Up in the sky, 10 miles high, a man stands above a temple he will destroy. From atop a balcony overlooking the nimbus fortress’ inner sanctum he stands impassively, hands folded behind his broad-shelled back as he cranes his reptilian neck to-and-fro, silently observing the scene below. In the Universal Calendar Year U.C. 0079 the majority of the populace believe that it is the actual shape of the yantras of Yossarian and the binding seals that he placed over the myriad of the demi-archons that hold power, when in truth the drawn shape of the yantric sigils are almost entirely inconsequential, as in reality they are merely, “blue prints,” for the practicing mage of how to organize the alchemical reagents necessary to perform the spell. Below, much of the ceramic tiled floor of the inner sanctum had been dug up and excised in exchange for plates of plastron inscribed with canals and gutters insulated with vivianite, “veins,” bridging the gap between small, “fuse,” silos of, “consumable,” reagents and the gelatinous pillars that served as the nimbus fortress’ exogenisis calcinators, erected along intervals roughly in the center of the plastron plated floor.

In truth, as the, “diagrams,” for the yantras of Yossarian had been copied directly from the, “shape,” of the physical imprint of the salvageable engrams of both the henotic and kenotic vestigial oneiric isvaras’ memories, the geomantic arrangement of the components and reagents in the summoning circle inscribed in the floor mattered far more than the actual shape of the sigil formed by it, a factor that had historically bottlenecked innovations in the fields of both thaumaturgy and theurgy due to many staple engrams of a mage’s cantrip lexicon requiring fuses and grand calcinators that would be quite unwieldy when set up due to their size. However, due to the recent breakthrough in calcinator design pioneered aboard the nimbus fortress the Syndicate’s mages had become capable of shrinking engrams down to a size small enough to fit within a person’s own body by converting a number of the body’s own dantians into, ”calcinator organs.” Now, within the depths of the gelatinous, “calcinator,” pillars lay many of the Syndicate's own templars, volunteers selected from the nimbus fortress’ top soldiers, suspended within the ooze as miniature engrams and cacinator organs were constructed and transplanted within their bodies by the largely autonomous tendrils of the gelatinous pillars themselves.

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Taking all of this into silent consideration the man remained stock still in his contemplation, the only indication that he hadn't spontaneously fallen under the effects of a paralyzing cantrip was the occasional swivel of his reptilian neck, usually accompanied by a slight bobbing nod and a satisfied, “hmm.” In the dim sconce-light of the inner-sanctum the scales of his body’s carapace glinting sporadically in the ethereal glow; a, “Beastman,” by birth and a, “kaizo-kin,” by career, the tortoise-like shell that covered his body grew in the shape of a, “krug,” disc curiass, with the gaps usually filled in by chainmail filled instead by raw sinew and muscle that grew in the shape of armored shānwénkǎi scales that shone in the sconce-light as he nodded in silent contemplation to himself, impassively observing the scene below.