93 - The Silver Key of Kadath [Cherno]

Only a small opening on the back of Krahe’s neck remained, Fidelia’s tendrils entering through it as she performed the final connections and quadruple-checked that everything was as it should be. She continuously chanted prayers to Zavesh while she worked. Firminus lacked both the dedication and the physical capability to speak in multiple voices at once.

Fidelia’s motions grew feverish, and at once, she retracted her tendrils and sealed the incision, connecting several interwoven muscle bundles and completing the strip of exposed flesh and protruding spurs down the length of Krahe’s back. They hosed her down in in cleansing and mild regenerative solutions. At a simple gesture, Firminus disabled the sensory blackout and removed his probe. Krahe’s eyes shot open.

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Just as she felt she might be able to get her hands on one of those phantoms, having chosen hate and anger in favour of sadness and regret, Krahe suddenly found herself snapping back to reality. A reality of pervasive ache and absolutely unbelievable exhaustion, but a reality in which she could feel the whole of her body. She felt a faint resonance, and everything felt sharper, more responsive. Krahe knew this feeling; the intoxicating satisfaction of a hardware upgrade.

She felt the operating table’s tendrils retracting, somehow sealing the holes behind themselves with patches of off-colour scar tissue. Her hair was drenched, and a herbal, though not unpleasant smell filled her nose, somehow not just overpowering blood, but completely eradicating it. Gradually, she floated down to just above the operating table, with the two grafters gathering in front of her, their aprons stained with blood and other fluids. Meanwhile, Casus rose from his seat and approached, yet remained dutifully outside the operating area. Fidelia held up a hand, with a tendril tipped by a long, solid connector needle floating next to it.

“Follow my hand with your eyes if you are able to both see and hear,” she said. When she was satisfied with Krahe’s compliance, she lowered her hand and Firminus stepped in.

“How do you feel? Any immediately obvious abnormalities such as blurred vision, total absence of sensation in any part of the body?”

Rather than answer on the spot, Krahe got down from the operating table and stretched for a few moments.

“No sensory abnormalities that I am aware of, no. I feel like I’ve been through a rock crusher and breathing is fairly painful, but…”

She bent left and right, briefly grimacing as she gauged the exact nature and intensity of her pains. It felt like she’d had the implant for a good while now, as if it had mostly been healed already.

“I won’t need particularly strong painkillers to cope, I don’t think. How long is healing supposed to take?”

“If all things proceed without issue, several days, though you should have full functionality right away. You will be given several medications, some to take continuously while the graft settles in, others as safety measures if you experience issues.”

“I assume further testing is required to be certain that there are no issues with the spine, yes?”

Both grafters nodded, and a gauntlet of tests followed. One was an utterly mundane cranial nerve examination, another saw three different pseudo-voidkey probes shoved into her spine and a fourth into the back of her head while she carried out simple exercises. The purpose was apparently to gauge any irregularities in graft connectivity, and according to Firminus, Krahe exhibited abnormalities - in the sense that her connectivity with the graft was abnormally good.

“It reads as if it has already had several months to settle in… Could this be a consequence of the apostle’s previous-” Firminus began, speaking to Fidelia, then turned to Krahe as an aside. “-how many times did you have your spine replaced… Before?”

At that, Krahe actually had to stop and think. She wasn’t sure. There were a number of upgrades, but she had also replaced her spine or swapped it out for any number of reasons.

“...In the lower half of two digits.”

“Ah. Indeed, that could explain the abnormal connectivity rate if there remains an imprint upon the soul…”

Fidelia nodded, then cut him off: “There is one more test.”

She looked to Krahe.

“The graft should grant you a Boon which we cannot ascertain without conducting a lengthy deep-appraisal rite. Is it present and does it make sense?”

Krahe looked, going straight to the Boons submenu, and found that it was, indeed, right there. Mentions of “diving”, as well as the verbiage used in relation to the act, brought to mind “diving” into her old world’s dataplane, known by some as the neo-astral plane. As a result, the Boon nearly instantly changed in accordance with Krahe’s thoughts to better make sense to her.

[SILVER KEY OF KADATH]

[Tags:]

Graft Source (Liminal Coil)

Astro Diving

Astro Skimming

[Details:]

The holder is capable of Astro Skimming and Astro Diving unassisted at a reduced efficiency. The holder’s capabilities for Astro Diving/Skimming will improve significantly if the holder implants a voidkey with the Astro Diving and/or Astro Skimming Tags.

Astro Skimming

Astro Skimming entails entering a semi-astral state and skimming the realspace-adjacent region of Kenoma (the Astral Gulf) for an infinitesimally short period of time. In practice, this allows the holder to near-instantaneously transport herself a limited distance in her current relative direction of movement. The holder has limited control over her relative facing and retention of momentum upon arrival.

Upon arrival, the holder experiences a brief moment of extreme cognitive time dilation.

One cannot Skim to a location where one’s body would intersect with concrete matter; in such a case, the holder will be rebounded to her starting location and her relative momentum will be inverted.

Current Skim charges: 2

Current Skim recharge: 5 seconds per charge

Current Skim range: 3.2m

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Astro Diving

Astro Diving enables the holder to wholly transition into an astral state of being and dive into the Astral Gulf. Unassisted, without special preparations, only a Partial Dive is possible, wherein the diver is partially present both in realspace and the Astral Gulf; a Full Dive, allowing Kenomaic exploration, may be achieved with appropriate preparatory measures. Unless specified otherwise, all references to Astro Diving within this Boon description are in relation to a Partial Diving.

Sustaining a dive continuously builds up Hard Entropy.

While Astro Diving, the holder becomes partially disentangled from realspace, effectively becoming semi-intangible. Most Thaumaturgies will have no effect in realspace, most artifacts cannot be activated, and most other means of directly affecting realspace will have no effect. The diver’s subjective flow of time accelerates in relation to realspace while diving.

Upon emerging from a dive, the diver will not be able to dive again for a short time.

Current time dilation factor: 1.5x

Current dive recovery time: 5s