Tracing the surface of her back in the spot which had burned, she felt a raised area of skin and simultaneously saw, in her mind’s eye, the appearance of a sigil. It was a seven-segmented, abstract design which ran the length of seven vertebrae across the lower half of her back, ending just above her tailbone. It was clearly patterned after the aggressive shape language of Carnifex’ own segments, but not a mere silhouette of the blade itself. She vividly felt the dense bundles of silver conduits which led to and from the sigil; it wasn’t a tattoo, but a part of her skin.
She left it while she dressed and only then inspected it further. A touch of intent and a bit of Pneuma directed to the sigil were enough to make the many-edged spirit manifest by her side in a swirl of blades, offering up the end of her tail. Both Carnifex’ manifestation and transformation into her true form as the cleaver took a split-second, but by simply giving it more Pneuma, she was able to shave it down such that it was faster than physically pulling the blade ever could be. To most eyes it would look like the cleaver just appeared in her hand. A part of Zelsys wondered if that was the only change the Reforging Rite had affected upon her, but she also knew in her gut it wasn’t.
Zelsys made her way to the lift.
Unlike the way down, the barriers opened above her before she would pass through them.
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Having been right there in the lift chamber, Jorfr had gotten an altogether unique perspective of the Reforging Rite. He was in no place to see the Forgemother’s manifestation directly, yet it had been burned into his brain. Each hammer-strike reached him both as a ripple in the world and a tremor through the ground.
Even he wasn’t sure how long exactly it had taken, but he knew that it stopped with a great tremor after which everything fell silent and still for some time. Then, he heard the lift approaching, the barriers buzzing in sequence as the platform passed through them, and an ominous pressure approached alongside it. Static and the smell of ozone filled the air. It was obviously Zelsys, it had to be, but her aura had changed somehow.
It wasn’t active pressure insomuch as it was the sense that, were she to stoke her aura and release it, it might rival the Presence of a Hundred Men technique.
Her figure rose up into view exuding a sense of triumph, based on how she held herself, devoid of all the implements with which she’d descended. Devoid of those implements and something she absolutely should not be devoid of.
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“You’ve returned. But where-” Jorfr began, momentarily worried at whether something may have gone awry or if some bizarre thing may have happened. He was interrupted by the flash of her beartrap grin as she stepped off the lift and held out her hand. A being of metal and blades suddenly took shape next to her, a woman just as ridiculously built as Zelsys herself, with segmented limbs and a long, also segmented tail that ended in the Butcher’s L-shaped handle. Zel grasped it, and in an instant, the spirit snapped into the form which Jorfr had anticipated.
He felt a faint aversion to looking at the blade, as if merely laying eyes upon its edge could cut him. It radiated a vicious killing intent directed nowhere in particular.
Then, she let go… And the cleaver was gone.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “The only thing I need right now is a good long bath.”
Jorfr laughed, relieved of a worry he had held only subconsciously. It was still her; she hadn’t been changed into the likes of the Revenant King through her interaction with the antediluvian.
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Xiān Dì knew that something was terribly, horribly wrong from the first. He could pinpoint the exact moment when it happened, when it felt as though a foreign presence had appeared within his throne chamber, the world itself rippling. He stared at that spot, used each and every form of supernatural sight he possessed, and all he had to show for it was the sight of a vague figure and the feeling of a northward direction, past Hedan’s Wall. Then, another ripple, a hundredfold as forceful as before, and the presence was gone.
He had the entire palace searched in every manner he could think of, and while his eunuchs and court wizards carried out this task, he received a grave and unsettling message from the north. It was Von Wickten. The Armor of Pure Purpose suited him far better now, after the two had been given time to adjust to one another, but… There was no reason for Von Wickten to call, unless it was a truly pressing emergency, and indeed it was. After all, the possibility of eliminating Zelsys Newman wasn’t by far his only reason to save Adalbert’s life; it was also the opportunity to have some degree of monitoring on her. Where scrying failed, the connection of whomever wore the Armor of Pure Purpose to their main target functioned in an altogether different manner, being closer to a curse than any scrying ritual, yet it also superseded the weaknesses of most curses. As such, he was not just useful as a combative asset, but also for monitoring of Zelsys Newman as well as her compatriots. Specifically, Jorfr Hulson and Victor Khestun; these individuals Von Wickten had possessed a sufficient focus on before his transformation.
The Armor’s silver guise appeared before him, having by now shifted into a statuesque face in vague resemblance of its wearer’s original body. It made him think of old Roman statues, or gladiatorial masks, though it also had parallels in this world’s history; high-fidelity, paint-stripped stone statues weren’t exactly a rare feature of architecture. They’d even become an aesthetic trend here. As he recalled, the cities of that Nameless bastard were once filled with whitestone statues of him and his friends. How he still reviled those Three Bastards, even now.