Pulse of Malediction

Pulse of Malediction is a book recovered from the Crypt of Maledict's Pulse on Last Gasp Isle.

## Description

Bound in mismatched leather - undeniably skin at closer inspection, and bound with a fingerbone reinforced spine, the malice that inspired the creation of this text, and its deliberate attempts to unnerve and unsettle are undeniable. The contents are steeped in hypotheticals, metaphors and deeper meanings and allegories, framed in gory physiological context.

## Reading

### Completed by Ashewan (on behalf of Ódóvir)

Beat by beat, over and over. From start to finish, by definition, it is the metric by which life is claimed, death is defined. It is the rhythm of the living, the rhythm of the potential they possess, the rhythm that marks when that potential draws to a close. When one watches a heart beat its endless rhythm, there is little denying it is a thing of splendour, a marvel of organic craftsmanship, more reliable, more consistent, more efficient then any set of bellows, any bilge, any pitcher or piston. No rust collects at its joints, no shards of shrapnel or debris fracture away at a grasp, but it is not infallible, not infinite. The passage of years, like all mortal matters, will wear at the heart, and while it dances its rhythm all the same, the grace and fluidity of its motions may not flow with the elegance that they once did. Like the elderly and infirm at a masked ball, in time each motions grows more challenging than the last, and eventually, soon enough, there will be a motion that is the last.

The heart is a thing of splendour, for it serves as a perfect metaphor for all manner of things. Anything that repeats endlessly the same task will undeniably become adept and competent at it, expertly refined in motion, efficient in efforts, but it is this very repetition that will eventually destroy it. The muscles of the heart lack effective means to repair in themselves, but to scar reduces the elasticity, the contractility, and thus the heart suffers for it. Those same strains will be torn and stretched again and again, spreading further and further, the impact more and more so felt. The same can be, and must be said for any society, any civilisation. It is by the weaknesses that they are defined, through the holes in the armour that they find themselves assailed, the missing bricks by which a foe may clamber and climb. And if there is no way to fortify these weaknesses, to patch the armour, the replace the bricks, then failure looms imminently. Instead, the heart must look outwards, to the body, and from the body will find its repair, its support, its nourishment.

But what of the heart that quickened its pulse, considering why it supports the body when it truly is the strength of it, and tore itself free? Now it pumps as will dictates, unhindered by the confines in which it is placed, free to chose the rhythm to which is dances, but slashes gore into empty surroundings without purpose. The disarray, the blight, it is befouled and splendid in its own way, but is little more than that. Something to be reviled, feared, while beasts now gnaw and bite for that which is unseen. How could the heart see, it has not eyes. In time, as more and more is plucked from the heart, and the blood within atria and ventricles run dry, it will find its final and last motion, unless forth comes a return. To bind vessel to vessel, reinvigourate that which is lost, that which is missing, as lifeblood runs freely once more so that the pulse of malediction might echo louder and faster than ever before.