Her stomach grumbled and the instinctual hunger swiftly reminded her of the time and redirected her attention to the things that actually mattered to her at this time of morning, in this bored state of unwilling wait - food and Zefaris.

She left the writing desk as it was and returned upstairs. She set some pot-roast to warm up, made some citronade with a dash of Liquid Vigor, and retreated to the bathroom for a bit, pulling two disposable toothbrushes from storage.  Brushing her teeth as such had her standing there for a little longer than usual, her mouth wide open as she observed the inside of it. This up-close, the changes were infinitely more noticeable than just living with it moment to moment - perhaps the Wendigo too had been used to its mouth being like this and she had inherited some of that alongside the mutation. Her tongue was now almost free-floating inside her mouth, unattached to the bottom until a ways down her throat. As for her teeth, the molars were still there - it wasn’t that they had all changed, but rather that the ones which were already pointy had simply become even pointier - the second, third,fourth, and fifth teeth from the center. 

The distant sound of sizzling oil made her quickly wash her hands and save her breakfast-to-be from burning. Setting out the pot-roast and the citronade on the table, she woke Zef with a kiss on the cheek.

In the scope of things, this had been a downright pleasant morning. The two warrior-women had their breakfast, and they spent a few hours doing absolutely nothing in the backyard, making the most of the near-noon sun. Zef had tried reading one of Sig’s pulps, only to end up loading her gun with the smallest possible load and plinking away at the historian’s punching dummies. 

The noise this reduced load made was quiet enough that it did almost sound like someone whacking an anvil with a small hammer. Even still, arcing and weak though they were, the bullets readily lodged themselves in the softened wood and in her idle plinking, Zefaris used them to draw the image of a penis on the more intact log-dummy.

In the meanwhile, while her counterpart labored on this work of art, Zel went back and forth between fiddling with her Tablet, watching Zef, and reading that very pulp. Checking the tablet every few minutes wasn’t productive, but she was truly impatient in wanting to see what traits she would obtain from the Necrobeast. In the meantime though, the pulp was a good way to go along with the all too pleasing scenery, including a beautiful soldier doing what soldiers do best - passing the time with vulgarity and violence alike. The pulp was a collection of utterly unrealistic, overtly-embellished tales that only faintly claimed connection to reality, with simple print illustrations. One story detailed a white-haired sorcerer-king who wielded a soul-eating sword in an eternal struggle against forces that sowed chaos. Another detailed a white-haired mutant swordsman who wielded sorcery, and… Struggled against forces that sowed chaos. 

Such strange similarities. The first tale was dated some twenty years before the second, written by some old man in Grekuria and translated into Ikesian by… The second tale’s author, mere three years before the very second tale’s date of publishing. How curious. 

A third tale spoke of an far-northern king, laid low by foreign usurpers, only to return from death by the power of his immortal blood and retake his kingdom to the usurper’s terror. The fourth was about an ancient warrior who had survived from times before history by being frozen solid, who rode a mammoth and wielded a spear hewn from a meteor by his own bare hands.

She had to admit that these pulps were entertaining, when one read them with the appropriate expectations. Perhaps she might relay her own deeds to a writer to spread her name and reap profit both. Then again, for many of her exploits past and future she would likely need to obscure her identity, in changing a forest to a desert, a dungeon to an ancient ruin, an Inquisitor to an exotic warrior from far-off lands with six magic wands instead of eight guns.  

A small detail of this pulp in particular really made it seem like whoever was putting these together wanted the buyers to get their money’s worth, to come back and buy some more. The illustrations, simplistic though they were, were striking. Just simple blocks of solid ink and empty space, but that alone was enough to paint a sharply lit chiseled face, or a dismal crypt with a lurking skeleton. It was a truly impressive example of working with limited resources. 

Between the short stories, there were also interludes describing various things. Sometimes it was a monster that showed up in the story, other times a magical object, or a maneuver or magic spell that had been used. Among these were things that she knew she could do - acrobatic kicks and whatnot - but one grabbed her attention and wouldn’t let go until she filed it away in her mind. The illustration showed a swordsman swinging his weapon as a beam of magic shot off in the shape and direction of the slash, cutting a cartoonish caricature of a Pateirian in equally cartoonish robes in half.

INTERLUDE VII

“BLADESHINE” 

I actually based this one on a real technique I had seen performed once by the local Black Horse Family branch during one of their exhibitions. Now I am no martial artist, and I am no aethermancer - although I’ve had people call me a typewriter wizard on occasion - so I had to draw on public sources for how it would work in the story.

I theorize that one would require a highly conductive bladed weapon, probably one powerfully enchanted or that has at least begun developing a soul of its own. Elemental alignment in the weapon and some ability to synthesize the appropriate elemental essentia would also make this feat infinitely easier for those not of the aethermantic persuasion, but raw aether (that is to say, a shitload of Fog) should work just fine.

Akaso

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