And despite the Church's admonitions, the nobles, scenting the succession is nigh, traffick with all manner of dubious powers; and few are more loathsome than those nobles who, dissatisfied with mere ceramsteel, don cuirasses artificially empowered with Guild-magick. At first the pact seems favorable: The wearer of the mail becomes nigh akin to a war-golem, gaining strength sufficient to rend steel; and great glory on the battlefield is his for a span.
But such vassalage extracts a terrible price, for the particular breed of demon that fuels the mail is a rapacious one, and after a time begin to eat away at the wearer's very body; so that within a decade after first donning the armor, the chivalrous flower is but a withered weed: covered with tumors, hairless, scabrous and foul.
