Her curiosity was rewarded with a mnemonic impulse, knowledge of what the pairing entailed flashing through her mind. The two Tablets, through esoteric synchronization beyond her reckoning, would be able to directly communicate and possibly transfer the contents of their respective Fog Storage between one another to a limited degree. The process itself, once she gave the mental go-ahead, was unassuming on the outside. A few wisps of Fog rising from both Tablets as their respective projections grew scrambled and slowly shifted towards a median between the two distinct visual styles, a familiar burning thrum shooting through her body for the brief time it took.

Returning to the sect, Zel gave the Black Tablet to Zef with no particular fanfare, much to the latter’s flusterment at such a purchase, which was swiftly washed away by the realization that it had nearly the same functions as Zel’s Tablet, and that the two units could facilitate secure, live aetherwave comms at limited distances, or even send messages at virtually unlimited range. There was, unfortunately, no time to explore the device fully, being that they had to prepare for the impending onslaught of the Clay Soldiers. Zelsys wasn’t sure whether it would truly be around noon, but her gut told her that it would be today.

The time they had had up until this point was sufficient to let the newborn sect’s members get to know eachother on the most basic levels, for Ozmir to distribute excessively high-quality rations, and for Newman Alchemicals to do the same with elixir rations. These included high-grade Liquid Vigor and DDLV, as well as the components to turn two bottles of Liquid Vigor into Vitae Elixir. It had also been sufficient for Zefaris to make initial headway in developing basic glyphs and reproducing them with the Philosopher’s Eye, now able to efficiently impart a mild freezing effect unto her shotgun’s projectiles. Pentacle’s fiery spears, however, were not exactly conducive to carrying ice-aligned magic, so the markswoman instead wrought twofold glyphs free of elemental alignment: One born from Concussion Impact, and one partly inverted, intended to instead of spreading the kinetic force on impact, focus and direct it, transforming the bullet into a literal spear of molten metal akin to certain advanced anti-cultivator shells.

She named it the Impact Driver, and with its memory fresh in mind she cleaned her guns once more and made sure all her ammunition was properly set up, that the Blackstone Speedloader correctly differentiated between powder types and projectiles, and that what few working Fogging Canisters she had would function properly. Makhus had been able to produce one rudimentary Ignis-aligned Fogging Canister by infusing an existing unit with coarse Ignis crystal, but he lacked the time to refill used canisters. It was a fortunate thing that the canister shells were what handled certain parts of the process, seemingly designed to be refillable.

Zefaris felt a familiar unease in the air, the anticipation of combat.

The situation’s urgency truly dawned on the people of Willowdale only now, at the start of the final week leading up to Ubul’s expected awakening. Even as the majority of the Kargarian caravan vanished, one by one, many of the tankmen that many had considered mere mercantile guards remained. The Stone Watchers walked, and mere weeks after its rebirth, the Willowdale Sect was being called to stand with the militia against an encroaching army of clay monstrosities, the skeletons of Ikesian and Pateirian fallen alike used as scaffolding for a perverse golem army.

Hundreds and thousands of Willowdale’s citizens were called to action, soon filling the streets, equipped with a mixture of conspicuously well-maintained standard Ikesian arms and armor, as well as a significant minority of imported, more advanced equivalents in the Kargarian style. It was not the officers who were granted these superior arms, but those individuals who had proved most likely to use them effectively, possessing the highest attribute ratings and most appropriate traits and techniques.

Those skilled with blades changed tarnished war-knives and chipped iron sabers for hand-forged shamshirs, scimitars, longswords and razor-sharp cleavers. Spearmen removed the shotguns from their Boarkiller Spears and affixed them to ones of superior make, crudely stapling “Boarkiller” to the start of their new weapons’ names. Superior gunmen were afforded revolvers, volcanics, even the odd break-action shotgun, breech-loader, or even Tyrant Muncher, for Estoras had privately bought and imported arms from Collier and the caravan alike without regard for an official arms supply contract.

In the wake of this first wave came the heavy units; armored trucks hauling artillery pieces, four full-sized tanks, several battalions of Second-model tankmen, and a limited, but ever imposing force of First-model tankmen, Ikesian pilots led and trained by Iron Brotherhood mercenaries. Some carried rough-hewn, not-quite-production model Tyrant Muncher shotguns, while others wielded oversized blunderbusses and other such smoothbore armaments - a notable minority carried on their backs bundles of seven barrels affixed with a single sparklock on the top, two-thirds of the way down the barrel. Each barrel was somehow loaded twenty-eight times in sequence and would supposedly fire in sequence like some terribly violent firework. These “Barrage Guns'” were roughly made, artifice of desperation and ingenuity alike, but the tankmen were permitted to use them regardless, as even if one were to detonate, the tankman would be unharmed.

Zel and Zef were both eager to immerse themselves in the march, albeit for their own reasons, and different members of the sect seemed to enjoy it to varying degrees as well. She felt bad for not having gotten to know most of them or their skill sets properly beyond what made them qualified for the sect, but the time would have to come… Well, on the battlefield, most likely. She hadn’t even known that Jorfr favored a hammer whose head was the size of his own, let alone that one of the recruits had been so defensively capable in the vetting because he had hardened his skin to the point of outstripping even her in Hardness when he used his specialized techniques. Another apparently drew strength from some obscure, entirely internal power source he called “Orgone”, while using his quite basic breathing method to fuel what he claimed to be “The Armor of the Spirit”, only represented so far by complex full-body tattoos. The bird-person farlander… Well, she was fast, could fly to a limited degree, and she used wind magic. Sometimes surface-level expectations were entirely correct.