“Gashward?” the banisher questioned, setting down his book and following in her stead. “You truly did find a hole, I don’t actually know where that is. And yes, I would like stir-fry. Same as last time?”
“Spicier, but more or less the same. Found these mushrooms that have a texture and flavor sort of like pork, but also contain hot pepper oils,” she said, half-mindedly setting the burner to full blast. White flame erupted from the ring, and a small bubble gurgled up through the stove’s fuel tank, shimmering white liquid swirling behind a translucent gauge.
“Are overly spiced foods another one of those foldover things for you? A matter of nostalgia?”
“You could say that,” she said with a slightly somber tone. “Everything was either spiced all to hell with synthetic filth or full of sweet corn syrup. Or both…”
A few moments and mouthfuls of the colourful dish passed.
“...But stir-fry just doesn’t taste right if it’s not spicy, at least to me. Is it too much? I expected you to have a high tolerance for heat.”
Casus curiously scooping rice and individual pieces of vegetables, roots, and meat-mushrooms, replied: “I do, but I cannot help but notice the glaring discrepancy between foods I eat in restaurants or at the temple, versus your cooking. I also cannot help but find it strange that you cook at all. I expected you to take full advantage of the city’s street vendors.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“Fair point.”
----------------------------------------
More investigation. Another direction. Another lead. It was an awkward hour, early in the morning, when the place was all but deserted save for a small group of diehards in the lobby, trudging onward through a more than twelve-hour session of wargames. Krahe wagered that her arrha paled in comparison to the stuff they were hopped up on; she’d seen them drinking and smoking various things, as well as chewing roots of some kind.
A pile of ash and cigarette butts began to occupy some of her Kenoma Pocket as she searched through the Lost Sun society’s library. Despite its comparatively small size, it took her far longer to go through any single row of books due to their greater substance. In a public library, she skimmed all but one out of seven or eight books, and only read into one out of fifteen, but here, every third and sometimes every other book had some thread of promise begging for Krahe to pull and unravel.
Inevitably, however, she found what she was searching for. The library’s contents were all clustered together by topic if applicable, except for one: Anathemism. These books and scrolls were conveniently scattered in weird places, places in some of the few spots with dust and cobwebs. They were even covered in fake coats of these things, distinguishable only by how they differed from the library’s own, natural dust and webs. She referenced everything she found against the index of the library’s volumes. It seemed as if none were missing, but a few volumes had pages that were… Wrong. They were there, very much so, but they weren’t the original pages.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
She checked the index again.
The downright demonic-looking book in her hand - Anathemia Oscura - had been repaired recently. Pages had been found missing. The dust cover also concealed a slip with the same information, as well as a bounty offer from the librarian for whoever found the culprit. It wasn’t much.
This, alone, was just a grain atop a pile of golden sand that Krahe would melt down to later use for joining the shards of this case together. There weren’t very many. Her study of Anathemia Oscura yielded little headway in the case; the removed pages pertained to various obscure methods by which someone could protect herself against anathema, as well as how one could prepare and mitigate the deleterious effects of using anathemism.
Krahe felt the mounting weight of exhaustion crawling up her back as she rolled open another scroll, and found that it was a fragment. What little of it was intact detailed the gruesome fate of some anathemists, and the similarly gruesome things that had been done to harness their unrotting corpses. It only barely began to describe the anatomical effects of bone-deep anathema burns before it cut off. She recorded everything she could about the partial scroll, put everything back where it had been, and left like a ghost, stepping out straight into the side alley rather than leave out through the door.
She was sure that she would find what she needed in the Temple of Records, and upon visiting that place, that hunch turned out true. Speaking with the librarian went as such:
“I came upon a partial scroll pertaining to the ultimate fates of certain extreme anathemists, titled Burning Torment Wrought in Black. Does the Temple of Records carry a complete copy?”
“That is the case, yes. However, it is in a restricted section that appears to be beyond your clearance.”
“Figures. Someone should have already put in an elevated access request on my behalf, what is the status of that?”
“...Still processing. I expect that it will be no more than two or three days, so I will have the text prepared and held in reserve. If the request is approved, you may bring the proof and pick up your scroll the same day.”
Two to three days was a fair bit sooner than her next checkup with Firminus, but she supposed it was an acceptable problem to have. She banished bureaucracy from her mind for now. Garvesh was waiting.
And he was, indeed, waiting, not just in the figurative sense.
“You’re an hour fuckin’ late!” he chided her when she arrived. It was a lie. She was only half an hour late, and it was only because she had to shake someone she was sure had begun following her. “Egh, fuckin’ whatever. Come into the back, this isn’t something for the front end.”
He led her into the storeroom, where, atop a heavy metal crate, a truly heavy-duty, secure-looking box sat, alongside several pieces of chunky, yet computer-like hardware. More than anything, it felt like corporate prototype hardware… And her hunch turned out to be right when she asked: “What is it?”
“A Mamon Coupler. For when you have a go at Hashem.”