Only the next day, they had a queue outside their door from early morning, and, given Veks’ propensity for sleeping-in, Jakob ended up doing something he had never before considered a possibility: helping people with their ailments.

As it turned out, there was little difference between prescribing treatments and dismantling bodies, though the former was quite a boring affair, given the fact that almost everyone who came to him were in need of one treatment or another for venereal diseases.

When the Thief finally awoke and donned his crimson Magister’s robe, Jakob told him which medicines to give for which type of warts, herpes, infections, and so forth. Further, he gave him clear instructions to only bother him in his lab for something serious or if he ran out of stock and needed new batches of medicines. The studious young boy had already memorised their inventory and seemed to instinctively know what the medicines in both powdered and pill forms did, simply by looking at them, as well as how to recreate them and how to up their potency.

By early evening, their entire stock of prepared medicines for venereal diseases was gone, and Jakob bid the pretend-Magister close the shop for the day.

“I suppose I will have to show you how to produce some select medicines yourself,” he told Veks, as he had been interrupted in his careful dismantling of the dead servants eighteen times within the span of just five hours.

“Boss… if I knew that it was possible to make this much money simply treating the customers of the Pleasure District, then I would never have gotten into thievery.”

Jakob had to admit, their profit was astounding, as it seemed the aristocrats cared less about their wallets than their libido and reputation of purity.

“In the morning, I want you to buy some more of these ingredients,” Jakob told him, providing Veks with an extensive list. Many of the plants they made the medicines with were on the list, but so too were things that quite clearly were just replacements for the tools and materials lost with the previous laboratorium.

“What do you need cow dung for?”

“Fertiliser.”

“Aha… and this, does it say ‘three slaves of healthy constitution and lithe build’?”

“I must have made a mistake, that was supposed to go on Heskel’s list.”

Veks scratched the patch of skin next to his right horn awkwardly.

“And how much should I spend on it?”

“I don’t care.”

“Do I get to keep the leftover coins?”

“Will that motivate you?”

“Motivate me? Heck, I would run all the way to Market West to get these on the cheap, so I could keep a fortune for myself, unfortunately that marketplace seems to have recently dried up, so I suppose I’ll have to make do with a minor fortune instead.”

The young boy chuckled, the noise sounding somewhat disturbing through his scent-mask. It was the first time Veks had ever heard him laugh. The boy seemed to notice as well, and quickly retreated to his basement, before he could betray more of his emotions.

“Now then…” Veks muttered to himself. “How much of this can I steal, and how much do I need to buy?”

The next three weeks were relatively peaceful, with only a few squabbles in their shop: such as when a customer returned demanding a ridiculous sum as recompense for receiving the wrong dosage of medicine and becoming impotent, thanks to Veks’ inexperience mixing ingredients; and also when a nobleman became so irate by their lack of any drugs to increase his virility and ‘sword-length’ that he sicced his guards on Veks, only for them to be pulped to death after Heskel’s timely appearance.

Leaning back in his chair during a lull in activity, his cloven hooves on the counter-top, Veks hummed contently to himself, while admiring the newest ring on his right index finger. It was a coiled serpent of jade devouring a ruby in the shape of an apple, and had cost him forty-two-hundred Novarins in the Jewel district. The ring was joined by six others of varying designs and metals, spread across the fingers on his clawed hand, though it was by far his most expensive one thus far.

The whispers had been quite pleased by his latest windfall, and he had come to find that every time he bought something new and ostentatious, a warmth spread through him, while the whispering voices praised him endlessly.

The Thief-turned-Apothecary had also paid many visits to the Pleasure District, which lay suspiciously-close to Haven, and was now intimately-familiar with the medicines he himself mixed and peddled.

His quiet was suddenly interrupted by a woman in a torn brown dress bursting through the door, panting heavily. She was quite pretty, though her red eyes betrayed a wild nature beneath the beautiful exterior, and the frizzy and disorderedly brown hair did not help.

“Don’t move! And… give me all your coin!” she yelled, locking the door behind her, and pointing a rapier, which was already covered in blood, at his face. With a simple lunge she could clear the space between them and slice his throat.

Veks smiled, running his forked tongue across his sharp teeth. He was unsure when his tongue and teeth had changed, but they were far from the only changes his body had undergone as of late.

“Are you on the run, young lady?”

He pulled the hood back with his ring-covered clawed hand, exposing curved horns, glowing-orange eyes, and pale-green scales.

Before she could reply, he leapt from his spot and pinned her to the floor, his palm on her throat, the sharp claws digging into the wood beneath her, and his knee on her sword-arm.

With a fierce glare, she met his eyes, and said, “I killed my former master and need a place to hide from those who seek vengeance on his behalf.”

“That’s much better,” he said, his face only a handspan from hers. “No one takes my property and lives.”

Veks pulled his claws out of the wooden floor and got up, then offered her his left hand.

“Let’s see what the boss says.”

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The Incarnate led Sig down a pitch-black staircase, having no trouble seeing where he was stepping, while each of her steps were careful. At the bottom, a heavy door led into a large basement that stood about three metres to the ceiling, and a vile stench wafted in her direction, making her freeze, before the Incarnate’s grip on her wrist drove her unquestioningly forward.

He was far from the first Incarnate she had met, though there was a different air about him, where the ones she had been introduced to in the past were slothful and cruel.

All her thoughts of Demonspawn were banished when she stood within the charnel house of a basement, a slight figure in a bulbous-and-off-putting hooded apron, made of what she instantly recognised as flesh, leant over a large stone altar, whereupon lay a meticulous framework of bones, though not forming any creature that she was familiar with.

“Boss,” the Incarnate said, addressing the short man.

Without warning, an enormous silhouette appeared behind the Bone-Collector, its masked face staring directly at her.

The ‘Boss’ looked up from his work, noted her appearance, and then looked back down at his work with disinterest.

“She is touched,” the silhouette at the slight figure’s back intoned ominously. He spoke a language that she had only recently gotten a fledgeling grasp on: Chthonic.

The Bone-Assembler looked back up at her, properly taking in her features.

“You’re certain?” His voice was very young, convincing her that it was not a man beneath the awful robes, but rather a boy.

The giant grunted.

“I must be losing my touch.” He turned to the Incarnate Magister. “Veks, where did you find this one?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, now in Novarocian, probably for her sake. “She came to me. My fortune seems to be ascendent.”

“Quite,” the boy replied humourlessly in the same tongue.

With a simple tug that belied tremendous strength, ‘Veks’ brought her in front of himself and to her knees before his Master. It seemed strange for an Incarnate wearing the robes of a Magister to show such subservience to a mere Bone-Collector. Then again, the Boy in the hideous stitched-flesh robes did carry an imposing air about him, so perhaps she was missing something obvious.

Before her fate was decided by whatever mood the Incarnate’s Master was in, she quickly said out loud, in shaky Chthonic: “My name is Sig of the Eyeless, former slave to Magister Wilheim. I possess the mastery over Hemolatric spells!”

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“You speak the Old Tongue?” the Boy asked in Novarocian, his young voice sounding so innocent yet commanding at the same time.

Sig nodded eagerly. “I do! Please, spare me! I have slain my former master and seek refuge from reprisal, but in return I will freely share all that I know!”

“You can start by telling us who the Eyeless are.”

Momentarily wrongfooted by the fact that they did not know, yet spoke Chthonic with such mastery, she realised that they had no clue about anything that happened in Market North, Haven, and the Noble Quarter. She had the brief inclination to feed them lies, but her intuition told her that it was folly, and thus far it had always guided her true.

“It is a cult of noblemen and Magisters, who worship the Flayed Lady.”

The Boy laughed haughtily, puffs of air venting from his red mask, “So that is why you call yourself Eyeless… such arrogance to believe you can subvert the will of the Watcher.”

The Flayed Lady was a former vassal to the Watcher of Worlds, but had gained enough power to challenge his iron-tight reign of the void between the stars. In the grand scheme of things, the Cult of the Eyeless was a powerless and insignificant play-pretend of bored nobles with too much free time, and Magisters who were in short supply of money and thus entertained the walking money-bags with esoteric rituals and lore. But Magister Wilheim had wielded true power, granted to him by the Lady. But she was a fickle mistress and found endless joy in scheming and betrayal, so she had no sooner granted him power before she had granted Sig just enough to kill him when the right opportunity presented itself.

The Giant muttered something and his Master nodded thoughtfully.

“You may stay. Your presence will be amusing, though I doubt I will have much to learn from you, but you are welcome to prove me wrong.

“But do not leave this place, because I will find out, and I will kill you. These are my terms: do you agree to them?”

“Yes, Milord!”

She could practically hear his smile as he said, “Then, as the Watcher is our witness, a contract has been formed.”

Sig stayed on her knees, while the Incarnate, Veks, went back up into the Apothecary.

“And you may call me Jakob,” the Boy said, “I abhor platitudes and flattery.”

“I will not forget!”

“Good. Now... Hemolatric spells could help with my work,” he started, but then, upon seeing her grimace, added, “However, if you do not have the stomach for it, you may make yourself useful to Veks upstairs.”

With a quick bow, she hurried up the stairs behind the Incarnate, wondering if she had walked from a den of wolves into a spider’s web. Given the boy was an adherent of the Watcher, it seemed all but a certainty that her days were numbered, but Sig believed that the Flayed Lady yet had plans for her and all she needed was to bide her time.

----------------------------------------

“I know, I know,” Jakob said to an irate Heskel. “Such an insolent whelp must be punished. Though I need to give some thought to what sort of punishment is adequate. Killing her would be too merciful.”

It seemed downright bizarre to Jakob that someone with enough knowledge of Chthonic to speak it, albeit shakily and full of tonal flaws, and who knew of the Great Ones Above, would willingly choose to position themselves opposite of the Watcher, whose eyes saw all that was, all that is, and all that will ever be. It was akin to setting oneself aflame and then renouncing the water that would extinguish the fire.

Without the Watcher, the void became chaos unbound, and all rituals lost their power. Contracts became uncertain, and summonings became fraught with danger as their beckoning calls might spawn anything curious enough to investigate. In a universe of such terrible forces, the Watcher was the warden that kept all things in balance. The Flayed Lady was treachery and betrayal made manifest, and to put such a vile deity before the Lord Above All was the ultimate heresy in his mind.

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“How long have you been an Incarnate?” Sig dared to ask, when Veks had showed her where to restock the shelves from the box of items he had handed her.

“I don’t know what that means. But if you work diligently in silence until you have finished restocking, I’ll indulge you.”

She solemnly began stacking the dried herbs, charm stones, medicines in pill boxes, purified water, ampules of various oils, and so on. During the forty-minutes-or-so it took her to restock every single shelf, Veks leant in his chair, hooves on the countertop, and an amused grin on his face.

“You really made a mistake telling the truth to the Boss. I don’t know whoever this Lady you worship is, but I’ve never seen him that angry. And trust me, he is not a person you should get on the bad side of…”

“I’ve been through more hardship than you can imagine; a little boy who collects bones is no threat to me.”

“Oh sure, and why, pray tell, are you still here then? Deep down, you know that you’re in over your head. It may be a kinder fate to leave you to the wolves biting at your heels than to let him have his way with you.”

“This is just the most convenient place for me to hide,” she lied, and tried to change the subject, “You said you would answer my question about when you became an Incarnate.”

Veks chuckled, the sound a deep rasp. To him, Sig was no different than the petty aristocrats who believed themselves masterminds by forcing youths to serve them, such as how he himself had ended up in the employ of Toby.

He indicated his horns, claw, and hooves, “Are these what you mean by ‘Incarnate’?”

“Yes, and the tongue, and the fangs, and the tail, and the scales..”

“Oh, right, I forgot about the tail…” he replied, swishing it about beneath his crimson robes. “But whatever you’re referring to, most of these changes were a reward for my service to the Boss, the rest just happened on their own.”

“H-he changed your body?”

“That’s right. He’s a Fleshcrafter.”

“I’ve never met an Incarnate who hadn’t formed a contract with a demon. The changes to your body are nearly identical, though your horns are larger than the ones I’ve seen.”

“I’m telling you,” he said, suddenly next to her, poking her in the forehead with his clawed index finger, “I am not an ‘Incarnate’.”

“So you don’t have demonic powers?”

“No. Unless you count my cunning,” he replied with a slick smile, his face still close to hers.

“You don’t hear voices telling you what to do?”

“Hmm,” he replied, scratching the base of his right horn.

“You do hear voices then,” she concluded.

“Sure, let’s call them that.”

“But no powers? Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s a shame; even the lowliest Incarnates are granted immense powers, each according to their chosen Saint of Vice.”

Veks pulled out the mirror-blade from within his robe. It had never left his person since he had gotten it from the Demonologist’s library. “The voices started when I found this. Perhaps the changes too. But I’m telling you, the rest were the work of Jakob. He simply remade me the way I was inspired to become, thanks to the whisperings.”

“But, you’re identical to a half-demon!”

“So? He is no stranger to demons.”

“Let me see that—” Sig reached out to touch the shortsword, but before she got within a hair’s breadth of its splendour, Veks pulled it away jealously and gripped her head with his clawed right hand. The talon-like nails dug deep into the skin and flesh of her cheeks and forehead, but instead of cowering in fear and pain, she simply froze.

“Do. Not. Touch. My. Possessions,” he hissed, his voice like a cobra tensed-up, poised to snap forward and bite down with its venomous fangs.

He pulled his nails out of her head, letting a tremendous amount of blood splatter on the floor of the Apothecary, between the shelves of neatly-stacked inventory.

“No more questions,” he then told her. “And clean up your mess, the noon rush starts soon.”

It had been a constant since they opened up shop that noon would bring a sudden influx of customers, begging for treatment to their ailments, most of them having awoken late following a night of carnal excess in the Pleasure District, finding that their pleasure came with a strong burning aftertaste.

Before he could return to his chair, Sig told him, “I can figure out which type of demon holds sway over you.”

Later that evening, Veks ‘borrowed’ some blood from Jakob’s laboratorium and brought it to the attic, where Sig was waiting for him. She spent about an hour, carefully drawing out a ritual circle with a septagram inside it, and a different demonic symbol at each of its seven points.

Surprisingly, he understood what it did and how it worked. As well as the fact that it was very basic Demonology, to the point that even a simple-minded slave imp could perform the ritual.

“It’s a soul compass,” he stated.

“How did you know?”

Veks shrugged.

“I’m almost terrified to find out what Saint holds sway over you. If it has granted you insight into Demonology and Chthonic, it must be very powerful. Depending on the Saint, that can mean horrible things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, it is quite possible that you will spontaneously manifest the Demon possessing you, and if that Demon is a powerful servant of either Sloth, Pride, or Envy, this district and all those around it are doomed.”

Veks chuckled. “They’re already doomed. The boy prodigy is in town and he leaves quite a mess in his wake.”

Sig did not get the joke, but then again, Veks could not just tell her that Jakob had summoned a Viscountess of Voracity, so perhaps it was for the best that it went over her head.

“Anyway, step into the circle.”

Veks disobediently ignored her instructions, pulled out his mirror-blade and slid it across his right palm, so that blood drops fell into the centre of the ritual circle.

“What are—” Sig started, scolding him like a teacher, but then she stopped. The ritual was working, as Veks knew it would. It was a crude and oversized reinterpretation of what should be a simple drawing with a brush and a diameter no wider than a hand. Clearly, Sig’s version of the Soul Compass ritual had been made by someone who misunderstood how it worked, since it was as large as a summoning circle, to allow for a person to stand within.

What the ritual did was quite simple: the seven symbols representing the Unholy Septology were each a sort of magnet, which drew towards it matter that it was similar to. It was possible to expand or limit the Soul Compass ritual, to both include or remove certain of the Entities you were comparing a soul too. Such rituals were often performed by the Clergy of the Eight Saint to ensure their followers remained true and uncorrupted, albeit a stylised version that did not betray its demonic origin. Further, it was the blood that was the catalyst, and thus a person need not stand within the ritual for it to function.

A fat yellow flame grew from the centre of the ritual, as though Veks’ blood was flammable oil. This fire expanded until it encompassed the ritual circle and all the lines that formed the septagram, then it quickly rose towards the ceiling, before vanishing, leaving the blood in the centre untouched, as well as a single of the seven symbols. The rest of the blood that the ritual had been painted with was charred and black.

The symbol that remained was Demonic for “Avarice”, depicted as the abstract profile of a mask with large curved horns and a leering smile with the tongue out like a serpent.

Though wrongfooted by her authority being usurped, Sig breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that it was not a symbol attributed to the three aforementioned Sinners.

“Now your turn,” Veks said, grabbing the bucket of blood and the simple brush Sig had used.

Though she seemed uninterested in sharing, the pretend-Magister’s tone left no room to argue.

Within five minutes, Veks had drawn out a smaller-and-simpler version of what Sig had laboured with for an hour, and not once had he stopped to check his lines, knowing them to be true.

Before Sig could ask any questions, he grabbed her hand and slit open her thumb with one of his claws, her blood dripping into the centre of the septagram.

A muddy green flame appeared this time, and left behind three symbols after washing over the blood drawing. The symbols for Pride and Envy were left unscarred, with the one for Wrath being slightly erased by the flames, meaning it was not as prominent as the first two.

Sig stared at the aftermath with a mix of surprise, dismay, and fascination. “I was unaware a Soul Compass could be performed in such a way, even on one like me who has sworn no fealty to any of the Seven Sinners.”

Veks laughed. “It seems you know nothing close to what you claimed. I doubt that the Boss will be pleased to hear that. I mean, did you figure you could alleviate his ire with such trivial rituals?”

“I—”

“If I were you, I’d run as far away from him as possible, before he finds out.”

“He said that if I leave this place, he will kill me.”

“Are you willing to take that risk? I’m not sure which fate is worse, truth be told, but you had best figure out some way to impress him before he decides for you, otherwise, you should be gone by the time I return from my errands. Maybe if you leave now, you may live a-day-or-two in freedom.”

Sig looked panicked, like a cornered animal. She was clearly way more in-over-her-head than she tried to convince herself. The former Thief would’ve pitied her, if it wasn’t for her arrogant ignorance. Truly, the aspects of pride and jealously held sway over her soul, even without a demon afflicting her.

She was still just sitting there in the attic-space when he left the Apothecary.