When Zef gingerly pulled it out of the box, they saw that beneath the so-called fotoapparat sat a thick tome and some other things, like a deck of square cards much similar to those on the table in shape. She pulled one out of the box and slid it into a hitherto unseen slot on the top of the device, clicking a button that made the lightgem emit a slight flash - dimming to near-black before she stepped back and raised it to her eyes.

“Shouldn’t need any more light. Right, now just try to hold still… ” she ordered, cautiously setting the machine on a shelf and cranking a dial on the side that began to audibly tick down before she herself joined them at the table. Makhus and Sigmund had both had their photos taken before using an older version of the same invention, and so froze in place like statues. Zel just decided to casually lean on the table and stare into the aperture with her ever present self-assured smug smile as Zef wrapped her arms around her waist, nesting her head into her side. Her shot up, broken-ribbed side.

There was a surprisingly loud CLACK and the fotoapparat emitted a series of rapid chattering sounds, then spat the photo out of a slot on its front end with a small puff of Fog.

Zef took the device and from it the photo, cautiously nestling the former back into its box while shaking the latter about as if to make it cool down. It was… Clear. Not just clear, but in colour, even if they were a little off and washed out.

“How much did that cost?” questioned Sigmund.

“Dunno,” Zef admitted. “I was going to pay in sovereigns, but I asked if they’d take valuables. Ended up paying with a fist-sized chunk of white jade. I wanted something worthy of recording the rise of a new Heroic Family, the store owner just nodded and walked into the back room and hauled this thing out. Said it was the first in a limited run of hand-made pieces, and that they wouldn’t be ready for full production for another decade at least. He wouldn’t sell it to me unless I signed an actual contract to take good care of it, but at least that same contract promised free repair work and part replacements.”

“Well, I’d certainly say you got yourself something worthy,” added Makhus, who had pulled the fotoapparat right back out and opened a back compartment, staring into it. Zef’s eye shot wide open at the sight, and she snatched the device right out of his hands, putting it back in the box as she admonished him, “If it’d gone off right then and there it would have burned your eyes out, you absolute brain champion.”

The next day, a familiar messenger interrupted Zel’s peaceful breakfast of reheated blue brisket. It had been as dry as shoe leather until she poured one of Makhus’s newfangled “Chef’s Alchemist” formulae, a syrupy, cloudy liquid with bubbles of fat floating within. It was labeled with some formulaic information, above which were the words “MAKES MEAT NOT DRY”.

It certainly did as advertised, rapidly soaking into the steaming-hot cut and almost making it puff up in appearance, almost like watching it dry out in reverse.

Somewhat excitingly however, the messenger turned out to be none other than young Halxian. He still had that haughty look plastered over his smug gob, but there was something different. The young man handed over a letter alongside a rolled-up newspaper, grinning, “I thought you would especially want a look at the front page.”

An eyebrow raised, Zelsys tucked the letter into her trousers and unrolled the paper. A gruesome headline took up the lion’s share of the front page, with an equally gruesome photograph to go with it.

It was something that… Probably had been human, at some point, maybe. There were bones, strands of muscle, tendons, veins, hair, organs, but it was all apart, all centered on a half-destroyed jade talisman in one of the corpse’s hands. Not like someone had exploded, but more like they just up and… Well, the headline said it best.

TREASONOUS SENATOR UNRAVELS JUST LIKE HER PLANS

She skimmed over the rest of the article, finding perhaps two or three interesting sections, one among which was disappointingly unsurprising.

“...whilst Luo Mu left behind only muddy footprints at the scene, which ended so abruptly as to suggest that he vanished into thin air. He is suspected to have used a transportation talisman, suggesting divine ties to high levels of Pateirian government. As of the writing of this article, civilian militias are still on the hunt, and several bounties have already been posted for information that would lead to the capture or death of this terrorist.”

The article seemed to end halfway down the page, just above where the paper was folded. Unfolding it revealed an equally more interesting headline.

KARGARIAN CARAVAN SET TO ARRIVE IN THE COMING DAYS

Besides the headline though, it wasn’t a whole lot of anything. Just five columns of the writer going on and on about the potential economic impact of such a caravan, how the caravan would likely be too large to fit into city limits and would thus occupy the surrounding fields. The article went on to speculate on how much above market value the caravaneers would pay landowners for the destroyed harvest, as if there was no doubt whether they would pay the farmers in the first place.

The young man had a curious look on his face when Zel let down her newspaper. Like he expected an insult.

Zel put on a grimace equally smug to his own, asking, “What are you waiting for, you want me to beat your ass again?”

“Of course, but not today,” he smugged right back, almost a little too eagerly. “I know of the deal you made with father. What better way to defeat you than to fight you every single day?”