Page 18

And yet, loose ends remain

A flaw of the Daemon Core had already become apparent due to its overwhelming firepower; Krahe didn’t know how to get souldregs out of a nuclear shadow. Being a problem that she could only try to avoid moving forward, she left the scene as it was. Undisturbed. Her chest briefly split open down the middle as Barzai, now a formless mass of smoldering smoke, returned into the confines of her soul.

She returned to the lab, and there read through Sorayah’s notes. Much of the material pertained to translations of the code used in her source texts, as well as attempts at improving the ritual. Clinical descriptions, one after another, described the macabre failures of her efforts. After four subjects that died after only partial transmutation, Sorayah had given up and returned to the original method.

Mentions of a particular item stood out—the locked book. That was how it was referred to, as it had no external identifying markings besides the fact it was locked. Sorayah seemed to be completely stumped by what it was or how to open it, describing several unlocking experiments that had led her to believe somehow exposing it to anathema could be the key, but that was as far as she had gotten. From these notes, Krahe also learned that the book had been found in the same place as the hexagonal voidkey, but the specific place was referred to only as “the dig site.”

Krahe took care to minimize how much she disturbed Sorayah’s workspace, as she had not yet decided whether to keep the case of the Lost Sun Killer Myth to herself, report it to the church, or to do something between these two extremes. One of the considerations in her mind, despite the wretchedness of it, was the potential usefulness of human charcoal. Sorayah’s stock of the substance was already made, and even the church’s disposal method involved burning it down to ash after a fashion—so if it turned out to be useful to her, simply handing it over would be wasteful and pointless.

In the course of going through Sorayah’s home more thoroughly, things turned out to be inconveniently nuanced.

Everything that Krahe was able to find, from texts in the lab to those in the library, pertained to the process of turning someone into human charcoal and to artifacts that directly burned human charcoal as fuel. The problem came in with the mention of a substance described as “Black-flesh Jewel” in the older, more mystical texts. Meanwhile, newer fragments in Sorayah’s possession referred to the same substance in more grounded terms: “anthrocite” or “astral rock coal.”

Over the course of a few hours, Krahe arrived at two undeniable conclusions. Whomever invented and developed these occult arts had clearly gone much further than just human charcoal, and the Human Charcoal Letters didn’t reveal the full scope and severity of the goings-on during the century they spoke of. To say she was surprised would have been a bald-faced lie.

Krahe honestly wasn’t sure what course of action to take, but she had the small comfort of knowing that Sorayah wasn’t likely to have visitors any time soon, at least speaking on the time scale of weeks. With that in mind, Krahe took the keyring Sorayah had left inside the ritual chamber’s doors, as well as the one with the house keys. After placing Sorayah’s lantern, the locked book, and several samples of human charcoal into her Kenoma Sack, he left the place behind for now. The key, after closer inspection, was not entirely homogeneous in shape. The side of it which would be inserted had a narrow hexagonal hole about a centimeter across and of an indeterminate depth.

After spending the rest of the day looking into the Human Charcoal Letters at the Temple of Records, she reconvened with Casus at the safehouse and, since she needed his assistance in this matter, let him know of what had transpired.

“As Mamon Knight Silberblut, I would say she met a fate rightly deserved… Though I would likely put it less politely. Out of the armor, however, I cannot help but feel she would have been more useful if she had been interrogated in an official setting,” Casus remarked, drinking his coffee and reading a book as was typical of him. This time, he had borrowed Krahe’s copy of De Re Theurgia.

He turned his gaze up from the book in his hands, nodding towards the hexagonal voidkey standing upright on the coffee table. “You mentioned that you managed to coax her into giving over her voidkey and needed help identifying it. Is that right?”

“I wouldn’t say there was much convincing on my part, she tried to use it as bait to get me within range of her last-ditch theurgy attack… But yes, I do need it identified.”

Unsurprisingly, Sorayah’s voidkey had robust anti-appraisal enchantments. Casus managed to break them after trying for a few minutes. He described them as “fortress walls built to hide an ancient mausoleum.”

“They’re new. I would guess they were made by Sorayah herself or by someone on her behalf,” he clarified afterwards. “Rather than being incorporated into the key’s construction, they were merely layered around it. Moreover, there are traces of anathema—er, isotope suppression glyphs, never activated. Whatever radiation the key gives off, it is merely very close to anathema. Give me a moment…”

Casus got up, returning with an Oculon-branded device and a handful of bronze memslates. Its design language was the same as the eyebox Krahe had taken from the dead prospector, but it was thrice as large and far more complex. It very slightly resembled a 20th-century tape recorder in shape. It had sockets for four memslates, a more expansive keyboard, and a row of cable sockets on one side. A vial of thaumine sloshed around on the other side.

Casus popped in a pair of memslates and plugged a black cable into the device. Nerve-like endings surged to life from the cable to complete the connection when brought near one of the sockets. With a hiss and the turn of a locking ring, the cable was connected. At its other end was a flat, key-like plug, and much like a voidkey, Casus inserted it into his temple.

After a few seconds of focus and unsettling undulations going down the cable, he disconnected himself and popped the memslates out, handing one over. “The appraisal readings. I would strongly suggest that you report the case to the Grafting Church. Besides being properly rewarded for resolving it, you would be able to easily levy support, such as access to restricted information relevant to the case.”

“Yeah, I know, I know…” Krahe snapped offhandedly as she popped the memslate into her eyebox. Logically, she knew she would likely only benefit from reporting the case, but she didn’t want to . The same part of her that fundamentally distrusted large organizations also made her overthink the consequences of involving the church. Would the church ride her ass for killing Sorayah? What would they confiscate besides just the human charcoal? Krahe figured she could keep the house untouched for some time under the guise of investigating the scene, but that wouldn’t last forever. Her eyebox took a moment to project the appraisal readout. It was garbled and barely legible, an issue fixed by replacing the DD battery.

While she looked over the record, she got started on placing the Hexkey into storage, not wanting to have it sitting out and about where it could be seen or Zavesh-forbid scried for. As far as she was concerned, it was safer inside her Kenoma Sack, shrouded by the Deathsmoke Blessing.

The characteristics of Sorayah’s voidkey explained why she didn’t wield thaumaturgy in self defense; It wasn’t intended for thaumaturgy. The “Flame’s Collapse Hexkey” was a cursed relic that, upon implantation, would grant the user the “ Collapsing Flame” Boon. This boon would make it easier for the user to carry out Thaumic Fusion while severely worsening their ability to burn thauma normally. The curse part came into play in two ways:

Firstly, the boon wouldn’t go away even if the key was removed, but it would degenerate into Collapsed Flame; a version without the positive effect, until the key was reimplanted.

Secondly, it contained a unique theurgic pattern. By applying this pattern, the user could brand others with a cursed mark that would confer a version of the Collapsing Flame boon, tying it back to the curse-layer, so at any point the user could pull out the key to cripple everyone they had cursed in exchange for also crippling themselves. The Hexbrand Curse made the victim constantly aware of these facts, but it also concealed that it artificially induced the beginning stages of adustocorpus, starting from the spot where the curse mark was branded onto the victim. The key specified that the curse mark would vanish and remain invisible unless in the near vicinity of the curse-layer, and that removing the flesh it was on would just cause it to move.

Moreover, it granted a second boon, “Pyremaster,” which was exclusive to the user. This boon would enable the user to easily carry out the rites that would initiate and accelerate a victim’s adustocorpus, as well as the rites to finish the full transmutation into human charcoal.

It had the usual features as a normal voidkey, sure, but despite being classed as fourth-order it was barely better than Shiva’s Warding Chain in attribute reinforcement. As a ward and barrier catalyst, it was basic, with only low-level hardening. Its best feature was how it affected the user’s powers as a theurge, granting three additional Lesser Eidolon Vaults and strengthening all theurgies. This was obviously intended to make its features usable even for someone without their own natural eidolon vaults.

Despite everything, despite the Hexkey’s foreboding nature and the implications of its creation, the most alarming was the last line in the “Details” section.

“ This voidkey’s characteristics will evolve when Anthrocite Transmutation reaches 100%.”

The Anthrocite Transmutation gauge was right below, sitting at 63.71%.

“An evolving voidkey, huh?”

“I have never heard of such a thing, but I can see how it would explain its classification—it must be in relation to its potential. I would guess that key’s fulfilled potential would likely be at least fourth-order, else I cannot see how it would be worthwhile. The question is—”

Krahe interrupted him. “How does the transmutation progress? My first guess would be feeding it human charcoal, perhaps through a ritual or a specialized tool. I did not find any such thing in Sorayah’s home, but she may have had it in personal storage… Speaking of, what happens to the contents—”

This time, Casus interrupted. “Of someone’s Kenoma storage after death? It drifts away, just like their True Soul. Sometimes the items return naturally, and sometimes the Wheel catches them, outfitting its Banishers with them or using them as rewards. They might get caught by an Archon Flash and return as archon-forged versions of themselves. Your bracelet was likely one of those. There are rites for detecting and summoning a Kenoma Storage stash, but it must be very soon after someone’s death. The church—”

For the third and final time, Krahe interrupted. “Can help me with it. I get it, you want me to report the case. Fine. I needed to look something up in the Temple of Records anyway.”

With that, she took the Hexkey and left. Why did she feel so irritated? She genuinely couldn’t tell.

She had also not told him the whole truth; before heading to the Temple of Records, she went to her second home on Gashward Road 94. At this point, she had managed to outfit it with some ultra-basic furniture on top of the exercise equipment, but it wasn’t much. Frankly, if it was an option, she would be willing to take Sorayah’s home for herself. That was assuming someone else didn’t lay a claim to the property, but even then, Krahe was sure she could take most of the furniture as “evidence” to furnish Gashward Road 94.

After secreting herself away in the basement gym, she brought out the locked book to inspect it in detail. Immediately, something caught her eye. The twitching hand clasped an additional piece of anthracite-like stone, worked into the shape of a narrow rectangle.

When she took it out, Krahe still felt it giving off a faint, barely noticeable aura of anathema. Its surface was inscribed with two lines of writing, the stone’s glow illuminating it. It was a bit tricky to read due to the text’s tiny size and differences from what she had grown used to reading. It wasn’t clear print-type, but rather stylized calligraphy. Krahe assumed it was due to the age of these two items, but after getting a good look at the anthrocite slip, she managed to decipher it.

“For ye, who hath mastered the high magic: Burn this hand of mine to fuel thine ambitions.”

“It should suffice to complete my key, if you have not done so already.”

She was still suspicious of it, of course, and so she closed the book and locked it up again. The lock now obeyed as easily as her glasses. It would be a convenient little trinket in the future, especially once she put it on a more resilient box or at least had the book reinforced. For all its craftsmanship, the shielding inside the book was leaky . But then, perhaps it was by design if whoever had put it where Sorayah found it wanted it to be found. For now, she tucked it away behind a rack of weight plates.

She spent a short time experimenting with Sorayah’s Lantern, and learned that it rejected her; she could neither control nor appraise it. Thus, she placed it into her Kenoma Sack. The human charcoal still loaded in it made this a laborious process.

While she had the sack open, she retrieved a change of clothes; a darker, closer-fit pair of trousers, as well as the ice-user’s jacket and a pair of gloves to conceal her arm. To finish, she swept her hair forward over her left shoulder such that it would hide the charred section of her face. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough in a crowd.

With that, Krahe made her way to the Zaveshian Central Temple. She wasn’t entirely certain which church’s jurisdiction the Lost Sun Killer fell under, since it was not only a severe form of body theft and desecration, but it also pertained to heretical magic, which was generally the purview of the Seven Spokes. In the end, however, the Twin Churches were called that for a reason. Their operations, faiths, and jurisdictions bled into one another in many places; they were effectively joined at the hip. Her decision was influenced, more than anything, by her status as a graft-apostle and the lower average number of people at Zaveshian temples. In reality, Zaveshian temples got more visitors than Igarian ones—many of the faithful were just out of sight, either being treated, having grafts done, or exercising as a form of worship.

Despite her hopes, the number of people milling about surpassed her expectations.

There was a line of seven at the main counter, now manned by a different banisher than before. However, the same banisher receptionist whom Krahe had met upon her first arrival was at the counter to the right, with a warning sign that it was for urgent matters only and that one should not come there unless they had a bounty to turn in. While Krahe waited, she indulged in people-watching, though she didn’t bring out Barzai lest someone somehow spot him.

Near the contract board, a group of five had gathered around that muscular contractor. She was even more muscular than before, apparently having had grafting work done which was made clear by the swelled lines going down her arms and the noticeable increase in their size. Her blade was replaced by an even bigger one—a huge saber with two cutouts on the back, wrapped to serve as extra grips. Its handle was excessively bulky and contained a small engine. The guard was two-layered, with a solid piece guarding a motorbike throttle, while the handle itself had a brake-like lever. Two dark gray, barely purplish lines of crystal ran down the blade on each side where the fuller grooves would normally go. Krahe didn’t even need to try to listen in to learn about the weapon as the contractor was currently in the process of loudly boasting about how she had paid some famous craftsman half a million to have it put together, despite providing all the parts herself. She claimed she could now cut through a building when transformed. Krahe didn’t even doubt the veracity of that assertion. If anything, she was thankful to the loudmouth for drawing all the attention.

Krahe committed the loudmouth and her weapon to memory, knowing full well that Casus would be terribly interested, and she felt bad for snapping at him earlier. Her reaction wasn’t even extreme, but it was akin to scolding a cat for killing mice. This was also one of the reasons Krahe hated dealing with genuinely good people. It was much easier to justify her own prickly personality when everyone else was just as bad or worse.

The original receptionist recognized Krahe when she turned to glance that way, and called her over.

“Ah, I was wondering when I would see you again, Lady Blackhand,” the receptionist said in a low, yet bubbly tone. “You might be disappointed to learn that we do not have another kidnapped Pilgrim for you to rescue.”

“He talked,” Krahe deadpanned. She suddenly felt less bad for snapping at him.

“Of course he did!” the receptionist beamed. “But he didn’t need to. The Slaughterhouse Nine Incident left both witnesses and survivors… And people were more than eager to talk and ask questions about the commotion. I heard that one of the graft-beasts was even intact enough to pull a visual recording. Ah, apologies. What can I do for you today?”

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Krahe moved on from the matter of her failure to keep a low profile. She had decided that it would be fine to get a reputation after all! But not every part of her had realized that yet. The paranoid schizo part that saw a camera on every corner and behind every civvie’s eyes still wanted to be invisible.

“I have a case to report,” she said. “There was no contract set beforehand as I uncovered it myself. It pertains to restricted material in the Temple of Records. Section fifty-three.”

The receptionist sat still for a moment, thinking. Her cheerful demeanor fell away in an instant, and she regarded Krahe with a hard gaze, her eyes running up her arm before they met her own. Her third eye opened, its cruciform pupil burning in a pool of radiant green-blue.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

Krahe just nodded.

“Very well…” she trailed off, taking a piece of off-white, watermarked paper and writing on it by hand in immaculate calligraphy. “It so happens that an ex-inquisitor who worked on the case is present in the city. I will refer you to him. Go to the Seven Spokes Central Temple and ask for Razem.”

The letter was then folded and sealed with a large, rectangular stamp that burned a complex sigil onto the paper, holding it shut without wax or any other physical glue. She silently nodded, took the letter, and went on her way.

It almost seemed like Razem was waiting for her. In fact, the front end of the Igarian temple was conspicuously deserted; not entirely, but the number of people was significantly lower than she would have expected.

He stood at the precipice between the chapel and the temple’s halls, and simply met her gaze with a nod.

“I did not expect to see you so soon. Certainly not in these circumstances. You look well,” he said, gesturing for her to follow as he turned to walk down the hall. He led her deeper and deeper, eventually into a subterranean area of the temple, but only perhaps two floors underground. As they walked, he explained, “The letter you hold in your hand—it’s little more than an identifying token. I already know what it says.”

He brought out a second letter, identical to the first, but not sealed. When the two letters touched, they merged together and burned up into nothing. The room he was leading her to was a reliquary, but the security was not nearly as stringent. There were the giant doors with the complex opening sequence, sure, but that was it. Within was a large room with walls of reflective black stone. Razem snapped his fingers. A pulse of thauma radiated out of him, blanketing the whole room, and several sections of the wall became transparent, revealing artifacts previously concealed within. All of them shared various design elements with Sorayah’s lantern, and some of them Krahe recognized from having read their descriptions.

“Hoh? I thought you would be more impressed,” the ex-inquisitor remarked. “New church contractors always like the polarized quartz trick.”

Seeing her apprehensive glance at those words, Razem acquiesced. “You said you had a matter related to these relics to report, yes?”

With those words, he held his hand out to another section of the wall, causing it to recede and slide to the side with a rumble, revealing a far less impressive, but far more practical room. A small archive of texts and scrolls, with a few tables against the walls, but otherwise blank. He led her into that other room and seamlessly conjured several items onto the table. This conjuring manifested as reams of paper unwinding from inside the sleeve of his robe to wrap around a nonexistent item. Once finished, the layer of paper burned away to reveal the item inside, now very real and present. In the span of a few seconds, he summoned a typewriter, a memslate record player deck that looked far too much like his hands to not be custom, and, weirdly, a full pitcher of amethyst-colored liquid, plus two tall glasses.

Krahe had no reason to be taken aback. It was a perfectly sensible application of Kenoma storage. And yet, she was—just a little.

“This may take a short while, but I am sure you already knew that. Please, give your full and unabridged account of your findings.”

And so, Krahe did. Mostly, anyway. The fairly large amount of information she withheld didn’t factor into Sorayah’s case specifically, and she simply didn’t drink any of the amethyst liquid on the off-chance it was a truth serum of some kind.

Razem, however, didn’t express doubt as to her words. He did ask her to restate a few things while holding a band of seals that he conjured, and Krahe did feel like she physically couldn’t lie while holding it. Deception, however, didn’t necessitate lies, and her purposes didn’t require a great deal of deception to begin with.

Eventually, she brought out the lantern, and Razem, openly displaying his interest in the thing, took several similar artifacts from their displays to compare. He told her some things she already knew, and others she didn’t.

“We did a great deal in the effort to wipe these out, but, as you can see, the knowledge of their creation yet persists. The problem with these devices, besides the manner of their creation, is the occult corruption their use inflicts on the user and the fact they demand ‘human charcoal’ to operate. Some versions of the device even demand that the fuel comes from someone who trusted the user. It will be a challenge to discern how many based on the residue inside the mechanism, but if I were to guess… Seventeen, or perhaps eighteen people must have been turned into charcoal to power this thing over the years. How many of them can be blamed on Sorayah, I cannot guess.”

He looked up from the lantern, adding, “That’s a small number, to be clear. You caught her early. Most of the specimens in our collection have burned through volumes of human charcoal equivalent to several hundred people. At their heights, the Human Charcoal Cults were powerful enough to make an entire town disappear overnight…”

They spoke on the matter of the Human Charcoal Cults and their occult practices for about another hour, and Krahe came to the conclusion that Razem held some similarities to Casus. He was a genuinely, truly good person. But he wasn’t. Not entirely. The difference hit her quite quickly: Effort. Casus didn’t try to be what he was. He just was. Razem was trying terribly, terribly hard, at all times. He didn’t come across like he was faking it, but Krahe sensed that he had to try to be like this.

So, she took a risk.

“You don’t have to put on appearances in front of me, you know. I can tell.”

He didn’t suddenly transform or completely change his demeanor, but he did let out a breath and sink into his chair. It wasn’t his personality that fell away. It was the faintly regal, detached aura that he had been giving off until now. Suddenly, that vanished. He was just an old man with a fire in his eyes and an aura that felt like the surface of a vast ocean; tranquil yet prepared to churn into a storm at a moment’s notice. A former killer who had become a man of the law, and then a priest. A walking, talking narrative stereotype.

“Ah, you’ve detected my dark secret! Razem, High Priest of the Seven Spokes Audunpoint Branch Central Temple, is just an unenlightened old coot,” he said with a mischievous smirk. He reached out and a band of paper whipped towards one of the glasses. He downed half of it in one swig. “It’s not truth serum, if that’s what you were thinking. The glassware doesn’t have anti-appraisal enchantments either.”

He knew. Not exactly, but he guessed basically what she had been thinking. She hesitantly took the other glass and sipped from it. It smelled great, a soft herbal scent. It tasted atrocious. Bitter and sour. And yet, once it went down, it felt like she’d just shot up a cocktail of nootropics; her thoughts ran a hundred miles an hour and her mind felt clearer than ever.

“The taste, however, is an acquired one,” the priest added after the fact, sipping from his glass with a malicious grin.

Krahe appraised the drink.

[Decoction of Mind’s Dawn]

Status

Exceptional (High Quality, Low Concentration)

Details

Perfect Recall A1

Memory Formation Amp C2

Mental Energy Amp C2

Mental Clarity Amp C1

Sleep Replacement D3

She was, much to Razem’s amusement, taken aback by the litany of effects.

“It’s my personal blend. What do you think? Sorun used to pester me for the recipe whenever he came by to get a refill. Wonder why he hasn’t come by lately. I hope his overgrafting hasn’t finally caught up with him…” he trailed off, swirling his partially full glass. He grew somber, before taking another sip and perking up again. “Anyhow. Let us get back on track.”

“Right, right. It’s not really surprising that there are remnants floating around. The church is too big and ponderous to effectively exterminate such an elusive enemy, and the inquisition, despite being the Inner Wheel’s dedicated scalpel, suffers to some degree from the same issues. It doesn’t help that they’re eternally stretched hair-thin. One inquisitor is really good. Two? Great. Outstanding. Three? Nearly guaranteed that it will get solved, and solved quickly.”

Razem took a sip. His expression soured, as if the flavor had suddenly caught up to him. With a sigh, he placed the glass back on the table and continued speaking.“But that never happens. One is usually good enough, and they’re spread thin as it is. They put me on the case because they hoped I was the right man for the job, being the only anathemist inquisitor in a while. I was, but not for the reasons they thought. Turns out someone who dives into anathemism for his own reasons is much worse as material for the human charcoal process than a normal person. The curse struggles to take hold due to built up tolerance, and the resulting charcoal is laden with Bane Soot. Knowing how widespread and how slippery those bastards were back in their heyday, I’m not surprised that people are still finding remnants. Did you find anything as significant as the lantern? Another relic or tool?”

“I haven’t combed through all of the perpetrator’s home yet. I was thinking of trying to summon the contents of her personal Kenoma storage, if she had one.”

“Well, I can give you a one-use kit for that, but don’t expect much. You’re placing yourself at the mercy of the Gulf’s tides, and given the circumstances of her death, her storage will have likely dispersed even more rapidly than normal. Oh, and uh… Don’t open the kit until you’re ready to use it.”

“One of the rooms is also ward-locked.”

“I… Cannot give you ward-breaking equipment, as it’s fairly delicate work with oft-lethal consequences for failure, but I can assign someone to your case with the skills and qualifications to break the local warding. Come, let us handle the rest of the paperwork so that you may be rid of this old man.”

With that, Razem got up and packed up his things, and suddenly, the aura of regal detachment returned to him. He led Krahe back to the surface and into an office decorated similarly to the one in which he had examined and treated her. The report had already been written; Razem now updated Krahe’s contractor ID. Then, he asked her, “How would you prefer to be paid? Solid-state? Coinage? Thaumine?”

“Rings.”

Utterly unsurprised, the old man smiled and gave a nod. “Very well, but I’ll have to account for the market exchange rate. I’m sure you understand. It will take a few days to turn the cogs of bureaucracy given the magnitude of this case. Do you have an address where you would prefer to have the reward delivered, or would you rather pick it up at the temple?”

She honestly wanted to say Gashward Road 94, but she didn’t spend enough time there to not worry about the package being stolen.

“Can you send it to the Seven Spokes shrine on Gashward Road?” she asked. There was only one on that street, well away from 94.

“Of course. I shall have the ward-breaker contact you using that address as well. Ah, not to forget. Wait here for a moment.”

Razem left, returning with an elongated box of dark wood, taped shut lengthwise with fabric covered in holy symbols.”

“I must reiterate. Do not open it until you intend to use it and do not place it in Kenoma storage under any circumstances .”

***