The carved pattern flickered and began to glow white, a single word manifesting just above the tablet’s surface.

SCANNING

It remained like this for some time, long enough that she almost put the tablet down, but something in the back of her head told her to just wait. Soon enough, the buzzing sensation faded and the word faded, replaced by a statement and a question.

NO RECORD FOUND PLEASE ENTER NAME

“Alce-” the intrusive thought flashed in her head again, but before it could finish, a different name popped into her head.

“Zelsys.”

NAME ZELSYS SEX FEMALE SPECIES UNRECOGNIZED FORCE C+ PRECISION B- HARDNESS C- AETHER C TRAITS>

Out of curiosity, she tried swiping her hand through the projection, as if to turn a page in a book. The projection flickered and a new one appeared, fading in from the right as if a page had been turned.

TRAITS Survivor’s Instinct Fog-breathing Osmotic Essentia Absorption Metabolic Alkahest

A swipe to the left took her back to the first projection, while another swipe to the left showed a third projection.

FOG STORAGE PUT INTO STORAGE BROWSE STORAGE ATTRIBUTES> TRAITS>>

“Some sort of arcane utility device,” she thought, tapping on PUT INTO STORAGE. The projection was seemingly blown away by a vortex of silvery fog that rose from the tablet, as wide as the tablet was tall. Zelsys took one of the unloaded shells and dropped it in, watching it vanish into the vortex. A few seconds passed with nothing happening, before the vortex abruptly dissipated. The storage menu projection returned, the same as it had been. She tapped on BROWSE STORAGE, and sure enough, the projection flickered to change into a different one - a label at the top, and a single blue line in the very center of the tablet.

FOG STORAGE 1x Shell Casing

A tap on Shell Casing. The options Retrieve/Cancel popped up next to it, and upon pressing Retrieve the vortex returned, the casing slowly rising out of it and then clattering onto the tablet. Arcane as the device was, its operation was rather simple. One after another she took the empty casings, activating the PUT INTO STORAGE once again and dropping them into the vortex one after another. She put the powder horn and two of the five loaded shells into storage as well, and then took to learning how the gun operated.

It was attached to an armored sleeve, one which fit easily with some adjustment of the straps, and seemed to somehow suction itself to the skin once attached, barely shifting around at all as she maneuvered her left arm to try and get a feel for how it limited mobility. A metal lever that was attached to the back of the gun sat just about in her palm, though it wouldn’t budge. “Some elbow stiffness, lots of extra weight on the forearm…” she muttered, carefully working what she knew to be the bolt handle. With a swift backwards yank and a loud mechanical clack the bolt popped open, the lever’s grip moving to below her wrist alongside it.