82 - Blades in the Night Pt. 2 [Cherno]

Some distance away, on a rooftop, a lanky figure rose from a prone position. He unhooked the crescent-shaped head of a long staff-rifle from under his armpit, and pulled magnifying goggles up off of his eyes. He had felt the impact confirmation ping, affirming that his shot had connected with a living target.

“With that, my work is done…” he said to himself, carefree and unworried as he descended to ground level. One shot; that was how much he had been paid for, and a confirmed hit was the stipulation to receive his full fee. Anything beyond this point was not his problem.

He took a communication relic from his pocket - an elongated, yellow talisman paper. Complex symbols in red ink covered its surface, a blank space in the middle, large enough for a short message. Leaning against a wall, the assassin rummaged through his jacket pocket for a pen, and using his magic, he stretched out the talisman in mid-air as he wrote.

Confirmed impact on target.

Have 2nd 1/2 of payment ready.

His signature was not a name, but a simplistic representation of his staff-rifle - a crescent and a straight line. Taking out a small phial, he poured its contents onto the talisman’s other side, and with a pulse of Thauma ignited its magic. The paper instantly took on a golden glow and darted out of his hand.

Not long after, Semzar Hashem received the message and smiled to himself.

___________________________________________________________________

With some assistance, Krahe changed into her stolen jacket and remained mostly barefoot safe for the stirrups of her jade exoskeleton. She also had Casus tie her hair back to further break up her silhouette. With these changes, her shape signature was as different from her normal as it could reasonably be. They exited the safehouse via underground passageway and emerged in a nearby Seven Spokes shrine, where Casus had stashed the very motorbike they had used to enter and exit Slaughterhouse 9. From there, Krahe awkwardly lashed her legs to the frame of the bike and held on as best she could.

They reached the temple from which Firminus worked without incident, though it took even longer than usual due to Casus taking out-of-the-way paths rather than beelining for the target location. The Banisher hoisted her off the bike like she didn’t weigh anything, and though her first impulse was to protest, it was true that this was faster and therefore safer than having her hobble into the temple under her own power.

“What’ve we here?” Firminus questioned, but Casus just pushed past him and laid Krahe right there on his operating chair, face-first. From there, Krahe’s field of vision was constrained to a terribly narrow cone of immaculate stone-tile flooring.

“Severed spine. From the description, I believe she was hit with some type of bladestorm-type thaumshot, likely arcane rather than lacerative. The injury is cauterized, I believe it cut through the L-Two and L-Three vertebrae diagonally. Minor secondary cuts.”

“And what do you want me to do? I can look her over, schedule an appointment to actually get this fixed, but I suspect…”

“...Extenuating circumstances at hand render this a life-threatening emergency.”

Casus didn’t sound alarmed, but there was certainly an urgent insistence to his tone. A raspy, resigned sigh came from Firminus.

“I will do what I can, but you know how tricky these things can be.”

Krahe heard the man walk over, and felt his fingers against her back, willing her biosuit to recede from the wound and split open down the middle.

“Interesting armor. Is it some type of non-permanent graft?”

“Uh-huh,” Krahe affirmed.

“It appears that were it not for this armor of yours, you would have been cut halfway through… At best. If you were unlucky, you could have been bisected outright. As it stands, it seems the wound goes only a few centimeters in…”

For a few minutes, Firminus leaned over her and examined the wound, grabbing for tools out of sight. She vaguely felt narrow, metallic tools poking and prodding her sundered flesh, scraping against bone, with Firminus incessantly asking if she could feel this or that. Eventually, he stopped, and, just barely within her line of sight, worked a few hand-signs. The surgical chair’s top half raised until she was in a near-upright position, and a few hand signs later had the top two segments bend backwards such that the top of the chair ended just low enough for her to rest her arms on it. Sitting down in front of her atop a rolling stool, Firminus looked her in the eyes as he explained the predicament.

“What you have here is… A troublesome injury. The spinal cord has been completely severed, and cauterized in such a manner that there would be a substantial missing segment if I were to remove the irreparable tissue. The vertebrae are, to be charitable, totaled, including the F-Two to F-Three and F-Three to F-Four discs. I have a few live spines in wet storage, as well as some synthetic pieces, but it will be weeks before I can put together a localized graft for you.”

“Is there a significant reason not to replace my whole spine? Will the recovery period be longer than a few weeks?” she asked.

A small spark lit Firminus’ eyes, no matter how he tried to hide it.

“So she’s that kind of patient. Better to be sure than to have her back out at the last second and waste my preparations, though…” Firminus thought.

“The primary reason to avoid a full spinal replacement is the process itself. It is only a step below the likes of a cerebro-astral transfer in severity, normally reserved only for those for whom there is no other choice. I will insert a Pseudo-Voidkey probe to let me monitor your status and suppress your sense of pain, while also injecting you with a serum that will ensure total continuity of consciousness throughout the whole process - that is to say, you will remain awake. Though pain will be suppressed, other sensations will remain, and you will gradually lose all sense of your body as your spine is disconnected. Thereafter, all other senses are shut off in order to facilitate the connection of the new spine directly to the brainstem. You may remain in a death-like void of no sensation for hours, or upwards of more than a day with a grafter less skilled than I.”