akasoindustries

48 - Impurities

There was no place for an Exclusion Zone scavenger’s instincts alongside her own, she wasn’t a subsistence survivalist.

The pressure, the heat, the tension, it all grew to what felt like ...

47 - Necrobeast Elixir

His brow furrowed, he looked up at the homunculus in the jar, then at the homunculus that stood before him. Zel bent down to get a close look at the liquid, tracing the individual strands of blackn...

46 - Re: Opus

The sun rose over a pale morning.

A knock at the door yanked her from the haze of sleep. Her senses flooded in one by one - the warmth of the sun on a small portion of her face. Zef’s back ...

45 - Dawn of Another Fateful Day

“Bullshit,” accused Sodan.

“Straight, just like I said,” the governor reassured.

Sodan looked aside again, taking a drag of the cigar, “I’ll think about it.”

“No t...

44 - Call me Strake

The guards nodded and eagerly retreated, closing the door behind themselves, leaving the two men facing one another. Despite the perfect lighting of his office, the Prisoner’s wild hair cast an i...

43 - Breath of Change/Prisoner

It would be the third Renegade Inquisitor in the history of the order, and facilitating the process would either burn many bridges for him or help him cut the scaffolds out from under his political...

42 - Proof of a Craftsman

With those parting words she walked upstairs and finally dropped off the groceries she had bought, mulling over her brief conversation with Sigmund. Makhus really wasn’t good in a fight with anyt...

41 - Accustomed to Violence

It was one thing to adapt to killing in circumstances like an active warzone or a targeted extermination expedition, it was a whole nother matter to do so during an errand run and remain largely un...

40 - Just an Errand

Neither was she willing to risk approaching him, just in case, and there just wasn’t enough time to wait until he bled out and thus became a non-threat. The guards would, in a best-case scenario,...

39 - Emperor's Mercy

...All with a heavy Pateirian accent and an utter lack of genuinity, as if he’d phonetically rehearsed everything he’d said up until now. Just to be careful, out of pure instinct, Zefaris took ...

38 - Soapboxing

On her way back, Zefaris continued to think on what it was that made her feel uneasy. Perhaps it was the people in the street? Perhaps the distinct absence of zipperheads every couple hundred meter...

37 - Bherad

They were foreign and unexpected, but it was perfectly on-brand for nomads like them. The street-vendor even had that little hole in the temple of his skull plugged by a silver coin, answering how ...

36 - Re:Cogs in Motion

At first, it was the loss of contact - a missed daily check-in over the aether wave. Then, a second one, and a third one. What had happened? Surely the dungeon couldn’t have stamped them out, and...

35 - Make it So

“I signed your employment contract, cherry boy,” she said before urging him on. “Now c’mon, what is my mother paying you for?”

Reluctantly, the young bodyguard came over and helped ...

34 - Serpent's Head

It had been twice now, that she hadn’t recognized someone until she heard their voice. Twice that one of her peers had foolishly allowed the essence of a beast run rampant on their forms, thinkin...

33 - Resentment for Complacency

It wasn’t until years later that Ezaryl had learned the truth of the One-week War, of the automaton that she now knew would come to be known as a tankman. The one used in the exhibition was an un...

32 - The One-week War

There had been precisely one time when a foreign power plunged into the heart of the steppe and touched its heart. It had been that man, the one who called himself the Sage of Fog, one who spoke of...

31 - Karga

Zel looked around and guessed, “It’s either the owner or the kid in noble’s clothes up on stage.”

“Bingo, it’s the guitarist,” the singer grinned. “He’s older than me n’ d...

Training Arc Complete Artwork (very minor spoiler)

30 - Homunculus

A brief silence, wherein he sipped of his ale and furrowed his brow in remembrance before continuing, “That was some… Three millennia ago I think? Two? Don’t remember. Anyway, things were pre...

29 - Drunken Folklore

Festivities of decadence such as the one which would inevitably come in the next few weeks were the best time to resupply, to get some interesting new trinkets and go unnoticed all along.

Tha...

28 - Mine's Bigger

“Ooh, lemme guess. It’s somethin’ real personal ain’t it. Like a lover’s body odor or somesuch,” he replied with a knowingly facetious tone right after downing a big gulp of his liquor....

27 - Speakeasy

The speakeasy was a single large room perhaps three or four times as long as it was wide, with the entrance being on the narrow end. The height of the ceiling, the positively chilly ambience, and t...

26 - Old Quarter

Eventually, after nearly half an hour of following Strolvath’s unwavering lead through the city’s tangled veins, he stopped at a steep staircase from the bottom of which loud music and hollerin...

0.5 - Codex

For the sake of new  readers (and at the suggestion of a reviewer), I’ve decided to put  together a basic codex for in-universe terms/concepts. This list isn’t  comprehensive and...

25 - Strolvath's Caution

The older man let out a barking, coughing laugh, like gravel in a cement mixer, followed by the clattering of coins against the counter. Once the last coin left his hand, he grabbed a seal-bottle.<...

24 - Citronade

A/N: Sorry for the break in posting. Someone suggested that I put together a codex/glossary for the sake of new readers, and I kinda annihilated my time management while I did exactly that.  2021-05-26 21:38:58 +0000 UTC View Post

23 - Understatement

“That’s…” he trailed off, having stopped himself from even beginning to say the word “impossible”. A deep sigh. There was as much point to questioning Zel’s inhuman capabilities as th...

22 - Traits

She’d chosen to cover her top half with a completely unfitting dark greyish-blue dress shirt, clearly one of Zef’s pieces of clothing. It was honestly impressive that she’d managed to make it...

21 - March to Opus

Yes, soon enough the pieces would be in place and he could - wait. If the Philter’s current stage had already finished, it must’ve been at least an hour and a half since those two were down her...