Chapter 103: – Sorcerer’s Hand

While they spent some time simply reading and discussing the matters of the hunt, Casus eventually departed for a checkup. Krahe, after finishing the volume of Rampage she had been reading, returned to work, delving back into the preparations for her Zor’Aguhastra expedition. Among the Wizard’s ritual secrets, there was a reference to a preparatory divination to ensure that one wouldn’t be in immediate peril when diving. The base ritual was called simply “Gulf Augury.” It was fairly similar to standard eidolon-summoning rituals, using the same foundational “toss out some bait” principles, but that was where the similarities ended. The angle-web, implements, and offering used were entirely different, and those suggested by the Wizard deviated yet further still. Mercifully, the angle-web for Gulf Augury was comparatively simple. While “normal bait” would work, the Wizard strongly suggested preparing a Sorcerer’s Hand, this being the hand of a dead thaumaturge preserved in a particular manner and used at once as both the ritual implement and the offering. This altered version was called the Second Lesser Augury of Heshmad Abbasi.

The Wizard described the rite thus:



Obtaining the base material for this may have been a bit troublesome, in that she would have to go out looking for trouble, but there was an alternative — the execution of Alberich and his gang. The question was whether the execution would take place prior to her departure for the hunt, but then, she had the perfect excuse to check up on Juno. After all, she had just completed her Astral Implosion Furnace and thus had reason to go for a checkup, even if she was almost completely certain that her condition had only improved as a result. Besides these pragmatic reasons, Krahe also simply wanted to check up on Juno.

The next morning, Krahe visited a shrine and had a message sent to Firminus’ shrine-office. A simple question, to see if he was open that day. The mere fact she was bothering to send a message spoke volumes, and Krahe received a response almost right away, much to the shrine maiden’s surprise.

The answer was as curt as one would expect from the grafter.

The grafter awaited her in a cleaner state than usual. In fact, Krahe was briefly taken aback by the sight of him in what was likely the closest thing to casual clothes he owned — a button-down shirt, slacks, and suspenders, overlaid by his usual apron, its top half left hanging down. The shirt was dark navy with maroon pinstripes.

“What, d’you think I walk around in public wearing my grafting robes?” he snapped, the cigarette that hung from his lip bouncing up and down as if threatening to toss its embers at her. The question was why he had opted not to change into his grafting robes, but it was fairly clear that the reason was to do with the girl, and based on the look in Firminus’ eyes, he knew that she knew. She chose not to bring it up, and simply entered. A row of identical heads laid spread out over one of the tables, with four of them missing their eyes. Their skin was semi-translucent with muscle showing through, and their blood was blue; overall, they resembled ballistic dummy heads, only far more detailed.

Firminus cleared Krahe in the space of a few minutes, reaffirming what she had already suspected — the Implosion Furnace’s grand completion had reduced the strain on her body, meaning her conduit lines would hold up for longer than initially projected. Krahe then apprised Firminus of the Scornbeast, sharing her record of it, which elicited the exact sort of concern she had expected. He remarked that he would report it to Fidelia and have it looked-into, and requested to have a look at the omniphage containment unit. Krahe, having no use for it, agreed to leave it with him. Frankly, regardless of the value it might have, she didn’t want that thing taking up space in her Kenoma Sack. Already having been made aware of the device’s size, he brought her to a subterranean storage chamber, whose door was exactly as heavy-duty and which had exactly as complex a lock as she had expected. There, surrounded by the shelves and tanks and sarcophagi that comprised most of the grafter’s extensive collection, she dredged up the hexagonal casket.

“The usual research deal, same as the jambiya. You can have it, but I reserve rights to take it back and requisition samples, so on and so forth,” she said as she finished dragging the coffin-like thing into reality.

Firminus examined it both from afar and up close, looking it up and down, twisting his head left and right to read what text could be gleaned from its surface. “A Vessel-Controller, yet no model number, no manufacturer number, not even the superficial identifiers that one could expect from something assembled under the table. This is… Beyond my expertise. As much as I’d like to crack it open, I lack the tools to do so safely. I will have to send it off to Fidelia. If I had to guess, I would say this is two generations ahead of the open market, so I can only hazard a guess as to the omniphage’s characteristics. And you said it was a omniphage?”

Krahe nodded, “It plugged up the beast’s wounds as best it could, then went out of control and ate the corpse. The control system kicked in and killed the overgrowth before it got any further.”

“This vexes me. It vexes me greatly. First Abara Morphs, then the stillborn, now tur’ith graft-beasts. What next?” he murmured, shaking his head. He looked to Krahe. “You have compensation in mind, I can tell. What is it?”