"This thing is ridiculous," Gideon chuckled, "Fellas, look at this." he showed them her weapon design.
Mason shook his head, "Nah, with her powers, it's doable."
A few murmurs of agreement before Gideon turned it back to her, "If you can manage this, I'll take it to Officer Chief Mihai Hobbes meself."
"Please do," she inclined her head.
"Prove yourself on the missions for Seamine and we'll see how fast we can get the papacy smiths on it."
"That's not necessary-"
"When I look at this and look at you, I can't imagine what an ordinary weapon would suffer through, a Hashtar weapon will be required," he said flatly, "For now, blunt weapons and polearms. Go pick out a few, we've got another shipment arriving tomorrow afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
He nodded, "Get her a horse, she's required at Tolmyr's next."
On the trot over to Tolmyr's lair in the mage tower, she looked into the bag to find pieces of the creature that sliced her in half. She half expected the tentacles to start wiggling— Tentacles! Before she popped one into her mouth and devoured it, she reminded herself that there was still work to be done. She turned the horse to go back to the Inn. Dashed up to her room and stashed the bag under her desk, but she took a piece of the carapace, increased her mass to snap it into swallowable parts and consumed those instead. Once she was on horseback again, she looked over her stats.
Status:
Devour abilities:
Ability: Ethereal shadow hands: 1.5 hours
Lesser+ agility: 2.5 hours
Lesser+ stamina: 2.5 hours
Lesser+ strength: 2.5 hours
Carapace shell value: high
She imagined a hand raised in the air, from her shoulder, a shadow hand emerged and raised an open palm. She waved the hand, made a fist, and made it do silly hand signs. Summoned another to make them do jutsus from Naruto before allowing them to dissipate. That was incredibly useful. To gain it as a permanent ability, she'd have to eat dozens of them. But that surely was worthwhile. Even its mana cost was minimal, she barely noticed the shift except for the stat informing her she'd used point five per cent.
More labourers moved through the street today, carrying away rubble and shredded pieces of armour. Some of the men and women wore black... sackcloth? Oh, they're in mourning for their lost people from yesterday. She didn't feel a hint of guilt; she had her own reasons for being here, but if she were stronger, maybe they wouldn't have to suffer so much. Alas, that is a ridiculous burden and maybe a piss take. These men and women know their world far better than some skank from London does. She rubbed the back of her horse gently as she heeled it forward to a canter. She should've asked someone in logistics to nick her a guitar...
Once Ammy arrived at the tower, she swung down and handed the reins to a guard who was rather handsome, gave him a smile as he mounted up and rode off without a care for her leering. Probably married.
She went inside and downstairs to where Tolmyr lurked and found the man and a group of his witchy folk up to their paper pushing and fascination with the dissected creature's body under glassware. Maybe even something that looked like a microscope, if at all basic. But a sign that this world was pushing for revolution, and they needed guns, she had a basic idea of how they worked from YouTube and disassembly. How would they fare against demons with the material available? Not a bloody clue, mate.
"Mister Wizard Tolmyr," she said from the other side of the room, "I'm here."
He whirled around and pointed at her, "Wondrous, go wait in my office with your comrades, Carbyne."
"Why is that my name?"
The mages all shared a look before he spoke, "It was the name we were given by the Star used to bridge your summoning."
"Alright," she said and made her way over. A star to bridge my summoning? The more she learned, the more questions she had, but these people were scientists at war. Wholly dedicated, except this war was against a clear evil, so it was best she catch them on days off to ask questions. If they believed in such a thing.
She knocked on the door to Tolmyr's room, and Akatsuki pulled it open and nodded before stepping inside to allow her to enter. Those dark eyes still held the possessive look of a spider.
"Good morning, Carbyne."
"Good morning, Akatsuki," she muttered, unable to stop thinking about the woman's smell. She had just dominated Chelsham but was reduced to a little schoolgirl with a crush on the popular girl Akatsuki! Oh my God, this is ridiculous!
She sat down beside Sabreman, and Akatsuki took the seat next to her.
"Last night we suffered the loss of twenty," Akatsuki said, "May they rest until the raising."
"Yeah, I hope so."
"Nonsense," Sabreman said, "If these things were true, God would not allow us to have to deal with supernatural threats."
Amelia decided it was best to say nothing.
"You should hope that is not true," Akatsuki chuckled, "Because if it is, and we are truly in the nadir, then the first person to die is you."
"Stop this nonsense Akatsuki. We only win because of our ability to wage war."
"And what of the divine arts?"
"Undefined, not yet understood. Once the application of the sciences is furthered, it will be decidedly renamed." Sabreman glared at her.
She simply laughed.
"What do you think, Carbyne."
"I'm a woman from another world, I don't know anything."
"Fair enough," Sabreman relented.
The door swung open to Tolmyr with another sack that smelled of that plastic-metal scent of the carapace and tentacles. Amelia presented open hands, and he chucked it for her. She opened the sack inside to see more tentacles and shell pieces.
"We've decided that these are corroded lifeforms of demons and other typical life forms of our world," he said, "To be frank, our theory is a corroded womb rebirths the melding of creatures. Our worst fear is that they are directly born from demonic pairings, and we're facing an unprecedented threat. Naturally, they're flame resistant, the hard shells are being sent back to Dorcus for further development of new arms to beat them down, but fortunately, as we favour blunt weapons against their ilk, we are already set... and we have the greatest blunter of them all." he gestured to Ammy. "Our best pyrokineticists will become the standard against them, but blunt force is the most reliable. Collapse their exoskeletons, rupture their organs and feed them to Carbyne."
She nodded in agreement as she snapped off more of the carapace and swallowed it.
He snapped his fingers, "The devour skill improves quickly when used on freshly dead or living non-human creatures."
"What about the heretics?" Akatsuki's hand rested on her long knife with a smirk.
"Ephem's worshippers," he said, "They've been observed in other areas where dungeons are rumoured to be, kill on sight. No mercy. Corruption cannot be allowed to spread regardless of how they postulate and preach peace. You are free and clear, Akatsuki."
"Sounds good," Amelia said as she ate another piece.
Status:
Devour abilities:
Ability: Ethereal shadow hands: 3 hours
Lesser+ agility: 4 hours
Lesser+ stamina: 4 hours
Lesser+ strength: 4 hours
"We're calling the creatures Ephesh, be careful. Blessings upon you three, move out. New gear is at the dungeon guard, and take your couple of hours to prepare properly."
Akatsuki flashed her that stare.