Before the war started, Desmond was not too interested in religion. His husband had been a lifelong member of the Church of Gears. The religion had been gaining popularity over the last few decades. Their commitment to helping those in need and willingness to meet anyone anywhere had been growing their flock for decades.

  They got an initial boost with the coming of the Alchemical Revolution. Increased industrial work combined with the mechanization that had been creeping into every life. Their message found new value to the people. Once, though, their ideology only appealed to the master craftsmen. Now, machinery of all kinds was part of everyday life.

  The litany of brass resonated with more people now. In the span of fifty years, the Church of Gears had displaced the Divergent path as the dominant religion in the Vashall empire. Now, he found himself here with the Chaplin. Augustus Sawyer was more like him than most. Both in being a member of the pack and a member of the church, but now also in being undead.

  "Hello, brother. I'm glad you were able to make time to join us." The half-machine, half undead skeleton smiled at him. His every movement was accented by the tick of clockwork and the gentle movements of brass. Where there was once flesh, he could now see it had been replaced with machines of all sorts. In his chest, a soul engine. Divine machinery that housed the soul of all followers.

  Eno was talented as far as necromedics went, but there was only so much someone could do under battlefield conditions. The sinew matrix was temporary and only meant to last until a dedicated specialist could transfer his soul to a purpose-built matrix for his soul; otherwise, the bindings would start to decay in a matter of weeks.

  Desmond had other plans, however. "One question, Brother Sawyer. I know you're one of the pack. How does that work with the soul engine? I haven't met others of us in this situation."

  The priest nodded, the quiet tick of the pistons moving in synchrony. "The core of what makes one a werewolf is in the animus. Your soul for the layman," he explained. "The soul engine houses your animus, and blessings bestowed upon it will allow it to shift as your old body would. From your perspective, nothing will change. This would be similar if you were to get a proper sinew matrix built for your soul." He highlighted the similarities between this route and going fully undead.

  "That would explain why that part of me felt distant," Hostetter mused. Sawyer nodded.

  "Correct, you would still be able to shift, but the stress on the matrix would be immense. It's likely that shifting even once would reduce the time allotted to you from weeks to mere hours. You wouldn't be the first to try it if you had."

  Hostetter felt something freeze over in his core. He was considering it during the battle earlier today when he was resurrected. He had known it felt distant then but thought that was just a side effect of being newly undead. It was still part of him, and if he pulled, he could do it.

  "Still, it won't be an issue. When you told me earlier that you wanted this, I had already prepared the core for the transfer. It will take a few hours to calibrate, but once it’s done, the process will begin." The priest of gears seemed excited. After all, it wasn't every day that you got to induct someone into the Brotherhood of Brass.

  Hostetter looked at the core. "Let's begin."

  Eno looked down at the plans that Colonel Falkenhayn had given her. "This must be a sick joke."

  After the meeting with her squad, She and most of the other licensed necromancers still in Four Rivers all funneled what used to be an amphitheater next to HQ. She was given the run down on what they were expected to do. No one was going to question Heinrich. He was the only State necromancer in Four Rivers. A member of the cabal of necromancers that spoke with the authority of the crown.

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  Still, what they were being asked to do was beyond anything in her wildest dreams. She walked into the town square to see hundreds of necromancers busy at work. This was the largest matrix she had ever seen constructed. Most spell frameworks could fit into the palm of your hand. This monster would cover fifteen city blocks. Scanning the area not only where the necromancers were hard at work on their project set out by the leader, many of the enlisted men not on other primary tasks were set helping. Rubble was being cleared, and civilians were being moved.

  It was chaos, but there was an undercurrent order to display. Reading the plans once again, her part in this was simple. She was on a team that oversaw imprinting runes on the ivory substrate. However, the size and complexity were beyond her.

  Filth. The stench of unwashed bodies. Aromas from bloated corpses. Towers of excrement. Suffering on a scale she could not imagine until she bore witness herself. She saw a child, no more than three, sitting next to something's body. Festering with mange, inflamed skin so thin she could see their bones. They were not weeping. They had no eyes left to cry with. The body belonged to the last person who showed them kindness.

  The child was long dead. Spontaneous resurrection was rare but not unheard of. This was the first time she had seen a Revenant just... standing there. From what she heard from the guard, they had been standing there for a month. This was ten meters past the final guard checkpoint. A few months ago, there had been one hundred thousand people down here. Now, they numbered just over fifty thousand.

  The Warrens were ancient. Their origins were unknown, but they predated the first Vashall settlers in the region. When they were first discovered, they were used as a crypt; as the bodies overflowed the space, they were expanded. Once even that proved insufficient, the bodies were exhumed and relocated to the Four Rivers Mortuary outside of the city. Now, they connected with the city's drainage system, expanding them even further.

  A full map of them existed somewhere, but that wasn’t something that she had access to. From the planning meeting, she said she had a job to do. Aside from the guard post at the entrance into the city, there were a few other posts deeper into the Warrens. Her goal resided there.

  Traversing the Warrens would be an experience that would haunt her into unlife. Around the base, no one spoke of their experiences deep into the Warrens. Only that anyone who came back from them was very quiet for a long time. She thought naked cannibalism would be the worst of what she would see.

  Lights in the distance began to dim. She thought the lights were going out. Then the buzzing hit her ears. Millions of botflies, bore worms, and other scavengers were migrating from corpse to corpse. Some so close to death that the insects did make a distinction and dove on them. This was a feast of unimaginable size, feeding on the agony on display. Argalia was not religious but sent a musical prayer to the World Wyrm anyway.

  Her goal was in sight, the largest of the compounds in the Warrens. Guards there had full biohazard gear. She was beginning to wonder why she hadn't been given any. Within moments of being spotted, she was ushered inside. Before they even questioned her reason for being here, she handed over the papers that the colonel had given her. He nodded and motioned for her to follow.

  Even though the building was the largest in the Warrens, it was still small. Only ten rooms in total. Once inside, the door closed behind her.

  "So, what do I owe the pleasure, Private Argalia?" said the pale human. She caught the fangs as the woman gave her an artificial smile. Everyone at this post was human, and she idly wondered if they were all vampires.

  "Good afternoon, Warrant Officer Banalia." She pulled a still-sealed packet from her uniform's internal jacket pack, along with the letter from the colonel. "This should explain everything that you need to know."

  Argalia knew what was in the packet. She had been in the meeting. But this was new to the officer sitting across from her. She waited for them to open the packet and read through their contents.

  Argalia didn't know the vampire's face could get paler.

  She was white as snow once she was done reading through the short two pages of text. "He cannot be serious." To that, she just shrugged.

  "Orders are orders, ma'am. I'm just the messenger."

  And for that, she was glad she didn't want to be down here a femtosecond longer than she had to. The vampire looked like she had hundreds of questions, but they were nothing a private could answer.

  "You're dismissed."

  Argalia had never left any place faster in the twenty-two years she had been alive.