Krahe awoke to a strange feeling in the back of her head and a hollowness in her gut, yet not one she could physically place. It felt as though some organ that wasn’t actually there had distended and now yawned with empty space. What had woken her was a sound, the knocking of a beak against her window, ringing and resonating with an unearthly tone.
She was deathly certain that she saw a raven with infernal coals for eyes sitting there when she first opened her eyes, but now that she had gotten her bearings, it was gone. In fact, the window didn’t even face the outside, but a swirling, collapsing maelstrom, as if the building hung perpendicular to the side of a cliff. This, combined with Casus’s absence, made it more than obvious that this was a false awakening. She still felt a faint ache with each breath as her new ribcage settled in, and drifted off to sleep once more within moments.
Thereafter, she dreamt of the data-plane which she had trawled in her past life, that virtualized pseudo-reality which some had called things like the “matrix” or the “neo-astral”. The semi-independent network programs which inhabited much of the data-plane were the closest thing to this world’s eidolons that Krahe was familiar with. She wasn’t sure why it was this un-place had shown up in her dreams, and of all times now, but then it appeared; the Wound-like Grin, rendered in collage from garbled visual data and images of gore. It opened its fanged maw, the void filled by repeating, crudely-tiled textures made from a cartel victim’s skinless face bedecked by a scarf of his own intestines. From there, a simplistic icon of a crow emerged, slowly gaining fidelity until it became a fully realized high-fidelity model of the bird. It perched upon the Wound-like Grin’s teeth, pecking at them. A moment later, Krahe awoke to the sound of pecking on a window pane… But just as before, there was nothing there when she looked. Not even a feather.
With the dream only vaguely floating at the edge of her awareness, she blinked away the remnants of sleep and went about her morning. Casus was gone, but she found a tall glass of water on the table next to the box of Class 1 suppressant and a small ceramic dish. At first she wasn’t sure what was in it, being eight crescent shapes coated in brown sugar. The absence of one pill from the box followed by an appraisal using the Prospector’s Eyes confirmed that the banisher had prepared her pill in this way before he left.
Sighing, she ate one of them. Sticky. Aggressively sticky. The taste was strongly herbal, sour-sweet and somewhat spicy, fitting nicely with the sugar. She finished the rest while reading a hefty tome on the pseudo-continent of Xaugeth, basking in the dawning sun.
It was as she read the book, the Xaugeth Encyclopedia Vol. 1, Edition of 5201, that she realized that Ronin had to have been one of the Herculeans which were listed as one of the civilized races of Xaugeth. Great big beetle-men, they were, who molted repeatedly as part of their life cycle, growing stronger and smarter with each molt, while each subsequent molt grew more difficult. Some of them chose to metamorphose into pseudo-adult grubs, called Eternity Larvae for their comparatively extreme longevity, while the beetles were Shieldbacks. The tome went on to detail that Eternity Larvae were subject to the same molting cycles as Shieldbacks, though theirs were far easier and only conferred growth in intelligence while the Herculean remained as an Eternity Larva.
“Some sources claim that at any time, an Eternity Larva may choose to initiate a metamorphosis into a Shieldback, while others claim that it must be initiated by consuming a special kind of jelly. It is possible that this differs between tribes, as the Herculean tribes are as varied as the species of their animal cousins. Once an Eternity Larva metamorphoses, rather than becoming a juvenile Shieldback, it emerges at an advanced stage. There is a clear correlation between the number of molts an Eternity Larva has gone through and the Shieldback it becomes, though the ratio is not known, and once again, it likely varies tribe to tribe. Eternity Larvae frequently remain as such for many years, and some simply live out their extremely lengthy lives without ever metamorphosing, acting as the scholars of the Herculean kingdom. A number of mighty Shieldbacks have come from Eternity Larvae, most notable among them the great unifier of the Herculean tribes, the Thousand-year Sapphire Monarch. As his name suggests, this Herculean remained an Eternity Larva for a thousand years, emerging as the Thousand-year Ruby Monarch. He went on to unify the Herculean tribes before molting into his current form, in which he has remained for the past century.”
The tome went on to describe various known stages of Herculean development. They were consistent in general appearance within their tribes, starting at dark earthy colours, moving into greens, then yellows, oranges, and reds. In the same way, the body shape changed and the size of a Shieldback’s horns, mandibles, and other such extremities grew. Patterns and specific colours seemed to differ greatly between tribes. From the descriptions, Ronin was… Effectively a juvenile, having only recently metamorphosed from a larva.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“It is known that Shieldbacks possess intelligence comparable to human adolescents from before their metamorphosis, but they do not develop the ability to speak until anywhere between the third and fifth molt. They commonly learn sign language to compensate.”
A tug at her mind’s edge, pointing inward. After the third or perhaps fourth tug, she gave in and looked at her menu… Only to find substantial changes.
[NAME: Brunhilde Krahe]
[ARCHETYPE: Cherno Caster Lvl. 15]
[TITLE: Blackhand]
[RACE: Human]
[SEX: Female]
[AGE: 43/0]
[MIGHT: E1]
[CONTROL: D2]
[ATHLETICISM: E3]
[DURABILITY: E2]
[THAUMIC THROUGHPUT: D3+E3]
[ENTROPY TOLERANCE: D2+D1]
[ENTROPY DISSIPATION: E1+F2]
[BOONS]
[FLESHGRAFTS]
[EIDOLON VAULTS]
[THAUMATURGIES]
[STORAGE]
[OTHER]
Before she could get a good look at her attributes, she already felt that same tugging sensation trying to bring her attention to her Boons.
[SNARE-SIGN OF BLACKEST PITCH]
[Tags:]
Eidolon Vault
Outer God’s Touch
[Details:]
The holder gains two Lesser Eidolon Vaults and one True Eidolon Vault.
A raised eyebrow and a faint smirk were the only reactions the boon elicited from her; Krahe wasn’t familiar enough with this side of the Seven Spokes System to evaluate the Boon’s true value, but having seen the effects of common Eidolon Vault applications, she was perfectly happy with it even if she just ended up adding Red Reapers to her arsenal. The growth of her actual attributes, though, was an indisputable benefit. She could feel that a fair bit of it was thanks to the Liminal Coil, but only a fraction. Taking a look at her attribute ratings again, she thought back to that first time, back in Jas'raba. Since back then, her Control had jumped from E2 to D2, while Athleticism and Durability had both grown by a single numerical increment each. In stark contrast, her base Thaumic Throughout had gone from F1 to D3, her Entropy Tolerance had gone from E3 to D2, and Entropy Dissipation had grown from F3 to E1. Krahe thought how convenient it would be if the system tracked growth changes, but since she had a habit of intermittently checking her attributes, she would need some way to record "save states". A memory slate would probably work, but she would have to always keep it in storage so to avoid it becoming a security issue.
It wasn’t long before Casus returned from wherever he had gone, laying out a whole array of various Mamon Couplers across the coffee table, including the non-functional coupler with the cracked core from before. He began polishing them.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Good, good. Seems I jumped to archetype level fifteen and got a new boon since I first got out of Jas’raba.”
“What level were you then?”
“Five.”
Casus continued meticulously checking over his collection, furrowing his brow as he mentally went over recent events.
“...An outlier, but not absurd progression for a late starter. Considering the Butchershop and Slaughterhouse 9, it’s to be expected. What is the boon?”
Many would have said that he was downplaying, that her growth was absurdly fast, but Casus himself spoke from the perspective of an outlier, a man fully expected to eventually become a powerful graft-saint. The very idea of being able to tame the Silberblut Coupler had been considered absurd before he set himself to the task. Favonia, his not-quite-sister, had gained a name for becoming strong at a similarly breakneck pace, and much like Krahe, she too had applied her own memory of her past life to that end. Within his frame of reference, Krahe’s archetype level progress was par for the course, and he thought nothing of it. No, it was everything else about her that stood out. If anything, her rapid progress in archetype leveling felt like a foregone conclusion, a mere side effect of this woman applying her own pre-existing skill set to the Seven Spokes System.
“The holder gains two Lesser Eidolon Vaults and one empty True Eidolon Vault. Not sure why it only specifies that for the True Vault,” she said. Even now, she continued reading her book, and altogether remained in a relaxed state.
“Two Lesser Vaults and one True Vault… One would expect a boon of this sort from a specialized Occultist or a Shamanist, but it is nonetheless well within plausible bounds. Misunderstand me not, this Boon is certainly valuable… But you still have to actually fill those vaults before you can make any use of them, and find some means to harness the spirits besides, which I cannot help you with.”