199 - Two-pronged Attack [Cherno] (Patreon)

Yazata very nearly raised her eyebrows at the man’s temerity, but she let it go. It was not her problem. She led the Red Hoods into the Mirzaii Subdistrict, quickly approaching the mansion. They encountered no great resistance on the approach, easily subduing enemy patrols before they could use their glorified consumer-grade communication artifacts. Yazata continually observed the maidens and learned of their behavior as they followed her commands, noting that, unlike most automata, their adaptability was just as good as the technical documents suggested. With each encounter the Red Hoods grew less stiff, requiring fewer direct instructions.

Before the final approach she took a moment to look over each of them, adjusting the Black Bindings she had attached underneath their shells.

“No erosion, good… Sympathetic transfer efficiency will be quite bad, but I will accept what is given freely,” she thought.

It was time. The Red Hoods encircled the mansion, forming an enormous heptagram. At this point, the mansion’s windows swung open and its protective barrier flared, being tightly contoured to its walls. A deluge of hostile magic and gunfire poured out, but at this range, it posed little danger. Yazata captured the occasional would-be hits with her Black Bindings and sent them flying right back at the source.

The ritual proceeded without delay. She uttered a word, and it rang with the sound of a hollow, bronze bell.

The eye-like glyphs covering her hair vanished in a burst of purple light, reappearing suspended before the face of each Red Hood.

A second word, outstretching her arms. Black Bindings once more sprang forth from her sleeves, joining her with the Red Hoods and surrounding the mansion.

A third word, and the Red Hoods mimicked it, her bindings flaring with power and strain as these unliving things conducted such a profound force.

“The strain is too great, it shan’t work at this rate.”

The base cost was already enormous. With the added resistance of using these dolls as the other participants, Yazata had no way to power the ritual under her own strength.

With some remorse, she sent out several more Black Bindings, connecting them back to fourteen restrained foot-soldiers in the general vicinity. Onerous though it was, she crossed one of her many lines and used them to power the ritual, hijacking their Soul Furnaces for the moment. Like the supplicants of an unkind god, the small crowd rose up and came stumbling towards her, but she had gotten what she needed long before they could reach her.

The final, fourth word rang out, and the world ruptured. There came a cealess scream of unearthly pitch. The Red Hoods were consumed by Black Bindings, growing out from inside their shells, liquid distortion spilling out as their silhouettes distorted, overlaid by something else, yet undeniably under their control. At the same moment, all of her extended Black Bindings were drawn back towards Yazata, gathering into a sphere before her. The sphere of empowered bindings exploded, instantaneously filled by the shape of a chthonic monstrosity visible to the naked eye only as distortion.

HIGH THAUMATURGY

SIGN OF THE PRETENDER-ARCHON

WITCHCRAFT HEPTAGRAM: DREDGING THE DEEP GULF

The screaming ceased. From beneath Yazata’s stoic mask, a cackling laugh escaped.

Seven seals undone, seven beasts from the deep astral called forth and bound to the material, dragged along like caught fish just beneath the surface.

“In accordance with the Third Tower’s ancient accords, heed my shining words, o children of the fathomless deep! Go forth and eat your fill, o hounds of the Nameless Roaring One!” she invoked, still cackling as she drew the Black Trapezohedron.

This was Yazata’s personal definition of witchcraft. Understanding and wielding the truly esoteric and forgotten in order to gain strength far beyond one’s raw talent, using knowledge and craft to subvert the limits of nature. The method had a dozen restrictions, and all of them, she had solved.

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The mansion shook and the shouts of men carried through its halls. An enormous force struck against its barriers, hammering on without reproach. The outside world laid out of sight, shutters having long slammed into place over the windows.

Thus, Krahe made her way into enemy territory, checking corners and pushing deeper.

Unfortunately, the building was designed with several chokepoints, and, it seemed, the defenders had expected an intrusion from below. Perhaps they had even learned of her invasion somehow; she hadn’t had the time to count the corpses.

A phalanx of three gun-armed stillborns blocked the hall, and behind them, four  men stood. Three looked fairly typical for gangsters --- of these three, two appeared on-edge, while one was downright panicked and wildly looking around. The fourth seemed to have his wits about him, and, by Krahe’s guess, looked to be the controller of the three stillborns. His eyesockets were like bottomless pits, the skin around them coloured black, and yellow-glowing gemstones sat within them, far too small for his face. A pretentious, curled mustache sat beneath his swollen, bloodshot nose. They swiveled Krahe’s way the moment she came into view, and she felt appraisal wash over her, seeping into the Viridaimon Armor.

“Ah. Blackhand’s older brother, is it? You’ve made a real mess of things, you know. No matter how good you are, you can’t beat the odds. I know what you are. “

Older brother, is it? she thought for a moment. The man’s eyes flared. Something vaguely akin to appraisal washed over Krahe, but it didn’t try to intrude the way direct appraisal did.

“A fourth-order voidkey! Fourth!” the small-eyed man exclaimed, as if that would save him. Distant footsteps signaled the approach of enemy reinforcements, so she had to act quickly, but she also needed to buy time before she could break through decisively. And so, she willed the Black Sun Coupler to ready another Coupler Charge.

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“Odds? You want to talk about the odds?!” the green-eyed demon scoffed through its mask. It waved its left hand about, gesturing with its catalyst like a conductor’s wand while its right hand remained clenched tightly to its chest, hidden by the shield on its forearm. The raven on the shape’s shoulder emitted a cackling laugh. Someone threw a chair. The raven’s eyes flashed, and the chair exploded into a hundred pieces mid-flight.

“I’ve seen a full squad of armored killers get wiped out by a myopic car nerd and an overweight alcoholic armed with two-shot pipe guns. These… These are downright great odds!”

It threw something.

The hallway turned into a cloud of choking smoke and razor-sharp glass glitter.