Casus awaited at the safehouse, but beyond a silent welcome-back nod, he didn’t pay her much mind. His eyes were closed, but the Third Eye sat open, thrumming with a solar blend of yellow and orange, lazily tracking Krahe as she passed him by. A warmth, akin to the rays of the midsummer sun, spilled out of his gaze. Krahe dared not disturb him — the banisher was clearly engrossed in some sort of meditative ritual, having surrounded himself by a multi-layered circle of what appeared to be crushed pearls and golden dust. Within that structure there were arranged several varied Mamon Couplers, as well as three golden censers. The incense smoke didn’t smell like any real scent, but it was certainly pure and heavy. It reminded her of the incense at Zaveshian shrines, only stronger. That immaterial sense of the sublime was certainly there.
This atmosphere of holiness and purity rather rudely reminded her of the degree of filth that had accumulated during her brief outing. A short shower and change of clothes later, she finally settled down across the room from Casus, and the two crusaders sunk into their respective matters of introspection.
[SIXFOLD ASTRAL IMPLOSION SOUL FURNACE]
Tags
Soul Furnace Reshaping (Permanent)
Details
Facilitates Sixfold Implosion Burning.
Most other burning methods remain possible.
Sixfold Implosion Burning produces Six Maxims Thauma, a unique form of energized thauma with extremely strong ability to conduct its creator’s intent. For this reason, any application of Six Maxims Thauma will produce results directly in line with their intended purpose, e.g. a thaumaturgy intended to fly quickly will be faster. This phenomenon bypasses the normal restrictions of elemental affinity and natural leverage.
Regardless of the method that is used, all forms of thauma-refining (be they burning, fusion, or other), are 14% more efficient. This effect compounds additively with any efficiency increases originating from the holder’s voidkey (current compound efficiency increase: 32%). Other efficiency increases are applied after this one (a base variable of 100 is first increased by 32%, to 132, then by any other efficiency modifiers, e.g. a further 50% modifier produces a result of 198).
When it came to her evolved thaumaturgies, they had their own listings, separate from their normal counterparts. Krahe went over them one by one, and saw more or less what she expected — they worked similarly to their base versions with a number of key differences. The names of those she hadn’t intentionally named were simply prefaced with “Sixfold” — Sixfold Cinder Flash, Sixfold Black Lasher, and so on.
Itano Tracers were described as self-propelled, highly-maneuverable, intermediate-velocity missiles, as opposed to low-velocity projectiles. Their maximum range was a little over a hundred meters, and their flight time and velocity both scaled directly with input thauma. Infusing the thaumaturgy with Isotope had the expected effect of reinforcing its outer sheath — the lacerative “drill” following the initial detonation would form a touch slower, but would in turn possess better penetration, borrowing some of the properties of Tar. It was effectively the same interaction that produced Sixfold Lasher’s “flex-glass.” These descriptors, besides giving her a slightly more concrete sense for the ranges, diameters of effect, and so on, were similarly not that impactful. She had seen how the thaumaturgies worked well enough with her own two eyes.
The matter of her left arm was something entirely different, however, not something to be skimmed over in the slightest.
[LEFT ARM OF CHERNOBOG]
Tags
Inseparable
Self-evolving Graft
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Channeling Catalyst
Channeling Buffer
Isotope Container
Outer God’s Touch
All-direction Precision Channeling Array (Mobility Focus)
Living Item
Details
This graft expresses amplified performance metrics based upon the holder’sattributes, archetype level, and applicable grafts (e.g. Adamas Organ).
As part of its first evolution, this graft has been modified with a network of high-conductivity semi-astral energy channels for the facilitation of the Afterburner mobility enhancement method. As part of this graft’s second evolution, this network has been fully integrated into its physical structure, enhancing its effectiveness.
This graft can contain an amount of isotope based on the holder’s entropy tolerance. Isotope dissipates at a significantly reduced rate while contained within this graft. At-will, this dissipation can be halted completely.
This graft can act as an intermediary container for refined thauma/anathema (further referred to as buffering) to an extent far beyond the usual buffering capacity of any normal channeling catalyst. Its capacity to do so scales directly with the holder’s Entropy Tolerance and Durability, and the duration for which it can sustain such containment scales with the holder’s Control attribute. Maximum buffering duration scales inversely with the currently-filled proportion of the graft’s maximum buffering capacity. This enables a form of Overdrafting — the act of harnessing greater energy than the sum total of one’s maximum Entropy Tolerance.
Krahe briefly considered whether the Itano Tracers floating around her arm had been a form of buffering, but, as she tried it, she dismissed that theory. The feeling was different. She also considered testing the specifics on the spot, but instead decided to do it somewhere else — that brief test involving the formation and near-immediate dissipation of a single tracer had been disturbance enough. After all, if Casus were to barge in while she was drawing talismans, start posing, spewing golden fire, and transforming all over the place, she would shoot him.
Besides, as busy as today had been, she was in a good mood, and so she departed after leaving Casus a note. A walk would be nice. And indeed, it was. She overheard the distant echoes of a thaumaturgic scuffle. Someone rather loudly chanted the name of a Final Coupler Charge named “The Penetrator.” There was no accounting for taste, she supposed.
The Gashward Road property wasn’t exactly the most secure place if she considered her new knowledge of defensive warding, but throwing up a basic perimeter didn’t take overlong. It didn’t give her the same sense of safety as the Achra office, but it was good enough, and so the basement testing began.
Containing power within the limb had a distinct sensation, while the tracers simply did what they did because they were following her will. In fact, the spontaneous self-ordering of pyroclast-tendrils even prior to her creation of Tracers was also a phenomenon directly resultant from the inherent characteristics of Six Maxims Thauma. Seeking to push the limits of the phenomenon, to “stoke the fire as high as it would go” so to speak, Krahe ignited the Implosion Furnace and simply kept burning, trying to see how far she could push the buildup of Six Maxims Thauma without intentionally containing it. Krahe built up a tangle of writhing pyroclast-serpents around her arm, and when it grew too dense, around her entire body. She inevitably bottomed out her Entropy Tolerance, but continued pushing, purging and burning again, and she came up against the wall. Uncontained, unused Six Maxims Thauma faded away in the same way as any other thauma that had been expelled from its creator, only quite a bit slower — thus, the sum total of power she could muster at any given time was a function of this dissipation rate, combined with her Entropy Tolerance and Entropy Dissipation. She inevitably reached a point of equilibrium where her ability to add to the mass was offset completely by its rate of dispersion.
In this way, she had an additional layer of “quasi-buffering” on top of the Left Arm’s capacity. Besides the obvious advantage of being able to unleash greater power, there was also the advantage of being able to “burn in advance.” If she could “pay” earlier and start dissipating the entropy earlier, she would have an upper hand even all else being equal.
The peak of the Wheel remained infinitely far out of sight, but it was, nonetheless, a touch closer.
Standing atop the mountain of cinders and burnt corpses, the dregs wallowing in the dirt could no longer drag her down as they once could. As she was now, all else being equal, Krahe saw herself pulverizing Semzar before Barzai would finish his diatribe. A qualitative change was, after all, a qualitative change. A fundamental distinction. The difference between thauma crudely refined through one’s own natural burning and Six Maxims Thauma was like that between heaven and earth, as much as Krahe didn’t want to use Yao’s own words. The scornbeast was, in some ways, the strongest foe she had bested so far, far surpassing Tindalos, the graft-beast of Slaughterhouse 9, but she couldn’t exactly call it a perfectly even fight, considering Rocinante. On the other hand, were she put up against the scornbeast as she was, without Rocinante, Krahe still felt she stood a fairly good chance at victory.
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