Krahe re-read the Wizard’s memslate several times, taking notes in the effort to fully parse what he was saying. It wasn’t the guidelines that gave her pause, but the actual ritual patterns, which, compared to a standard full dive ritual, were eye-wateringly complex. This was in large part due to the fact the ritual was a direct expansion of the ritualist’s own full dive ritual, requiring a high degree of variability and adaptation. She found herself getting lost in the weeds of preparation and adjustment, much as one can get lost in the cycle of adjusting, testing, and readjusting a section of code. As she typed away, the cognition engine's wild clacking and whirring filled the room. When she was at her wit’s end, she turned her feverish mental energy towards bolstering the Gashward Road property’s arcane security, and when she ran up against a tangle there, she turned back to ritual preparation.

  This cycle went on until the sun snapped her out of it. Krahe, with her eighth or ninth cigarette of the night in hand, glanced around, beholding the ominous pattern of interconnected talismans that now crawled across the building’s interior walls, floors and ceilings. She halfheartedly extended a tendril, grabbed her brush, and joined a few connecting lines on the ceiling. The warding array thrummed to life, then quieted down as it sank into the wall, fading out of view. Krahe could still see the patterns, but even to her it remained mostly out of sight unless she focused.

  It still wasn’t as secure as the Crow & Raven office on Achra 32, but it was getting there.

  The ritual preparations, on the other hand, were a different matter. She was convinced it wasn’t ready yet, but as she went over her notes, time and time again, she realized that it was. Krahe almost couldn’t believe it, but the very truth before her eyes wouldn’t be denied — all she had to do now was actually perform the ritual. She made for Sorayah’s house, deciding to use the basement cell as her ritual site.

  After setting up what needed to be set up ahead of time, she realized there was still nearly half the day until her scheduled meeting with the tracker, and so she thought on what else to occupy herself with.

  There was only one answer — investigation. Into the “comic artist,” specifically. She’d done some preliminary groundwork in this matter already, but all she had been able to glean was the general area of his residence and where one could find his comics.

  Rather than meander in an unfamiliar area, however, Krahe decided to simply visit the Lost Sun Society and ask there. She prepared a stack of Schwarzfaust Zwei papers, handling them much as one would handle foreign currency on a weekend trip. Besides the expectation that they would be in demand, Krahe saw no reason not to offload these, seeing as any she produced now would be objectively superior. In fact, just before she left, she took a few minutes to draw up two copies of the pattern, and just as she had expected, it looked noticeably more refined. Her actual skill hadn't magically improved, it was a simple consequence of the Left Arm's evolution and the enhanced motor control that came with it.

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  Just as she had expected, her arrival was met by a handful of those brave souls who had taken upon themselves the Schwarzfaust during her previous visit. She gladly spent a few dozen minutes to speak with them in order to get caught up to speed on recent happenings at and around the Society, as well as to give them the chance to hand over their precious, precious Schwarzfaust Zwei testing data. The reward for the two who had given over the most useful data were her improved patterns, of course.

  When she saw her opening, Krahe offhandedly brought up “a comic someone recommended to me,” and almost immediately received her answer — not from any of her hangers-on, but from one of the regulars who seemed to spend all their time at the Society painting miniatures and playing wargames with them. Their usual four-man group was down to just two today.

  “Wrought in the Pit? Yeah, it’s pretty good. Fantastic art. The author’s got this weird fixation on scenes of the characters pissing, though,” the fatter of the two painters commented, his focus remaining fixed on the wargame table before him. From a glance, it seemed his forces were at a disadvantage. He then rolled a die, and with a single maneuver, had one of his graft-beasts jump over the river bisecting the battlefield, landing atop an enemy and crushing it underfoot with a dropkick. A few dicerolls and an exclamation of triumph marked his success and the fact his jumper unit didn’t break its own legs in the process. His opponent, a glasses-wearing man with long black hair and a bit too much fat in the face for his frame, groaned as he cleared the defeated unit off the table and mulled over his options.

  “It’s kiddy torture-porn, call it what it is, man,” the glasses-wearer uttered. “I’ve been reading Rampage for coming up on twenty years and it handled the themes Wrought in the Pit tries to touch on with infinitely more tact — and Rampage is SUPPOSED TO be edgy!”

  “Equisetus did say he took inspiration from Rampage…” Fatman argued.

  “The same way my shit takes inspiration from my dinner, maybe,” Glasses countered. “Withering Bombardment. Roll your morale saves.”

  “One, three, one, five… Whatever, Suicidal Charge. Eat shit,” Fatman said.

  “Equisetus, that the artist’s name?” Krahe asked.

  “Huh? Yeah, Licht Equisetus. Can you even Suicidal Charge across the river?” Glasses answered before returning right to the game.

  “Says right here the Drone Corpses overload their flight packs to charge across any terrain. They’re a gimmick unit, kinda shit at everything else,” Fatman said.

  “They don’t feel any less bullshit just because you say they’re not…”

  “It’s not my fault you keep not going after the Drone Corpse Aviator.”

  “You always sit him in the corner of the map, I can’t.”

  “Heheheh, yeah.”

  Krahe wasn’t sure she had ever heard a greater sense of accomplishment than that chuckle carried.

  “I’ve been thinking of giving Wrought in the Pit a go, know of any good stores that carry it?” she asked.

  “Huh? Sure. There’s a place not far from here, we get our minis there. Sharivan 17. You walk out the front door, turn left, then down the street and turn left again at the stupid looking mural that has the redhead with big tits painted over it, then straight ahead from there until you see the life-sized Mamon Knight Galeas statue in the window, can’t miss it,” Glasses said.

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