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259 - Amaryllis Belladonna [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-06-28 22:44:15 +0000 UTCCollier froze at the mention of Forgehand, furrowing her brow as she tried to remember, then finally looked back at Zefaris.
“...I don’t know who that is, but it’s no wonder he worked on That Monster if he can pull sorcery like this. Tell her to come around as soon as she can, aye? Field maintenance isn’t enough for what she does to that gun of hers. Now- You said you had a request for me, was that right?”
Zefaris nodded, handing over a small box.
“I need someone to make me new grips for Pentacle from the wood inside. Don’t open it here, your countertop will sprout. It’s Leshy wood, willingly given. I figured you might be able.”
“I can, but I am not the ideal one for this. My wheelhouse is more metal and gunpowder. But… I know someone. I’ll contact her for you. She’s like Ozmir, but much harder to get out of her shell. One problem though - I’ll need to keep Pentacle here with me as a token to convince my friend, a week or two at most. Is that alright?”
“I can manage with Tempesta. I intend for the new grips to serve as a means of solidifying Pentacle’s weapon spirit; Tempesta already has enough of an identity to manifest separately, but Pentacle’s still struggling to coalesce fully. I wish to include a floral design on the scales. I can provide the necessary materials. The flower is to be a Giltine Amaryllis Belladonna.”
She took out two photographs. One was of the flower. The Giltine Amaryllis Belladonna had a flower that started out white, with a funnel-like shape, transitioning into pink as its six petals spread out. Each petal split a few millimeters before the tip. Comparatively, the Giltine Atropa Belladonna had five wholly bluish-purple petals that spread out right from the flower’s base. Unlike the Atropa, which grew on a bush, the Amaryllis grew in lone, leafless stalks. The Amaryllis also only grew in places deeply steeped in death, such as graveyards and battlefields, whereas the Atropa could be satisfied by merely planting it in viscera-based compost. The two were considered sister plants, with the Amaryllis producing much smaller quantities of poison than the Atropa. The poison was in exchange so potent, variable, and sublime, that it was said it could kill anything with a single dose and could not be planned against, each dose functioning in a fundamentally different manner than the last that depended on tiny variables in the plant’s growth.
Zefaris felt the two flowers to be perfectly fitting in their origins and nature of operation - the Atropa was a plant which could be grown in comparatively large quantities and which had a comparatively simple, even brutish poison, while the Amaryllis demanded specific, usually rare circumstances and killed in a subtler, more precise manner. A perfect reflection of how Tempesta and Pentacle differed.
The other photograph was of her own Philosopher’s Eye wide-open, with the stylized Amaryllis design drawn around it.
Taking inspiration from Carnifex Fulguris, Zefaris decided to rename her two guns Tempesta Atropa and Pentacle Amaryllis, the second words being the names of their individual weapon spirits.
“Regarding payment…” she said, taking out her Tablet and setting it perpendicular to the counter. Bit by bit she moved it along, the Type-Z rifled cannon sliding out.
“I found it on a battlefield. Can’t say where. It looked like a near-finished field test model, as compared to the more crude designs I’ve seen on tank suits.”
“That… Would be very correct. I had no clue the project ever went this far, they made it sound like it was over with the moment they disbanded my unit. Oh goodness me, there’s even a working recoil compensator in here, and the bolt is straight pull! This is beeyond sufficient payment.”
“I’d also like you to play part in formulating ultra-high-pressure gunpowder for the sect, then. We have the alchemists, we just need a ballistics and firearms expert.”
“That’d make us even, sure. I’ve been curious what kind of pressures you could push with dragon’s blood as a catalyst. You hear these stories about mighty warriors enchanting their arms by quenching it in dragon’s blood, who’s to say gunpowder won’t work just as well? Bet that stuff will impart some utterly unholy power on the bullet if we get it right.”
“Collier, you understand that the blood of Eisengeist is a limited resource which we cannot procure more of, yes?”
“And? So is Atrine, and Mogralt for that matter, ‘less you go and suck off some Ankhezian technologist so good he decides to give over the secrets of the suncage grid. At worst you’ll just have to use it sparingly and we’ll work out a mass-producible formulation with different ingredients, I’m making dragonsblood explosives no matter what. Speaking of, show me those bullets of yours. Yeah, y’know the ones, y’think you could keep quiet and I wouldn’t find out, huh?!”
Collier spent some time examining examples of dragonshot, both bullets and buckshot, cursing Forgehand as one would a cheating competitor. As she made her way out of the store nearly two hours later, Zef witnessed a pair of strangely youthful women struggling to figure out how to work the bright-yellow gun vending machine. Their demeanor betrayed their true age, as did the shimmering, faintly scaly texture of their skin.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Weeks passed in a flash.
Plans which had been forestalled by Zel’s crippled state were set into motion; despite not having any plans to expand as of yet, a number of small local schools had submitted requests to become branches of the Newman Sect. Quite a few among them were former branches of the Willowdale Black Horse Sect branch, but a fair number were truly independent, and a small minority were still counted under the Black Horses or Sangers, but claimed to be being neglected or even actively discriminated against.
Zefaris journeyed to battlefields all across Ikesia, gathering up Remnants and bringing back bits of equipment here and there, usually when she ventured into places too dangerous for typical scavengers. Bit by bit, her phantom contingent grew.
