The World, the Flesh, and the Devil Pt1, Ch4.0: The Devil Is In The Details
Deimos - Necralisk
Deimos, home of the famed Entratri family, heirs to the legacy of Albrecht himself, was slowly being consumed . The original Orokin structure, called the Necralisk, had long since become unrecognizable from the exterior due to the overwhelming Infested growth, also known as the Grey Strain, slowly and inexorably encompassing all before it on the small planetoid that lazily orbited Mars like a frozen cephalopod. As for the Entrati themselves, they were also losing the fight against the biological contamination that threatened to absorb them body, mind and soul. In fact, that was quite literally the reason why Wukong had taken upon the task before him; a possible means to defeat, or at least overcome, the effect of the Infestation upon the organic.
Wukong told Kahl-175 to stay close as an obfuscating mist fogged the senses of those around them as they passed through the vast halls and thoroughfares, although the mercurial monkey got the nagging and suspicious sense that the main caretaker bot, a machine with dual personalities of Loid and Chip, could somehow still detect him. Archaic script of the Orokin language shimmered as it was scrawled across broad swaths of the interior walls, the golden honeycomb textures left strangely unmarred with an almost kind of reverence.
After avoiding human, Tenno, Warframe, and the other members of the Entrati family in their respective alcoves, Wukong and Kahl-175 approached Kaelli’s area in the farthest room from the entrance, not including the lower levels of the laboratories dedicated to Void research, the obscuring cloud that surrounded the pair expanding outward to envelope the daughter of the famed family. The Infested ensconcement which rooted the youngest Entrati in place had the appearance of a closed flower bulb, which splayed open to reveal the earnest biologist, small reading glasses perched on her blue-skinned nose, which she pushed up with her elongated left arm, typical of the Orokin people. She did not appear to be pleased.
“Kahl! Where have you been? You disappeared days ago after asking me where the latest Archon sighting was, so I began to assume the worst had happened!”
Kahl-175 dropped his broad shoulders, mechanicals whirring, finding sudden interest in the condition of his boots, eyes downcast. “Kahl.. sorry. Was busy.”
“...Busy? You were busy? Too busy to use your comm?”
Kahl shook his head slowly, “No.. but yes.. hard to explain.” he stammered before looking sidelong to Wukong.
“My apologies. Kahl and I were extremely busy, and he really did want to contact you, but the work was vital and very relevant to why we’re here now.”
Kaelli swiveled her angry gaze to the space simian, ambient light reflecting and flashing across the facets of her glasses, and if he had wings, he would have felt the heat on them. “You, Ayatan? So either of you could have sent a message but-”
“Kaelli,” Wukong spoke in a sharp tone and his own eyes flickered fiery for a moment, prompting Kahl to uncomfortably shift weight from one boot to the other, as the mercurial monkey was unused to being severely rebuked, especially considering their reason for being here. He paused to see if she was going to continue, however she took a deep breath before nodding for him to proceed. “What would you do if you weren’t constrained by your current condition? If you were cured of the Grey Strain?”
The Entrati Daughter’s eyes widened, clearly in disbelief, quickly darting to Kahl standing beside the space simian before returning to Wukong. “Impossible! There is no cure. Trust me, we have tried.. and tried… and tried with zero success. So many samples, so many trial and errors, nothing.” she said with a heavy sigh.
Wukong nodded slowly, “Perhaps that’s because you’ve been fighting in the wrong arena. Kahl, the blade.”
The grizzled warrior reached down to a side-pocket of his military fatigues and withdrew a small hilt, like that belonging to a sword or dagger, except no blade was attached. Kahl flipped up U-shaped metal flanges on both sides of the hilt to form the crosspiece and reveal a slender, oblong crystalline grip. Once the crosspiece was fully extended, a quiet crackling sound like pieces of broken glass grinding together was heard as a five foot blade quite literally grew quickly upward from the hilt.
The celestial chimp’s eyes never left Kaelli’s face as she watched in rapt wonder at the swift process. Before she could ask, Wukong said, “Do you know what this is?” and she simply shook her head, short and tidy dreadlocks swaying with the motion. “This,” as Kahl firmly and confidently held the weapon tip down, “is Vitrica. It was used by Nihil, who was the Executioner of the Orokin Council of Seven, to dispense of various, shall we say, unwholesome elements of their empire. It’s quite a wonder, actually, a relic of a bygone age discovered by the Orokin in places better left undisturbed, and they used it as a tool to dispense judgment and retribution. In short, they glassed their enemies and malcontents.They were so impressed with it’s effects on cowing the population that they later emulated it with their technology.”
Kaelli blinked her eyes rapidly, finally managing to tear her eyes away from the beautiful blade, “Are you suggesting that you glass me? What kind of cure is that, exactly?” she asked in an incredulous tone.
“That’s not the cure, merely the first step, to remove you from your biological contamination. Vitrica, yes, can simply glass someone. However, it also pulls their oro, their essence or soul, into the seriglass hilt when thrust into the body, creating an oroshard. That’s how Nihil ultimately created the Cephalons, but it was an imperfect process. They used technology to digitize that energy but it wasn’t able to fully replicate it. That’s why there is always damage to the psyche, memory loss, gaps.”
“How could you possibly know all this?”
“Nihil is imprisoned on my ship, a trinket on a shelf thanks to the efforts of Nora Night, with literally no one else to talk to. We’ve discussed a great many things in fact, most of which are not remotely relevant to this conversation. His masters no longer hold any sway over him, as they are long gone, nor could he ever wish for freedom without some form of leverage to bargain with. I wanted some very specific knowledge concerning Vitrica and oroshards that I could probably discover on my own through other avenues, but it would take time, which is something that you and your family do not possess an indefinite amount of.”
Kaelli, ever the scientist, hungered for details, eyes behind her glasses boring into Wukong. “What happens after I’m glassed?”
Wukong inclined his head in pragmatic appreciation, “To the point, yes. Kahl and I have been retrofitting Tyr Regor’s cloning research facility on Uranus to provide the oroshard an organic environment to prompt the growth of a new body of Orokin origin.”
“Where did you get the Orokin sample?”
“The Unum of Cetus. The Orokin towers such as her’s use a very basic organic material that we’ve rendered down into amino. We would place your oroshard into a container full of amino, where-”
“My oro would suffuse the amino and basically instruct it to build a body.”
Another nod. “Exactly so. The spark of life, as it were.”
“A surprisingly solid theory. I’m impressed, Ayatan.”
“Thank you; however it is just that, a theory. As such, there is significant risk after you’ve been glassed and contained within the oroshard that the process could fail within the amino tank and you’ll remain as is.”
Kaelli pursed her violet lips, bringing her hand up to her chin, tapping on it with her index finger. “So, my options are either that if I remain here, I will eventually succumb to the Grey Strain and become a mindless monster. Or I risk getting glassed and stuck as a crystal but I could be cured.”
“Yes. I can say even if the amino process fails, I can use the containment environment for Nihil for you instead, so you would possess some degree of existence, albeit limited. At least you would not, in your words, be stuck as a crystal.”
“And you said you visited Nihil in this place?” her blue eyes once again darting to Kahl and back to Wukong behind her gold-rimmed glasses.
“Yes.”
“And what happens to my old body, it will be glassed and stay here? What about my family?”
The celestial chimp turned his head to the left, looking over his shoulder in the direction of Kermerros, her brother and the one responsible for bringing the Grey Strain within the Necralisk and infecting the Entrati family, before turning back to face Kaelli. “That is up to you. I’m not familiar with your sleep patterns, if you sleep or hibernate for extended cycles, but I would suggest retreating within your.. encapsulation before you are glassed. It will draw less attention, at least for enough time for us to make it back to the ship and leave, as I don’t think your family is going to appreciate the risk you are considering taking.”
The youngest child of the Entrati family looked down at what Wukong had called her ‘encapsulation’, which struck her as a cold and sterile term for what it truly was: the slow and eventual consumption of not just her body, but her mind as well. And considering it tapered off at just below her collarbone, it didn’t appear to give her much time left at all. The soft glow of her blue eyes snapped up to meet Kahl’s and she quietly whispered, “Will it hurt?”
Wukong simply said, “Yes.”
Kaelli, eyes full of emotion that began to overflow and spill down her blue-skinned cheeks, reached up with trembling hands to remove her glasses, holding them out to the space simian, who took them into his taloned grip with surprising gentleness. “I’m ready.” and slowly retracted into the sconce after a final look at the Grineer tubeman, his own chiseled features grim and set except for the slightest of trembles about his chin.
Wukong once again swiveled his head to the left, and once he had Kermerros in his outer peripheral vision, said aloud in a subdued tone, “To the hilt, Kahl. Until the light is drawn out and into the oroshard.”
With a deep breath, Kahl took a hesitant step forward and drew back, paused for the briefest of moments before powerfully thrusting forward, burying Virtrica the entirety of the blade into what Wukong had defined as Kaelli’s encapsulation. The glass effect spread hungrily, like frost on a cold surface, quickly devouring the fleshy material that ensconced the youngest Entrati, her blood-curdling scream resulting from the consumption of her body barely contained by the Infested bulb and the effects of Wukong’s dampening cloud that permeating the immediate area.
A soft cerulean glow suffused the hilt of Vitrica before Kahl, eyes riveted to the grip, one organic and the other cybernetic, and with a sudden twist of his wrist, snapped the hilt of the blade off before clutched it tightly to his chest and looking at Wukong.
Without another word, the mercurial monkey put a taloned hand on Kahl’s shoulder and hastily retreated from the Necralisk to their Skaut craft before anyone realized what they had done.