As he leapt from building-to-building, returning from his visit to the Pleasure District, Veks spotted something slumped against the wooden wall of the Apothecary’s courtyard.

When he came close and saw what it was, he bent low and threw it over his shoulder, before heading down the exterior staircase that led into the basement.

“Hey Boss,” he greeted, as he found Jakob seated on a stool, holding a sealed jar with a long-legged jet-black spider within, which seemed to fascinate him endlessly. Strangely, the boy had left his gloves on the table next to him. It was the first time Veks had seen him without them on. His fingers were skeletal and the skin pale to the point of translucence, with every vein below being visible.

“I brought you something,” he continued, hoping his words were not falling on deaf ears. “I found it outside just now. Figured you might get some use out of it.”

After a few more moments of still not being acknowledged, Veks frowned and laid his ‘gift’ on the stone floor, near the table that Jakob often used when dissecting and ‘dismantling’ corpses. With a sigh, he looked around for the Wight, spotting him bent over his own project at the far end of the room, where he carefully worked a chisel and hammer to engrave a thin metal sheet with symbols. Next to the kneeling giant lay curled-up-and-blackened sheets of metal, as well as some that were reduced to molten slag or deformed into strange shapes that hurt to look at directly. Something instinctively told him to not bother the Wight, lest he wanted to end up like one of those failed pieces of metal.

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Jakob looked away from the weaver spider Heskel had caught for him, spotting what Veks had left behind. It was the corpse of an emaciated and diseased dog.

A contented sigh of spent air left his scent-mask and he put his stitched-flesh gloves back on, after setting the jar down. It seemed that the former Thief was turning into something of a lucky charm, as he had managed to bring Jakob exactly what he had been seeking: an animal brain. Granted, he had to carefully extract it first, and then clean it and prepare it, but he could finally continue with making his next construct.

“Heskel.”

A few moments passed in silence, and then came the sounds of something like a pop and the screech of tortured metal, followed by a frustrated grunt. Jakob knew that the Wight had once again failed to transcribe a Chthonic letter to the metal pages he had provided him.

After discovering that the symbols, which the Wight had drawn upon the walls of the basement to elude Grandfather’s watchful gaze, were from the Chthonic Alphabet, Jakob had instructed him to transcribe them for him, so that he could have a codex of them and learn how to recreate them.

Grandfather had taught him the dead language using the Novarocian alphabet, and Jakob had simply assumed this was because the ancient tongue predated written text or its letters had been lost to oblivion. It infuriated him to now discover that it was something that had intentionally been kept from him, perhaps due to the tremendous power the ancient letters could invoke. If he could learn the alphabet though, he could not only create a being to rival Heskel, but one superior too.

After all, if demons could be summoned using their alphabet and symbols, and the dead could be given life and sentience using Necroscript, then what wonders could he achieve with the letters of a language whose very utterance could spontaneously manifest the Great Ones Above into the world?

Jakob felt cheated that this knowledge had been kept out of his reach, as though he was a child not trusted to hold his father’s sword, lest he injure himself and others with it.

The heavy steps of the Wight refocused his gaze on the corpse on the floor.

“Look what he has brought us,” Jakob said delighted, despite his inner turmoil.

“Sample healthy?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

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Sig was vigorously scrubbing a stain created by a customer’s careless handling of one of the ampules filled with an acidic substance. It had burnt the floor black and eaten into the wood somewhat, and though Veks knew that it was futile trying to clean it up, he enjoyed torturing the arrogant squatter. She had yet to make up her mind it seemed, so he was trying to force the issue.

Truth be told, he hoped she would stick around, if only to see how the matter would play out and what sort of wicked designs the Boy had for her. However, he was also fully prepared for Jakob to ask him to hunt her down if she did decide to make a break for it.

The Incarnate shifted his hooves on the counter. He was quite content to remain in the situation he found himself, since the money from the Apothecary afforded him a life of luxury and excess, but the whisperings were growing restless, their slick voices becoming louder and more insistent with every passing day.

As though one of the Saints had heard his inner plea, the door shot open, slamming against the wall with a window-shattering blow. A single crimson-robed person stood on the threshold with a look of anger and indignance painted on his face. The fading light of the day backlit him ominously.

“What are you doing in my Apothecary!”

Veks laughed as the realisation of the man’s identity hit him, but his laughter only seemed to infuriate the newcomer, who thundered across the floorboards, ignoring Sig and heading straight for the man who had assumed his identity.

The Magister took a step back when he spotted Veks’ hooves on the counter, his counter.

“You must be Hargraves,” the Identity-Thief replied.

“What is a demon-scum like you doing in my store!? Was it Jarlson who set you up to this!?”

“You may call this a happy little accident if you will.”

Hargraves lifted the palm of his hand at Veks threateningly, but before the Incarnate could react, Sig jumped up behind the offended Magister and slammed the head of her brush into his temple. The blow snapped the brush at the handle and sent the man to the floor with a loud thump that shook the nearby shelves, rattling the ampules, flasks, and jars.

Veks vaulted the counter in a single languid motion, then bent down next to the Magister, putting a hand on his neck.

“Nicely done,” he remarked, then lifted the unconscious man over his shoulder like a sack of flour and went towards the basement staircase.

“Lock up the store, will you?”

“Hey Boss,” Veks called as he came out into the soundproofed basement. The Incarnate drew up short when he saw what the Fleshcrafter and his huge servant had done with the corpse he had brought-in earlier that day. The brain of the creature was suspended in some strange oily liquid, and the body had been completely disassembled, many of its bones joining the set-aside framework that occupied one of the tables next to the planters that held sprouted seeds of Misty Reminiscence. He still had no clue what it would become when finished, but it had at least six legs it seemed.

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“I take it you could make use of my gift,” he continued.

“Thank you, Veks,” Jakob said, surprising the Incarnate with his sincerity. The young boy looked at the burden he was carrying, noticing it for the first time.

“Who do you have there?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” he replied with a grin.

Jakob seemed to consider this for a moment, before answering, “The Apothecary Magister?”

Veks’ grin grew wider.

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Sig was watching from the doorway, as bloodred light filled the basement. Suddenly, the light vanished, and the ‘Boss’ clicked his tongue in annoyance, his scent-mask laying discarded nearby. She realised she had not seen Jakob’s full appearance before, but she was also uncertain whether that was a blessing or not.

“This is a waste of the precious-little Blood I saved,” the boy said in Chthonic, at least from what she understood of it. She was unsure what blood he was referring to though. The ancient language was also rife with contextual words that meant something different depending on the context, so it was possible that it was not blood at all, which the boy was referring to.

“Why don’t you just join us?” Veks said from behind her. Somehow he had snuck up on her, even though she had seen him enter the basement before her.

She jumped in surprise, but he quickly grabbed her mouth, putting one of his clawed fingers against his lips. Then he moved past her in the narrow hallway and held the laboratorium door open for her to follow him in.

“No luck?” Veks asked as she followed him to where the Magister was bound to a table, a cloth gag in his mouth and ropes restricting his movements. He was speaking Novarocian to include her, but she felt like a kid being denied access to the adults’ conversation.

“I have tried twice now, and I cannot afford to waste more of the Demon’s Blood on this. The Abeyance does not take hold.”

Sig stared in fascination at the symbols drawn on the forehead, chest, and stomach of the Magister. She had never before seen the ritual the boy was attempting, but she could guess from its name what its purpose was.

The Incarnate stared at the man for a moment, then said, “You’re using the Lord and the Squire to represent yourself and Hargraves.”

“Indeed.”

“It won’t work. The Lord has to have true mastery over the Squire. He is a Magister, the upper echelon of the city, while he may only view you as a Magister or even someone beneath him, meaning the ritual will not work.”

Sig thought the Boy would punish the Incarnate for his haughtiness, so she was surprised to see him nod his head in agreement.

“The question is, how do we make him realise his place.”

“Teach him fear,” rumbled the deep voice of Jakob’s Guard, startling Sig for a second time. The monstrous giant stood so still in the shadows that she had not even noticed him.

“I-I can help make him submit to you,” she boldly said in Novarocian, not trusting herself to sound convincing enough in Chthonic.

The chillingly-calm eyes of the Fleshcrafter pierced into hers as he asked simply, “How?”

“With my Hemolatric spells, I can torture him without causing permanent damage.”

Jakob’s eyes narrowed, the expression seeming sinister on his pubescent face, but then he nodded slowly. “Show me.”

Sig took a deep breath. If she wanted to live, her best bet was not to run like the Incarnate tempted her, but rather to make herself useful to the dangerous boy and his monstrosities. She drew the small knife she always carried for such spells, and carved a shallow symbol into the palm of her right hand, the tissue there already so used to the procedure that hardly any blood flowed as she cut through old scars. Once, when Master Wilheim had taught her these spells, she cried in pain at the sensation, but now she relished how the power of the Flayed Lady flowed through her, engorging her hand and fingers with blood and heating up the skin.

She put her hand against the chest of the bound Magister, and it was not long before his agonising and pleading screams echoed through the basement.

It took three days of methodical torture to finally break the Magister, but Sig could tell that her favour with Jakob had grown immensely as a result of her willingness to lend her expertise to him. It elevated even further when the Ritual of Abeyance finally took hold of the Magister, and his resistance and hate-filled demeanour turned obedient and placid.

“What do you seek of me, Milord?”

“Hargraves, you will overtake the management of the Apothecary to the best of your abilities. Ensuring that all the profits from the store will be given to Veks. You will teach myself and my servants whatever we wish to learn, if asked. And, finally, you may not leave the Apothecary unless given permission.”

“Understood, Milord,” the Magister replied timidly, before rising from the table after his bonds were broken and putting his crimson robe back on. He went up the stairs to the store as told and that was that.

“That was incredible,” Sig said, wide-eyed. Then an upsetting revelation hit her, “If you had the ability to make someone subservient with ease, why then did you let me retain my functions?”

The Boy put his scent-mask back on, having needed to take it off for the ritual. A puff of strange-smelling mist flowed into the stale basement air.

Though his mouth was obscured, she could tell he was smiling as he replied, “I thought it would be more amusing this way. Besides, you would have been a waste of the precious Blood.”

The now-obedient Hargraves proved to be a strict Magister, who ruled his Apothecary with an iron-grip, demanding perfection in the line-up of medicines and pills on his shelves. He had taken to using a wooden stick to punish Sig for every mistake, real or imagined, and it took every ounce of self-control in her blood to not pulp his brain with one of the many flasks on-hand.

“Amusing that he only picks on you,” Veks commented, balancing on the top of one of the shelves with a single hoof, while leafing through a book of erotic drawings.

“He’s a worse slave-driver than you, Incarnate.”

Whack!

Veks laughed so hard the entire shelf below him started shaking, while Sig rubbed the back of her head where the Magister’s stick had hit her.

“No talking,” Hargraves scolded her emotionlessly.

“I’ve not seen one of his puppets retain so much of their personality before,” Veks commented.

Suddenly a commotion from the basement drew their attention.

Loud tapping came up the stairs, then the wall. They heard Jakob yell, “Don’t let it escape!” moments before the basement door blew off its hinges and knocked over the shelf Veks perched atop.

When the dust settled, Heskel stood in the now-ruined doorway, while Jakob was coming up the steps behind him. Veks was buried in the contents of two crates and several ruined flasks and remedies, and something enormous eagerly jumped on top of him, like a playful puppy, though twice the size of a wolfhound.

Sig almost sprinted out the door when she took in its full visage, but rather than flight, she found herself frozen in abject horror. The monstrosity had a head that was somewhat smaller than Sig’s own, but crafted to resemble that of a spider’s, minus the multitude eyes, though still capable of sensing its surroundings it seemed. Its abdomen measured nearly two metres in length and seemed to be equipped with a spinneret to produce silk, though the outer layer of its entire body was dense reformed bone, assembled through unknown means, having no visible seams from what she could tell.

From the sternum beneath its head sprouted eight thin legs also made of bones, though these were clearly the bones of humans and animals, given their varying sizes and many segments. Each leg ended in a pair of three fingers, which it was using to grip the downed Incarnate and pin him to the floor. Lastly, it had two fangs made of finger-bones that produced a strange chittering sound, which was grating to her ears and seemed to mess with her equilibrium in some odd fashion.

Magister Hargraves stood motionless, while Heskel moved to reach for the creature, as though its terrifying visage did not deter him in the slightest. However, before he could get close, the Incarnate reached out a hand from beneath the bone spider.

“I’m okay!”

“Loke, heel!” Jakob demanded, now standing in the basement doorway.

The spider chittered obstinately, but relented when a moment passed, as though obliged by some additional unheard command. When it returned to its Master, he put his hand on its head and it shuttered with delight.

“W-w-what the fuck is that!?”

“My newest construct: Loke.”

“You didn’t name the previous one,” Veks remarked calmly, getting up from the mess.

Sig remained in the corner of the store, a shiver going through her body when the bone spider began observing her. Its posture changed from timid to threatening in a heartbeat, but Jakob put a hand on its head before it could maul her.

“Why is it so… so…?”

“Adorable?” Veks ventured.

“…Alive!”

“I have given it a canid brain, so it was very responsive to loyalty-reinforcing Necromantic rites. It seems that rather than having to learn everything from scratch, its reanimated brain retains some of its innate attributes, such as obedience and playfulness,” Jakob replied. He looked down at his newest creation, emanating pride, before continuing, “Mischievousness also seems to have made it into the mix, but it will learn to behave in due time.”

“It’s a dog’s brain… inside a bone spider…?”

“Yes,” he answered, as though that was obvious and not-at-all insane.

Once again Sig had to question the Lady and her wisdom in leading her to this madman and his servants.