Deep underground, a chitinous pod cracked open, segments of its shell rising in a motion akin to the opening of a spider’s fangs. From its fleshy interior, a flood of oily fluid spewed forth, draining away through the grated floor. A gangly figure lurched forward, hanging by numerous umbilicals as a puppet would from its strings.

  After hanging limply for a few seds, the shape twitched to life, arg its back as the lower half of its fafurled in a manner much like the pod. Its mprey-like tongue whipped bad forth, a gurgling hiss rising from its throat. One by one, each umbilicus was torn free, retracted bato the pod. The moment its oct was free of its fihe fleshy mae closed shut.

  Coughing ag, the evoy reached for a nearby grafting table, dragging himself to his feet. Slowly, his coughing turned into ughter. His mind swarmed with an influx of new memories — half his own, and half tinged by the thoughts of another, by the thoughts of a feeble man who had one to him, up his life for the ce at strength — Cabral.

  The gangly evoy shuddered iumbling to one er of the room, where several showerheads protruded from the stoneand a mirror hung from the wall. With the turn of a handle, scalding water poured out and washed the oily ichor off of his body, exposing his bone-white, smooth chitin. Malformed, devoid of any protuberances, untouched by Vedesis. An abomination whose existend method of birth insulted both the Vedesian Swarm and the Twin Churches.

  The White Evoy gred into his refle. At rest, the shape of his face almost resembled that of a human — almost. Even his eyes were more like those of men than of evoy, only with bck sclera and white irises, and possessing the protective shell of translut chitin that evoy eyes did. As he was now, he felt even less at home in his own body than normally, his spirit yet to fully settle bato his inal flesh.

  Once he was done, he made his way through the subterranean plex, passing by vast arrays of grafting equipment, tubs and tubes filled with flesh that ranged from small nubs to entire ans to limbs, eventually reag a chamber separate from the rest of the plex, ohat resembled a living space the most. Instead of being carved into bare stone and reinforced as a mine would be, it was more like a small apartment, only far underground.

  He colpsed into a padded chair that waited at the entrahe bulkhead door slid into pce behind him without making a sound. With the turn of a key, the chair rose up astride six iile legs, and with the push of a trol stick it walked over to the workbench at the other side of the room, its small engine ing and thaumiank bubbling. The chair was not an item of y — Cabral had left it here, and the White Evoy found it too veo dispose of. His eyes idly wandered over the many tools, bits, and pieces scattered across his workbench, but he eventually gave up and just sat ba his seat, tilting it back by adjusting the posture of its legs.

  For some time, he sifted through his thoughts and new memories in this manner, staring absently into the ceiling.

  Eventually his thoughts began to wander, as did his eyes, falling upon a set of chitin ptes which he had modified for the eventuality of iing with Vedesians in his true form. They bore exaggerated ridges and hooked spikes. Moreover, they were adorned with Vedesian is, wrought from melted-down Igarian idols and seared into the chitin. These Vedesian is, however, bore the mark of his rese, embzoned with scripture that spited the goddess on the sides embedded into chitin, out of sight. The inner sides of these modified ptes were simirly embzoned, blending rebukes against Vedesis with protective warding to reinforce them. In this manner, he would be inured from her influence when he wore them. Had he been able, he would have grafted himself to alter his appearance long ago. While his tolerance for inanic grafts was near-zero, he had the opposite issue with anic graft-stock. His body aggressively assimited all anic grafts, reshaping grafted flesh to fit his natural form. The same issue arose with anic, evoy-specific adaptations of the Mamon Coupler paradigm — the transformations all came out as slightly rger versions of himself, with any uraits he tried to introduce having minimal physical presence.

  Only that which Aristedes had referred to as “Abara Morph Tsetse” could be sidered a success, the st attempt at the end of a three-decade-long struggle. The fact he had to use another’s body and soul as a catalyst didn’t bother him in the slightest, the only problem was the difficulty of s good material.

  Finally, his many disparate streams of thought gathered into one flow, and he sprung into a, feverishly reag for tools ae capsules as he began w once more.

  “Aristedes… Oh, Aristedes, whe we meet, I shall have such sights to show you,” he muttered.

  Reality flooded ba all at once. Krahe snapped upright, gng left and right, at once searg for threats and grabbing for her gun. Reassuringly, the gun was right there, in her hand. For a moment, she felt fine, but only for a moment. Her most ret memory was dragging Casus down the mansion steps and ing face-to-face with that uling, owl-like woman.

  To start with, she was ba the safehouse. Moreover, she felt fine, as if she had slept off everything from the raid. That wasirely impossible, if she fully bought into the Molting Tonic’s regeive capabilities.

  But… As she looked around, she quickly noticed small hints as to what was really going on.

  To start with, she checked ihe et, taking out a book at random. She had seen Casus reading it before, but hadn’t done so herself, and when she ope, inside she found the tents of a particurly amusing spiracy blog she had read once. After cheg the safehouse to ensure nobody was here, she made her way down to the street. The city was unnervingly quiet, even taking into sideration the safehouse’s location at its very edge.

  Then, she took a left turn into an alleyway she hadn’t gone down before, and Audunpoint fell away. Krahe found herself right ba the cramped corridors of Sector 9. She was fo either side by rows of tiny shops, all free space taken up by ads that ranged from LED ss to posters to holograms, selling anything and everything. Even still, nobody was here. Oh, there were shopkeepers and ers, but none of them were real, none of them moved or acted like people. Everythi ephemeral, like nothied unless she paid attention to it.

  Akaso