{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/ophisrhodon",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/ophisrhodon",
  "publishedAt": "2022-09-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "The souleye, (sometimes called the fifth eye, the esoteric eye, or\neven the pineal eye for an analogy to vertebrates), regulates a\ndiamantid's nous, the seat of higher cognition and sapiance.\n\nFrom its place recessed inside the brain, it synthesizes, stores and\nprocesses the umbraneurotransmitters required for higher cognition.\nThough poorly understood, its role in catalyzing, selectively\ndistributing, and otherwise modulating nouetic activity hint at a role\neven more significant than a simple nerve gland or neural liver.\n\nAnatomically, the pineal eye resembles an ocellus warped and imbued\nwith black nerve and melanpileous fungal tissue.  Indeed, one can be\nsure of this origin: diamantes have only two external ocelli, where\neven mantes' closest evolutionary relatives, the noble roaches, have\nthree.  Yet even fossilized mantid shells often bear three eyespots.\nThe souleye clearly underwent profound evolution in a remarkably short\ntime.\n\nEvolution for what purpose? With some certainty, diamantes can credit\ntheir very minds to the work of this small black remnant of an eye.\nDamage to the souleye yields a number of disorders, culminating in the\ninfamous and terminal \"rootless\" affliction. A rootless mantis lacks\nany higher sapiance at all, only the pained, frenzied faculties of an\nanimal.\n\nThere's more to discuss on this topic --- the coronal ablution,\nubiquitous in modernity, and its impact on pineal functioning; the\nsurprising role of theca-guarding in the mental development of\npre-hatched mantes; as well as wraith-forms and the chorus resonance,\nbeing the very dangers ablution and theca-guarding shield nymphs\nagainst. But this is not an exposition on the souleye: we are here to\ninstead discuss the treacherous snake-rose.\n\nCommonly dubbed the cursed eye of the beholden, the ophisrhodon is an\nunstable mutation of the souleye endowed by the vespers, inherited by\nthe clan Anthimati. \n\nLike some disorders of the pineal, the ophisrhodon passes\nmatrilineally.  Still, for years after hatching, the ophisrhodon will\nremains enclosed within the user's brain, functioning just as a normal\nsouleye.\n\nIt grows faster than it should, bloating and suffusing the brain in\nnouetic proteins to a degree any physician would remark as\nanomalous. Eventually, the umbraflux from a dormant ophisrhodon's\nactivity heightens, extending outwards to influence and be influenced\nby the environment directy --- particularly other minds.\n\nThese dim gropings are a pale shadow of true nouprojection; even\nlaybugs resist it without issue. Nonetheless, the affect will strike\nmost as off-putting.  Creepy.\n\nThis quickly alienates the user from most they encounter.  Yet if\nsomeone is undaunted or unable to escape, if they persist in\ninteraction with the user until they trust and are trusted by the\nuser, they slowly adapt to the psychic flux.\n\nThe one affected by it, the target, will grow to associate this\nsensation with the user, and if their trust in the user grows strong\nenough, then consciously or unconsciously the target will relent their\nmind, granting the ophisrhodon greater and greater influence.\n\nCall this a debt-bond. A dormant ophisrhodon takes months to forge\nsuch a connection.  If successful, the target becomes beholden to\nthe user.  This means, for mere dormant ophisrhodon, the debt-bond\nconveys vaguely the moods and intents of the target and the user, so\nlong as they are within a certain range.\n\nBut this range increases with development.  As the two adapts to it,\nthey begin to intuitively sense the other's moods --- even rising to\nthe point of seeming to know what the other is thinking.\n\nEventually, one of two things will happen: either the target dies, or\none betrays the other.  Once either condition is met, the ophisrhodon\nadvances to a new stage of development.\n\nNote this requirement is disjunctive, not conjunctive ---\nunderstandably nevertheless, it lends credence to misapprehension that\nmanifesting the ophisrhodon entails treachery, even to the point of\nkilling the one you trust the most.\n\nStill, death is not needed, and the 'betrayal' may be outright enmity,\nor simply an moment where the target fails the user when needed most.\nStill, the belief that the heart of the ophisrhodon is treachery means\nany manifestation can be taken as proof of betrayal --- a self-fulling\nnotion.\n\nA matured ophisrhodon bursts violently from the middle of the head of\nthe user, a process know as 'flowering', a bloody and agonizing\naffair.\n\nFreed from the brain, a newly flowered ophisrhodon rises from the\nforehead on a thorned stalk, and quickly grows to a size impossible to\nfit back in the soon-healed exit wound.\n\nUpon the stalk sits the eye-flower. A dull red orb when inactive, the\ncentral eye is at first surrounded by two sharply-tipped fangs, their\nsharp points dripping jet black poison.  Ringing the eye beneath the\nfangs are row after row of sable petals that shimmer in the light.\n\nIf the flowering condition was perceived as a betrayal, the debt-bond\nwill be instinctively revoked.  When first forging the debt-bond, the\ninfluence of the ophisrhodon has already altered the mind of the\nbeholden, turning the target's souleye into a debt-seed.\n\nRevocation triggers the sprouting of the target's debt-seed, a thin\nstalk and small flower bursting from the head of the beholden: a\nrhodet in bloom.  For a non-Anthimati, flowering means the end; if the\nbeholden wasn't already dead, emergence and extraction of the pineal\ngland inevitably results in rootlessness.\n\nWhen the user recovers from flowering, they soon discover the ability\nto activate the ophisrhodon at will with but a minute flexure of their\nenervate.\n\nAs if a lamp burning black nerve, the snake-rose lights up with a\nbaleful red glow, flowing black lines stretching between the fangs.\nPointing the ophisrhodon at a mantid's head, the glowing eye can sense\nand scan the target's nous.  The user can parse the brain-image\nintuitively, picking out moods and other coarse details with\nexceptional ease. (A projectique might take years of tireless study to\nreplicate a neophyte ophisrhodon user's analysis.)\n\nMany ophisrhodon users report that it feels as though the eye itself\nwhispers in their mind, telling them the secrets of how to grill and\nmanipulate bugs.  And any users' feats of 'mind-reading' often take\nthe form of this kind of grilling or interrogation --- even a detailed\nscan of a brain is no perfect revelation of its meaning, only an\nexceptionally useful reference. \n\nStill, the ophisrhodon has unparalleled ability to memorize\nneuron-circuits and classify firing patterns, and the accuracy of its\nparsing will continually rise with training.\n\nBut with that training, the user soon discovers that their newfound\nclairvoyance is not free.  No technique is.  As they scan mantes, as\nthey consult with their beholden (if they still have them), indeed\neven as they do nothing more than live, they will find the petals of\ntheir ophisrhodon wilting and falling away.\n\nThe petals were highly concentrated, crystalized nouetic proteins; the\nophisrhodon consumes them to fuel its abilities.  Once the ophisrhodon\nflowers, the user loses the ability to produce them themself.\n\nHowever, they gain the ability to create more beholden.  Rather than\nthe slow process of adapting a close comrade, the user can now bite a\ntarget, the venom consisting of the very nouetic enzymes needed to\nalter a pineal gland into a debt-seed, marking them as\nbeholden. \n\nStill, a need for some form of consent never truly goes away.  An\nunwilling target subject to the venom will feel terrible headaches,\nbut the venom nor the ophisrhodon is sufficient to overcome determined\nresistance.  Even submission under duress is not workable: without the\ntarget feeling relaxed and positively disposed toward the user, the\nprocess will not take, and the attempt will bear no fruit.\n\nOnce the user successfully beholds a target, their rhodet slowly\ndevelops.  This process actually has benefits for the target; through\nthe transformation into beholden, are granted resistance to\nnouprojection from anyone but the ophisrhodon user; it's comparable to\nlow level distortique training.\n\nThe debt-bond seeks out and attaches itself to parts of the brain\nassociated with the user.  As it grows, it readily accepts and\ntransmits signals from the user.\n\nIn practice, this manifests as if the user were a voice in the\ntarget's brain, able to converse with them telepathically.  When the\ndebt-bond is active in this way, it visibly manifests as dark lines\nflowing and crossing the surface of the target's compound eyes.\n\nIf and when the user revokes the debt-seed, the rhodet can be\nenfoldened within the closing petals of their ophisrhodon, as if\nswallowed by the snake-rose.  This destroys the rhodet, consuming its\nmass and nerve; and with this act, petals are regenerated.\n\nHow many petals are regained increases with greater development of the\ndebt-seed.  If the user simply allows their eye to bite their\nbeholden, and extract noetics through hormone-flush blood, they can\nreplenish petals without killing their beholden --- but this is much\nless efficient. \n\n(A user might try killing someone who has never submitted to their\neye, or even try extracting psi-nerve from a laic brain.  Because the\nophisrhodon uses its own bespoke proteins, which the beholden are\nentrained to produce, this is far less efficient still.)\n\nThe ophisrhodon is born of mutation, and no two are quite alike.  For\nthis reason, the rhodets of another user are not always entirely\ncompatible; trying to consume another users' will also be less\nefficient, if it not outright impairing the functioning of the user's\nophisrhodon.\n\nStill, the user must obtain more petals somehow: the ophisrhodon\nrequires nouetic surplus for its operation; the ophisrhodon cannot\nmaintain a nous that sustains its own activity; the ophisrhodon is the\nuser's souleye, and without a souleye, a mantis becomes rootless and\nferal.\n\n(The ophisrhodon is the ultimate instrument",
  "title": "The Ophisrhodon"
}