerging after a couple seconds of glassy clattering with an armful of bottles. With little regard, he allowed them to spill out of his grasp onto the mossy forest soil next to the still, smacking one of the large ones below the still’s outlet and opening the valve. A continuous flow of emerald-green Viriditas poured forth, much to his audible delight. 

“Fuck me, that beast’s heart is packed with more Nigredo than a whole rotten deer!” he exclaimed, laughing as he watched the bottle filling. An eyebrow raised, Zefaris gave the amazon a questioning look. 

Even Zelsys was impressed by the sheer amount of Viriditas that resulted from inserting the bear’s heart into the still. The device immediately began working at its highest capacity, the barrier-stone fragment shattered less than half a minute later, much to Makhus’s dismay and lightning-fast replacement with a pristine piece. 

When Zefaris gave her that questioning look, her first response was a smile and a truthful excuse. “I didn’t butcher it,” she said. “Just took the heart out to make sure it wouldn’t pull itself back together.”