The idea had come to him when he noticed one of the kindred having holes in its ears. Once the earrings were removed, the skin healed around the pierced place. Usually, most kindred, if hurt, had their wounds heal with no scarring.
This is like creating a gap, Scholar Magnus thought.
He had placed wooden posts of equal height about the well-lit room, to be used as reference points. Hanging horizontally in the air, the mighty blade was tightly clamped at the sides, area close to its climax free, a slide system of metal tracks above.
Long iron chains descended from the ceiling and were attached to the clamps whose sturdy handles allowed for satisfactory control over the suspended archblade.
He had practiced the procedure twenty times, using the whole apparatus on a wooden frame packed with sand. The frame had been of rough humanoid shape and in dimensions that tried to mimic Kali's statuesque body.
He had even trimmed his black claws in the hopes of improving his fingertip precision and sensitivity; removing any potential hindrance to this procedure.
In another age, the Archcrystal shards were forged into blades of power. Their imperviousness legendary. Their sharpness eternal.
Trilex. The blade made of such a remnant unbreakable, the blade Genesis-forged from a shard of god-crystal.
Forged long ago out of the Blue Archcrystal's shard, Trilex was an archblade that had been, one could imagine, worth an imperial province or two.
Despite what some forgotten, human-written codex—or half a dozen of them—might have claimed, archblades were not always glowing with their mild, celestial light.
Their glow once eternal, these weaponized shards, these remains of the hallowed Archcrystal could not be fed by the sun's radiance, and could only shine when specially-shaped, ordinary crystals were put inside the handle.
There were only a few or so archblades in the world—swords of various shapes, maybe a spear, and a few daggers. All closely guarded.
Even Maker did not know how to make an Archcrystal blade. This knowledge was lost, and he only possessed a few of these human era's most malevolent remains.
The arcane knowledge of how to make more archblades became lost with the downfall of humans. Many secrets taken by the Void. And perhaps Maker is not too keen on researching about such vicious things that may undo even him, Magnus thought.
Despite being unenhanced and not glowing—the relating gold- and silver-filled manuscripts he had pored over often portrayed archblades in full radiant splendor—the hanging sword was regardless visually appealing to Magnus. Unnervingly so. Its color was velvet-blue, rich and deep, and its surface a flawless expanse, divine and dreadful.
He had marked the depth of the intended cavity with a silk ribbon glued to the long blade's side: no point in trying to wrap the fabric around an allcuting blade. At almost seven feet, the blade itself was nearly Kindred Kali's height—obviously far more than enough to create the cavity—and was about two times wider than a man's wrist at the crossguard, the archblade tapering gently toward the tip.
He needed to be careful not to lose his hand or fingers. Not to mention I could easily maim her.
The procedure was not easy, she was among the strongest of crystalborn, close in might to even Maker himself. But unlike him she can be cut, although with great difficulty. To his astonishment, the unenhanced Archcrystal blade was experiencing just that. Struggling, having great difficulty in piercing her flesh. He wanted to avoid using it while augmented and enhanced; there were risks involved when employing an object of such unimaginable power. Even the greatsword Pentacore, Maker's own blade, was forever left in its dormant state.
He grabbed the bottom part of the archblade's handle, unscrewed the pommel, and pulled out a gold case—its indentations specially-crafted to house the twelve-faced shapes. The blade's pommel was well-wrought, proudly displaying the shape of an eagle's head.
He then moved to a nearby table and opened an artisanal, small, wooden, lacquerware chest placed there.
Right after taking one of the interesting-looking shapes out, his thumb rolled the shape across his three sylphlike fingers, his hand feeling the many edges.
There were less than a dozen crystalcrafters with the knowledge and skill needed to create these pentagon-dice-shaped common-crystals. And those few kindred will only make them with great reluctance, only if Maker himself commands it, Magnus thought.
Demanding great skill and patience, it was difficult to carve an ordinary crystal into a pentagonal dodecahedron shape. In addition, with its twelve matching faces and thirty edges, this shape had to be exactly the correct size so as to fit into the casing's indentations flawlessly. Each of the twelve faces had one delicately-etched Genesis symbol upon it. The etching shallow.
When he needed blood for the Genesis process, Maker had used an archblade dagger, one of the few things in existence that could cut him, to bleed himself. And after the small, common crystals in the dagger's hilt became spent they cracked and turned to crystal dust. In either of its two forms, an archblade was sharper than even the sharpest of bloodsteel swords, but only when enhanced could it, with effort, cut Maker.
For a moment, Magnus felt weak at the knees. An image of Maker, bleeding, disconcerting his mind.
As the scholar was inserting them, the yellow-crystal pentagon dice fitted the gilded case so snugly that their corresponding edges appeared as though fused with the case seamlessly, inlaid-like and clean of any interstices. Only the dice's etched faces betraying their presence. Each of the three pentagonal dodecahedrons was locked into place with a nice, crisp click-clack sound—the simple mechanism of the golden casing embracing the top edges. A flawless union.
The chains clinked gently as Magnus inserted the gold casing back into the handle, and screwed the eagle-pommel back into position.
After screwing the pommel he watched the light dance inside the archblade, now transformed into something vile, something unspeakable. A weapon that can kill Maker, Magnus thought. He suppressed a shudder. This is the time for steady fingers and a cold head.
The blade's surface was a glow of molten fire. A power, a divine claymore made by fallen gods and glowing with a dancing, swirling, evershifting, soft, golden light—the glow mild, that of ember.
The yellow light danced inside the blade. The pale glow was alive with the colors of liquid gold and orange and molten bronze, all overflowing each other.
The archblade resembled a fantastical narrow window into an expanse of glowing yellow-orange mist, trapped inside the blade. Endlessly, the mist was swirling, coiling, reappearing, and then disappearing again into nothingness. The mist's illumination was an ember's dying glimmer eternally reborn, aroused again and again by a gentle breeze's whisperings.
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How visually appealing...for an abomination, he thought.
The cuts were made now almost with no resistance.
A weapon known to cut through steel as if it were air was meeting some resistance against Kali's flesh. Fascinating! Scholar Magnus thought, enthralled momentarily. Ironically, this slight resistance helped him with the procedure: giving him a sense of bearing.
As the blade was doing its work, there was no gushing of blood, the flow was slow and it slowly turned into shiny dust, her blood thick like honey or even thicker, dark purple, black almost.
It had taken months of research and preparation to get to this point. The blood that flowed from her was viscous and there was not too much of it, but still, he knew he must not waste time. After the procedure's bloody part is finished, she must be exposed to the pale sun and archlight, hastening the healing process. He still wondered how was she able to bring him the archblade. She might have a powerful position, and influence to match; nonetheless, those weapons were rare beyond rare and guarded at all times with large fervor—selected warriors, alamarium-strong and capable, adamant at keeping the weapons safe.
Undoubtedly, he had done plenty research about human anatomy. The capital's main library was second to none—that was or is—and almost every topic was covered quite voluminously, if one were willing to put in the time to search for the information.
She remunerated the scholar more than handsomely for his help and for his discretion.
He had asked her if it were possible for him to get a Wraith-crystal just for himself. It would give him copious amounts of material for study and research. Considering the magnitude of his reward, he was fine with waiting for a few years.
In less than two months Kali had brought him a beautiful, large Viridian. Not wanting to risk any of the kindred, she had undertaken upon the Hunt alone, with no hunting squads, and drudgingly tracked down the giant beast and slew it.
In truth, he would have helped her either way. This procedure was one of the most challenging tasks in all his hundred and twenty years. It had required a lot of reading and problem-solving. A treat for a scholar of inquisitive nature. And the procedure was proving itself a most fascinating thing. How often do I get to see beneath the skin of my kin? A kin perfect, to boot.
The procedure was continuing to prove itself difficult. There was thick blood and, as the blood slowly dried, shiny dust came out of her—the blade doing its flesh-slicing work.
He had warned her many times, had told her about the risks, and was secretly much relieved after she disregarded them all with great nonchalance. He had some theories regarding why comparatively only a few kindred possessed abnormal strength. This procedure will likely provide little, but what might prove to be an Archcrystal-precious type of knowledge.
Even before that first time they spoke at length, he knew of Kali's renown for being strong, and not just physically so. And yet that will of hers, stronger than katadron, the blue-veined glowing rock, had still managed to surprise him—just like these yet-unfolding findings do so now. He made a mental note about the force required to pierce Kali's skin. Later he will test the sword on different materials, both in its enhanced and unenhanced form. Sadly, such revelations can never be published, for obvious reasons—the main one involving Maeve, his head, and a wall. Using an archblade, on top of that enhanced, butchering the Behemoth Slayer to make her more human-like, Scholar Magnus thought. Yes. Maeve would kill me.
A sense of dread quickly washed over his green-scaled body. He had heard stories about how Maeve preferred to use her bare hands always, even while hunting for Wraiths.
He needed to be careful, oh so very much so. Were Kindred Kali to perish during this procedure(a possibility not negligible), not only would all crystalborn lose a great leader and warrior, but also Maker would kill Scholar Magnus or, if not, then unleash Maeve, his merciless assassin, his spymaster, upon the unfortunate scholar. She would rip my head off. In a quite possibly most literal sense, Magnus thought. He looked at Kali: her mind sailing the Void-realm, her body secured onto the wooden sleeping platform whose shape matched that of her body, her splayed limbs. Then he looked at Kali's priceless aurichalcum cuirass placed at the room's far side. No...Maker would do it, Maker would kill me.
The dark blood continued to slowly ooze out of her, steadily drying, turning to shiny dust. It was necessary to cut away some of Kali's very flesh, it too gradually turning to crystal dust, sparkling like the white sands of an untouched oceanfront beach.
This procedure was not painful, for the scholar had found a way of taking away the pain. He had utilized a platinum diadem that held a dozen small pink, oval-shaped crystals. Resting upon her head, the diadem put Kali into a comatose-like state, she felt no pain. Tiny glyphs, as well as plain-looking geometrical symbols, were etched around each pink-glowing crystal.
In order to stop the wound from sealing he began inserting a long, cylindrical, aurichalcum rod between her legs, so that her body would heal around that shape.
Long ago, an aurichalcum—or bloodsteel: a sobriquet that humans generally favored using when talking about this most extraordinary of metals—rod such as this could buy one a decently-sized manor: according to what Magnus had read of humans. Around the time of their downfall the metal became even more rare. Most of the mines had been located in the lands of Arcadia, lands that formed the middle of Equiya, lands unreachable now. Maker had said that those lands are dead now, a thousand seas of nothing but mostly head- and fist-sized rocks, and many scree-clad mountains.
After a very difficult insertion, this wrist-thick, two-foot-long, stronger-than-steel cylindrical rod gradually narrowed until it unexpectedly became almost flattened at around where it projected out of her body. Out of the few inches of this very tight, narrowing end part only a modicum of the metal was actually protruding outside of her. His ultimate intention was for her to end up possessing a graceful outward appearance not dissimilar to that of a human female's crevice.
As it heals, her body will put incredible pressure on the aurichalcum rod, slightly deforming the metal in places, and making the interior of her cavity into developing undulations.
How to get it out? Now that was the question that required some pondering and some more pondering. Magnus knew that everything had a weakness. Even the god-like Maker, perfect and mighty that he is, and yet he too had a bane. The bloodsteel's came in the form of a vile acidic concoction capable of breaking it down.
***
After a day or so had passed, after she had healed around the rod and in a chamber of coated-glass walls(her naked form hidden from anyone's gaze), he now carefully used a dark substance, the acidic concoction, to slowly corrode the precious metal—destroying such riches that an average human could spend its entire life toiling and still not be able to obtain them.
Throughout the whole long procedure and its difficult stages, Kali has been in a state of deep sleep—the gleaming diadem never leaving its purchase. As it is true now, during the use of the special acidic concoction, so it must be true in the days ahead, during which she must continue to slumber deeply, else her mind would become drenched in torment. For despite being fully healed in the flesh, she would feel a great pain, as the cold ache of the procedure's passing rends its verglas-lacquered claws across the insides of her belly.
Part by painstaking part, pieces of the now rusted and degraded metal, as well as shiny dust and the dry acid residue, are removed from her, unable to harm her near-invulnerable skin but still slow-going to remove.
Following the hours of this meticulous phase, the last and tiniest remnants of metal and dry acid residue and dust are all washed away out of her with copious amounts of water, rapidly injected into the cavity using a custom-made, bellows-looking device of Scholar Magnus' making.
If he rejects her, this will all be for naught. Although...doubtful. From old paintings, manuscripts, frescoes, sculptures, and such, Magnus knew, he knew Kali's facial symmetry was superior to that of any human woman. Kali's entire skin was flawless, body taut and strong-looking, torso long and graceful, each curve in the right place and firm. All the features that the human poets favored greatly. Although...Maker is as close to a human as I am to an ant. He has no equal. He sighed. How foolish of you to ponder on what a deity might do, Magnus chided himself.
I should do what Nikolaos did, he thought. The idea of leaving magnificent Vantium, the largest city, the center of the world, was not an appealing one to Magnus. He pondered on leaving the city not long after ensuring Kali is fully recovered and awake. If word gets out of how he secretly used an archblade, a human-made weapon, their safeguard against Maker, well, Magnus' popularity might be on a slight decline. I should leave for at least a few months, that dark-purple brat could easily overreact and kill me.
Scholar Magnus straightened and looked upon the final result of his considerable efforts. Where once was pristine pale purple skin, now stood a perfect vertical line, a clean scar-like presence. A presence Kindred Kali will have for the rest of her long days.
What have I done?