Cherno Caster 321 – Black Spire Communion Pt.8 – Y’Alha’Zor of the Crucifi

It was here that she diverged from the pure path of changing the na to change the vessel. As she saw it, there was no need. If the na of sothing inford its manifestation, and if looking upon sothing instantly conferred an idea of its nature, then it stood to reason that remaking the vessel’s form more directly would result in being able to glean an appropriate na for it. She could tell the royal couple were not entirely comfortable with her plainly-obvious intentions, but they made no effort to stop her, nor did they even speak up, so she proceeded.

First, ca the restraints. A fra of dark stone, rising from behind the vessel in the shape of a cross. It hovered behind the vessel, held up by black tendrils as the hands of attendants might hold up an emperor’s robe.

Krahe didn’t simply pull this design from thin air; as many others, this, too, was based on sothing she was familiar with.

The Wolf & Raven Type-39 Alhambra exofra. The Black Cross. One of the earliest and most resilient models to have a structure made entirely of graph-fullerene, a supermaterial structured like graphene, with fullerene spheres in place of single carbon atoms. Its nickna originated from its appearance prior to application to a subject, combined with its sowhat infamous use on humanoid mutants as both a strengthening and restraint asure, as its design made it particularly well-suited to that purpose. With restraint mode engaged, the subject would be forced into the pose of a crucifixion.

Krahe bent down, reaching into the tar, and fished out a six-sided rod of black iron. With her bare hands and simple will, she wrought it into a nail the length of a railway spike and twice as thick as her index finger. Its head flared out to one and a half the spike’s diater, and it had a pyramidal tip ford by six diamond-shaped facets, tapering down to a pinpoint. Into this, she poured the full force of her intent for Y——kh, the intent to “strengthen him through restraint.” There was no resistance. The world that was Zor’Aguhastra, whose world-law of leverage was even more intense than that of the surface world, gave form to her intentions without a speck of resistance. After all, she wasn’t imposing this vessel unto Y——kh, so there was no conflict. She was simply constructing the best possible vessel for the fulfillnt of their future contract, and Zor’Aguhastra itself was more than happy to help her facilitate it through leverage.

Then, she comnced with the hamring.

Six nails through the spine to secure the main fra. Six more for each limb; three through each major joint along the axis of articulation, and three more to affix the exofra. From the feet, she moved up, towards the shoulders, and ended with the hands, whose nails were through the palms to best pin their mouths shut. Only one empty spot remained — the head. Y——kh had no head, not even after all the work Krahe had already done. A grueso mouth yawned atop the vessel’s torso where the neck ought to be, having, at first glance, two rows of six-sided nails in place of teeth, and a tendrilous tongue writhed behind them. The tongue ripped a nail free and, wrapping around it in a tight spiral, launched it with such force it cracked the air. When the mouth closed shut and opened again, it once more had all its “teeth.”

But Krahe, in her gut, knew that she couldn’t fully subdue Y——kh when it ca down to it without giving its vessel a head, and that she couldn’t just alter the exofra to exclude that design elent. She guessed it might have to to do with the fact the Black Crucifix of her own world had that requirent, so much so that before being applied to a mutant with a particularly deford neck or head, said mutant would need to have these deformities corrected first. The world-law of leverage went both ways, she had to play along to take advantage of it.

Once again at her intervention, a head erged from the tar, ford from the sa glistening black stone as the nails and exofra. Its shape was that of a wedge, its upper half resembling a cut gemstone with triangular facets, devoid of any sensory organs; the entire head was one giant mouth, with a seam that spanned it end to end, and it had a socket at the back specifically for the exofra’s head section. To the vessel’s torso, it would be joined by a long neck with plenty of space for the tongue and whatever the eidolon bit out of a target, the neck’s articulated fra armored by interlocked, articulating rings of armor. When it ca to joining that neck to the vessel’s main body, Krahe once more turned to nails.

The sheer width of the vessel’s fra demanded a bespoke collar to seat upon its shoulders, one that ca down over the top of its chest and back, leaving a gap for the exofra. She ford sockets upon this armored harness at the points of attachnt and nailed it to the vessel’s flesh, wedging them between the vessel’s tal ribs.

For an eidolon, true physicality was not a necessity, it was yet another point of leverage. A body would be tougher because it was armored and thus because considerations had to be made for the mobility-limiting factors of that armor and for the fact other things couldn’t be put in its place. At the end of the day, it all boiled down to leverage. An eidolon’s manifestation vessel was an idol, every design elent a symbol, even those seemingly impractical.

Y——kh’s natural manifestation, and even the manifestation as Y’garokh the Biter, would likely have potent abilities related to biting and devouring. Y——kh’s corpulent form would have been one to withstand damage by sheer mass and regenerate from it, whereas Y’garokh’s lither form would retain these traits while trading durability for nimbleness. Despite retaining that aspect, this vessel’s chief defense would be armor, and both its nimbleness and regeneration would be stunted as a direct consequence of its restraints; its hand-mouths would be slower to open due to the nails, and the bulk of its armor would limit its movent, forcing it to either move deliberately or charge in a straight line and go to the effort of deliberate anchor-turns using precious nails, placing it sowhere between Y——kh’s natural form and Y’garokh the Biter in terms of mobility. Its chief offensive capability would be to inflict its own state upon others: Impalent, pinning, and crucifixion by way of its six-sided nails; in this manner, it would compensate for its limited mobility by removing the mobility of its targets, creating the openings it needed to bite them.

The Black Crucifix lded seamlessly to the head. Finally, it was done. The exofra stiffened, pulling back the vessel's arms and head back as it settled into its locked configuration.

At last, all else fell into place, and Krahe felt satisfied with both the vessel and the na it evoked in her mind.

Krahe stepped to the side, glancing past the vessel at the royal couple. The King had eyes once again; six eyes, to be precise, three on each side of his face. Of these eyes, four shifted to stare at her, while the lowest pair remained fixed to the vessel.

"You are finished?" he questioned, making no effort to conceal his taken-aback tone.

“I’ve decided," she nodded. "The Contract Na shall be Y’Alha’Zor of the Crucifixion.”