Chapter 24: 22 – Traits

She’d chosen to cover her top half with a completely unfitting dark greyish-blue dress shirt, clearly one of Zef’s pieces of clothing. It was honestly impressive that she’d managed to make it even remotely fit - the usually loose sleeves were rolled up and wrapped tightly around her arms, and being unable to button it up, she’d just tied it together at the bottom in a manner that functionally made it conceal even less skin than her usual chest-wraps. It had the exact opposite effect to her chest-wraps, exaggerating her already considerable bust. Her lack of modesty was just to be expected at this point.

Makhus shook his head and blinked a few times, feeling the bulk of the minor overdose already fading as he looked from one woman to the other and blurted out, “Probably look zoinked out of my gourd, huh?”

Between the dilated pupils, the twitchiness, and the light-yellow staining around his mouth, Makhus certainly did look the way he described himself. They walked in on him hunched over a glass tangle, pouring what one could only assume to be the unfinished Necrobeast Serum into that weird heart-shaped flask as he stared at the door.

His eyes twitched all over the place the moment he caught sight of them, immediately followed by him looking them each in the eyes in turn and apologetically mentioning his frankly comical state.

Zel couldn’t help chuckling at the sight, while Zef let out an amused sigh. 

“You forgot why you’re supposed to take smaller doses, didn’t you?” she laughed, prompting the alchemist’s left eye to twitch uncontrollably. With each passing second he became less and less twitchy, coming across as little more than high-strung by the time he shot back: “Yeah yeah, real funny.”

He put the flask down, wiped off his face, and walked over to the table nearest to the door, which he’d cleared of other glassware to lay out the blood samples and testing equipment. Still very much in the middle of an alchemically-energized headspace, the alchemist energetically beckoned them over and asked a simple question.

“As I said before, I need to know what new traits you’ve gained, as well as anything possibly mutagenic you might’ve encountered - potions, monsters, suspicious arcane devices, you name it,” explained the alchemist, leaning on the edge of the table with an expectant look in his eyes.

Zel and Zef exchanged looks, and the markswoman began with: “No new traits, I’m pretty sure. I did get a neat little mechanized reloader for my gun as well as, well… Second eye.”

“Second eye?” Makhus raised an eyebrow. Zef opened her left eye, revealing the polished orb of black quartz which sat in the socket. A pinprick of light appeared on its surface, darting around in concert with the movement of her living eye. A moment later she closed it, adding, “Gets difficult to keep it open for long, as the dungeon core said it would. It’s not exactly a new trait, but worth noting.”

Makhus was confused. Not because of the eye - of all artifacts, Philosopher’s Eyes were some of the few preserved in notable numbers. Modern equivalents like the Brass Eye were partially based on surviving examples, after all. No, it was Zef’s casual demeanor towards the eye. She’d always been extremely cagey about anything to do with that eye socket, to the point where he had once had to pin her down to drop antiseptic elixir into the socket after the socket had gotten infected. 

While they spoke like this, Zel casually sauntered over the table and leaned on it, curiously examining the collection of testing apparatus. Flasks, beakers, test tubes, seals and sheets of parchment with old seals in even older ink. 

“...And it doesn’t bother you? Being a foreign object, and all,” he prodded, only to be shut down immediately. She replied simply, “It’s fine now, don’t worry. It certainly helped that this one doesn’t have a metal spike that grips the optic nerve.”

He couldn’t argue. Installing the Brass Eye was a harrowing process for all involved even with the aid of deadening agents. A part of him was relieved that she hadn’t picked up any mutations out there. That very same part of him also knew that the story was entirely different when it came to Zelsys.

The moment he turned his attention to that absolute unit of a woman her silver eyes snapped up to meet his, a smug grin already taking shape on her face. Had her teeth always been this pointy? 

She raised her Tablet, and it trailed Fog as its projection glyph flickered to life. It briefly showed the ghostly shape of the attribute readout, only to instantly change to the trait list. 

 

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TRAITS

 

Slayer’s Instinct

Fog-breathing

Advanced Great-cleaver Expertise (Saw-cleaver Spec.)

Gunmanship (Arm-cannon Spec.)

Osmotic Essentia Absorption

Metabolic Alkahest

Beast Butchering Arts (Unique)

Storm Engine

Engine of Retribution

 

“Whu…” he squinted, reading the list again and again. 

“I split a lightning bolt during the part of our trek that went through the Living Storm’s territory,” she began, self-satisfaction just absolutely dripping from every word. It didn’t necessarily sound like she was trying to lord anything over him, but she made no attempt to hide just how proud she really was about her achievements. 

“The Dungeon also refined the Azoth of that other monster I dealt with, I believe it was called a “Wendigo” and a “Maneater of Retribution”. I got “Stormsurge” from the lightning incident which later advanced to “Storm Engine”, and “Engine of Retribution” from the Maneater. Slayer’s Instinct advanced from Survivor’s Instinct, if that matters. I… Think that’s everything? I’ve got some new techniques, but they’re just applications of those new traits.”

Makhus couldn’t bring himself to respond - he just looked up at her, then back down at the Tablet to re-read the trait list. Metabolic Alkahest and Osmotic Essentia Absorption stood out, in that they absolutely did not belong together. He didn’t know why, he just knew that somewhere in the deepest recesses of his memory, he knew that these traits came from sources that would nowhere in nature crossbreed. Perhaps two feuding noble houses? The memory escaped his grasp. Perhaps Sig knew.

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