So it was that the Newman Sect’s Elder and Willowdale’s Provisional Governor spoke on the matters of people who might be able and willing to aid in snuffing out Ubul.

From those she had met in the old church fighting pit such as Berga, to those likely to agree such as the Mercenary, and even the less likely options like Kanbu. Strangely, Estoras seemed thoroughly convinced that Kanbu would refuse, but nevertheless encouraged Zelsys to ask him for help; “On the one-in-a-thousand chance he agrees.”

Meanwhile, at the sect…

Zefaris had spent a good chunk of the day going through all the different prototype ammunition and powders Collier had given her, as well as testing various loads. The first stretch had been simply sorting out the normal powders, the stable ones, whose formulations were only “Low Arcane” - such as the Ignis-enriched black powder that made up the backbone of the Ikesian munitions supply chain, the elemental enrichment allowing it to burn more rapidly while producing higher pressures and a fraction of the visible smoke.

Conversely, there were other powder variants, labeled as “Enriched”, “Nitro”, “Turbo”, and “Hyper”.

Again, and again, and again, meticulously recording the ratio of powder to projectile in a mundane paper journal, alongside their general characteristics described in plain words - how the gun felt being shot, what it did to the target block, et cetera.

Her testing was interrupted by the Mercenary, the enigmatic man’s strange figure unmistakable as he passed the barrier without impedance. Upon her questioning him, he answered that Zelsys had made contact with him about his joining the sect and that he had figured she’d be here by now, then asked if he should come back later. After some consideration, Zefaris decided that it was no issue if he stayed out of the main building. As befitted a professional, the Mercenary simply agreed and said he had been itching to take one of the “clockwork mooks” for a spin, which turned out to be one of the mechanized target dummies that could move in place and simulate an opponent to some degree.

She didn’t pay him any mind besides making sure that he wasn’t trying to get through the great doors, despite the fact under different circumstances she would’ve been all over that fascinating breechloader of his.

A little later still Makhus came along, with his belt and a sword that decidedly did not look like his old warknife… Where’d he get that? It looked like an authentic Black Horse Family sabre, but Zefaris didn’t remember seeing a single weapon in the sect. In fact, that was strange, was it purely because neither her nor Zelsys had bothered to seek out where the sect had stored its weapons? It didn’t matter after all, it was just a nice mundane sword. Following a brief exchange of information between the three of them, the two men took to one another surprisingly quickly, the Mercenary expressing a combination of excitement and amusement at the fact Makhus had, and Zefaris remembered this word for word: “One of those temperamental masked hero belts.”

Zef certainly tried to focus on just doing her testing, but she kept getting distracted by the two of them, the Mercenary insistently encouraging the swordsman-alchemist to try manifesting the full suit while Makhus repeatedly - and with increasingly lessening resolve - insisted that he was supposed to slowly build up to the full suit. It was not until the Mercenary half-jokingly called Makhus a pussy that the alchemist snapped, operated the belt, and was enveloped in a glowing vortex. When it cleared, he was doubled over on the ground clad in mechanical armor, but audibly struggling to move and swearing. His right arm - which was distinct and visibly modified with phial receptacles at the elbow to facilitate his reckless alchemical technique - was the only limb he moved without issue.

With a laugh, the Mercenary whacked him on the helmet with his wooden mace and backed off, clearly trying to provoke the alchemist - which, much to the Mercenary’s amusement, incensed Makhus enough to power through the pain and charge after him, only to lose his balance when his own strength in the full suit turned out to be harder to control than the swordsman had expected. Despite visibly exerting far more force with every movement, the Mercenary’s clear advantage in experience allowed him to run circles around the younger man.

Finally, once at last Zefaris had gotten to what she considered to be the practical hottest load that her wrist could bear - one which she was quite sure could rip a hole even into a real tank or Ubul, given the right projectile - she finally moved onto the special bullets.

Some were simply more advanced mundane alloys - from simple steel balls to shaped composite slugs with hard penetrators in the center and softer alloy making up the body of the bullet, or bullets made up of lead but jacketed with copper.

Others - such as the Mogralt Alloy Burst Ball - were more exotic in nature, alchemicals meticulously suspended in alloy. The aforementioned special bullets were the most common of the lot, and they were also the first Zefaris tested, loading the dreaded Atrine-enriched Turbo Powder. She’d fired Atrine a few times before, and remembered its painful kick fondly, considering the tendency of Atrine-loaded ammo to explode heads rather than put holes through them even with a solid lead slug.

Those loads, however, were barely half as many grains as this one, and she was sure that powder was categorized as “Nitro”.

She measured out the grains, and gingerly seated the line-covered ball the colour of corroded bronze in Pentacle’s chamber, ramming it down, taking aim a good distance away from her notes. The lines carved into its surface shape were specific, a two-pronged spiral pattern.

She pulled back the hammer.

Click.

A pull of the trigger.

CLANG

Immense recoil surged up her arms and pushed her backward a good half-meter and a ring of blinding-white fire followed from Pentacle’s muzzle. The Burst Ball’s semi-arcane makeup slid right into criticality as it exited the barrel, undergoing a critical reaction wherein its constituent parts were destabilized and violently reacted, transmuting into a semi-coherent mass of destructive essentia - a blazing ball of orange trailing two spiraling tails like a comet. It ripped across the courtyard and carved into a cold-iron target block, burrowing into its target even well after it should have stopped. The seething mass ripped into the metal like a mighty drill, spraying molten cold-iron in a spiraling pattern for a short few seconds before it finally died, leaving a gaping, spiraling pit in the block.