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Inside the box was a clump of flesh with a face. No skin, no hair, just purplish meat with a face.

It was tiny, just a bit larger than her fist, and contained in a sealed jar. Various equipment filled the remaining space, including instructions for what looked suspiciously close to Barzai’s angle-web, the reagents to draw it, and a sheet of vellum with an intensely herbal, nose-stinging scent. She was to draw the sigil on the vellum, place it as close to the site of death as possible, then set the “gulfcaller” in the middle and supply thauma.

The purpose of the weird homunculus revealed itself when Krahe did as instructed, and the gulfcaller began reciting a complex incantation whilst throat singing in a second voice. It grew arms and legs, immediately doubled over and began dry heaving. It stopped half a minute later and, looking up at Krahe, turned side to side as if it was shaking its head. The weird little creature then climbed back into the jar, fell limp, and shriveled up to barely half of its original size. Disappointed, she left everything as it was, locked the place up, and left. Her end goal was to simply return to the safehouse before she went out to look into Eutropia in the evening.

Krahe meandered through the city for longer than she needed, eventually visiting a craftsman’s workshop whose repertoire included both eyeglasses and low-level artifacts. The place was deserted and run by a shriveled little man with an equally bushy mustache and eyebrows. She queried him on how much it would cost to have her glasses upgraded and how long it would take.

This was, in fact, the sixth craftsman who did this kind of work that she had visited. As such, she confidently requested a specific upgrade. “I’ll need at-will Appraise Object of C-Three or B-One grade, Extended Highlight Magic Object Plus C-One, Detect Baneworm D-Three, and Detect Life D-Three.”

“These… Quite right. These seem like something one would take to Jas’raba. Typical construction, notably the frame is much better than the lenses. Since the lens shape is standard round stock, I can pencil your order in for… Next month on the twentieth. Is that acceptable?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“Good, good. The down payment will be fifty percent; if you don’t show up, I won’t be able to easily sell the lenses to someone else. Pick them up within another month of the agreed upon date.”

“With my hard requirements out of the way, I would also like Anti-Appraisal Penetration of C-One or better. Can you do that?”

The craftsman stopped at that request, regarding her with a dubious gaze. It was a bit more than usual, but within norms. She couldn’t ask a random craftsman to give her glasses that could see through anything efficiently, but she wanted at least something that could reliably defeat low-mid level shielding.

“I understand that such things are desirable for many people, but you must understand that I cannot risk the guilt of equipping a thief or perhaps a scoundrel…”

They looked at each other for a few seconds. He was waiting for a response.

“Well? Do I seem like a thief or perhaps a scoundrel? ”

Then, the old man laughed.

“I’m kidding. I don’t give a shit what you do with my work. It’s not as if I’m selling anything truly valuable like high-grade voidkeys.”

From the way he awkwardly transitioned from one sentence to the next, it felt like she had failed to provide a keyword. Then, Krahe noticed the spark of recognition in his eye, and the way he glanced at her arm, which was fully covered by both her jacket and a glove. She didn’t bring it up, but she did give him a lowball counteroffer when he quoted her his price. He didn’t fight her on it.

***

First thing upon returning to the safehouse, Krahe questioned Casus on the matter of Seer.

“I had expected you to ask sooner. We had him checked over, as promised. The grafter found widespread modifications to the ocular module, as well as extraordinarily precise repairs carried out to mitigate damage to his brain and material soul. According to Seer, all of his grafting work was carried out by an apostate grafter in the Hashems’ employ. An extremist who, by his own admittance, lives and works with baneworms to better devise ways to exterminate them without triggering a polyphemic reaction. He also claims that he can track Semzar thanks to the modifications made by this grafter. Supposedly he had done this as a way of subverting his employer out of spite.”

As he spoke, a mirthful tone bled into Casus’ words, and a faint smirk formed on his lips.

“And?” Krahe asked.

“We have to wait.” He shrugged. “His description lined up with certain restricted records of apostate grafters, so they’re calling in an inquisitor who happens to be operating in this region to confirm his testimony.”

Rather than dwell on the matter, Krahe raised her legs and hopped out of her seat, walking to the kitchen. She decided to finish off a leftover tortoise steak. No complicated cookery, just salt and “Powder No. 7,” a spice mix that she had learned was preferred over ground peppercorn for meat. Its flavor and complexity put white and black pepper to shame. She seared the marbled slab of meat on both sides using an iron pan with clarified butter, and then sautéd a chopped up vegetable as a side. It was an alien root, but its culinary role was adjacent to broccoli.

With her sole proper meal for the day, she returned to the living room and decided to regale Casus with a description of the musclewoman’s Mamon Coupler saber.

This topic naturally led into the matter of Tsetse’s torn-off arm and Casus’ excitement grew serious.

“My acquaintance says he thought it was a construct at first, due to how rapidly it decayed, but placing it into a preservation tank halted that process. Regenerative agents also functioned normally. However, it is not true flesh.”

At Krahe’s raised eyebrows, he continued. “It appears to exist within the same gray area as Mamon Armor. Not quite a full construct, but not quite permanent matter. The difference is that Tsetse’s arm is much closer to permanence than anything generated by a Mamon Armor, except for the sonic blaster array, which is within normal Mamon Armor parameters…”

He trailed off, waiting for her to guess the reason. It was obvious, but she had a mouth full of turtle meat, and she absolutely wouldn’t choke down this ambrosia of the gods unchewed. It was at once incredibly rich and filling, yet light enough that she could eat a 12oz, or 340g tortoise steak without it feeling like a heavy meal. Beef didn’t even compete.

Weathering the Banisher’s patient gaze, Krahe savored chewing the meat properly and flushing it down with a sip of ekarone juice.

Then, she stated her hypothesis. “So Tsetse’s body is some sort of imitation war-morph, or perhaps an Evoy innovation on the principles behind Mamon Armor.”

“Exactly!” Casus exclaimed with a snap of his fingers. It was as loud as a firecracker.

“Show me your hand for a moment,” she asked, and Casus eagerly obliged. It was as she had suspected. The shade of his muscles was much lighter, and the layout had been altered. The blackveins didn’t protrude anymore, and he now had alarite studs that seemed to be embedded in his knuckles and fingertips.

“L-Sixes for the full arm and alarite joint reinforcement, huh?” she muttered with a half-full mouth.

“A full alarite secondary endoskeleton, in fact. I was intended to receive it to begin with, but it has special anchors that only interface correctly with the L-Six cultured fibers. They double as blackvein connections, meaning that my arm is now truly monolithic. Anything powerful enough to render it inoperable will also kill me in one hit.”

“So it was an all or nothing high-spec package,” Krahe mused, marveling over the arm.

“Precisely,” Casus agreed. Letting his vanity take over, he more than happily displayed the graft-limb from every possible angle, even doffing his shirt just to show how it was joined to the rest of him. It truly was a work of art. Neither of them thought any more of this, despite how it may have looked to a purely theoretical third-party observer.

Compared to everything surrounding Sorayah, dealing with Eutropia was a fresh change of pace.

To begin with, Krahe had managed to dig up some more information on the woman by paying Nozar another visit. She was conspicuously left alone this go round, with the Evoy building’s inhabitants peeking out curiously only to slam their doors shut at the sight of her. Nozar didn’t have much on her, but he did have some interesting info, such as the fact she was a disfavored eighth daughter of some Afshani merchant clan. She was an E1-rank contractor, but Nozar noted that there was something fishy about her CQF record.

“Gut feeling. I’d say she’s more of an F3,” the flyman guessed. This info wasn’t nearly as expensive as what he had on Yao, but it was still pricey. At least she was able to pay him in cash this go ’round.

Despite the fact Eutropia had wronged her personally by killing a street vendor she liked, killing her wasn’t a primary goal; even at Garvesh’s request. It was the same reason she didn’t go after Jezail, and that was that Eutropia was just the hand that held the knife. If she wanted to get proper revenge, she would have to extract the identity of Eutropia’s employer and come after them . Her anger was, in the same way, directed in Eutropia’s direction because she happened to be a stepping stone between Krahe and whomever had paid to have Imraal killed. She had her own guesses, of course—it was more likely than not Semzar—but she wanted to be sure.

Krahe didn’t know what made hired killers less guilty in her eyes than normal murderers, and she frankly didn’t dwell on it, because she knew that, like many other avenues of introspection, it would only lead her to the conclusion that Megacity Gamma had left her sense of morality irrevocably distorted.

Eutropia was a minor celebrity, a performer in one of the city’s lesser known, yet still reputable establishments. Despite the marginally sleazy name “Hot Legs,” everything else about the venue gave the impression of an upstanding establishment.

Eutropia, alongside the establishment’s in-house band, wore costumes styled after the Mamon Armors worn by an all-female group of independent contractors from the Samstani capital. Though, Eutropia’s stage getup was far from a real Mamon Armor, of course. It was an all-too-tight black body glove with sections of blue-painted armor fitted around it, with a chestplate that only covered the top half of her torso and was shaped to exaggerate her curves. The rest of the suit was much the same, with “metal bikini type” bottoms and chunky, high-heeled knee-high boots, with gauntlets that matched their rounded shape. Sizable pauldrons that swung about freely during the performance rounded out the whole thing.

As for the performance, it was fun. It brought back memories of attending underground concerts, both for fun and to discuss things that were best covered up by the eardrum-rupturing noise. Krahe also learned that this world had equivalents to some modern instruments, including distorted guitars and synthesizers. Unsurprisingly, all powered by souldregs. Musically, the songs were familiar, being similar to the New Wave of Synth-Rock which had swept through Megacity Gamma’s Sectors 7, 8 and 9 in her lifetime. As for lyrical subjects, they covered the usual topics. Love, sorrow, living in the big city, tearing down the road as fast as your machine would go—etcetera, etcetera. Timeless subjects, really. A song including the words “tonight, there’s a hurricane” in the refrain stood out among the others, being the opener and also being repeated once more after the audience demanded an encore.

The question was whether Eutropia moonlighted as a Silversword Agency Contractor, or the other way around; the bar’s advertising used her contractor status as a selling point.

Tracking her back to her home wasn’t difficult. In fact, Krahe wasn’t the only one to do it that night. A pair of drunk fans, out of an audience of about a hundred, had followed their idol back to a building in one of the city’s more affluent residential areas. Given her reaction—shooing them off and throwing spare pieces of her costume—this seemed to be a regular occurrence. Like feral raccoons who had been given leftovers, the two obsessives scurried off with their prize.

Krahe was well out of sight, but with Barzai as her eyes, she got a good look at the building and at Eutropia herself.