Infrastructure: Grinding Teeth

Hidden throughout the world are pieces of Infrastructure, devices and structures designed to serve the occult purposes of the Machine, a universe spanning entity working to unknown purposes.

Grinding Teeth

Within the city, an unassuming building sports an odd sheen of metal along the seam between the stones that make up its lowest level. Passerbies instinctively keep away from this decoration, sometimes complaining of a grinding noise.

To those who can see past the simple illusion, this sheen takes the form of thousands of bronze teeth, constantly gnashing and grinding past each other, as if chewing on something. In addition to a metal grating, one can sometimes hear the faint screams of its latest victim.

The entire building serves as a means for the Machine to destroy and recycle potent supernatural creatures and devices, grinding them down into a purer form of energy to power its other projects.

Interpretations

The idea that this building serves the Machine is just one of several possibilities:

• Mage: the Awakening: A potent cabal of Mages constructed the building to serve as a way to remove otherwise indestructible artifacts from the world. These "Guardians" claim to know which items deserve to be saved and which must be destroyed. Unfortunately that grimoire you need is next on the building's menu.
• Werewolf: the Forsaken: The teeth are merely a clue that the building has been Claimed by a potent hunger spirit. It prefers to eat werewolves and other spirits but in a pinch it will devour anyone. Slowly people disappear from the structure's many offices, snacks for the spirit's unending feast. Recently a cult has formed within one of the businesses housed there by people who see the building for what it truly is: a god. Some claim to have Werewolf kin. The god demands sacrifices.
• Geist: the Sineaters: the building has particular tastes, it only eats the dead: ghosts, Geists, Kerberoi, and...Sineaters. No one knows who built it but rumor says they somehow created a Dominion outside the Underworld. Within the building's neighborhood, all dead beings must obey its single law: the dead must be devoured.

Mechanics

So what happens if your character is the unlucky sap thrown into the teeth? The process of being ground into nothingness is painful but slow. Mechanically, the character suffers 1 point of Aggravated damage and loses 1 Dot from their power stat (Gnosis, Primium, etc.) each day. Once they reach zero in their power stat, they suffer 3 Aggravated damage per day instead as the teeth render their body into energy.

Lost Dots return at the rate of 1 per week should the character somehow escape.

Someone with access to the building can easily siphon off energy from the process, gaining 5 points of Aether or Essence each day as long as the teeth are fed fresh victims.

Lynchpin

While taking down an entire building clearly would stop this piece of Infrastructure from working, it would also bring down lots of attention from the collateral damage.

An alternative method would be to feed the Grinding Teeth a poison pill: a being or artifact whose destruction would drain or destroy its mechanisms. Likely options include: a Promethean (who might survive due to Azothic flare), an Abyssal spirit, a Mummy or some other deathless thing.