OctupleCompressedNeodymium

I hesitated about uploading this chapter. I seriously considered rewriting it from scratch.

This one is primarily about the adventurers, with a Xaj sequence at the end.

Ruvarie entered the building through the back door. A waiter noticed her, but simply nodded as she walked through the snaking corridors. She was alone, this time. They had gotten a bit of windfall from the mess with Vosvelz's adventurers, so they took a day off to visit family.

Well, except Saeja. Ruvarie was fairly certain Sae didn't have any family. Well, family she could visit, at any rate. She shook her head, and entered a small room on the back of the establishment, unable to suppress a smile. Brings me back, that's for sure.

She quickly sat down on her chair, and looked at the man in front of her, who emitted a broad, fatherly smile upon seeing her. He had brown hair, and a sleazy appearance, complete with appropriate mustache. "It is good to see you.", he started, Ruvarie smiling as well. Her father had done more for her than... well, the entire nobility, for starters. Saeja didn't count.

"Same. Got a whole bunch of... messy business done." The slight worry on her father's face led Ruvarie to explain a bit. "Nah, not like, assassinating people, more like... the best thing I can think of would be playing messenger between Bleeding-Hands and a nobleman he hates."

He chuckled slightly at this. "Ah, nobility.", he said, Ruvarie sharing the feeling of mild annoyance. "At least it seems like you didn't have to kill anyone this time.", he continued.

"That's more your kind of thing anyway, no ?", Ruvarie snarked, although she did agree with her father, the man emitting a laugh at her answer.

"No, not really.", he answered, still smiling. "I mean, I do get up to shady things, but not murder.", something Ruvarie very much knew to be true. In fact, she knew there was an argument to be made that he was morally the better person of them both. Although he wasn't a goody two-shoes like Sae tended to be when her... problems got the better of her.

To be fair, his arguments for it were valid, but still. Guess if I ever live as long as him, I'll be kinda the same. "So, what did you get up too, then ?", Ruvarie asked leadingly, to which her father laughed again before he started talking in detail.

"The usual, pretty much.", he said. Stealing slaves and freeing them, delivering food to the needy, paying adventurers to kill bandits. Some called Ruvarie's father the Lord of Shadows for the man's influence within slums and other disaffected areas. She found it a bit over-the-top, but didn't mind either way.

"So, what have you been up to ?", her father asked back at Ruvarie. "You were hunting some damnable bandit, right ?", he continued, to which Ruvarie nodded.

"Yeah, the Crimson Wraith.", she confirmed, her father raising an eyebrow in concern. Even he had heard of the man, and it clearly painted a unflattering picture. "Utter pond scum, that guy. Then things got weird."

Tarac sat down on the chair, looking at the heavily enchanted lead box he and his sister Neira were staring at, using a long-range sight spell. "So this contains a sample of the curse ?", he asked, his sister nodded as she looked at the box, the subject of her research.

Apocalypse 2-7-4. An horror whose scales spread a curse that killed indiscriminately. Uncountable lives were lost in the process of sealing it, and even more were lost trying to understand the curse, so if it was to break free again they would be prepared.

The curse contaminated what it touched, leaving the items toxic and cursed. The only thing they found that could contain the curse somewhat was lead. Not iron, not copper, not clay, it had to be very specifically lead. Gold apparently worked as well, but it was significantly more expensive.

The sample they were looking at was entombed somewhere in the countryside. It was the only place that was allowed to store samples of cursed items, and it was heavily shielded with almost an actual, non-hyperbolic ton of lead ignoring the boxes themselves. Upkeep was done from outside by trained mages, who doubled as part of the guard in case enemies wanted to steal the items.

The only thing that could dampen the curse reliably was time, as far as they knew. Neira was one of the many who wanted to research and understand the curse, and Tarac was content to help. He had nothing else to do, after all. Well, he could research the photographs, but he could do that during his carriage trips.

"Yeah.", she answered, transfixed, in that way as well, similar to her brother. Just about the only physical difference between the siblings is that Neira had green eyes and was shorter. "I think this is just grass and soil, however. Scales and blood samples are further in.", she continued, Tarac not too surprised. The more dangerous the sample, the more obscure the location. It made sense to him.

"So, yeah, that's what I've been doing. I found nothing we didn't know about already.", Neira said. "So what about you ? I remember you going off to hunt some dangerous bandit.", she continued, mildly reproachful. She had never fully accepted Tarac's job of choice, because she thought it too dangerous. Something she wasn't exactly wrong about.

Ruvarie's father raised an eyebrow with concern as she described to him her first encounter with the Warden. "That... certainly qualifies as "things getting weird.".", he agreed. "That's an... encounter. I am glad you came out of it well.", he continued.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm still a bit surprised about that, but hey, ain't gonna complain.", Ruvarie said. She couldn't really wrap her head about the kind of person the Warden was, but at the very least they weren't murderously hostile to them.

"Still, to believe that would end up being the Wraith's fate.", her father said. "Make no mistake, the man deserved it utterly. This country is safer with him gone.", he continued.

"Yeah, I know, right.", Ruvarie agreed. "So, we were like, "there's a bounty on that guy's head.", and you know what the Warden told us ?", she continued her explanations, her father looking at her. "They told us to piss it away in beer !"

Ruvarie's father exploded in laughter at that one. "You'd probably die of alcohol poisoning !", he said, semi-jokingly. Ruvarie briefly entertained the idea of asking Tarac whether that would be literal. "But that was your first encounter ?", he asked, more serious this time.

"Yeah, the governor of the town called us again two weeks or so later", Ruvarie continued. "Guy had... a bit of a problem."

Neira shivered as Tarac related to her his first meeting with the mysterious Warden. "That certainly sounds terrifying.", she said. "Someone with that level of power showing up out of nowhere ? Maybe you should've taken a normal job.", she said, a slight jab at the end.

"It could have been an Apocalypse", Tarac relativized, ignoring the jab, "or worse a corrupt noble.", he continued in the same deadpan tone, his sister emitting a chuckle. "Frankly, I'd rather deal with the Warden than the nobility. At least the Warden is honest and won't try to stab you in the back.", he continued.

"The'd would crush your skull instead.", Neira answered, before nodding. "But I see what you mean, yes." And frankly, she found herself agreeing with her brother. It might not be more enjoyable, but it was certainly easier to deal with someone who was upfront about the fact they found your presence a nuisance, rather than being shady and ambiguous about how they were going to betray or hurt you.

"Indeed. My impression of the Warden I had back then is that they respect honesty and good-faith, and answer it in kind.", Tarac explained. "Their reasons for killing the Wraith in particular are what led me to their conclusion."

"That it was about making him stop, right ?", Neira asked, Tarac nodding in answer. "This is definitely strange, but, like, I heard the stories. And frankly ? I daresay that we're better off for this Warden's presence than the bandit's."

"I very much agree with your conclusion.", Tarac said, nodding. "And our second meeting kind of confirmed both my intuition about the Warden, that they rarely if ever throw the first punch, and supports your conclusion as well.", her sister raising an eyebrow in confusion.

Ruvarie's father roared with laughter. "They weren't wrong !", he said. "It is indeed a better use of one's time to feed starving orphans than go bother people in the forest.", he continued, calming down a bit. "But I must say I didn't expect that coming from a Warden of all things."

"I know, right !", Ruvarie agreed. "And frankly if I had the cash I'd much rather be doing that instead of pissing the Warden off, but yanno, Vosvelz gotta Vosvelz.", she continued, her father still chuckling at the jab against the duke, who both of them thought deserved getting made fun of.

"Actually, isn't one of your friends-", he started to ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep", Ruvarie interrupted. "Lemme tell you that was fun.", she continued wryly. "At least the white flag helped. I owe ya one for that.", she said more seriously, a tinge of gratitude within her voice.

"I do have some good ideas.", her father answered with a smile. Ruvarie had thought that keeping a white flag in her storage at all time was a dumb idea, but it turns out she was the joke on that one.

Ah, well. Live and learn. "Every once in a while, at least.", Ruvarie snarked affectionately, her father smiling at the jab.

"Do you have these adventurers' names, at any rate ?", her father continued, more seriously. There was something about the descriptions that put him on edge. He had heard of a purple-haired, female adventurer archer in Vosvelz territory who enjoyed brothels before.

And he hadn't heard good things about her. "Qarv... Qarev-something ? Dunno, don't remember.", Ruvarie answered. "Why, they're important ?"

"No, not very much.", her father said reassuredly. "Nothing but a bit of idle curiosity on my part is all.". And ultimately, since they were dead, it was irrelevant.

Still, it didn't surprise him at all the duke tried to acquire a dungeon for corpse disposal. He was kind of glad the man failed. It certainly reduced the kind of shady business he could get up to.

Neira looked at the "photos" with a complicated expression on her face. "Uh. These are... certainly something. The quality is... Did you, like, manage to find anything about these ?", she asked. "If we could figure out how these were made..."

"For what little I understand...", Tarac explained, "these items are composed of a set of... I don't know exactly, not quite dyes but similar. There seems to be four of these, and the trick seems to be applying differing amounts of each dye on white paper to create the colors. It seems to be a bit similar to a painter combining paints."

"What even are these dyes made of ?", Neira asked. "This is a really ingenious system. Depending on the base dyes, you could more or less generate any color with just that, by mixing and matching the colors.", she continued. "Even with the dyes we as, erhm, let's say non-Wardens, have access too..."

"I don't know. I have been trying to isolate the dyes, in order to deepen my understanding, but have been not very successful so far. I think what I'll do is make several duplicates in order to extract it more efficiently, while keeping at least one photo undamaged.", Tarac detailed, his sister nodding.

"This does seem the simplest approach. For once we agree on something...", Neira approved, snarking slightly. "At least good things came out of these meetings.", her brother nodding in turn.

"Indeed. The Crimson Wraith is dead, we got something that might put the nobility on its ears, and even if it fails I am sure there are painters and other artists out there who would be interested in these."

Saeja walked down the quiet, lightly forested path in search of solitude. She had considered what to do for a bit. She could've gone back to one of these slums bar in search of female company, preferably top-heavy, but... not anymore.

She couldn't bear to show her face in those, despite these having been a part of her at one point. Maybe they were worried about her ? Just more reasons to not return, then. She'd just feel even more guilty.

It was good that Ruvarie and Tarac were off visiting their families ! She just had no idea what to do other than wander around in a haze looking for nothing in particular. After a bit of walking, she found a nice, quiet clearing.

Saeja walked in the middle of the clearing and knelt, supproting herself with her axe, her brown hair covering her face and back. She looked at the... these weren't exactly gravestones she had pulled out of her dimensional storage, because Saeja was unsure whether both of the women whose name she engraved here were dead, but at the very least she had no reason to think they were alive still.

Someone had to make the bastard stop. The Warden was right, about this one. And no one else will. And no one else could. Saeja shook her head. She knew what he'd answer to that. Everyone end up hurting each other at some point. And on its face, it was true.

But the thing was that he didn't care that he hurt people. That he trampled over them in pursuit of their goals. They were to him tools to be exploited, and gotten rid of if they got in the way. She put the items down on the ground, and looked at them. "...ther.", she said between choked tears. "I swear to the heavens, one day I will make this wrong right."

Xajymzia looked at the spread of materials, another infused metal ingot popping out of her infusion device. The thing had been working 24/7 since the moment Xajymzia had confirmed it worked properly, and there were two reasons for that.

Not only did Xajymzia have to finish filling out her spreadsheet completely, which was on its own a pretty massive undertaking – she had been a quarter of the way, on a spreadsheet with a bit over 500 materials to synthesize, but it seemed like every other material added extra material to infuse.

On the other hand, Xajymzia was more confident than ever about the materials for upgrading her body. It had been slightly in the backburner, but now that she could churn out materials quickly and efficiently, it was significantly simpler to find the right material for each part.

Of course, they still needed to be shaped, cursed and fused together, but the first part Xajymzia could do herself. The only things she would need Zoemie's assistance for were the curses and the fusion, and even if her charge goofed up with the curses somehow, she could simply reconjure the base item.

But right now Zoemie was out, enjoying the cloudless summer, and Xajymzia had no intention of bothering her. Besides, it would be too early. She still needed to actually make the items, after all. Xajymzia had thought quite a bit about what upgrades she could use, and had a pretty thorough understanding for now.

Firstly, she needed sharper blades. The fight against the brawler had made it clear her offense was lacking. She also wanted to add piercing blades and reinforced weights to diversify her offensive options, and enable them to receive magical enchantments like her bullets coulds. It would allow her to meaningfully threaten significantly more enemies.

Second, she wanted to complete her defensive profile. She had a lot of immunities – she couldn't be poisoned or burned, had an immunity to a lot of disabling and lethal effects like asphyxiation, frostbite, electrocution and limb amputation, but there were things she wasn't immune to like acid, and she wanted those immunities as well.

Adding on to that, it was possible for Xajymzia's enemies to damage her as she was right now through application of enough sheer force, as the brawler had showed her. So, she wanted to increase her raw durability and damage negation to make this significantly harder without expending effort.

This was to be coupled with a variety of upgrade to her endurance and mobility. Simply put, Xajymzia wanted to have the ability to exhaust her enemies in case she was in a situation where she couldn't kill them, and avoiding their attacks helped with that. The mobility upgrades didn't just make her slipperier and harder to catch, they also made her blows heavier. Kinetic energy : speed factor squared, after all.

She also wanted to increase the type of ranged fire at her disposal. She right now had heavy, slow cannon fire or rapid machinegun fire, and although she hadn't gotten to use either in a real battle, she wanted more options to cover more variety of encounters.

In particular, she wanted long-range sniper arm, for slowly and methodically picking-off of faraway enemies, dual automatic shotguns for short-medium range combat, autocannons for situation where she needed to hit harder than with her machinegun, and wide-spread, medium-long range suppressive fire to deny enemy mobility.

Finally, Xajymzia wanted to shore up her support abilities. Zoemie's curses made her a potent debuffer, but everything else in her combat kit was about killing the target as swiftly and brutally as possible. In particular, Xajymzia has slotted down fear-inducing eyes for disabling support, and various buffs to act as a force multiplier for Zoemie.

Xajymzia smiled. It was going to be Zoemie's dinnertime fairly soon. For tonight it would be... broccoli cheddar creamy soup. That would do just fine.