A Troubled Soldier 01

[theriflespiral]

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.

Comments

[edaciousness]

"May I?" He doesn't wait for permission before stepping beside her, his motions almost birdlike, quick and striking, the motions of a trained assassin or, more accurately, a bird of prey. He takes both, one in each hand, inspecting them intensely. He noted the traits each possessed as she'd described and nodded, pocketing the spend cartridge and the fresh round of ammunition and nodded toward the target again.

"Would you care to demonstrate a second time?" While to was praised as a question, there was a note a bit like command in his tone. "Please?" And the latter seemed genuine.

[theriflespiral]

She nods with a faint noise, only now picking up the rifle and closing the chamber. "Live."

She sets the stock against her shoulder, raises the rifle, looks down the scope, adjusts the angle, fires, and cycles the next round in one smooth motion.

Then again.

And again.

[edaciousness]

He moved behind her, bending so his gaze sights along the shaft from which this bullet was being propelled.

"A truly effective means of murder." His ice blue eyes flick to her. "How do you enjoy it?"

[theriflespiral]

"The rifle, or the murder?" Natalia asked, cold as ever. "As to the rifle, a bolt-action is hardly my favorite piece of weaponry, and the barrel length means that it's difficult to use in close quarters when discovered, requiring a holdout weapon, of which I have several.

"As to the murder..." Natalia sighed. "It is something that, unfortunately, gets easier as it is done, and there is a temptation to hate those on the other end of the barrel. We are both far from home, yes?"

She lines up her next shot. Fires. "A cold comfort to know that their leaders and commanders are the ones responsible for our state. I would much prefer to have them in my sights."

[edaciousness]

"Both, I think." He had to admit, the 'barrel' length did look unwieldy in close quarters, which the weapon he supposed, was designed to kill efficiently at long range. Remarkable, really.

"Is it really unfortunate? Would you rather be weighed down by the loss of every stranger's life at your hands?"

He hummed an acknowledgement of her observation. He was indeed far from home. Too far, and without his towy dzymika, his little bird. He found sleep elusive at best.

"The Empire's leaders, perhaps. When one is built on oppression and conquest, it's usually the wedges that most feel the push."

[theriflespiral]

"I find it hard to forget that many are pressed into service of House and Empire. That, but for a twist of fate, it might be myself bleeding all over the snow." Natalia blinks as she says that. Like it's something important.

But it's buried under ice and snow, and she listens instead to Malachiasz's next line, and hums an agreement. "Peasants to fight a noble's war, counts to fight a king's, kings to fight an Emperor's."

Load the cartridge. Fire. That's the load. She grumbles faintly as she pulls out a clip-- clips! The empire still used clips instead of a sensible method of reload!-- and began to load.

Eight rounds.

[edaciousness]

"It might at that. That's the nature of war. I try to remember it isn't, and do everything in my power to make sure it stays that way. Worrying about every other soul pressed into service is exhausting. I'll free the ones I can, when the opportunity arises." He understands their plight, but he won't let the guilt of it weigh him down.

"Peasants fight an Emperor's war, and they're the ones who die for it. A familiar and very old song. Perhaps someone should change its tempo."

That was why they were all here, wasn't it? "You seem familiar enough with this weapon. Do you use them often?"

[theriflespiral]

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.

[edaciousness]

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."

[theriflespiral]

"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."

[edaciousness]

"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?"

[theriflespiral]

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."

[edaciousness]

"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.

[theriflespiral]

"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.

[edaciousness]

"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?"

[theriflespiral]

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."

[edaciousness]

"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'?"

[theriflespiral]

"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."

[edaciousness]

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?"

[theriflespiral]

"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."

[edaciousness]

"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?"

[theriflespiral]

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

[edaciousness]

"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."

[theriflespiral]

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."

[edaciousness]

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?"