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125 - Talisman Mistress Yao Fu Pt. 4 [Cherno]
🕑 Added 2023-08-30 01:55:42 +0000 UTCAfter a few moments of consideration, holding Yao’s one-eyed stare, Krahe said: “I need assurances first. What do I get out of this arrangement?”
Yao, perfectly at ease, shrugged: “I’ll help you to the best of my means. It is that simple. I am sure that, in the process of finding me, you have gained an appreciation for the value of having someone such as I in your debt.”
“Casus?” Krahe side-eyed the man.
His Third Eye pulsed with light. He sighed.
“She is not lying, as much as I feel that it should be otherwise.”
Yao smiled as if she had just won some battle.
“I’m sure it has become clear why I asked the both of you to come. You’ve taken care to minimize your footprint, Ms. Krahe, but the one you have left suggests you to be just as cautious as you have been thus far. What better way to assure a new acquaintance than having a Firstborn of the Wheel present?”
Casus once more felt the need to cut in: “Detecting lies is not my strongest point by far, hence why I have been silent. It demands more effort than it is worth, in most cases… And simply telling if someone is lying is often easier.”
“And yet you fulfilled your role in this exchange perfectly. I apologize for exploiting you in this way; I shall make a talisman for you, if you would like. To help smooth over the many bumps of using that belt of yours. We don’t have them back home, but we do have something similar - similar enough that I think I can help make yours function better, that is. Your belt inflicts you with a temporary Heart Demon when you transform, isn’t that right?”
“Heart… What?”
“It changes your personality in an undesirable way.”
“I…” Casus began, hesitating. “I dare not call it an undesirable change, but a change it is, nonetheless.”
“Does it not interfere with your ability to use the armor, then?”
“No. I know the reasons it does not, but I cannot share them with you. I do neither require nor desire your assistance in managing the personality shift.”
“Oho? How cold of you. I suppose I shall have to make it up to you some other time, then.”
Yao’s focus shifted once more to Krahe.
“Well? Shall I take a look at you?”
Krahe wasn’t sure of the consequences of the unspoken alternative. Making an enemy of Yao would be a serious problem, she could tell, but she also had no way to know she could actually trust the Talisman Mistress. Nonetheless, ever reticent, she sighed and acquiesced: “Very well.”
“Good!” Yao smiled, clapping her hands together. The sound wasn’t even close to right, with one being hard ivory and the other layers of paper. She rose up from her seat, already walking towards the stairwell. “Come, come. I have precautions in place upstairs to ensure nothing undue occurs.”
These precautions turned out to be a whole room plastered floor-to-ceiling in talismans, only a section of the floor left clear. In its center was a ritual circle, including three three-legged bronze incense burners, each with a design of a six-legged serpent dragon, each of which held a different number of jeweled orbs in its claws, from one to three. The theme of threes repeated throughout the multilayered circle.
“You may stay, but keep out of the circle,” Yao said to Casus as she lit each burner in turn. Turning to Krahe again she pointed: “Sit.”
Krahe well and truly reviled how familiar Yao insisted on acting. Nonetheless, she sat in the circle, and Yao followed suit. The one-eyed woman began a chant, performing a series of hand signs as a steady, rumbling outflow of thauma began to pour out of her. The circle came alive, the incense burners’ smoke swirling around them as a handful of talismans detached from Yao’s left arm, orbiting quickly around her twice, each time passing her right hand and having one side inked. Then, they took on a golden glow, spiraled out and took posts around the circle’s perimeter. Despite no disruption of sight or sound from the outside into the circle, the sense of isolation suddenly grew to something like sitting in a diving bell at a thousand meters down.
“Now, hold still as best you can. This shall only take a few minutes,” Yao said. With a simple gesture, she tore the tape off of her eye, and seething anti-light poured out from her, at first, seemingly empty left eye socket. Krahe wasn’t sure how, but she acclimated to the outpour and managed to glimpse a writhing, tar-like mass embedded in the socket, roots extended into the surrounding flesh and bone. She felt something wrapping around her and washing over her, but nothing that tried to penetrate past her shroud of smoke the way appraisal did.
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Yao Fu. Devil Woman. Temptress. She had taken that name as a bitter joke, one she knew very few would understand in her place of hiding, if anyone at all. She had truly seen and experienced it all, the highest highs and lowest lows. Risen from nothing to the highest highs one could hope for in Tiengenzhen. It was the dubious honour of being truly unparallelled in one’s specialization, to such a degree that the mightiest members of warring sects took the time out of their war just to come after her, knowing and rightly fearing that in all of Tiengenzhen, she was the only person who could singlehandedly tip the war one way or the other at any moment. So, they had decided to get rid of her.
When she came here, even as she spoke to that green-eyed woman with murder behind her eyes, Yao hadn’t expected much. She’d seen the type. She had been the type, for a time. Hardened by adversity and human callousness to the point of near-misanthropy, yet still retaining the sense to know that one couldn’t isolate oneself completely.
But, as she looked upon Brunhilde Krahe, she saw… Well, not quite her own past, but images relevant to it. That was the thing about the Eye of Tar, it was a roundabout, fickle thing, even with this ritual to try and steer and focus it. Wars consumed millions of lives for the profit of the wealthy and powerful.
