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((The Monday Triple: page 2 of 3))
“Fine, forget it,” said Jercash. He pulled something out of his raincoat and placed it on the desk, knocking a number of tomes off.

Gohvis’ tail caught each one.

“I brought you a gift,” said Jercash.

Emiliana found herself wandering closer for a better look. It was a long, metallic object. A rifle? Her mother had taught her about a wide variety of firearms, but this one didn’t look quite right to her eyes.

“Why?” was all Gohvis said.

“You can’t tell?” said Jercash. “It’s an ardor-fueled rifle from the Undercrust.”

“Mm. How powerful is it?”

“This one? Not very. But stronger ones exist. Also, it has no fuel. I was wondering if you might be able to remedy one or both of those problems.”

“Isn’t this a task more suited to that lunatic of yours?”

Jercash clicked his tongue. “Morgunov was working on it for a little while, but then he got distracted. He’s on some crazy feldeath kick, right now.”

“That sounds rather dangerous, even for him.”

“It is. But he’s obsessed with finding the most efficient method for powering up aberrations.”

“He is trying to feed feldeaths to them?”

“Yeah. And I don’t think he’s had even one success yet. They keep dying. The leap in power might just be too great for an aberration’s otherwise normal body to handle. Or maybe he’s just having trouble taking feldeaths down, in the first place. I’m not sure. I didn’t stick around to observe.”

“He didn’t order you to help him?”

“Of course he did. I told him to get bent. I’m not fightin’ one of those damn things just so he can complete another one of his insane experiments.”

“That reminds me. What ever happened to that mechanical army he was trying to build?”

“Oh, he completed it. Then he destroyed it, because he didn’t like it anymore and wanted to start over.”

“I might have guessed.”