Crystalline Memory

Performing the Ceremony

Performing this Ceremony takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This Ceremony targets a Terminal character (or a bound/incapacitated NPC) who must be present throughout, but need not be one of the priests performing the Ceremony.

Effects

Painfully kills a terminal target (or a bound/incapacitated NPC), but creates a forged crystal of their memories which must be extracted from the skull. This crystal can be eaten to answer one question relevant to the target before being destroyed.

For any player characters killed this way, the question must be asked and answered while the body is still being physrepped, otherwise the crystal breaks inexplicably before it can be used.

For non-player characters, the crystal will last until the end of the event before its magic fades.

Description

The Crystalline Memory is one of the lovely things in this world that not only sounds abhorrent on paper, but actually gets worse when actually experienced even as a spectator. It is always such a brutal execution that many places ban observers from the Sanctified Square's surroundings entirely for the duration and cleanup, with many religious orders that still utilise this Ceremony having specific subsects that are solely dedicated to this particular duty so that others need not suffer witnessing and performing it.

The worst thing is that the death is not always the same, as if some fell and invisible creatures in a Labyrinth were entrusted with this task - each with their own preferred methods of executions. Some are clawed to death, some have their heads hacked off, some wither away to nothing in the span of moments as if all the blood in their body were drained away; there are tales of some poor souls having their skin flayed from their bodies in a maze-like pattern and slowly bleeding to death. However it happens, it is never pleasant.

What is left behind in every case is a blood stained crystal of vivid purple encased in the skull where the brain would usually be. Consuming the memories within is usually treated as a religious experience, but is invariably coloured by the brutality of the demise, and rarely leaves a good taste in the mouth of the one who eats it, nor provides whimsical or pleasant recollections.

Performing the Ceremony

After calling on the Labyrinth to bring its almighty power to bear, and containing the target in five restraints within the Sanctified Square, this is one of the few Ceremonies where most priests tend to leave (or if not quite leave then linger near the edges of) the Sanctified Square once the divine power descends. This is a reminder of the potent and alien nature of the Spheres, and a potent lesson of the weight of power in the hands of those who perform miracles of Grace through Ceremonies.

Due to the typically brutal death of the target, it is absolutely essential that the Square be cleansed and resanctified after the Ceremony is finished - there are tales of those using an improperly cleansed square summoning the spectres of the dead as screaming ghosts, wailing endlessly of their final mortal suffering and attacking everyone within reach.