Kiss of the Asp

Level 2.

Many Hand members find it a strange curiosity that the most widely known ritual in subsect is the one that sees the least actual use. Of course, the word "known" in this case is used loosely, as the majority of those who invoke this ritual haven't the first clue how to actually cast it - they merely "benefit" from its effects. The ritual itself is an embedded one, enacted through use of the Art of Memory and triggered by any Hand member who is captured, no longer has any hope of escape or rescue, or otherwise has reason to prefer Final Death to whatever alternatives lay before her. The ritual allows the despairing Chosen of Caine to voluntarily end her own unlife by means of the magic stored in her undead flesh.

System: Once cast, this ritual is permanent until mentally triggered, the magic and means resting dormant inside the Cainite until that time. Although the target can enact the ritual even while staked, the Kiss cannot be triggered by accident as it takes several steps of sequential thought to be properly invoked .Once the trigger sequence has been met, however, there's no going back: The last step in the sequence sets off a chain reaction in the heart that explosively boils all the blood inside the body away, leaving the surrounding a body a dissolving husk. Even if the vampire has no blood in his system at the time, the ritual still works, destroying the heart inside the vampire's chest and killing him instantly and rather painlessly. Interestingly, as the heart truly is the focus of the entire ritual itself, any vampire whose heart was somehow safely removed from his body could still destroy it (and thus himself) with but a thought, regardless of distance.

It is also important to note that part of the mystical coding of the ritual requires the voluntary, conscious will of the initial target of the ritual; it is the key that unlocks the triggering mechanism. Thus, no Hand member can be coerced or commanded to invoke the ritual, even through mystical means. Either he wills it or he doesn't.