DRYZOR CORP. THREAT ANALYSIS
CLEARANCE: LEVEL 5

ENTRY NO: 016
PRIMARY SUBJECT(S): Trouble/Architallis Zenno
LANCE THREAT ASSESSMENT: 2.7/10
LOCATION: Conan’s Fall settlement
DATE OF EVENT: 3/17/5987 R.A.
DATE RECORDED: 13/13/5993 R.A.

Subject Trouble intercepted Subject Alexander Stehling to notify the individual of hazardous actions being taken against Subject Vexxenna Hawkthorn. Subject Alexander Stehling’s integration into the Tomb Shell device remains functional. However Subject expressed malicious intent toward the assaulting unit designated as Fury class. The addition of Subjects Trouble and Alexander Stehling into the combat scene successfully drove off the assailant. Subject Vexxenna Hawkthorn and Alexander Stehling expressed logic failures by insisting a verbal argument amid the combat. Before the subjects drove off the assailant, Subject Trouble was struck with a crippling blow from Subject Vexxenna Hawkthorn.

Subject Architallis Zenno initiated an unsanctioned requisition of alchemical reagents from Evea-Life operated facility. Subject expressed a logic error in the form of internal conflict regarding his actions harming redundant workers. Subject expressed a personal vendetta against Evea-Life Corporation. This could be leveraged for use to aid Dryzor Corp.'s agenda.

Poultry-centric distraction utilizing Subject Sin is classified as successful with minimal fallout.

Trouble bolted down the lane, tracing the scent of strange metal and changed bone. He passed through the fleeing crowd with a few shoulder checks at knee level. He burst through the crowd to quickly spot the bobbing coffin just down the way. Tro scampered over and leaped atop the coffin like a spider. The Neoform rapped on Alex’s skull until he looked up. “Suit up. Trouble.”

Alex dropped his Tomb Shell and pressed into it with little hesitation. Tro leaped off the coffin as it began shifting form. In moments, Alex stood as an armored tank of a golem. “Who is it?” Alex asked as he started a lumbering run. “I want payback against two of those bitches.”

Trouble leaped back atop the frame, clinging to a shoulder as the tank ran. “Short one.” 

“Good,” Alex said. “I’m looking to dribble her like a Faell ball and slap her around like a wall ball.” Tro could hear the merciless grin in the Knyght’s voice, and he couldn’t help but worry.

Alex thundered up the street with loping strides, the pavement cracking and shattering with each push off. Tro quickly found Vex and Fee Fee in a close-quarters dance of punches, deflections, and dodges.

Tro stood, bracing one leg against the Tomb Shell’s torso, compensated for the rocking shoulder under his other, and reached into one of his many pockets. He palmed several metal barings in his left hand and thumbed one into his right hand. Tro locked his right gloved thumb beneath a curled index finger, the baring resting atop his thumb. While Tro couldn’t see the effect through his long sleeves, he knew the glove flared with gray light as he flicked the baring. The metal ball flew through the air at a precisely calculated trajectory. The shot struck a gauntleted fist mid swing, throwing it off course. 

Vex was already dodging the strike originally aimed at her head, throwing herself into a backward roll and hopping back to her feet. Tro leaped from the Knyght’s shoulder, flipping through the air to land beside his sister. Alex thundered past the pair and clenched his right monolithic fist. The Fury turned with a shocked expression to come face-to-fist with an earth-shattering uppercut.

Fee Fee was launched up and back like a rocket, stopped when she struck the brick-sided second floor of an office building across the street with a crunch of stone. The Fury landed against the pavement on a knee, a foot, and a fist. She glared up at Alex with righteous rage in her eyes. She moved to leap into the air.

In response to the Fury’s curling in preparation, Tro already had another shot ready. Just before she sprang, Trouble fired another shot that bounced off the brick wall behind the Fury to strike her in the knee.

Fee Fee still lept, despite the interference. The arc height was preternatural for anyone but a Fury. She raised high into the air and came plummeting down like a falling star toward Alex with a fist pulled back.

Alex raised an arm to block the blow aimed at his face. The Fury struck Alex’s forearm and glanced off it to drive her fist into the ground at the Knyght’s feet. The pavement beneath the powerful blow cratered the earth beneath it, knocking the Knyght from his feet to fall with a thunderous ‘THUD’. 

Fee Fee stood and leaped atop the Knyght’s prone form and began raining blows down on him. Strike after strike crashed against the strange metal plate of Alex’s body, ringing out like a beat from a metal drum. 

Tro circled left while his sister went right, both of them readying attacks. Tro thumbed another pair of bearings, one in each hand. Vex was loading a new type of hex round into her revolver. What glimpse Tro could get of the new rounds showed glass rounds filled with a swirling pale green-gray light and black shadows. Those were new to him. She must have gained their design from her rank up.

Tro launched himself at Fee Fee, flying into her with a sidekick strong enough to launch her down the street. Alex climbed to his feet with pointless huffing breaths. “Thanks for that. I didn’t know you could hit so hard in C-Q-C.”

Tro flexed his thin arm like he could display anything impressive through his armored jacket. Tro slapped his curled biceps with a sleeved hand. “Adroit too.”

Alex bobbed his entire torso down and up in a nod of agreement. The Knyght turned to face Fee Fee, as she climbed to her feet again. The Fury looked more pissed off than ever as she stepped into an agile fighting stance, bouncing from the ball of one foot to the other. Her gauntlets lit with a gold, righteous flame, as her hair stood on end and lightning danced across her form. Her ball-to-ball bouncing sped up as if a dial had cranked her speed from three to eleven.

“Ex! Where’s your shovel?!” Vex demanded as she used the Knyght’s body for cover. 

“I left it behind!” Alex shouted back as he took a defensive stance. Tro jumped atop the Knyght’s back and took aim. “I need a holster for the thing!”

“And you didn’t get one already?!” Vex shouted as she leaned around him and cracked off a shot.

Fee Fee raised a gauntlet with insane speed, deflecting the hex round off the back of her hand. The Fury corrected her stance in a blur and came at Alex with voltaic speed. “When exactly was I supposed to get it done?!” Alex shouted in reply as he hunkered down to take the rolling storm of furious blows.

Vex took a rolling step around the Knyght and cracked off a shot at the Fury. Fee Fee deflected the shot off a forearm before throwing the same weapon into another powerful blow. Vex rolled back as she shouted, “Let me get this straight. You learn your shovel can transform into a great axe. That’s cool and great, but the first thing you don’t do is grab a holster or sling or something?!” 

Tro jumped off from the Knyght to land right behind Fee Fee. As he dropped, he spun over himself twice to gain momentum before driving a spin-wheel kick to the back of the Fury’s head. The Fury’s skull lashed forward from the kick, and she was sent staggering back after her head collided with Alex’s defending arm. 

“From who?!” Alex demanded as he punched the Fury back several steps. “We didn’t really have time with the brawl you started.” Fee Fee shook her head clear of the brain-jarring.

“I didn’t start that!” Vex defended as she stepped out from behind the Knyght. Tro rushed Fee Fee at speeds just short of her own enhanced pace. Trouble threw a frenzy of punches and kicks at the Fury, never aiming for the same target on her body twice in a row. Fee Fee deflected most of the blows, but a few slipped through. Tro danced around Fee Fee as he peppered her with shots, forcing her to keep turning to face the feather-light-footed Adroit.

Tro danced around the Fury enough to finally have her back facing Vex and Alex. The Knyght didn’t move. He must’ve known Tro held the situation in a delicate balance, and there was no way the Knyght was getting close without the Fury acting. However, Vex, on the other hand, was lining up a shot with one of her new hex rounds.

Tro gave Vex their silent signal, locking eyes for a full two seconds. Vex caught the signal and fired at the Fury’s back. However, the Fury caught the signal too. She didn’t need to see the attack to know it was coming, and in her enhanced state, her reflexes were fast enough to respond.

Fee Fee sidestepped the attack. Vex’s hex round passed the Fury and struck Tro in the chest, just to the lower right of his power core. The bullet hit Tro and almost knocked him off his feet. His balance was precarious. Then the bullet’s effect took hold. Trouble’s body grew weak. His balance failed as his bodily control stuttered. Tro lay on his back, the three feet of the Fury looming over him. A pounding like street equipment came rushing up behind Fee Fee, and the sun was blotted out by a monolith of metal. Fee Fee turned away from Tro and leaped backwards, over him. Mid-leap, a pair of wings of flame grew from her back, and she took wing over buildings and out of sight.

Tro attempted to push himself up with his elbows to a sitting position, but his body control stuttered again, and he seized mid-motion. The Neoform let out a hiss of frustration as his sister hurried up to kneel beside him.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Vex cursed in a stream. “I’m so sorry, Tro. I didn’t mean to hit you.” She unzipped Tro’s jacket to reveal a plain black t-shirt with a damp hole punched through it. Vex raised the shirt to reveal a bleeding bullet-wound set in pallid skin. “How’s the core feel?”

“Intact,” Tro grunted in pain.

“Solid,” Vex said in relief as she leaned back. After a moment to breathe, Vex leaned back in, reaching into a pouch for a pair of tweezers. “Now, hold still. We need to get that Hollow Round out of you.”

“Good. Cuz lung not so good,” Tro weezed out with squishy breaths. 

Architallis had been to no less than six separate informants in his hunt for information. At each stop, the Immortal had caused one scene or another. The AdRec Rats had known almost nothing useful. Only that the corporation operating out of Conan’s Fall was Evea-Life. So Architallis knew where his target was aiming. And the other’s Architallis had asked had only added detail to the corporation’s place in the settlement. No word of Drake as of yet. 

Night had fallen, and Architallis hunched beside a back door to an alchemy shop. The hulking Wolf Man delicately worked a set of lock picks in an old Key lock, carefully keeping an ear out for the telltale clicks of success. 

Architallis was attempting to keep the conflicting thoughts about the corporation at bay by focusing on lock picking. Beyond the lock picking, he was also mentally outlining the plot for the paperwork he would need to file to justify this crime. He was acquisitioning crucial ingredients and reagents for a truth potion to be administered to their capture target. He made a mental note to omit the fact that he planned to use it on Vex as well. The extra volume of collected ingredients was for ‘redundancy purposes’.

The lock gave with the sound of the final tumbler falling into place. Architallis stowed his mechanical lock kit and replaced it with an arcane ward cracker. It was a human-palm-sized disk with a handle and control panel on one side and a flat, glyph-etched surface on the other side. His hands were too large for the device, but he operated it deftly, using the tips of his claws to delicately poke the control keys. With practiced motions, Architallis brushed the device along the frame of the door. As the device passed over the top hinge corner of the door, a red light on it flashed twice in short blips. It identified a ward.

Architallis paused his sweep to press another button on the device. There was a flare of vermillion beneath the disk, and a blue light flashed once from atop the device, indicating that the discovered ward was dissolved.

After completing the circuit around the door, Architallis stowed the ward cracker. He was still uncomfortable with the act of breaking and entering, and theft. But just as before, it was necessary. The Deviant opened the door with a soft click of the latch and slipped inside like a large and furry shadow.

The back rooms of the shop were full of vacuum-sealed containers, some chilled, others kept under constant heat. Shelves lined the walls of the current room, several in the center of the room, and every one was carefully labelled. The space had a sharp, sanitary scent to it; disinfectant and surface cleanser.

Architallis skulked through the room, fingering and thumbing one white plastic container after another. The shop was well kept and held a breadth of ingredient options, which led Architallis to suspicions. He soon found the regulated ingredients that he needed. Moonlip stem, Mervane Tears, Resonating Water, and Interference Root. Architallis would not have been legally allowed to purchase these ingredients because several had the potential to produce illegal intoxicating potions.

Architallis pulled one jar for each ingredient from his bag and took enough for two doses of the truth potion. With those collected, he turned and made for the laboratory of the shop to check on those suspicions.

Sure enough, every piece of equipment in the lab was Evea-Life brand. The Deviant Alchemyst felt a bubbling up of complex emotions. Having worked for that very corporation, Architallis felt bad stealing from an employee who was only trying to do his job. But that stock would easily be replaced, and the related debt would fall to the corporation, which had used, abused, and abandoned Architallis in his time of need. He felt a spike of vindictive satisfaction at that thought. But this brought to mind the conflicting emotion of Drake targeting his old company. 

Architallis turned and left the shop. Head low as he thought about what would happen if Drake did steal ownership of the local branch. The local Evea-Life branch was kept in the local vhenari community. Deeper into the settlement was a foundry for the crafting of armored vehicles. The foundry was a key source of employment for many in the community, and accidents were common. Evea-Life offered cybernetic limb replacement and complete healing with a payment contract.
Little did most who accepted these services know that there was fine print in the payment plan that if they defaulted on the payment, their body was held as collateral. Their soul would be removed and placed in storage while the bodies were converted into corpse numbers, one of the countless, invisible, undead workforce. Each husk of a body is implanted with an artificial slave soul and forced to complete an unending series of tasks with no rest.
Even if Drake stole the corporation's control of the settlement, those bonds and debts would simply be transferred to Dryzor Corp. Not a better fate, only different from a life crafting cybernetics for the working class. It might be a loss for the corporation that burned him, but the fates of the lost souls here wouldn’t change. There was nothing he could do to change that status quo.

Architallis circled around the corner to the front of the shop, where he had left Sin as a distraction with two enraged chickens. As intended, the poultry had attacked the Immortal in an unending assault of beaks and talons. Sin, for his part, was curled up on his side, covering his head in both hands as the birds tore irritatingly at Sin’s clothes.

Sure enough, anyone who passed by the scene quickly left out of fear of Sin requesting aid. Architallis had given Sin explicit instructions not to attack the chickens but to continue to anger them. The Vhenari shewed the chickens off with some encouragement from his foot.

SIn climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. “I do hope my debilitating distraction was sufficient for your burglary.”

“Keep your voice down, Fool,” Architallis whispered as he marched down the street, waving for Sin to follow. “Yes, your distraction was sufficient for my needs. Now, we must hurry back to the rest of the team. If they have done as intended, they’ve collected the rest of our necessary hunting supplies.”

Elicit Action Documentation

Date of Event: 3/17/5987 R.A.

Deviant Subject: Architallis Zenno

Illegal Act: Defensive Ward Destruction, Breaking and Entering, Theft

Mission Justification:

Materials needed to brew a potion to gain critical intelligence. Truth potion is necessary for ethical and efficiency purposes. Volume of components taken is sufficient for potion redundancy.

Estimated property/legal costs: 3 Gold, 5 Silver