Geistknight Armor

"This one too, let's open it up."

Emilia King leaned forward expectantly at the edge of her wheelchair. Her eyes could almost burn holes in the wooden crate the way she was staring at it. Deep within the warehouse owned by King Enterprises, where the public was kept in the dark as to some of Emilia's shadier business dealings, Emilia awaited the reveal of her most recent purchase. She dug deep into the shadier parts of her occult antiquities network for the five boxes sitting in the otherwise empty storage room.

Two of Emilia's associates cracked into the crate with crowbars, pulling the boards away and yanking out straw. These were not her typical mansion staff, where appearances were crucial and the King lineage had done everything it could to maintain a strong positive public image; even with all the nicknames surrounding the Witch of Spiral City, Emilia was still viewed favorably as a historian and as a woman who carried on her family legacy with supporting archaeological efforts even with the struggles with her health. Even now, bound to a wheelchair with her leg in a brace, she had a lot of work to do. Today's work, however, was deliberately kept far from the mansion where a photographer might sell something to the tabloids and make more wild accusations.

And yet, what was inside the crate would've been perfect tabloid material! Her employees pulled away enough packing straw, and then pulled out some packing blankets, revealing a slightly tarnished suit of armor. The historian side of Emilia marveled slightly at the shape and structure of the armor contained within the crate, puzzling over its origin. There were elements of it which felt like they hailed from various European countries, with some components that felt like they went as far back as the Viking age. Something about the design evoked thoughts in Emilia of the Valkyrie from Norse legend who would collect the slain from the battlefield, sans wings of course.

"Beautiful," Emilia remarked, barely above a whisper as she reached out to touch the metal and leather which was surprisingly still intact even after centuries, especially after whoever wore it existed on the battlefield. But, there was something more... the markings over the chestplate, with runes and a spiraling pattern, had a blue gemstone inlay right at the top of the chestplate surrounded by the engraved designs. Upon closer inspection, Emilia noticed a particularly devastating flaw--a crack in the gem. She frowned, and slammed the side of the box with a hand, before withdrawing her hand in considerable pain. "Agh... it's worthless. Worthless! If the gem is damaged, then it's just another suit of armor, lovely as it may be."

"What does it matter if the gem's cracked?" one of the muscle-bound guys asked. "Someone could still wear it, or it'll be good in your hallway."

Emilia sighed. "The Geistknight gem contains a powerful spirit, tied to the armor. When summoned forth, the spirit is meant to fill the armor with their astral body, and they're loyal guardians to those who summon them with incredible strength. When not summoned, these gems are ****, and it seems someone lied when they packed this up." Emilia glanced coldly at the other associate. "Let's make sure we pay a visit to Marcus later and extract a discount from him, one way or the other. I'm dreading opening up the other crates now after seeing the state of this."

"Not to barge in, ma'am, but... there is a possible solution."

Alice, Emilia's closest assistant, stepped into the storage room, carrying a large book with her filled with ancient texts. "I've looked over the lore a few times, and a Geistknight's astral being can be replaced with someone within the same bloodline as the warrior once had been. So, there's still the potential that the armor will work."

"That does us no good," Emilia said as she turned her wheelchair around. "Alice, what good is that information if the gem can't contain a person?"

Alice stepped further forward. "And what if a person contained the gem, instead?"

Emilia's confusion was apparent, but she was still intrigued by whatever Alice was getting at. "Explain."

"You have the Phase Binder stored just a couple rooms over, right? Maybe if the gem is bound to a person, it'll contain the magic as intended. If anything, the spirit that was in there likely still is, they just can't get out, until we provide a better conduit."

Emilia stared back at the armor, pondering Alice's hypothesis. "You might be right, it won't hurt to try. I'd actually be curious to see what the result of this interaction might be, for certain. However, I don't want to take any chances--if we do this, we need to find someone of a compatible bloodline. We're basically trying to apply a bandage to the gem, so matching the requirement might limit our candidate pool pretty harshly, but if it works, then maybe with access to a human form, the astral spirit might behave differently."

Emilia thought for a moment longer, and nodded. "Very well, let's find someone of proper blood, and then we'll start up the Phase Binder."