Unbreakable Heart
The Unbreakable Heart is the crowning achievement of Dr. Viktra Mordenheim, the Darklord of the Domain of Dread Lamordia—a triumph of brutal precision, unyielding logic, and surgical mastery. Unlike arcane or divine constructs, the Unbreakable Heart is entirely nonmagical, a mechanical marvel built to replace a failing human heart with something that will never falter, never feel, and never stop.
Mechanics & Inner Workings
Implanting the Unbreakable Heart is an ordeal few survive without Mordenheim’s direct involvement. The operation requires total excision of the organic heart and the careful threading of every major artery and vein into the Heart’s intake valves. The result is grotesque and miraculous: a body that lives, moves, and bleeds as any other—yet feels nothing where the heart once was.
Most recipients report emotional numbing in the weeks following the procedure. Love, fear, guilt, and grief become alien sensations—reduced to fading echoes of memory. The body survives, but the soul seems... dulled. Some claim this is a side effect. Others whisper it is intentional.
Significance
To Dr. Mordenheim, the Unbreakable Heart is not just a medical device—it is a rebuke to fragility, an act of rebellion against death, and a blueprint for the next phase of human perfection. She regards emotions as failures of design, vulnerabilities that led to her greatest tragedy: the loss and disobedience of Elise, her constructed daughter. The Unbreakable Heart is, in her mind, a cure for the sickness of sentiment.
But others see the Heart as something darker. In Lamordia, where science rules and compassion is dismissed, those who carry the Unbreakable Heart are often feared—not because they are stronger, but because they seem less human. Their eyes are clear, their actions precise, their affections cold. They speak of love as a calculation, loyalty as utility, and grief as inefficiency.
Some say Mordenheim has installed such a device in herself. Others say she tried—and failed—because even she could not tear out the last vestige of what made her suffer.
And so the Unbreakable Heart beats on in silence—flawless, unfeeling, and utterly alone.
The Unbreakable Heart is a fist-sized device of brushed iron, bronze tubing, and crystalline pressure valves, housed in a lattice of surgical steel. Intricate pistons mimic the rhythm of a heartbeat, while finely spun coils hum with kinetic tension, compressing and releasing in a flawless mechanical rhythm. A series of tiny gears synchronize the flow of blood with astonishing precision, routed through capillary-threaded conduits lined in a synthetic membrane resistant to corrosion and clotting.
The device requires no fuel beyond the biological motion of the body. It is powered by the expansion and contraction of surrounding muscles, converting that motion into energy through a series of levers and counterweights. Maintenance is minimal—though once installed, removal is fatal.
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