Halxian braced to try pulling her off her feet while holding up his spear as an obvious defense to stop her rushing in, but Zelsys clearly foresaw that he would try this, and so instead rushed in anyway, turning her torso to an unnatural degree while channeling Graze Pulse so that his weapon slipped off regardless. This same turning motion was the means by which she generated the power behind a single, long punch, and the next moment, the nobleman’s inheritor emitted a truly comical wheezing sound accompanied by a cloud of Fog as the breath was forced from his lungs. Halxian crumbled before her, falling onto all-fours and coughing as he regained his breath, his weapon shifting back to its natural shape and his bandage re-wrapping itself.

“I’d say that’s good enough, as long as you don’t treat real combat like an exhibition,” the young man heard from above, and when he looked up, he saw an armored hand outstretched towards him. He instinctively wanted to reject it, but he forced himself to grudgingly accept help offered. Curiosity overpowered pride, and he questioned: “How did you…?”

Zel openly answered him, “Turn that far? Partially an alchemically purified Necrobeast Azoth, partially total body control derived from the Storm-Soul and Despot of Self Cultivation branches. I’d suggest building on what you have rather than chasing one obscure facet of my overall fighting style, but the Despot of Self might do your self-control some good. Remind me to lend you the scroll once this Ubul business is done with…”

BRRING

BRRRRING

Unfortunately, she still had things to do in the narrow time window still remaining, as her pocket watch so sharply reminded her. So it was that she left the recruits to their own devices under Ozmir’s and Zef’s watch for a while, riding off to where “The War Criminal” was supposedly known to make his hideout. It was on the outskirts of the north-eastern district, within the bowels of an abandoned building. She wagered it to be an old forge or manufactory, going by the wide street and the spacious construction with the signs of rail systems and other mechanization from before the war still present.

It was deathly quiet, unsettlingly so, and a sense of possible danger churned in her stomach. Making her way through the once-busy manufactorium, following alongside mechanical conveyor belts, great dust-speckled presses and bizarre mechanisms designed to finagle the laws of material science and alchemy into producing daily objects at a slightly cheaper overhead than the competition - now silent, pristine, waiting to be reawakened or scrapped. She followed the dim light of half-dead lightgems and the sound of human activity, until eventually coming upon him in the basement.

A man’s figure reclined on an old sofa, the tracks of its having been tagged-in still visible in the grime that covered the floor, his feet kicked up on a low-set workbench covered in tools, parts, and alcohol, flanked by a wheeled industrial table filled with and covered by personal effects.

The War Criminal’s head was pressed down to something on the aforementioned workbench, his left arm busy with a soldering iron cabled to a whirring, makeshift Ignis generator on the ground. A cigarette was nestled in the corner of his mouth, an ashtray full of stubs right next to whatever he was working on. His raised right hand already pointed a strange revolver at Zel’s head when she entered his sightline, its sparklock construction looking like an old high-bore pepperbox that had been cut down and rebuilt as a contemporary revolver by a moderately skilled gunsmith, in the sense that it at least looked like a real gun.

“Not one more step,” he uttered, cocking back the hammer as he raised his head to stare her down, his eyes glistening in the low light like a wild animal’s. His starkly white teeth shone through the inadvertent grin formed by speaking with a cigarettes ‘twixt his lips. Was this how Zel’s eyes looked to others? Because she liked it a great deal.

She raised her hands in a feigned gesture of surrender, smiling wide.

“That won’t put me down,” she said, sensing greater danger than a mere handgun, but no other living presence, leading her to believe the gun was no more than a gesture.

Dragging from his cigarette, he put the soldering iron in a metal stand and, while his hand was obscured, he performed a series of gestures which Zel was able to read by the shifting of musculature under his skin. A moment later, there came the stomp of a huge machine as a blood-red oversized walking tank stepped out from behind the corner, pointing at her a gigantic shotgun and shoulder-mounted rifle, both of suspiciously familiar design, the former held in a nearly identical manner to how the War Criminal held his revolver.

“I know, but that will,” he said, not entirely confident in his own words. “Now whatd’you want? The governor send you?”

She was done with this charade and just crossed her arms, leaning up against the doorframe.

“Nice place you’ve got, and I don’t mean that backhandedly,” she smiled.

He murmured with a tinge of annoyance, tacitly letting her know he was only playing along: “Uh-huh. Just needs a bit of cleanup.”

“So it does. Would be a shame if a certain walking mountain scoured it and all of Willowdale from the earth,” she continued.

Strake closed his eyes, his gun arm falling limp as he let out a deep, deep sigh.

“Give me the damn talisman,” he said halfheartedly, holding up his free hand. Zel pulled the object out of storage and tossed it over, the War Criminal smoking the rest of his cigarette in the meantime. He inspected it when it landed in his palm, remarking, “Nice, this’ll sell for a good bit once this shit’s done with.”

Putting it down on the workbench he looked up at her, his eyes still gleaming, but the beastly snarl now replaced with resignation.

“You really didn’t need to convince me,” he said, gesturing at the blood-red walking tank by his side. “Since the damn statues walked this bastard won’t do what I say if I so much as consider skipping town. Turns out his spine and drive train are made from the biggest one’s sword.”