I stand with Crispin in the lavish room filled wall to wall with inscribed bows, leveling my harshest glare on the golden-haired man. Intellectually, I get it. He can’t have customers coming to blows within his shop, especially if there are sentinels involved, and one blow from Kayne could destroy this entire compound. Still, selling to the Reavers is just a step too far for me. I know what men like that do to people, and the thought of them buying any of the weapons this place has to offer has me shaking in my boots.

Nonetheless, I need one of these bows to do my job, so a bow I will have.

Crispin swallows, looking nervous but still confident in his backing. We both know I won’t try anything. It takes Crispin only a moment to steady himself once more; he truly is good at what he does. Soon enough, there’s no trace of the nerves I’d seen while the Reavers were here; only pure confidence and an upbeat smile remain.

“Miss Serena, please come. I believe I have a rather wide range of options that might interest you, at least, based on the criteria you’ve given me so far,” Crispin says, gesturing to one section of the wall of bows.

Following Crispin to the wall, I look over the bows with more than a little bit of awe. No matter how I feel about the Mercurials as an organization, I have to admit that when it comes to inscribing work, they are among the best of the best. Each bow before me is a work of art, glittering with colors, gleaming edges, and elegant runic lines.

Truthfully, looking over the selection, I have no idea where to even start. Each bow looks like it serves a different kind of function, and I know from what Celeste taught me that using a certain kind of bow for a long time can influence what abilities I get. If I had used my old bow for a few more incursion zones, I could have ended up with some kind of electrical ability. Maybe going for something to do with electricity again could be a good idea. It would definitely play into my whole weather theme.

That seems like a good enough place to start narrowing down options. What if I could get a bow similar to my old one but empowered somehow? Ratchet hadn’t been wrong that me going for paralyzing enemies rather than finishing them off myself is a good idea. I have an entire team full of people whose abilities are better suited for scoring a last hit — I should focus on setting them up and supporting them.

Turning away from the wall of bows, I look back to Crispin. “Do you have any options inscribed to deal damage with electricity? Doubling down on that feel wise.”

“Several!” Crispin exclaims with a smile.

Taking great care, Crispin reaches up and takes a bow with bladed limbs off of the wall and moves it to a large metal table to one side of the room. He repeats this three more times, lining the bows up on the table.

Finally, he steps back to allow me to examine the weapons as he explains the selections. “Each of these are blade-style bows dealing with electricity in some way.”

Crispin steps to one side of the table, shifting two of the bows to the side slightly, “These two bows only deal with electricity peripherally. This one here only gives an electrical shock when cutting an enemy with one of the blade limbs, for example. However, its conjured arrows are more wind-related. They don’t give a shock, but they are able to be guided in the air after being fired. This gives a distinct advantage when fighting against volcora that are small and fast; it does lack punching power when fighting against larger foes, though.”

I look over the bow Crispin had just explained. It truly is beautiful. Looking to have been made entirely out of a type of shimmering silvery material, the limbs of the bow are shaped like the wings of an angel. Briefly, I imagine having had this bow when being ambushed by those flying volcora. Instead of missing as often as I hit in the chaos, I could have guided the arrows home. Definitely a good option. Yet, if the arrows lack punch, I doubt they would have done anything to the mind flayer.

Seeing me look away from the first bow he’d gone over, Crispin moves on to the next. “This one also only uses electricity peripherally. Specifically, it has a function that can be triggered by tapping on an activation inscription that will emit a blast of electricity out from it that will not affect its wielder but will affect everything else around it. This is a great option if you are pinned down or a volcora has gotten too close to you — it will paralyze for long enough for you to scramble away. The other functions of the bow deal with fire, though, so I’m not sure if that will be of interest to you.”

I shake my head at this, “Fire will be dampened by my mist, so probably not a great option.”

Crispin just nods, before smiling as he looks over the next option. “This one here is a personal favorite of mine, I’ll be sad to see it go but I can’t think of a better person for it go to.”

I glance over to the third bow in the row Crispin had laid out, wishing Audrey was with me to help me pick one out. The third bow also seems to be made from the same silvery metal as the first one although this one is strange.

“It doesn’t have a bowstring?” I ask, looking over the bow.

Crispin shakes his head with a grin, “This is a higher-end model and is at the edge of your price range. Many sentinels have found that having a string in the way can inhibit a lot of the actions you might want to take with a blade-style bow. It makes the blade limbs more of an extra utility than a real part of the weapon. Without a string, though, you can use the bow like a proper staff weapon without needing to worry about it getting in the way.”

“But what about… you know, shooting the bow?” I ask.

“Look here,” Crispin says, guiding my attention to a set of densely packed inscriptions on the points of the bow’s blade limbs. “These inscriptions will conjure the string when you reach for it, and,” Crispin shifts his hand to near the grip of the bow, “these will conjure the arrow.”

I nod, my eyes widening. For a blade-style bow, not having a string in the way does sound incredibly helpful. It will depend on how well the inscriptions can detect when I’m reaching for the string to conjure it. If that works well, though…

“What else can the bow do?” I question.

Crispin’s grin widens, knowing he’d caught my attention. “The weapon uses dual elements of ice and electricity in equal measure. The arrows are conjured of a kind of supersolid ice and are electrified by the inscriptions running along the limbs. After the arrow is fired and impacts an object, it will shatter and explode outward, releasing shards of ice and a burst of electricity.”

Crispin moves his hands towards the inscriptions he’d referenced along the blade limbs of the bow, “These are proprietary inscriptions patented by us, the reason for that is that the supersolid ice they conjure is extraordinarily cold and has a tendency to continue creeping outward. The idea of the weapon is this: you fire an arrow into a volcora, and it explodes inside of it. The electricity will paralyze the creature while shards of ice are projected into its internals. The ice will then creep out further into the volcora’s body, thus worsening the damage even further. With how extraordinarily durable volcora at higher ranks are, a weapon this potent is borderline required to put one down.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Crispin’s words have me looking over the bow again with finer detail. The bow itself isn’t as stylized as some of the others, but it does have some icicle designs along the black grip and up the limbs. Most of the bow, however, is made of that shimmering silvery material — which, I realize, refracts the light all the more due to the small amounts of icy moisture clinging to the razor-sharp blade limbs of the bow.

I take only a moment to glance at the final bow in the row before noticing it has a string and returning my attention to this one. “Do the blade limbs have any special effect?” I ask Crispin as I lean in and inspect the bow carefully.

Crispin nods, “They utilize the same inscription set as the arrow conjuration. Cuts left by the blade limbs will give an electrical shock and leave behind a creeping ice effect, the blades don’t deliver either as effectively as the arrows, however.”

Feeling like a little girl who’d just gotten to open one birthday present early, I look up at Crispin with excitement. “Can I test it?”

Scene Break [https://i.imgur.com/MninSff.png]

A few minutes of navigating through passages later, Crispin and I arrive at a small, enclosed shooting range. The range clearly looks multi-purpose, with plenty of training dummies set up all around so one could test a melee or ranged weapon with equal ease.

The walls of the shooting range are marked and scarred, much like the testing area near Ratchet’s shop had been. Here, however, only the worst of the damage seems to still be present, the rest of it having been cleaned up or blocked entirely by the protection inscriptions on the walls.

I hold the new bow gingerly in my hands. The grip is slightly cold to the touch, but the blade limbs are icy. It has a sort of odd sensation in my hands, that same tingling sensation I’d felt when holding Akari’s sword. Due to the trials I’ve overcome in the past, I can use this bow, but it isn’t mine yet. I get the sense that the bow’s functions won’t be nearly as potent in testing as they will be once I’ve properly established ownership over it.

Hesitantly, I reach for where the string should be on a normal bow and the inscriptions Crispin had indicated light up for a brief moment. Suddenly, I find an icy cold string between my fingers, a glittering arrow of ice that flickers with lightning already knocked and ready to fire. Looking at it, the arrow seems volatile, freezing mist drifts off of it and light flickers in and around it fast enough to give someone a seizure.

Taking in a breath, I draw back the bow string and am surprised at the lack of difficulty. Even my uninscribed school bow has a heavier draw weight than this, and I’m suddenly worried that it might not be able to shoot the arrow fast enough. Oddly, though, the blade limbs of the bow had bent with the tension of the string, inscriptions along their lengths fairing with blue light. The bow certainly looks like it’s under extreme tension, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

With a mental shrug, I aim towards a distant target — aiming as I normally would despite the lack of draw weight. Then, I release the string. The bow cracks like thunder in my hand and trembles at the power behind the shot as the arrow zips into the target dummy far faster than I can process.

Before I can consider the extreme power behind the shot, another crack of thunder sounds out from within the target dummy as lightning and icy shards detonate from where I’d hit. The canvas body of the target dummy is blown to bits, parts of it smoldering with flickering electricity and other parts slowly being consumed by a creeping layer of frost.

I look down at the bow in my hands, my eyes wide with shock. That arrow must have traveled as fast as a bullet, maybe faster! And this is the bow operating at less than its full potential…

I turn to Crispin, “Will the bow hold together? That kind of strain after every shot can’t be good for it.”

Crispin nods, gesturing to the silvery material of the limb, “Of course!” he exclaims happily. “As you yourself said, you can’t be buying a new bow after every fight. This bow is made of an extremely flexible and hyper-resilient alloy of our own creation. We call it quicksilver, although actual silver is only one small part of its makeup. Don’t worry; this kind of metal can hold its shape even if it’s placed into a hydraulic press. Unless an extremely powerful volcora puts a concerted effort into breaking the bow, it will hold together.”

I look down at the bow once more, I like it… I really like it. Now, let’s see what kind of price I can get it for.

“How much would this be?” I ask Crispin, handing the bow back to him. The tingling sensation is starting to get a little obnoxious.

“60 million yen flat,” Crispin responds instantly. “Also, this will take up around 3,500 GDF Credits.”

I wince at the price; that’s nearly all of my remaining credits and is all of my remaining yen. Still, maybe I have a chance at getting that price down a little.

Forcing a frown to my features, I glance at the bow and then back up to Crispin. “You knowingly let Reavers spy on me while I was shopping for my weapon. Make it 40 million yen, and I’ll call it even.”

Crispin scowls, “I would be taking a rather large loss on this piece at that price. The lowest I can go is 56 million yen.”

I bite my lip; I have a sneaking suspicion that 56 million yen is the actual price of the weapon, and Crispin had inflated it to perfectly match my maximum budget.

“I will go to 50 million and not a yen higher,” I tell Crispin. “I can always go back to Ratchet and get a weapon for only credits.”

Crispin huffs, “Yes, if you’re willing to settle for a weapon of inferior quality. However, in light of my unprofessional conduct earlier, I am willing to split the difference down to 53 million yen. This is truly the lowest I will go. A weapon of this quality will have many interested sentinels. If I shipped it to the States, we would have a sale in a matter of days.”

I take a moment to consider before making my decision. I’d resolved to spend everything I had, so even being able to hold onto a few million yen is a win in my book. Honestly, I’m hoping to learn far more from the Reaver’s presence here than they’d learned about me. With Celeste tailing them, I’m certain she’ll be able to learn something. Also, I’m already sick of not having a proper weapon.

A pause a moment longer, just to make Crispin sweat just a little bit, before holding my hand out to him. “You have a deal.”

Crispin grins and shakes my hand, “Great doing business with you, Serena. Now, shall we find your companions?”

Scene Break [https://i.imgur.com/MninSff.png]

We find Kayne and the others in a room that appears to be full of random objects. Saws, shovels, lengths of rope, and other various items hang from the walls. It would be far too easy to dismiss these things as junk, especially after seeing the bow room, but I highly doubt anything the Mercurials have on offer will fail to impress.

Kayne glances to me as we arrive, “Find what you were looking for?”

I nod, conjuring my new bow from my inventory. “Does this meet specifications?”

Kayne takes a moment to look over the bow, his eyes tracing the runic patterns along its length. Finally, he grunts approvingly, “That’s a decent design; it’ll last you for a while. I approve. Now, let’s get you some of the basic gear I’ve been picking out for the others.”

I wince, “I… um… kind of spent almost all of my credits.”

Kayne rolls his eyes, “Newbies never do have any impulse control. Fine, I’ll make a note to ask Audrey to take you to a hardware store. Uninscribed equipment isn’t as good, but at least you’ll have something for emergencies. For now, just stand around and take notes on what you need to pick up the next time you’re here.”

I nod, settling near the back of the group as Kayne continues going through items in the room to show to our team and explain why they’re needed. I quickly come to be sorry I’d spent all of my credits, but the new bow in my inventory feels more than worth it.

As I wait, I mentally reach out to Celeste. “Any progress following those Reaver guys?”

Celeste responds a moment later, [No, they are hanging around the Mercurial compound. I guess they didn’t get to finish shopping before they got forced out. They’re talking about how their boss won’t be happy if they come back without the equipment.]

I nod to myself, “Well, keep at it; let’s see what they buy and where they take it. This could be a great opportunity to get ahead of whatever they’re up to.”

Celeste pauses for a moment before responding, [Remember, Serena, that we aren’t allowed to take action against them unless we have specific orders from the GDF. Even if we do find something, they’ll probably put normal soldiers on it instead of a sentinel team.]

“Well then, let’s at least give them something to work with,” I insist.

[Of course,] Celeste says, sending her mental assent.

Now I just have to figure out how to explain all of this to Kayne... that'll be fun.