Field Manual · § 3
What it costs to carry
This is the section operatives skip, and the one to which they return. It is written plainly; for every softer telling that has ever been tried produced people who made the decision late, alone, in the dark, with a Sitra capsule already in hand.
Corruption
Corruption is a number between zero and one hundred, and it measures how far into you the enemy has come. You will not feel the first twenty-five of it. This is no failing of your instruments; it is the mechanism working precisely as the Adversary intended it to work — for the price has been arranged to arrive only after the purchase.
Almost all of it comes of Sitra. A capsule burned in a
Fabricator , a capsule poured into a
tank, a capsule fed to a construct or to your own Shekhinah — one point
each, every time, without exception, and with no way of being careful
about it.
| Source | Gain |
|---|---|
| A Fabricator burning Sitra | +1 per capsule |
| Sitra put into an Ohr Tank | +1 per capsule |
| Sitra fed to a construct | +1 per capsule |
| Sitra fed to your Shekhinah | +1 per capsule |
| Standing near a Nerve Cluster | +1 every 30s, within eight meters |
The four states
0–25
Clean
Nothing. All is well with you.
26–50
Tainted
A cast of gold at the edge of sight. Their constructs are a tenth less likely to choose you.
51–75
Compromised
Wisps of gold come off you. Half of them no longer choose you at all. Your Shekhinah scans at half its pace, and now and again refuses to fire.
76–100
Corrupted
Gold over everything. They no longer hunt you unless you compel them; your Shekhinah sees things that are not there, and has begun to drift.
Read the third column again
The higher the number climbs, the less the enemy regards you. This is no oversight in the design; it is the very shape of the offer, and the reason this section exists. At seventy-six and above you may walk through a nerve center and be let alone — and all you will have surrendered for the privilege is that part of you which they would otherwise have had to notice.
Getting it out
| Method | Removes | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Time | −1 every 10 minutes | Always. To do nothing is itself a treatment. |
| Standing near Sanctified Stone | −1 every 2 minutes | Within four meters. Build with it. |
| A Manna Wafer | −15, at once | Craftable. Keep some about you. |
| An Ohr Injection | −30, at once | Craftable, and not cheaply. |
Build with 
Sanctified Stone . A room of it
treats you slowly while you work — enough to make an occasional Sitra
survivable, and not enough to make it free.
Machines rot too
Every machine keeps its own count, out of a thousand, gaining ten for
each Sitra capsule it burns; and unlike yours, its count does
not decay. A machine you corrupted in your first month is
exactly as corrupted in your fifth, save that you have gone and done
something about it — a 
Pure Ohr Capsule takes off
a hundred, 
Sanctified Salt two hundred and fifty.
At a thousand, it ceases to be a machine. It becomes
Infected Silicon ; all that was within
it is gone; and it puts out one to three
Nerve Cluster into the spaces about
it.
These spread. They creep into stone and soil in their own time, the faster where others of their kind stand near; and whoever stands within eight meters of one takes a point every thirty seconds, doing nothing at all. They will not cross Sanctified Stone. Salt slays one outright. A pickaxe also serves, and drops nothing — from which you may judge what they are.
Containment
If you see gold about your machines, stop, and read the count before all else. A ring of Sanctified Stone about a Fabricator costs an afternoon; and it is the difference between losing a machine and losing a room.
The Tree
Against all of this, the complex measures something else. The Sephirot are ten vessels; and the tradition from which they are named holds that the vessels shattered, and that all which has passed since has been the work of repair. Ours are ten measures of what an operative is becoming, and they advance only by the doing of the thing they govern: Gevurah cannot be bought, but is earned in the destruction of Adversary constructs; and no ferocity of fighting, however great, will ever earn you Binah.
| # | Sephirah | Governs | Advanced by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keter Crown | Rank | Advance the rest of the tree broadly |
| 2 | Chokhmah Wisdom | Scanning | Scan. Find things before they find you |
| 3 | Binah Understanding | Fabrication | Make what has not been made |
| 4 | Chesed Mercy | Healing | Mend people and machines |
| 5 | Gevurah Severity | Combat | Destroy Adversary constructs |
| 6 | Tiferet Beauty | Balance | Stay clean |
| 7 | Netzach Eternity | Constructs | Keep yours running |
| 8 | Hod Glory | Defence | Take the hit on a shield |
| 9 | Yesod Foundation | The world | Go out. Reclaim complexes |
| 10 | Malkuth Kingdom | Automation | Build |
Keter, and what you are called
Keter advances by no deed of its own. It measures breadth — how much of the rest of the tree has grown in you — and it is Keter that decides what the complex calls you, and thus what you are issued. The ranks are the ladder of § 2; they are the same words, and not by coincidence.
| Keter | Rank | Requires |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Initiate | Automatic |
| 2 | Acolyte | Three others at 1 or better |
| 3 | Sword | Five others at 2 or better |
| 4 | Archon | Seven others at 3 or better |
| 5 | Enochian | All nine at 4 or better |
Your tree may be read at any 
Metatron Terminal ,
which is the nearest almost anyone ever comes to the thing at the end of
the chain of command.
I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil… therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. Deuteronomy 30:15, 19