95 - Submersion and Emergence [Cherno]

She was here, now, at this place and time, anchored in reality, and yet, she wasn’t. The world revolving. Spiraling. The breath of existence collapsing and expanding like a beating heart. Aeons flowing past her, a cosmic vastness rushing through and over her, a profound nothingness begging to be given purpose, googolplexes of souls rushing out of, into, and past the world, yet spaced infinitely far apart. Spiraling. Spiraling. Spiraling. Billowing winds in a place without air. A dot in nothingness. An island upon a boundless, bottomless ocean. All at once, she felt an ephemeral, yet nonetheless undeniable awareness of the true scale of all that was encompassed in the cosmos, the weight of existence pressing down on her mind as the ocean might press down on a submarine. She had been aware, having dwelt on existence many times in the past, but this feeling was as if a true comprehension had been forced upon her. Neither implosion nor a subtler failure came; the cosmic realization just washed over her like the brief, abrupt shock of diving into a cold pool. Its sole lasting effect served to deepen her appreciation for the warmth of the beach, of the new world and existence itself.

Nonetheless, swimming in these cold waters was pleasant in its own way. She was already submerged, she figured she may as well go for a swim.

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To the onlookers, the dive looked substantially more drastic.

In an instant her physical body vanished, replaced by a figure of swirling smoke and cinders. Her hair, a billowing mane of black smoke with streaks of white to match its real appearance, seemed as if it were being constantly blown upward by nonexistent updraft. The Liminal Coil’s unnatural ribs and spine burned inside her chest with a fulgent ember-orange glow, vibrating, and a latticework of glowing veins in the same colour outlined her left arm, mirroring the appearance it took whenever she channeled Thauma into it. No expression showed upon her face, the only sign of consciousness being the green-burning coals of her eyes darting back and forth. She abruptly broke into a full-tilt sprint around the operating theatre, her movements blurry and abnormally smooth, obscured by the smoke that made up her astral form. Despite being accelerated in relation to realspace, the manner in which she moved didn’t have the strange twitchiness of a sped-up memslate recording; rather, each movement had that much more intent and power behind it.

When, after a few laps, she came to a halt, the green-eyed demon returned to her physical form, breathing quite heavily and leaning against the operating table. She slumped down against it and slid to the ground, smoke billowing from the woman as she purged. She gave a halfhearted thumbs-up in response to Fidelia looking down at her, hissing in pain as she did. This was one of the aspects Astro Diving shared with actual diving; one couldn’t breathe while submerged.

The High Grafter had met and raised far too many graft-saints to call this Lady Blackhand a genius or a one-of-a-kind individual, certainly not this early… But, besides having Casus Aristedes’ esteem as her backing, she was certainly an interesting individual. While Skimming was merely influenced by one’s dominant elemental affinity in terms of the visible remnants it produced, a Partial Dive caused the Astral and Physical to cross over in such a manner that the diver’s semi-intangible form reflected the appearance of their Astral Body. Fidelia didn’t quite remember ever seeing an Astral Body such as this; normally it resembled a ghostly version of the individual, with much smaller appearance deviations than this. Flaming hair, the absence of a maiming scar or even the presence of one, and so on. An Astral Body wholly shrouded in obscuring smoke was unheard of… But it also lined up with Lady Blackhand’s strange immunity to non consensual appraisals, so Fidelia did not think to question it overmuch. The circumstances surrounding Lady Blackhand’s apostlehood meant that her being abnormal was, paradoxically, fully expected. Each apostle was an exception, and those bearing Sacred Relics were exceptions among exceptions. An Astral Body with an abnormal appearance was just a footnote.

Fidelia brought out the Catalyst, its disparate liquid components contained in a three-chambered relic syringe, the device having a downright baroque design to its external casing.

“With this, both the grafting and your officiation as a graft-apostle shall be complete. Would you prefer to rest in a secure chamber here, or in a safehouse elsewhere in the city? You may take the syringe with you and return it at another date, should the latter be preferable,” Fidelia offered.

“Looks like I inadvertently made myself an open book by trying to guard myself,” said Blackhand as she got back to her feet. “I would prefer another safehouse, I admit, even if I know that I would likely be safer here. Ideally one with a window not facing any good elevated vantage points.”

“At the edge of the city, then. I will have an enclosed motor carriage prepared for you. In the meantime, brother Firminus will prepare your other medications.”

Firminus, though he did not seem particularly enthusiastic, did as was asked of him, leading them to a storehouse and coming back with a box full of the requested items. They were two kinds of painkiller, two kinds of rejection suppressant, and a substance that could be in no uncertain terms described as a healing potion in a syringe.

Of these, there were rejection suppressants that she was to take regularly until she ran out. They were pills, and the same went for one of the painkillers; the suppressants were balls about a centimeter across, while the painkillers were one-third that size and neon-yellow. The painkillers were contained in a squat, cylindrical sheet metal box, akin to those for airgun BBs, with the name of the medication stamped on the lid. By contrast, the rejection suppressants had a paper box with separate brackets, and each pill was wrapped in strange-smelling paper. The name of the suppressants was stamped on the box:

Class 1 Graft Rejection Suppressant

Property of the Grafting Church, Audunpoint Branch

Produced: 8th Day, 6th Moon, 5239 AB