The ringing of a bell broke through the drunken haze that had settled over the sitting room of the 'End of the Line' Inn. The few drunken stragglers left in the room turned their attention to the bar, where the Innkeeper was striking a copper cowbell, mounted on one of the supporting pillars. The portly man set down the striker with a certain amount of satisfaction. He hollered to the crowd at large.
"We're closing up! One last call for alcohol, so finish those whiskeys and beers!"
A thin man sitting at the bar lifted his head from the bar, his skin sticking for a moment on a patch of something that had been spilled a long time ago, and never properly cleaned up. He blinked slowly at the Innkeeper, then glanced at his half-full wineglass, his sleepy demeanor flashing triumphant for a moment.
"And wine, and any other drinks for that matter," the Innkeeper clarified. He did his best to ignore the thin man's anguished expression, rolling his eyes. Fucking Allen. Every day with this guy.
Ruth pushed her empty glass aside, and leaned back in her chair. She had gotten comfortable during the story, and had pulled her knees up to tuck them beneath her riding cloak. She perched on the chair, and was noticeably tilting to one side as she struggled to stay awake. As if in defiance of her exhaustion, her hand was working at full speed, jotting down lines of text as Rathus finished speaking.
The princess stared at the page, her eyes slowly drooping closed. Her head nodded down, then snapped back to attention as she forced herself awake. Rathus watched her battle to stay awake, and kicked himself for his inattention. He should have been paying closer attention to the time. Gun Knights could go for weeks without sleep if the need arose, so the time of night had never mattered much to him. The only time he usually needed to stop for rest was on account of Grue, who did not benefit from the perks that came with his Vow.
In cities, he could hire a stable, and with somebody to look after Grue, that freed up his entire night. As easy a solution as that was with regards to his horse, he felt he'd have to pay more attention to the time when it came to looking after Ruth. He doubted he could put her up in a stable. The horses wouldn't be able to put up with the noise.
"Why do I get the feeling you were just thinking something very rude?" the sleepy princess asked him, setting her pen down on the table.
The Gun Knight cleared his throat. "Probably your imagination. In any case, I think here's about as good a place as any to stop. I have a few errands to run tomorrow, but besides that I should be able to finish the story. We can see if the train is up and running yet."
Ruth snapped upright.
"Ah, no, I'm awake! We don't have to stop yet! You said that you'd be able to finish the story tonight, right?"
Rathus shrugged. "Sorry. Guess I misjudged the time. You shouldn't force yourself to stay awake, though. The story'll still be there in the morning." He stood up and grabbed their empty cups. "It's important to get your beauty-sleep, right?"
The Gun Knight moved away from the table to take their glasses to the bar. Ruth gave a weak protest, but with her writing finished, her will to stay awake was starting to flag, and she dozed off for a moment before she snapped awake. She flushed, quickly lifting herself to a proper posture. When Rathus returned, she cleared her throat.
"W-well, I suppose I wouldn't want to wear you out. Nor to mistreat the fair Innkeeper's time. I suppose we can..." She paused, yawning widely. "I suppose we can retire for the night."
Rathus walked the princess to her room, taking the stairs slowly for her benefit. The lights along the stairway were dimmed: about half of the candles had already been snuffed for the night, and the brightening lenses for all had been shuttered and moved aside. The pair made their way to the third floor, where the Inn's deluxe suites were situated. The third floor hallway was short, with a dusty rug running down the center, which probably could have been considered 'fine' years ago. While it may not have been a particularly luxurious Inn, it was probably the best in town. Pheasantgrove was at the end of the train line, after all, and anything beyond here was, as the scholars would say, "totally Hicksville."
Ruth sat on her bed. The spring mattress squeaked with a quiet protest. The princess let out a sigh of relief as she flopped backwards. She closed her eyes and spread her arms out, chuckling to herself.
"Thread count high enough in your duvet?" Rathus asked. He walked over to the wardrobe and opened it, checking for any hidden assassins or other nasty surprises.
"No, not really, Rathus. But the fact that there is one at all, instead of some scratchy wool blanket is a relief in itself. I doubt the last inn we stayed at even knew the word 'duvet'."
She turned over, and let out a small, surprised gasp as she found a small chocolate mint candy on her pillow. She snatched the treat and began to unwrap it as Rathus checked under the bed.
"No monsters, I hope?" she asked.
The Imperial Knight shook his head, dropping the bedsheets back into place and standing.
"Looks clear enough." He looked over to the window. "I'd better secure this, though."
Ruth sat up, chewing the chocolate. Her eyes glinted as she looked to the window. "Secure the window? How exciting. I was curious what sort of techniques a Gun Knight might employ. Do you have special warding Scripts? A Star Magic device? Some secret alarm setup?"
Rathus tapped the side of his nose. "It's an ancient technique. I can show you, but you gotta swear to tell no living soul."
The Princess gave him a solemn nod, waiting with hushed excitement as the Gun Knight moved to the window. He sized up the aperture, taking a deep breath while he cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck.
Taking a step forward, he ran his hand along the edge of the wooden windowframe, muttering things quietly under his breath. As Ruth watched with bated breath, he took two long strides back, slowly traced a wide circle through the air with his hands, then turned and lifted the wardrobe, sliding it in front of the window.
The Princess gaped at the Imperial Knight, who twisted on his heels to face her, waggling his fingers in a particularly mystic way.
"Alakazam," he intoned, "the window's now armoired."
He caught the thrown pillow out of the air, and Ruth buried her face into the other one, groaning loudly. "You are history's greatest monster, Rathus. Go on and get out."
Rathus nodded. "As ye will, yer highness. Just gotta set something up on the door as well."
Ruth sat up. "If you move more furniture in front of it—"
"Relax," the Gun Knight said, waving her off, "I'm not about to trap you in the room. Always leave an exit."
He crouched down and wound some wire around the door handle, looping it in such a way that opening it would pull the string taut.
"Ah, an alarm?" She sat on the bed, brushing her hair with one of the ivory combs she had retrieved from her luggage.
"Yeah," Rathus replied, pulling out a short double-barrel shotgun from his Holdster, "something like that."
The Princess paused mid-comb as the Imperial Knight broke open the barrel and began to slot a shell into each breech.
"Rathus, no."
"Safety first, yer highness." He pulled a chair away from the small desk and set it in front of the door, bracing the shotgun against the seat. He lifted the end, propping it up with a book taken from the drawer of the nightstand, entitled 'The Adventures of Gideon'. Rathus had found one at nearly inn or tavern he had stayed at, although he had never gotten around to reading it.
He adjusted the angle of the shotgun, and Ruth lifted one foot out from under her to stomp it off the side of the bed.
"Absolutely not. What if I need to leave the room?"
The Gun Knight glanced up, then gestured to the trigger of the gun, to which he was currently attaching the other end of the string, having looped it around one of the chair's arms.
"Just untie the string."
The Princess looked at the precarious booby-trap as Rathus stepped back. "You want me to untie a string from the trigger of a live firearm? While I'm half-asleep?"
Rathus opened his mouth to reply, then looked back at the gun, then the door. She had a point there. As he was appraising his trap, something else occurred to him, which the princess voiced out loud.
"Besides, you're on this side of the door. How are you going to get out without triggering the trap?"
He paused to survey the setup.
"Well... most of the time I stay on this side of the door." The Gun Knight scratched at his cheek, working out the layout of the moving pieces in his head. "But, it's an easy fix. I just move the chair closer to give myself slack, then slip out. After I'm gone, you can move the chair back. Just make sure not to move it too far back."
The princess wore an expectant look on her face, saying nothing. The silence settled around them uncomfortably, urging Rathus to continue elaborating.
"The key is to feel out the tension in the string, you want it more or less taut so that the movement of the handle will be enough to set it off, but not so much that you set it off by accident. You'll want to make sure the shotgun is braced as well, because if it slips too much it might go off or create enough slack that the trap won't work, and..."
He sighed.
"Alright, you have a point."
He started to undo the trap, gathering up the pieces and emptying shotgun before reholstering it.
"Do you think these precautions are really all that necessary in the first place? You'll be right next door, won't you?"
The Gun Knight grimaced. "I'll be honest, I don't usually do escort or protection duty. I've been erra- er, rather, I'm mostly sent out on more direct sort of assignments. Patrols, questing, monster slaying, that sort of thing. I'll admit this's all new to me. I'd rather be safe than sorry."
Ruth's expression softened. "I suppose that's a suitable explanation for your abundance of caution. I appreciate your tenacity, Ser Knight, but I think you can safely relax a bit. We ARE in an Imperial-controlled city, after all." She frowned a bit. "Well, perhaps 'city' is too charitable a term. An Imperial town, at least."
"Yer probably right," Rathus said. "What's the worst that could happen?"
The Princess turned in the for the night, and Rathus went into his own room, just next door to hers. He sat at the desk, drumming his fingers along the top while he considered options. Ruth had locked her door, which would slow down an assassin, but not stop them. That'd be enough time for him to respond, but it also ruled out sleeping, if he wanted to stay alert.
Normally, he'd use his sleepless nights to visit the guard post, or whatever equivalent they might have in a smaller village. They were one of the few places that'd consistently be open at night, and he could often restock on supplies and ammunition there, if they had a surplus. He'd also read through the various reports, bounties, requests, and complaints that people tended to send into the constabulary. A lot of them were just good for a laugh; things like a farmer requesting that their neighbor's horse be arrested for biting their son. However, a lot of them might be an opportunity, like a bounty for a fugitive; or monster troubles, that he might be able to take care of. He couldn't leave Ruth here alone to go fetch the reports, even if she considered it safe.
She had a point about the town, and being near innocent civilians would deter a Chuuni assassin, but he doubted whether that was relevant anymore. Even if he didn't have proof, he felt that the Chuunin clans would make good on their promise to null Ruth's contract. There was a lot that could be said about a Chuuni, such as "What the fuck, why are you wearing two eyepatches you weird son of a bitch", but they tended to be true to their word. Even so, there was no saying for certain that 'The Archivist' hadn't hired any other assassins. He couldn't count on your run-of-the-mill store-brand cutthroat to be deterred by an Inn.
Speaking of, this 'Archivist' person...
The Imperial Knight leaned back in the wicker chair and clutched the sides of his head. It would have been so much easier if he had a real name to go by, instead of 'The Archivist'. Did the person in question even call themselves that? He wouldn't be surprised if it was some invention of Nina's, and the client in question had no idea they were even being called that, let alone using it themselves. He was glad that Ruth and Nina had reached a sort of rapport, but at the cost of losing a lead on his enemy, was it worth it?
In any case... he couldn't leave Ruth alone, so that ruled out checking the Guard post. Unless...
The Gun Knight rummaged around in his backpack, shifting aside his travel supplies, until he found what he was looking for. A small wooden box, polished and set with a hingeless copper latch on the front. He set it on the desk and placed his palm flat on the top. A quick glance around his surroundings confirmed he was alone. No harm in being cautious.
"Rathus McGaff. Seven-One-Three Lilac."
The latch popped open at his words, and he lifted the lid off, revealing a velvet-lined interior. A fist-sized pink conch shell was nestled snugly into a small indentation, clearly shaped to fit it. He lifted the shell out and pulled a small silver bell from a similarly-customized indentation. The bell gave a quiet chime as he lifted it to the conch's mouth. He rang the bell, counting out a few seconds as it politely broke the silence of the room. He paused, continuing to count time in his head, then began ringing again. He was about to begin a third set of ringing when a young woman's voice spoke through the Echo Conch's opening.
"Shell Phone Service, West Branch Routing. How shall I direct your call?"
Rathus leaned back in the chair. "Evening, Ma'am. Could you put me through to the Pheasantgrove central guardhouse, if ya please?"
"Very good sir," the voice replied, "Do you have the number for your party?"
Rathus searched his memory quickly, but to no avail. "Apologies, Ma'am. Could I trouble you to look them up?"
"No problem," the voice chirruped. If she was troubled at all by his request, she made no indication. "Please hold while I connect you."
Rathus leaned back in his chair, waiting with the Shell to his ear. With any luck, the guardhouse would be able to send a runner over with their latest postings, so he could review them while the Princess slept. He waited patiently, while far off to the east, a young woman went about her day.
Olivia Bonet set an identical Echo Conch back into its case. While all Echo Conches looked fairly similar, a particularly astute, nosy, or neurotic person presented with the opportunity would find that this shell was an exact duplicate of the one held by the Gun Knight on the other end of the conversation.
Olivia made sure the shell was secure within a specialized holding box, then pulled the box from the shelf where it sat. She stepped down from the short ladder, holding onto the armrail for support. The box itself was fairly simple. A small wooden crate, framed on three sides, but open on the last. The interior was curved, to better redirect sound towards the opening. Inside, the shell was securely attached to a small pedestal, sitting in roughly the center of the case.
There were many such boxes along the shelf. In fact, the shelf was dedicated to nothing else, with a long line of cubbies, each large enough to contain two boxes. Layers of shelving extended to the ceiling, reachable only by ladder.
Olivia saw one of her fellow Operators gesturing to her a few cubbies over, and she unlocked the ladder with her foot, before giving it a push. It slid along the floor-mounted bar, gliding over to her friend, who mouthed a silent 'Thank You' as she locked the ladder into position and began to climb. This wasn't the only ladder, or even the only shelf. The West Branch Routing Center had enough shelves to contain every Shell Phone in the western-most section of the Empire. This sounded intimidating, which might have been ruined if somebody were to tell you that that only meant a few thousand. However, a few thousand was a lot to deal with, and when you factored in how popular Shell Phones were becoming, that number was only bound to grow.
Another Operator slid past Olivia, pushing a cart laden with Echo Conches in their boxes. Olivia adjusted her glasses and gave him a nod as he placed one of the cases back into its empty cubby. He paused to double-check the copper plate on the box, making sure the number matched the one printed on the cubby's plate as well.
Olivia looked down at her cart. Including her newest call, she had a total of 6 pending calls, currently. She would have to go check the Directory for 2 of them. She traced her route in her head, calculating the shortest way to get everything done. The Operator pushed her cart forwards, out of the rows of shelves, and into a large, open area. The Routing Floor was shaped somewhat like a hammer: a square box of a room, with a 'handle' that jutted off dizzyingly in one direction, filled with the bulk of the Shelves. The room shone with the telltale sign of bureaucracy. The ceiling glowed with the soft luminescence of mage-lights, rather than any actual open flame. Long glass bars gave off a somewhat sickly off-white glow from where they were mounted on the ceiling.
Olivia glanced at the clock that had been placed over the door out of the room. It was an hour past midnight, but her shift had just begun. In the Empire of the Star, the Shell Phone service ran at all hours, and a dedicated team of Operators, Reshelvers, and Runners were needed to keep the show running. She smoothed out her vest as she waited for a Reshelver to push past her, with a cart of Echo Conch shells ready to return to their respective cubbies. As she waited, she glanced around the room. A chalkboard took up most of one of the sides, filled with important information. Schedules, new policies, a number of mindless numbers for metrics and tracking purposes. Nothing directly relevant to her, except her schedule.
A few posters decorated another wall, above the filing cabinets. One depicted a small cat clutching a branch, urging the viewer to 'Hang in There'. The other one was new, having been added just the other day. It featured a sinister-looking silhouette of a man speaking into a Conch Shell, with another, similarly diabolical man plotting on the other end of the call. In between the two was a brave, proud-looking woman staring stoically down at a pair of shells. Bold lettering lined the top and bottom of the poster: "THE SAFETY OF THE EMPIRE IS IN YOUR HANDS. REPORT REBEL ACTIVITY." She rolled her eyes.
Once the way was clear, Olivia pushed her cart into the room, stopping at a small pedestal at the end of the aisle. A thick book sat on top of it, and she flipped it open. Inside, a long list of numbers, identifying each Shell Phone and its owner. There were tabs along the side of the book, and the list was repeated, organized in different manners. By opening it to the correct section, one could quickly look up a particular number to find its owner, or look up a name to find the number registered to them. An identical book sat at the end of each aisle. She flipped through the directory, making a mental note of the numbers she needed for her calls.
She set to work, finding the recipients for her calls. First one, a woman in Haybale calling her next-door neighbor. She lifted her wrist. A silver bell hung there from a cord, capped with a rubber mute. She reached into the recipient's cubby and pulled out the shell, ringing her bell in front of it. Once. Twice... A voice came through the other end, along with a cacophonous blast of music. The voice, young, male, and drunken, shouted to be heard.
"YOU'VE REACHED PARTY CENTRAL!" he shouted, to a chorus of cheers in the background. "HOW CAN I HELP YOU?"
"I have a call for you from a one Martha Blithers."
"WHAT, THAT OLD BAG? WHAT DOES SHE WANT?"
"Please hold while I connect you," Olivia chirruped, ignoring his shouts. She put his Conch back into the alcove. The noise blaring from the mouth of the shell disappeared once her hand crossed the lip of the opening, as the noise-proofing Script flared into life. She reached down and set Mrs. Blithers' box into the empty spot in the Alcove, making sure that both openings in the boxes were facing each other. She flicked her hand up and rang a chime hanging in the box, to indicate that the call had connected. This one was probably going to be a short one.
She had only taken a few steps, in fact, when a tiny flag popped out above the alcove, indicating that one of the parties had signaled the call to end. A small wooden divider had fallen between the two boxes, similarly Scripted to cut off any noise between the two. Olivia hesitated, but decided it'd be better to leave it to one of the Reshelvers. She continued on.
Another two calls to connect. Another day in the office, making sure that the Empire operated smoothly. Communication was the lifeblood of a functioning society, or so their pamphlets claimed. She connected a call between a tavern-owner and a carpenter (probably to replace some broken furniture), and another call to a Guildhouse.
Now, her next call. Strange coincidence that somebody would just happen to be calling this number, but given the circumstances, it was probably bound to happen. She found the alcove in question. Thankfully, it was at ground level, instead of up the ladder. That would make things more convenient. She reached in and rang the conch. They didn't pick up until the fourth ring.
"Hello? Is this Central Command?"
Olivia closed her eyes for a moment. They always started talking as soon as they picked up, nobody ever waited to hear who it was, they just assumed they were already connected.
"Hello, I have a call holding from Rathus McGaff. Imperial Gun Knight."
The voice on the other end made a quiet noise of relief. "Sure, sure. I'll take it."
"Please hold while I connect you." Olivia chirruped. She stood and glanced around the aisle. She was alone in the aisle for now, and nobody was in her line of sight. She slipped her hand into her pocket as she crouched down, then picked up the Gun Knight's box, and slipped it into the alcove.
She tilted her head to get a better look at the inside of the alcove. There were a few Scripts within the cubby, set into copper plates. One of them ran in a ring around the alcove's opening, set to prevent any sound from passing through in either direction. Another Script was set into the wall. Olivia wasn't clear on the exact details of how it worked but she knew that it checked when a call had ended, listening in for the noise of the silver bell when there were two boxes in the alcove.
There was one final Script in the box, a small plate that listened in for the silver bell as well, but only when there was a single box in the alcove. When it heard this, it would echo the bell outside of the box, and protrude a flag to signal the Operators. This one was the most important of all, as without it, there would be no way to tell that the Shell Phone within was trying to make an outgoing call. The writing on each of the plates was glowing faintly, a light cyan that indicated that they still held a charge of Intent, to power the Law within their etchings.
As Olivia set the box down, she moved her hand, pressing a small black cube to this third Script. The lettering on the plate flickered, then began to slowly fade to darkness as the Intent was drained from it. Olivia watched carefully. Three days was the timeline. She'd worked as an Operator for a long time, and she'd been paying close attention, comparing the brightness of the lettering on the Scripts to their scheduled recharge dates. She couldn't be exact about it, but she'd gotten to the point where she could look at the intensity of the glow and tell about how many days it had left before it petered out.
She lifted the stone after a time, and quickly shoved it into her pocket. The lettering on the Script was still glowing, but it was dim, barely even noticeable compared to the others. It would still function, for now, but in a few days (two at a minimum, two and a half max, she thought), it would run out of Intent, and go dead, weeks ahead of schedule.
She gave another furtive look around, then pulled an Echo Conch out of her vest's pocket.
"It's done," She whispered.
A clattering came from the other end, as the Shell Phone that was paired to the one in her hand was lifted from a table.
"Did you destroy it?"
She shook her head, frowning at the phone.
"Of course not. If I destroyed it, they'd know it was sabotage right away, and an investigation would be launched. Do you think he would be happy with that?"
"But you disabled it?" her confidante asked — a deep, unnatural voice, obviously obfuscated through some means.
"Nobody is going to be answering their calls any time soon."
"Excellent work."
Olivia swallowed, doubt gnawing at the back of her mind.
"And... my father? His treatment?" she asked hopefully.
"Of course," the voice replied. "You'll receive the money by the end of the week."
She let out a sigh of relief, bracing herself against the shelf to keep from buckling.
"Thank God," she whispered.
"We will contact you in the future with the next steps."
She nodded. "I'll await hearing from you."
"Death to the Empire!"
"Okay."
The voice subsided, and she tucked the shell back into her apron. She stood up and stretched, moving with newfound lightness as she continued through the aisle. She wasn't particularly politically-inclined, but the Rebellion at least paid well. She just wished they were less cliche about things. She sapped twelve more Scripts randomly, all around the same area. She did the same for the phone of Pheasantgrove's Mayor, the personal phone of the Captain of the Guard, and a few more select phones, making sure that in each case they were simply one phone out of many in a cluster to be sapped. She glanced back up at the schedule as she entered the common room. In three days, all hell would break loose, as it would come to light that the Script Kiddy they had contracted to recharge their runes last time was cutting corners, resulting in over a hundred scripts prematurely going dead.
Olivia was glad she had that day off.
********
Breakfast in the End of the Line was a warm bowl of Fried Stew. Rathus and Ruth dug in, getting an early start on the day. It was bound to be a busy one, so a filling breakfast was just the thing. The Princess dug her fork in and took a bite, before gesturing to Rathus with the utensil.
"So, one thing I don't understand from your story. I'm not about to call you a liar, because I doubt you would misremember, nor would you go about telling me tall tales. But..."
She paused and wiped her mouth.
"Well, in your story, you were telling me the conversations of people you couldn't possibly have heard. You even said something about what Captain Grimm was thinking at the time, if I'm recalling correctly. Is this all hearsay, then, or are you as guilty of embellishing as I am?"
The Gun Knight nodded sagely. "Ah, right. I suppose that bears explaining, don't it?"
He set his fork down and cleared his throat. "Well, you know already that a Gun Knight is just plain incapable of forgetting details, right? If we summon up a memory, we have perfect recollection of anything we saw, heard, felt, smelled, and so on."
The princess shrugged. "Right. That much is common knowledge."
Rathus nodded. "Well, besides being a literal lifesaver in a combat situation, it also comes in handy after the mission, when you're debriefing on the situation. People have a tendency to forget the details of things in the heat of the moment, so if you have a Gun Knight among them, generally, you have a perfect record of what happened."
The Imperial Knight took another bite of his fried stew. "Of course, even perfect memory is only useful for things you can actually remember. If you happen to blink or look away when something happens, you're no better off than any other guy. Plus, you still gotta contend with biases and all that. But, if you've got more than ONE Gun Knight on the same mission, suddenly things change. You got two different perspectives, two different angles, two different recorders that're both perfectly accurate."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The princess cut a piece of her stew off and delicately dabbed some brown sauce onto it. "Makes sense."
"So, after the mission, they debriefed all of us, and compiled all of that together into a record. So, even if I don't know personally what Captain Grimm might have been thinking, I know what she put down in her report. And if my memory of the report is perfect, and her reporting of her own memory's perfect, well... that's close enough in my book."
Ruth nodded. "I suppose that makes sense." She paused, and the dangerous flames of an idea began to form in her eyes. "You know, if you have access to reports like those, you should let me see them. I can adapt them into a story, like I'm doing with yours!"
"No, no, that'd be a violation," Rathus admonished.
Ruth clucked her tongue in disappointment. "I suppose that's sensible enough, confidentiality is important after all. Still, I didn't think there would be laws against even a princess seeing military records."
The Gun Knight took a sip of his coffee, and shook his head.
"No, I meant more a violation of common decency. It wouldn't be right for me to let anyone else to fall victim to that."
The princess gave him a scathing glare, which he shrugged off with a chuckle. She held the glare for a moment before rolling her eyes.
"Speaking of falling victim," Rathus continued, "I suppose you'll be wanting me to continue the story?"
The Princess gave a nonchalant shrug,
"Oh, only if it wouldn't trouble you any."
In the time it took Ruth to casually reply, she had already torn the journal from her bag, along with a ballpoint pen, and flipped it open to her last line. Rathus glanced at her backpack, which spun on the seat of the chair next to her, reeling with the motion.
"Right," Rathus said slowly. "Picking up where we left off..."
The detritus of the fallen War Golem filled most of the street. The Gun Knights gathered around its body, which was in remarkably solid shape. One arm had cleaved into the side of a building as it fell, and the legs were splayed out behind it. Rathus had half-expected the golem to crumble to pieces, like the arms had done. This looked like it'd be a pain to clean up.
Captain Grimm reloaded her shotgun, sparing the golem one last glance before she turned around, her mind already back on the mission at hand.
"Kugelblitz," she beckoned. The Star Mage floated over to her. "Please tell me our target is still around."
The Star Mage peered in the direction of the Shark's hideout warehouse, her eyes flashing with the signature purple hue of her Star Magic. She chuckled.
"Good news, captain! He's an idiot. He's still in there. Didn't make a run for it when he had the chance. Looks like he's milling about near the entrance."
"Alright." Grimm turned and gestured to the others. "Everybody ready to move up?"
Kugelblitz crossed her arms, and jerked her head over in the direction of Obrez, who was dusting himself off, a metal box held in one hand.
"I'm going to take a look at that Script he pulled out of the golem. I haven't seen a golem move like that before, and now it's got me interested. It might even be useful for the eggheads back home."
Agatha nodded. "Fine, but don't take too long. We might need you to identify our mark from the lineup."
Obrez tossed the box with a smooth underhand snap. Kugelblitz caught it out of the air and casually blasted the end off the box with a beam shot from her fingertip. She waved off Captain Grimm and slid a rolled piece of vellum out of the box.
"I will. Deal with the thing."
The Gun Knights gathered up around their captain, falling into a huddle of sorts. Obrez fell into a squat, wiping his brow of sweat, but ultimately just smearing dusty sweat across his face. He grimaced and reached into his pockets for a handkerchief. Musashi stood nearby, teasing his hair back into place. Rathus dropped into a stiff, tactical one-legged kneeling crouch, looking more out of place than either the Orc dabbing himself with a cambric handkerchief or the young Knight checking his reflection in his dagger.
"Alright, I'll make this quick," Agatha began. "Our target is in that warehouse. I know you're feeling cocky after we dealt with the golem, but that was just a distraction. We still don't know our target's abilities, and he's got a slew of other gangers to potentially aid him. The golem might not be their only, or even their best weapon. They're obviously a lot better equipped than a street gang has any right to be."
Rathus glanced over at Kugelblitz as she surveyed the Script, then back to Captain Grimm.
"I don't want to see any bravado or stupid daredevil shit, got it? We're going to go at this cautiously, and slowly, alright? We left with five people, I want to come back with five people."
"Six, isn't it?" Musashi asked. When Captain Grimm looked up at him in confusion, he gestured towards the warehouse. "Six, because we're bringing our target back alive, yes?"
"Vampires aren't people." Obrez interrupted. He looked over to his friend, his normally cheerful expression now looking like somebody who had just heard a joke that stopped being funny 10 years ago, but your grandparents just found out about it and they keep bringing it up whenever they see you because they really just want to connect to you, so you can't really say anything without being impolite, but come on grandma, we already know he hates Mondays. "They gave that up."
Agatha sighed.
"We came here with five LIVING people, and I want to go back with five living people as well," she clarified.
Musashi grinned and opened his mouth to speak.
"The SAME five living people."
The young prodigy was undeterred, and gave her celebratory finger-guns as she correctly pre-empted him.
"Regardless. They're still holing up in the warehouse. It might be they're just scared, and are working up the courage to make a break for it. Maybe they've got something planned. I don't expect any heavy resistance, but I don't think any of us expected a War Golem either. Our target is still something of a grey area. Woodrow recognized him by description, but seemed unaware that he was a Dracula, let alone what he was capable of, so we have nothing new to go off of. We'll find our target, apprehend him, and get out. Feel free to use as much force as necessary, but avoid completely destroying his remains.
I'll take point," she announced. She stood, surveying the wreckage of the street. The damage became less severe the further out it went, and the street in front of the Shark's hideout was largely untouched, save for the bodies of the gangers Musashi had slain.
"Try to take the rest of the gangers alive, unless they pose a credible threat. Failing that, at least preserve the important-looking ones. We'll need to bring them in for questioning. Once we-"
As she watched, the doors of the warehouse at the end of the street were thrown open, and a crowd of gang members began to spill out onto the street. She swore under her breath, vaulting over a half-broken door which had fallen earlier in the fight.
"Movement! Don't let them get away!"
She sprinted towards the warehouse, with Musashi and Obrez falling into step right behind her. Rathus started to move, then turned back to Kugelblitz. She had unfurled the Script, and was staring at it, her eyes darting from place to place. The young Gun Knight shifted uneasily. Did Captain Grimm want the Star Mage to support them, or was she only asking the Gun Knights to move out?
Kugelblitz made no indication that she would move, instead staring down at the vellum with an expression that was growing darker and darker. Clearly, something about the Script wasn't sitting well with her. Rathus looked nervously after the rest of his team, as they made contact with the gangers.
"Kugelbl-"
"SHH," She hushed him. She flipped the vellum over to check the back for any markings, and began muttering angrily to herself.
Rathus hesitated, and glanced over to the commotion down the street. His fellow Knights had fanned out, and were exchanging fire with the gangers, who had clustered around a large statue of some important, historical asshole or local hero or something. He pointed towards the fight with the surpressed urgency of a small dog that knows it's time for a walk, but is trying its best to be polite.
"Give me a minute," she snapped. He took a few halting steps away, glancing at her, then towards the fight, at a momentary loss of what to do.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Irregular squad had made contact with the gangers, and were cleaning up without too much difficulty.
"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE US, DESSITE DOGS!" one of the gangers shouted. She lifted a large revolver, bringing it to bear with one hand before a sharp impact whipped into the side of it, flinging it from her grip. She stared, dumbfounded at her empty hand for a moment, before quickly going for the dagger on her hip. Another shot took her through the elbow, then a third through her opposite knee. She collapsed onto the ground, howling in pain.
The remaining members of the Sharks watched her as she squirmed amidst the bodies of the gangers killed before. A few had had enough, and threw their weapons down, surrendering.
"Cowards!" one of the higher-ranking members (You could tell based on the number and relative quality of tattoos) shouted, shooting one of the surrendering gangers in the back, shortly before he himself was perforated with bullets. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, as did the next two gangers to lift a weapon against the Gun Knights. Morale finally broke, and the rest of the crew could tell which way the wind was blowing.
Grimm stood with her shotgun at the ready as the gangers disarmed, tossing their various weapons into a pile at her feet. A few guns: some military issue, some built for hunting, a few ship-guns, boarding pistols, and even more thrown-together scrapguns. A small array of knives in varying shapes and sizes, as well as improvised clubs, bludgeons, chains, and even one particularly heavy book, adapted with a short handle.
The next thing to be thrown at her feet was more surprising. A doughy, balding older man, marked on both arms with gang tattoos, and wearing a broken, but poorly mended pair of spectacles. He was bulging with what may be muscles, but looked more pathetic than anything else as he grovelled before her.
"DON'T SHOOT ME!" he pleaded. "Let me go, and you can have the others!"
Musashi laughed. "Negotiation is not one of your skills, is it? Unless my eyes deceive me, we already have the others."
Obrez, who was pacing near the statue, looking over the gangers, held out a hand.
"Let's not be too hasty, my friend. I don't see our target among this crowd."
Agatha stared at the man, then held her gun up and gave a slow circle around the group of surrendered gangers. She reached her starting position, and furrowed her brow.
"You're right, I don't see him here. It might be a trick though. Some Draculas can change shape, so he may be disguised. He might also still be hiding inside the warehouse.
She gestured with a nod of her head. "Obrez. Go check it out. See if he's hiding in the warehouse, or if anybody else is hiding, for that matter."
The Orc gave her a quick salute and switched to his shotgun, heading for the large open loading door of the warehouse.
Musashi braced his rifle behind his neck, hanging both arms over the top of it. Grimm considered chastising him, but knew that even if he appeared relaxed, anybody trying to take advantage of that fact would find themselves unpleasantly surprised by his speed.
"So, how should we root him out from the crowd?" he asked. "Shoot everybody and see who stands back up?"
One of the gangers let out a fearful moan, and Captain Grimm shot Musashi a reproachful look.
"Musashi..."
"I'm just joking, Captain."
"If he's here, then Kugelblitz can..." She turned to look back towards the golem. Kugelblitz still hadn't shown up. What was keeping her? She saw the Dessite still floating near the golem's body, and Rathus lingering about nearby. Captain Grimm sighed. When she'd offered to lead a squad of Gun Knights, she hadn't been expecting to deal with so many... eccentricities. She turned to face the man prostrating himself on the ground.
"Are you surrendering to us because you're the Dracula? That'd make my job a lot easier."
The man blinked in confusion. He turned to look up at her, keeping his hands clasped on the ground in front of him.
"Dracula? What? No, I'm- I'm the one who is controlling the War Golem."
"Was," Musashi corrected.
The golemancer slowly lifted himself to his knees, looking up at Musashi with a glint in his eye. The glint was quickly replaced with fear as the Gun Knight leveled the rifle towards him.
"Odd that you would think bragging about that would endear you to us. Were I a cruder man, I might consider killing you where you stand, for the trouble you've caused."
The golemancer tried and failed to put on a tough face, letting out a chuckle that sounded more like the warble of an exotic and dying bird.
"A s-smart man wouldn't k-kill me. It's in your best interest to keep me alive and happy. We wouldn't want the golem to run wild, now, would we? That'd be a lot of innocent, um, casualties on your conscience."
Captain Grimm and Musashi exchanged a doubtful glance, before stepping to the side, indicating, as if it were not patently obvious, the fallen, gently-smoking bulk of the fallen golem.
"I don't anticipate it running anywhere any time soon," Grimm countered. "As you can see, we've already dealt with it."
"Oh?" the golemancer asked. The doughy man grinned a smile. "Is that what you thought?"
Rathus was getting worried. Kugelblitz had spent the last minute or two inspecting the script, saying nothing except for the occasional, broken utterance as she thought out loud. He wondered for a moment if the Star Mage had maybe been driven mad by the Script. He'd heard of that happening before, but dismissed it as an urban legend. She was clearly frustrated, if nothing else. He shifted his weight, then cleared his throat.
"Is, ah... something wrong, Kugelblitz?"
The Star Mage struck the vellum with the back of her hand, as if the answer to his question was obvious. She shot an irritated look down at him, before seeming to recognize that he was completely out of the loop. She went back to the Script.
"This doesn't... none of this makes any sense."
Rathus considered that, and thought about the most diplomatic way to respond, before settling on one.
"Maybe a specialist might-"
"I don't mean that I can't read it, you idiot. I mean that it doesn't make any sense."
Rathus opened his mouth to apologize, but she cut him off.
"It's... it's not right at all. This isn't a Script for a golem. It's like somebody looked at a Script to animate a golem and only copied the things they thought were important, but it doesn't work like that! There are whole chunks missing in the middle of Declarations, there are entire sections that don't appear, and it's like somebody just broke everything up and shoved chunks of it together at random. This shouldn't be enough to make a golem move."
Rathus scratched the back of his head. He gestured towards the gangers.
"I'm not much of an expert on things like golems, but do you think they maybe could have, y'know, done the Law themselves, without Scripts? Like, put some of the Law down in the Script, but set up the rest the same way you might do for a ward or a projection or something?"
Kugelblitz shook her head. "No, it's too complicated. You'd need a team of Jurors if you wanted to pull something like that off, concentrating the whole time. Even if you did do it that way, it'd be inefficient as hell. You can set up a golem to take commands, or you can set it up to be controlled, but you can only do that after it's been created. The only way to get it moving in the first place is to put the Script somewhere inside the golem."
Rathus nodded, making a mental note to scan through a book about golemancy when he returned to base. It seemed interesting, and he'd been trying to make a habit of skimming books to store for later use. Even if his eidetic memory didn't give him automatic understanding of the texts, he could at least consult them any time he wanted, and 're-read' them when he had free time.
Rathus scratched the back of his neck. "Well, that's interesting and all, but we should probably get back to the others. Maybe the Imperial Doctorum can figure it out." He looked over at the scruffy group of gang members being corralled by the rest of his team.
"Plus, they look like a bunch of amateurs, maybe they just wrote too big and had to put it on two sheets of paper."
Kugelblitz rolled her eyes.
"First off, it's not even paper; you write scrolls on vellum. Second, if you..." She paused and looked down at the Script again.
"Wait..."
A sudden noise interrupted her thoughts, and Rathus whipped around, drawing his gun as the stones behind him began to shift. The pair watched in shock as the golem began to recollect itself, rock flowing from the ground and shifting into place as it raised itself to its full height. Comprehension dawned on the Star Mage's face, and she paled slightly.
"We broke the Script up into multiple fragments!" the golemancer boasted. He smiled as Agatha turned to stare, horror-struck, at the War Golem's reanimation. "We split everything out piecemeal onto a bunch of different scrolls, and scattered it throughout the golem! Added a duplicate copy of each section, too! You'd have to pull out more than half of them before it stops working!"
"That's not how statistics work," Agatha muttered under her breath, although her attention was fixed purely on the golem.
Musashi whistled. "Well, looks like it's ready for round two."
The golemancer sniffed, rising to his feet. Musashi turned and leveled the rifle at him, which the man ignored.
"It's a new technique. Revolutionary, you might say. The boys didn't think it could be done, but with the instructions we got, it was easier than you'd ever think. An indestructible golem. A weapon with no weak spots."
Captain Grimm watched as the golem immediately sprang back into combat, aiming a sluggish swipe towards Kugelblitz. The Star Mage easily evaded the construct, and blasted it with a spell. However, its movements were slowly clarifying, its attacks growing faster and more precise the more it moved.
"Not quite," she replied. "I can think of one weak point."
She whirled around and stepped towards the golemancer, shoving her shotgun under his chin. She continued her stride forward, shoving him backwards with the tip of the gun. "You seem to think you're pretty clever. Turn it off, or you're about to become a lot less clever, real quick."
The golemancer screwed up his eyes and whimpered, but shook his head, standing defiant even in spite of his trembling. "I... I already told you. Killing me won't stop it. It's set up so that if I die, it will rampage. Right now, it's just trying to kill your team, but if you kill me, it'll destroy everything it sees. A rampaging, regenerating, unstoppable golem that won't die even if you tear its Script out."
The golem slammed its fist into the side of a building, tearing away a chunk of brick and jagged wood, which it hurled up at Kugelblitz. She ducked easily out of the way, and the chunk continued its journey, carrying up and over the buildings into the next street, falling out of view and sending up a spray of dust amidst a cacophonous crash.
The golemancer swallowed nervously, steeling himself.
"H-here are my terms. If you meet them, I'll deactivate the golem, and let everybody go free. F-first: You must guarantee that you'll let me go, and that I won't be ki...killed, tortured, or imprisoned. S-ssecond, you will-GLHK."
Agatha blinked as a throwing knife suddenly sprouted from the side of the man's neck. His eyes went wide with shock, and he reached up to touch the blade gingerly with the tips of his fingers. The collar of his shirt began to redden as blood seeped into it, and he tried to mutter something, but Agatha never heard it, as a mouthful of blood burped out of his mouth instead. The man collapsed, and was dead before he hit the ground.
Agatha lifted her gun, and Musashi sprang to attention as they scanned the area. She looked to the rooftops, in the windows, in the doors. Nobody was in sight. As she scanned her memories to trace the knife's trajectory, she realized she hadn't seen it. It had simply appeared in his throat. Did she blink and miss it? She glanced at Musashi, who was staring intently at the gangers. She followed his gaze, and both of them came to the same conclusion in an instant.
One of the gangers had vanished.
Musashi spun on his feet, and began running for a nearby alley, shouting as he ran. Agatha looked beyond him to see a figure in the distance, quickly fleeing the scene. He was too far away for a shotgun. She slid her weapon back into her Holdster, pulling out her autorifle. Musashi was gaining on the figure. She could see its features melting away now, shifting back into the appearance of her target. She raised her gun and fired off, sending three rounds through the chest of her target.
The Dracula ducked down, barely even registering the impact of the shots, before it suddenly leaped, propelling itself up onto the roof of the building in a single bound. Musashi gave pursuit, leaping against the wall of the building opposite to run along its length for a few paces, before leaping and catching the edge of the roof. He scrambled his way up and continued his chase.
Agatha started to move to pursue as well, before suddenly twisting to seize the arm of a ganger who had snuck up behind her, wielding a club. His eyes widened in shock, which was completely pointless because come on dude, what did you fucking expect. She snapped his wrist with one jerk of her arm, then yanked him down and kicked his feet out from under him. She calmly lifted her knee, catching his falling head with a loud THUNK. She released the ganger's wrist, and he stumbled a bit, before she swept him aside with her raised leg. He fell to the side, and she opened fire on a ganger a few feet behind him, who had seized one of the dropped guns, and was in the act of bringing it to bear.
Obrez, meanwhile, was dealing with his own gang of thugs. Some took the opportunity to run for it, while others were making a charming effort to gang up on the Orc Gun Knight.
"Where is Musashi?!" Obrez shouted, punching a dwarf ganger who was menacing him with a meathook.
Agatha gestured in the direction he had gone. "He went off on his own, chasing the damn target. The little asshole is going to get himself killed because he can't listen!"
Meanwhile, Rathus, who was diligently loading a speargun as he dodged the golem's wild swipes, paused, staring up at the construct as it suddenly froze, ceasing its furious assault. The construct began to vibrate, and lifted its hands up to clutch its head.
The Gun Knight cocked his head to one side, before glancing up at Kugelblitz. "Did... did we win? What's it doin'?"
The Dessite woman opened her mouth to speak, but was rudely interrupted by the War Golem, as it threw its head back, and let out a horrendous howl. Rathus flinched back, clutching his ears as the tremulous voice of the golem shook the very air. The few windows which had survived the assault thus far trembled and shattered before the sonic onslaught.
Kugelblitz unplugged her ears as its voice died off. Without even a moment's hesitation, the construct's head rotated a full 180 degrees on its body, to lock onto Rathus. He started, and the golem launched itself backwards towards him. As it flew impossibly UP through the air, it twisted its body, limbs reversing direction, as it brought both hands up from behind its 'back', and down towards the Gun Knight in an earth-shattering two-handed strike. Rathus barely had time to dodge out of the way, and he shouted in pain as he was caught in the spray of jagged rocks sent up from the impact.
Kugelblitz, floating in the air, nodded once and gave a single perfunctory clap, clasping her hands in front of her.
"Alright. Fuck it. That's enough." She lifted her hands, and her Book of Mandates floated up from her waist to meet her, the pages flipping open. Slowly, the Juror began to speak, tracing the shape of a small sphere in front of her, a few centimeters wide. She spoke, and her voice echoed with the authority of Law.
"I hereby DECLARE my Authority as a JUROR, and by Witness of the Judge and the World do I exert my WORD and INTENT to set into motion these changes."
[Book of Zoning: Section 1.c.i: "Let the Domain be defined thus: that the LAW and its agents may declare a space, such that it is determined and recognized by WORD as per the preceding mandates. By the authority of its foundation, Let this Domain be ascribed its properties, and its bylaws, and all manners of Law not covered by the universal aegis of LAW."]
Kugelblitz traced the boundary, and as her voice echoed, the small sphere began to glow with a faint light, a dim blue outline around the area within.
"I hereby CLAIM Authority over the space enclosed and indicated by my hands. Let be defined my Domain as the spherical area with a radius of 4 centimeters, centered relatively equidistant from my hands, and my own position."
The shape in front of the Star Mage solidified, and jumped slightly, snapping to a position in front of her, and adjusting itself smoothly and effortlessly as her hands moved.
Rathus ran at full speed as the golem trailed behind him, tearing up the cobbles with its claws, dragging them through the shattered street like a child running their fingers through sand.
"-be augmented such that no substance nor energy shall pass from within to beyond its boundary.
[Book of Bindings: Section 1.g.ix.8: "And as all things sprang from the core of creation, so shall they be drawn back together, such that all things draw unto themselves the sum of all other things. With respect to themselves shall their force be determined by their significance, and by their distance."]
I hereby DECLARE: Let Amended Continuously Be the Gravitational Constant within the boundaries of my Domain, multiplicatively by a factor of two, to repeat every second.
I hereby DECLARE-"
"We need to go after Musashi!" Agatha shouted. "The target takes priority!" She held a ganger by the collar of his shirt, punching him with her other hand. A ganger charged up behind her and slammed a two-by-four over her head, shattering it. She spun and elbowed the ganger in the stomach, tossing aside the man she held, as two more gangers crowded after her.
"The War Golem-" Obrez shouted, "Kugelblitz and Rathus-"
"They can handle it!" Grimm growled. She held up an arm to block a swung chain, which wrapped around her wrist. The woman wielding it looked triumphant for a moment, before Agatha seized the chain and lifted her off her feet, tossing her and sending her rolling.
"Kugelblitz might be a smug military brat, but she can..." Agatha glanced in the direction of Kugelblitz, and froze, as another ganger pulled a pistol on her. She pulled her dagger as he fired three times, deflecting one shot, the other two going wide. She flicked her arm and threw her knife into the ganger's face, all the while only moving her arm. The rest of her body was stuck staring intently at the glowing sphere in front of the Star Mage.
"Oh no."
She turned to Obrez. "Deal with the rest of this rabble, then go after Musashi."
The Gun Knight saluted her, then turned to the rabble in question, who stared, bewildered after Grimm as she disengaged and ran in the direction of the golem.
"Alright. You heard the lady. As much fun as I have playing patty-cake with you all, my friend is needing help. I will count to three, and then anybody who still has a weapon: I will shoot."
The Sharks hesitated, holding their weapons at the ready, a few glancing at the pile where a few weapons had still been unclaimed.
"One," Obrez began, lifting his minigun.
Agatha ran towards the golem, cursing under her breath. Ahead of her, Rathus fired a speargun at the Golem's shoulder. The construct watched the spear impact it, before tearing out the section of its body it had wedged into, and hurling it back at the Gun Knight. Captain Grimm plunged her hand into her belt pouch, and pulled out her own Warrant of Release. She dug her thumb under the wax seal, popping it off and unfurling it as she ran.
"KUGELBLITZ!" Rathus shouted. He had dropped his harpoon-gun, and pulled out a pump-action shotgun. He fired wildly behind him as the golem lopped past him, swinging its arms and casually obliterating the building next to it. "HOW THE HELL DO WE STOP THIS THING?!"
The Star Mage did not answer, her eyes were glowing as she floated above the fight, and she had braced her hands, clawlike, around her sphere. From each finger, a beam of energy shone into the Domain, meeting roughly in the center to form a brilliant mass of magical power. She seemed fully intent on her casting, and did not even seem to register the Gun Knight as he spoke.
The Gun Knight dove out of the way as the golem turned its attention to the building. Its hand had become stuck, worked up in some pipes, and it reached its other arm into the building to begin tearing the warehouse and its contents to shreds. Rathus rolled as he hit the street, ducking behind a half-broken crate. Sitting amidst the box's contents (A mess of bronze statuettes of fancy dogs), he caught his breath, temporarily out of the view of the construct.
Rathus reached into his belt pouch, feeling for his own Warrant. The golem turned, lifting the ruined mess of a steel tank, steaming with some caustic fluid. Green ichor dripped from holes punched in the side, as well as out of the spindly pipes which had been bent and snapped off when the golem withdrew it. The construct lifted the tank above its head, preparing to hurl it into the street, moments before a blur of gold slammed into its midsection.
Captain Grimm slammed into the golem like the fist of an angry god, sending the construct stumbling backwards back into the wreckage of the warehouse. The tank slipped from its hands and fell onto it, sending up clouds of steam and eliciting another piercing scream as the golem was sprayed with the tank's contents. Agatha, unimpressed, seized a steel girder from the wreckage and heaved it up, grunting with effort. Her Vow had been activated, and lines of golden light cris-crossed her body. As she lifted the massive steel beam, they flared up, shining brighter. The Imperial Knight brought the beam crashing down on the War Golem, pinning it temporarily beneath the weight.
She held a hand out to help Rathus to his feet, then turned to look at Kugelblitz. The glow from the Star Mage's casting was growing more and more intense, shining bright enough that looking directly at it was painful.
"KUGELBLITZ!" Grimm shouted, "ABORT YOUR CASTING!"
Kugelblitz floated amidst a purple aura of energy, as she focused more and more power into the small sphere, which seemed capable of containing the ever-increasing energy of her blast. The energy, undulating in waves within the sphere, began to swirl, and condense into a miniature sun, blinding with its brilliance.
"DO YOU HEAR ME?! WE CAN HANDLE THE GOLEM! STOP YOUR SPELL! THIS IS A DIRECT ORDER!"
Grimm began running towards the Mage, hoping to get close enough to be heard as the star within the Domain continued to grow brighter, continued to shrink. Energy beamed off from Kugelblitz's fingers, blasting into the sphere. She seemed to relax a bit as the star inside began to stabilize into a more solid shape.
"ABORT THE CASTING!"
Kugelblitz looked up, blinking as if torn from a daze. She stared down at her commanding officer, confused for a moment, then back to her sphere.
"ABOR-"
The star was shrinking, and flickering with light. With one final flash, the magical sun gave up the fight for good, and collapsed into itself. The surroundings seemed to twist around it, as the brilliant shine was replaced by a total void of light. The energy she had poured into the Domain, unable to escape, and tied down by the ever-increasing gravity within the bounds of her Law, had been compressed into a single, infinitesimal point. A hungry tear in space from which no light, no matter could escape.
A Black Hole.
Agatha froze in her tracks, staring with numb resignation at the result of Kugelblitz's 'Specialty'.
"Fuck."