201 - Rendezvous [Cherno] (Patreon)

Indeed, the mansion shook and a wave of discordant magic washed through the floor, blackened lines showing through the carpet as the stench of burning fabric filled the room. Through Barzai’s eyes, Krahe saw similar backlash taking place in the hallway, spreading from one particular window. At its precipice, the walls burst open with the force of rupturing arcane circuitry, the phenomenon she had observed being just the waning aftershocks. In the next moment, an indistinct distortion clawed its way through that window’s shutter, outlined only by black wrappings. Within the silhouette floated a Red Hood, seemingly controlling the form. It sprinted down the corridor, broke into a room, and dragged out a screaming, thrashing bane-saurian. The distortion monster bit into his head, but he remained physically unharmed. He screeched in a rather bird-like manner as something flowed out of him into the manifestation, and he went limp, soon discarded like an empty soft drink can.

As far as she had been briefed, she should have had no fear of being attacked by what was obviously a result of the witch-inquisitor’s skills.

As far as her gut went, she still preferred to stay away from esoteric, unknown, and extremely dangerous combat vectors, even if they were allies. After all, even if it had no intentions of harming her, she might get caught in the crossfire.

The possessed Red Hood made its way deeper into the mansion. Krahe waited until it was gone, then decided to follow in its wake. A small part of her regretted not laying eyes on it directly — that same part was thoroughly convinced that the distortion-creature was familiar, somehow, not in terms of having met or seen it before, but in terms of its fundamental nature.

Before long, Barzai saw a pair of familiar faces running for their lives — gangsters who had run down the way they were now running from, towards the basement. One of them, unfortunately for him, barged into the room she was hiding in. A prolonged burst of Tracers did just the trick, sending the man stumbling back out that door in a seizing, gore-spraying dance. His half-pulped corpse soon slumped back against the outer wall.

A third, fourth, and fifth came running from that same direction, but long before they could even reach the now-open door of Krahe’s hideaway, a matte-black blur bulldozed through them, leaving one missing his head and the other writhing on the ground, legs broken. Now that he had stopped, she could see; it was Casus. He squatted down next to the survivor, said something to him, and moved on, with the survivor crawling towards another room.

Krahe willed Barzai to reveal himself, making sure Casus saw him before calling the eidolon back to herself. The banisher followed as expected.

“Took you long enough. Close the door,” she said.

“How long have you been in this room? Is the suit locked up?” he asked, approaching her where she sat, immediately kneeling down to inspect her belt.

“Not long. The belt seemed to be struggling so I decided to give it a rest and wait for you to get here. Didn’t think it had enough juice left to get me to the upper floor.”

“A correct assessment..” he said, standing back up. “Perhaps half a minute of combat output. Perhaps finish it off with a ranged coupler charge. If you give the mental command, the armor should self-destruct as part of the charge. It will be more potent that way and spare you from the aftermath. The coupler will likely not survive, however. The inserted voidkey will be at risk as well.”

“Can’t worry about that. I’ll just implant Atomica, won’t have the time to pull the Shardkey out of a busted belt anyway,” Krahe replied, holding out a hand. Casus pulled her up without wasting a moment.

“It will take me some time to go through with the implant, so it will be up to you to cover me.”

A simple nod.

“Let us go.”

Despite expectations, they encountered minimal resistance on their way to the foyer. Krahe sent Barzai up ahead to do a quick fly-through. The first thing she noticed was the state of the foyer itself. Signs of combat were widespread, with five or six corpses strewn about — she wasn’t sure, some were torn apart while others were just dead with no visible wounds.

At the top of the stairs, the defenders had set up a barricade using furniture and a pair of small thaumine-fired barrier generators. There were eleven human defenders — eight male and two female gangsters, all in cheap suits, the glaringly-obvious commander and four stillborns. The man was giant, with a bear-like build, and was dressed far too well to be a footsoldier, wearing a properly fitted, real suit that heroically contained his bulging gut. The stillborns were arrayed behind the barricade, not in a good position to readily spring into action against an attack from the stairs. One of them — an abnormally lanky man with a third eye crudely implanted in his forehead — pointed in Barzai’s direction as he flew through, calling down an ill-aimed outburst of bullets and magic that didn’t even come close to hitting the eidolon.

Krahe immediately decided that spending her last coupler charge on breaking the barricade was the best choice. She reached to her belt, twisting its dial, honing her mental focus as she did so. Shivers ran down her back as the belt began creaking under strain, with the only reason the defenders didn’t hear it being that they were making far more noise.

It would be nothing complex — a projectile that flies a certain distance and detonates in mid-air. A glorified Six Trees Killer. She had considered actually constructing a giant one with the casting medium as an ad-hoc thruster, but the armor dashed that idea by resolving her mental command with a much simpler response of what it could do.

The power would be an order of magnitude below the Daemon Core, but Krahe was certain it would at bare minimum smash apart the barricade, disable most of the defenders, and at least seriously wound the commander.