Taimanin Asagi Quest: Episode 0

[X] "I won't leave you here."

>Watch him die in front of you, and, in a daze, finish it.

>I will. I swear.

[X] "I won't leave you here."

>[x] "I won't leave you here."

>[ ] "I will. I swear."

> [X] "I won't leave you here."

He laughs. It is a hoarse, brittle sound - leaving his cracked lips as a strained whisper.

The fierce claw latching on your shoulder with a talon's grip relaxes, fractionally, and something thumps against your chest. His other hand - and the pitch-black case in it. The edges of the case are scuffed, pitted from a thousand butcherings...But you can feel the quiet lethality of the thing within.

"You won't," he says - Voice a papery whisper, now.

"*Proud* of you, boy. All of us."

"Always-"

Always-

Sir?

Those cold eyes grow colder still, and he says nothing more.

> [X] I will. I swear.

Through a haze of smoke - It's the smoke, it has to be - you see what he has given you.

Pitch-black. Heavy, greater than the weight of the world. It is not much to look at; A rectangle of black steel, held in place by a complex electromagnetic lock. Tiny sigils acid-etched into the metal...

The world moves. But now you no longer feel adrift. Now, you feel the tug of the anchor, pulling you round to face the rising tide.

Your hand finds the release catch. A tiny spot - smaller than the circle a child might make of thumb and forefinger - turns the color of old blood.

Then fresh blood.

Then open flame.

(Continued)

That hungry crimson light wells through the cracks - Pure, somehow, primal, like a note of defiance against the foul illumination that beats against you.

When the first Incursion happened, the weakness of modern weaponry - Of demon-fighting, under practical conditions - became all-too-clear. Fire and blades had far greater efficacy than gunfire - the primitive qualities of edge, and blunt force, and flame dealing greater harm to the primordial entities the first Investigators faced. There are studies that postulate a link between damage and ritual function; fire, cutting, stabbing tools were all essential elements of ancient sorcery.

It seems only fitting that demons - raveners, products of the primeval void - remember the instruments that were used to invoke them.

Every Cypher is unique. They are not mass-produced, not churned off some anonymous assembly line-

Each one is taken from a demon. Made from it.

As tradition goes - A demon the Investigator has killed. Personally.

The case opens, blossoming like a steel flower, and you lift from it's dust-dry depths-

[ ] An elegant blade of singular and lethal function.
[ ] A great crushing mace few could ever hope to lift.
[ ] A baroque executioner's blade.
[ ] A fanged, hissing chain-link viper, gleaming with razor barbs.
[ ] A gun of alien and grotesque design.
[ ] A long-bladed spear, tall and cruel and spiked.
[ ] Pick two of the above.

Mace & executioner's blade.

>[X] A baroque executioner's blade.