“They’ve made themselves easy to spot so far…” he shrugged his shoulders… Or his stumps, she supposed. “And I’m not about to cross the border to start hunting rice farmers for sport. Besides, deserving or not, if they’re actively trying to kill me, I don’t exactly have a choice.”

Zelsys didn’t see anything truly wrong with that response, at least considering that it was obvious Vaceran was entirely honest in his claim… But there was something there, something he omitted, something she wanted to dig out: “The first answer, about killing bugmen. You were going to say something else. What is it?”

“I thought you could only tell if I told an outright lie… Alright, fine. I’m a three-degrees-of-separation C-Prop Asset - that is to say, I work for someone, who works for someone, who works for the C-Prop Bureau. I asked for an assignment that would be the most likely to have me up against Patey noblemen or commanders, and they assigned me to join your sect - join, and nothing more.”

Though, once again, he seemed to be completely earnest, going by her gut feeling, Zel remained suspicious, “...Why’re you telling me this? Sounds like awfully sensitive information to spill at a simple question.”

“Because I was instructed to inform you of my relationship to the Bureau either way, specifically to prove that I do not have untoward intentions - my assignment, as far as I can tell, was purely to facilitate my own goals. I am even willing to submit myself to a full examination by your sect physician to prove that I do not carry any sort of covert recording device or deep-insertion mental programming.”

“Why would the Counter-propaganda Bureau want one of their people in my sect? The only reasons that come to mind are espionage or outright information theft, I doubt they’re stupid enough to try and assassinate me…” Zel wondered, deciding to keep an eye on Vaceran and, more importantly, question Strolvath on the matter.

“Alright, so be it. I have one more question, then,” she conceded, pulling out Vaceran’s dossier and reading off the small traits list in the corner. “What exactly is your “Fist of Eternity” trait?”

Without missing a beat, Vaceran took a deep breath, curious magenta light flashing across his stonebound stumps in serpentine, spiraling patterns, seemingly slithering out of them as strands of this light slowly wove together into two disproportionately massive arms that floated over him, the right’s closed fist held in the left in a knuckle-cracking gesture. He turned on a heel and lunged forward as if to throw a long punch at one of the log dummies behind him, and the right phantom arm shot forward like a cannonball, sending splinters flying to a curious “VWOOM” noise.

“I… Will not expound on how I came about possessing this ability. Not here, not now - it would take too long,” he said, his phantom arms slowly dissipating, starting where they would’ve attached to the shoulder.

Zel didn’t see a reason for any further questioning, the display way more than enough. A grin having already taken hold on her face, she reached out a hand. The remaining forearm of his phantom right arm floated downward, gripping her hand in a grip that sent overpowering pins-and-needles through her hand, before it dissipated into magenta ribbons.

“Welcome to the Newman Family.”

“So this is your Tactical Supremacy Asset, old man?” Vaceran thought to himself.

Not much longer after Zefaris had departed Collier’s store, the gunsmith returned to her workshop in the back, but she did no real work - she couldn’t, her mind occupied by the knowledge that city officials would come along soon for a demonstration of her products. She was certain that this would at the bare minimum result in a contract for a few thousand of her guns, it was just that the gunsmith worked in such a way that any scheduled event made her unable to truly delve into her working trance.

So it was that she did menial tasks and waited. Besides the Tyrant Munchers, she had an entirely original and genially simple line of break-action shotguns, as well as a clever device designed to give them repeating-shot capability at a much lower price. It functioned on a simultaneously simple and complex mechanism, allowing an ejected shell to trip a lever that in turn made a spring-loaded carrier with another shell slam into place, loading the shell before the closing of the break-action reset the contraption. Their operation was a little finicky, it wasn’t nearly as swift and agile as the slide-action on the Tyrant Munchers, but that was one of the tradeoffs for being so much cheaper.

The time came more quickly than she had expected, as Collier had unintentionally delved into menial chores in the same way she usually did with her serious work. Now was the time to put on her other salesman mask, the one she had meticulously carved to impress officials and noblemen who knew neither jack nor shit about guns. She’d already set up the display pieces behind the counter, now she just had to walk out and do the song and dance.

Senators Grepeiros and Staznalbu at least knew enough about firearms to conceive of the tremendous advantage bestowed by repeating capability, and the concealability of the folding-type Tyrant Muncher when she walked in and whipped the shotgun out from under her coat in a split-second, theatrically aiming it at the governors before firing off seven shots into the ceiling. She’d loaded the shells such that they did no more than shoot sparks out of the muzzle, making this perfectly safe. Her favorite part weren’t the sparks, but the flying, smoking brass arcing over her shoulder and the distinct KER-CLACK KER-CLACK KER-CLACK of the slide-action.

“Seven shots of high-impact firepower,” she beamed at the dumbstruck senators. “Two ammunition options - eight-point-three millimeter shot, and twenty-millimeter rifled slugs. With my improved powder formulation, hardened steel shot and slugs, self-contained cartridges, and simplified kineto-glyphic barrel treatment, even if one for some reason has to reload their shells with standard paper cartridges, they will perform better than they would out of a Type-1 sparklock rifle. Plus…”