90 - Liminal Coil Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Krahe returned to the entrance, where the door had closed behind her. Willing a tendril to emerge from her back, Krahe smashed it at full force into the door, once, twice, thrice. It opened seconds later, Fidelia waiting on the other side.

“I have my choice, though there is the possibility that it may reveal itself to be corrupt or designed with some major fundamental flaw. It’s the Liminal Coil,” Krahe said.

“It cannot be corrupt, elsewise it would not have been permitted to remain in the vault for any length of time. Flawed… Perhaps,” Fidelia said. “Such is the lot of Sacred Relics; their closeness to divinity demands ever more of the flawed humans who wish to make use of them. Are you certain of your choice? Should you find the Sacred Relic’s peculiarities intolerable, it may be excised from you and replaced, but such abrupt change within a short timespan would be a grueling ordeal, especially with a graft so pivotal as the spine.”

Firminus added: “While invoking that option would not harm your standing with the church, the shock and increased time of recovery would wholly defeat your reason for going through with this in the first place.”

After a moment of deliberation, Krahe nodded, “Against my better judgment, I’ll take that risk.”

“Then let us officially disinter the relic and prepare everything for the procedure! By Zavesh, how long has it been since I have last done this by my own hand? Casus?”

“Three years,” came the answer.

“Much too long, much too long I say.”

As it turned out, the entire containment tank could be disconnected and removed from its place, and Fidelia fastened it effortlessly to her back with a number of mechanical tendrils, carrying it out of the vault. The mere sound of her footsteps was proof enough of the fact it weighed even more than was apparent at first. Firminus, meanwhile, carried all of the relic’s documentation, holding it suspended in mid-air above his palm by magic.

They made their way all the way back through the vaults and to the surface, the elevator chamber flooding with a forceful geyser as they ascended. Then it was through the winding corridors into a semicircular operating theatre, in the most literal sense, including colosseum-like seating, varying from normal human scale to superhuman-size. There was enough room to accommodate some fifty people at most. A meticulously detailed, full-body, five-meter-tall statue of Zavesh stood watch over the operating table, which was doubtlessly the most complex single piece of technology Krahe had seen in this world. It also looked awkwardly low to the ground, being about a meter tall. Two doors were recessed into the wall to the left and right of Zavesh. Fidelia entered the left-hand one and returned with an ornate staff, a mace-like, eight-sided head at its top, visibly segmented and adorned with many symbols. In her wake followed a six-legged construct with a hollow cradle, marginally resembling Garvesh’s Dregstrider… Or, what was more likely, the Dregstrider resembled one of these.

“May the doors to this sacred chamber be sealed this instant!” she decreed, thumping the staff. Its segments revolved, and shutters slid into place to seal the entrance.

“I hereby decree that the Sacred Relic of Barzai, the Liminal Coil, is to be extricated from its containment vessel,” she continued, thumping the staff once more. Seating the tank on the construct’s cradle, she gestured and a cable emerged from one of the operating table’s recesses, connecting to the tank and draining it, while the Liminal Coil continued floating, long rivulets of the viscous fluid cascading down off it. With further manipulation that Krahe couldn’t quite see due to Firminus getting in the way, they separated the body of the tank from its bottom plate. Krahe knew the exact moment it occurred, because she felt and heard it. A constant, faint hum, like a tuning fork.

Firminus retreated a few meters, and Fidelia, too, stepped back. Krahe tried to appraise it, assuming it wouldn’t work, only to find that it did.

[LIMINAL COIL]

[Status:]

Sacred

[Details:]

This graft bestows the “Silver Key of Kadath” Boon.

This graft brings the holder’s Material Soul and Physical Body into resonance. All of its attribute-modifying effects are at least partially resultant from this fact.

This graft reduces the risk and severity of graft rejection and accelerates the integration of grafts.

This graft accelerates recovery of blood, improves blood quality, and strengthens the immune system.

This graft significantly reinforces the holder’s base Control attribute.

This graft reinforces the holder’s base Durability attribute.

This graft reinforces all of the holder’s base Thaumic attributes and improves the efficiency of Thauma-burning as well as Thaumic Fusion to a minor degree.

This graft’s full characteristics will become available when the holder fulfills the requirements to make use of them.

She blinked, and the appraisal vanished from sight. Firminus tore his gaze away from the relic and stared at Krahe from across the room, grinning madly.

“Come, sit down on the table. We must still go through the documentation to confirm any graft-specific implantation procedures.”

Hobbling over, she did just that, finding that there was a cushion of invisible force around thirty centimeters thick. Firminus, unfurling one of the scrolls that Krahe had skimmed through, took to reading it as if it made perfect sense to him.

“Hrm… I see… Well, at least it seems that Barzai included some history. The brass-like metal of its body is Alarite, named for the earliest place of its manufacture, Alar, using recipes recovered from the at-the-time desolate city and graciously translated for the church by the fishmen of lake Hali. The neural tissue was harvested from the Lake Hali Superorganism, the so-called Sunken God, and the intervertebral discs are… It doesn’t say, looks like Barzai redacted it against protocol.”

Looking through the rest of the scroll, Firminus emitted a colorful range of frustrated vocalizations, from grunts to utterly rancid expletives in several different languages. Through this act of his, Krahe learned that she understood these languages, too, though it took about as much effort as parsing a strange dialect. He showed it to Fidelia, asking: “Can you make sense of this?”