vivala | A Troubled Soldier 01

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A Troubled Soldier 01

I: Delivery to Elysium
Elysium-the-city was far larger than Natalia had first assumed. Not that this was a problem for her-- a day or two among the rooftops, and she would know this place as well as anyone who lived here.

For now, though, she was momentarily relying on a map she kept carefully tucked away, and an address on a box with a memorized order form (and countersign, and counter-countersign, easily handwaved).

Being a delivery girl was hardly a novel cover, but it was precisely because such things were ubiquitous that it was easy to slip into the role as she came around the service entrance. Add perhaps a touch of bitter expression at the cold-- she didn't even have to try for that one-- and things would, hopefully, work just fine.

II: Blames Her Tools (Vault)
Natalia, after spending the better part of a day hitting targets from as extreme a range as the Vault could afford, was now overhauling her rifle, first cleaning the inside of the barrel with a cloth and a cleaning rod, and then disassembling it, screw by painstaking screw.

The casings were drying on a separate cloth nearby, with the scent of soap and water, waiting for an oven to finish getting up to the proper temperature.

It took up an entire gunsmith's bench, between the disassembly and the casings waiting for annealing and rolling and fitting and loading, but there was something to it. A peace, in an artisan's craft.

She looked at the tool rack above her and clicked her tongue.

She would have to go hunting for that particular tool.

Okay. Smooth hair. Stand properly. Act like you're supposed to be here.

Time to go among the other workbenches. Or workshops, if she had to.

III: Wildcard
Bug Natalia because she looks suspicious or because you need something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Natalia muttered half-hearted and various imprecations about the rifle's designer's mother in Russian, but nodded along with his words about kings and peasants.

At last, it was done, and she pulled the clip loose, pocketing it. "A different weapon, of the same kind. It had interchangeable spring-loaded boxes that loaded easily and all at once. Simply swap out the boxes.

"Shame it requires more industry than we have to sustain such behavior." She closed the chamber.

It's strange, because her speech is completely alien, and yet it feels like the Kalyazi language of his own world. How can words be completely different and yet so hauntingly similar?

"Is that not the point of the Vault? Do you know how these spring-loaded boxes are formed? Perhaps the right ingenuity would solve your problem."

"You're not wrong. I can, indeed, ask for any weapon, bespoke, I like." Natalia slowly leveled the gun, placing its butt against her shoulder and staring down the scope. Almost everything faded into herself and the target, the farthest one down the range, some hundreds of paces away. Despite this, she kept talking. "And I am sure I will get it, eventually. This... I would worry about sustaining it.

"No, more than that. A question: You have a dozen bespoke weapons among you and your... Friends? Party members? Squad? Regardless-- Yours breaks. Are you familiar enough with your squad's weapons and spacing to act with them properly? It's the same with bullets and cartridges, only you're asking yourself that question every time you need to reload. It's not often I will speak in favor of standardization, but this? This is a good use-case, and one artisans can't necessarily do without enough people asking for it."

"I've used another's spellbook when I needed to, when a comrade fell and mine was spent, but I always found the spells wanting." Mostly because instead of hiring enchanters like most blood mages, Malachiasz always preferred to write his own spells. "So I understand. Perhaps enough specification and you could have something made only for you?"

She does not shake her head, though the temptation is there. She lines up, and fires, and down the range, the target at the extreme end, the size of a large coin, explodes into wax and paper. She cycles the bolt.

"It's worth being able to pick up someone else's ammunition to me. Especially if said ammunition is in the hands of an Imperial." She carefully holds the gun upright, hands on the stock and the barrel, well away from the trigger. "This is their standard-issue two-handed gun. ... Well. No. most stock is carbine. This barrel is rifled, so the bullet flies more true."

"Oh, there's something to be said for it, but your own has it's merits. Have you thought about enchanted projectiles?"

Because he doesn't actually know what rifling is.

"I haven't. Not yet. I've yet to see much magic, either." Here, she lowered her weapon. "I'd want to get a feel for its operation as opposed to my own world's Imperial Acts... And there's another issue-- remembering which bullet I loaded where. Considering that, what I'd want is a single-shot, breech-loaded gun. It would allow me to select my spell instead of loading multiple rounds and trying to keep track of what I use. A little slower than this, but if it can activate downrange... And I learn to imbue normal cartridges without engraving..."

She pauses, opens up a small notebook, and starts writing.

"Imperial Acts?" Some sort of magic, he assumes. "Are these spells in your world?" Equally fascinating, and he was very much interested in learned what they are. "Do you use them to imbue your...projectiles?"

She scribbles. "It's... I'm not sure how it was described to me. I can understand the-- the basics of it. The focusing of energy and such."

"But... those that returned sometimes spoke, and it was so. I am told they touched their spark of divinity, or some such nonsense. Thus, because they could do that-- An Imperial Act."

"By comparison, my own abilities are..." She breathed out, fully, opened her inner lotus, listened for half a second, and, eyes still closed, lifted the rifle with one hand and fired.

She does not need to look to know she did not leave a second hole in the distant target, the size of a coin. "Simple."

Edited (Edited for typos) 2025-01-02 02:59 (UTC)

"Mages, more likely. People like to pretend any sort of blessing is 'of the gods'. It makes their oppression seem better sanctioned that way." He shrugs. He'd done his best to bring those gods down. He'd gotten at least one.

"Simple, perhaps, but effective. Where do your abilities come from if not 'Imperial Acts'?"

"Eh, this is... Party trick." She doesn't cycle it with one hand, and as her eyes open, they're flecked with blue. "I control my internal energies, which allow me to act more efficiently in most situations. If more power is needed than completing a marathon in less than an hour can accomplish, i can stoke those energies instead. Nothing about it is impossible-- anyone who has trained as I have could say the same."

"From there, a simple matter to recalculate the trajectory, adjust for the fans and gravity, and make the shot." She shrugged. "As i said, fun party trick. Looks impressive."

The same could be said for blood mages, back in his own world. Anyone could perform blood magic, but, "Some are more adept than others, surely."

He tilts his head to the side for a moment, regarding her. "Are you? More adept than most?"

"Not adept enough." Now she cycled the rifle, tapping it down, and it snapped open and shut almost too fast for the mechanism to keep up-- he could see it shudder. The cycled bullet's smoke immediately began to sink in a downdraft.

And now the gun is a blur in her hands, cycling as fast as the mechanism could stand-- probably faster-- But she can count them. All of them are hip shots.

All of them strike a different target.

"... Not enough."

"Not enough?" If he were merely human, he would not have been able to follow her movements, but his eyes darted as quickly as she moved, eyebrow arching as he watched her work.

"Do you mean to eliminate armies all your own?"

"If the beings running the empire are anything like what we were fighting? It will not be enough."

"If they beings running the Empire are anything like those I've already faced, we will be enough."

His eyes darken at the statement, literally, his pupils expanding until the spheres were black.

"They may have cowed me once, but they will not again."

She takes half a step back, reaching to reload, and the flecks in her own eyes dance as she searches Malachiasz's.

And then, she breathes a sigh of relief. "-- No, you are not one of them. Those whose eyes are full of falling stars."

Eyes filled with falling stars? That described his brother, strangely, but only the one, and only because he'd been touched by the same god that had nearly caused Malachiasz to devour the world, having initially taken the older brother for want of the younger.

Eyes still black, he tilted his head to the side and blinked, a birdlike gesture made even more pronounced by his inhuman eyes.

"One of whom?"

"The Riders. No I don't have a better name." She pauses, trying to remember. "We did not know much of them. But where they went, things became indistinct, items, people, whole places could vanish if they were not stopped. As if no one could remember them, and no one knew where they were."

Now she reloaded more carefully. "With what little I know of them, it seems doubtful that the Empire is run by Riders, but the soldiers and knights are different from the rulers, yes?"

These Riders sounded fascinating, and he found himself wondering how takes of them existed if no one could remember them, but he shook his head.

"No, I am no 'Rider'. I'm a Vulture, which means nothing to the Empire. I've checked." It was a tragedy, that. They meant everything to his kingdom.

He rolled his shoulder in a shrug at her question. "Are they? A soldier or a Knight swears themselves to the Empire's service."

"To be clear, the things, the concepts, not the Riders themselves." She blinks, and again tilts her head, teasing a concept from a slightly different angle.

"I know what vultures, the creature, are, but not Vulture, the title, is. From context, I am guessing that it involves either the use of war-dead, or... Like me..." She avoids chambering the last round for a moment. "A combat operator, whose mission is to aim for high-value or separated targets."

"Closer to the latter." Their role in Tranavia was more nuanced, and they had their own King they answered to, but it sufficed for understanding.

"So, you're an assassin."

"I have other uses, but I'll not deny the primary one is on the other end of my scope," Natalia says, by way of agreement. "Thus, coming to practice."

"You didn't choose to become an assassin, did you?" Neither had he, though he can't imagine being anything else, now. Well, he did imagine being a god once, but he'd bitten off more than he could chew with that, quite literally.

There's a moment, where she pauses, because he has, in fact, hit the nail on the head. The vision of tragedy unfolds in her memory--

And then, there is ice. "No. I was taken, to be made into a weapon."

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