As the adrenaline rush of winning a duel with a normal-sized spoon died down, Elia arrived at the place that would hopefully fix all her problems. It even had a sign.

Kasimir’s Kaotic Katalepsis.

‘That probably doesn’t abbreviate very well.’

In hindsight it was hard to overlook. Nobody else had bought a villa only to surround it with statues and constructs of metal. She knocked twice, then watched the door open with the whirr of gears. The humanoid constructs were overflowing from the inside.

“Honestly, kinda creepy,” Elia muttered to herself as she stepped inside.

It was a dry and dark space, wide and completely hemmed in by what must have been hundreds of partially finished creations. The entrance hall was a workshop, the stairs were a workshop and Elia was pretty sure that the roof was also filled with tools and humanoid puppets.

“Hello?” she asked, rapping on a door frame.

A marble head jerked around, the stone face contorting in a terrible visage like liquid putty.

“Wryyyyy!” it screamed.

Elia punched it out of reflex. The statue flipped over, and fell into a pile of jittering expressions. She looked between her hand, then the rather heavy construct. Toning down her jumpiness seemed like a good idea if she could suddenly throw punches like that.

Somewhere in the back of the workshop, movement drew her eyes.

“A customer? One second, let me just – ack!” One of the robotic statues stood up from its working table, before it was immediately tackled by two unfinished constructs. Elia rushed to help, but when she arrived he wasn’t being assaulted, at least not in any violent capacity. “No, LIV, LIX, stop it, my ears are very delicate!”

One of the statues was repeatedly smooshing its face into his, but without facial features all it accomplished was repeated headbutts. The other, a collage of metal wires and cast pieces of gypsum, was very interested in rubbing his hand with three of its own.

“If you could just… twist the mechanism at the back of their necks for me please.” She did and the automatons stopped moving right where they were. “I was just testing their fine motor functions.”

“I can see that.” She tugged the talking construct up , but instead just tugged its arm off. “Woops. Sorry I don’t have the hang of this strength yet. Also, about your statue…”

“It’s fine, no harm no fowl,” the statue said, popping the arm back into its socket. "Nice greater soul by the way. Let me guess, uncommon with a focus on strength?” He shot her a thumbs up. “You youngsters are always making new builds for hunting and whatnot.”

“Well, there’s a limit to grinding skills in real life. And it’s not as easy as in Runescape either.”

He raised a mechanical eyebrow. “Old School or Runescape 3?”

“Old School. Kasimir, I assume?”

“In the gears and steel. So, the pact picked up another outsider then? Sorry, a person from earth.”

“I invited myself. I’m kind of Karla’s friend?” He stared at her as if she had said the sky was green. “Oh gods, Karla doesn’t have any friends?”

How incredibly relatable. Though she could not say that anymore, not after remembering about her past life, not after finding Karla, Cesare, and everyone else.

Behind Kasimir’s neutral expression gears plinked and plonked in an approximation of thought. He suddenly finished with a microwave ding and all emotion returned to his face.

“Oh! Well, that is unusual. But healthy. Friends are a very important part of growing up and finding out what the you you want to be looks like.” Wise words. Quibbles’ relentless, determined existence was part of what brought her through the maze. That and copious violence. “I’m surprised and delighted that she would send someone to check on old Uncle Kasimir once in a while. She probably told you to say that I’m her favorite Uncle, didn’t she?”

“Your house is a bit out of the way. Not a fan of people?”

“Well, yes. That and most people don’t appreciate the person who can pluck their spirit from their body and slap it into a robot with buzzsaw hands.”

Her gaze fixed on some of the more violent looking tools and weapon parts scattered among the menagerie of lifeless puppets. Yep, he was giving off mad scientist vibes alright. Maybe he had a death laser. That would be cool. “Is that what these are all for? Backup bodies?”

“Heavens, no, these are all works in progress and old pieces I use for spare parts.” He pointed one metal finger at himself. “Just like this one. So, as thanks for rescuing my dearest niece, what can I do for you today?”

Camille must be keeping her identity on the down low. It worked for her, the fewer people knew her the fewer questions she would have to maneuver around. Dodging social cues was, sadly, not an acceptable tactic for polite conversation.

But one thing after the other.

“I need a body,” she blurted out. “Not this one, a different one.”

“Well, I do offer bodies warm and cold.” He laughed a jolly laugh. “Sorry, old slogan. No idea why people didn’t like it. Anyhow, you have come to the place for spiritual translocation, for I am Kasimir, crafter of bodies, transposer of spirits, and licensed old-world nerd.”

She blinked, realizing something. “Wait, were you transported here in a batch? How many people like you are there?”

“We came here fifty years ago.” He nodded, his smile turning solemn. “Not many of us left besides Camille and I. Most people are from later batches. You’ll find some of them and often their children or whoever they decided to pick up in the maroon pact. Camille and I, we were on a school trip when the interdimensional transport happened. An entire bus of eleventh grade kids, plus a bus driver and two other teachers. Can you imagine what it was like?”

“Terrible,” she muttered, though Elia’s was by all means not the average experience. In a way, she felt relieved. But on the other hand, she was now an outsider to the outsiders. “Was Rhuna part of yours?”

“Oh, nono. Rhuna is ancient, she was already here when we arrived. There were more people like us, both strewn about and living under her service. She actually helped us along at the start, gave us souls and advice.” His robotic mouth opened and closed. “Hngh, can’t chew my lip in this version. So yes, this body of yours, how would you like it?”

With reluctance, Elia blinked the past away. “What are my options?”

“Literally infinite. If it’s possible to build with conventional physics, I can do it. If not, well, we have a whole faction full of boons to help you get just the exotic thing you’re looking for. Though I have to preface that choosing a new body fitting your heart and spirit can take a long time. I can always make you a custom designed body, but let me show you some pre-built models for comparison.” His eyes turned back in his skull as he fell towards her. In the back, a lithe human figure flickered to life. “Here, model ‘Ballerina’, one of my newer works.”

The marble body hopped two skips towards her, then twirled on one foot, giving his already feminine voice a funny siren–like quality. “This is the turniest model I have, thanks to Mephisto and his boon of malleability. The female model is made of stone specifically treated to emulate a rigid yet soft body. Immaculately balanced, flexibility and control is the focus of this type, but if a body part cracks or breaks, you’ll have to order a whole new specific piece. Very popular with performers, puppet - ah - hobbyists, and people who just want to find out what it’s like to lick your own spine.”

“Not very sturdy,” Elia commented as he – was he even a he? – pranced about with effortless elan. “Do people often swap bodies like this?”

“Yes, well, I do offer that particular service pro bono,” he said, touching his head with his foot while also still twirling. “Takes a ritual, with water, blood and all. Some of these are rentals, with a full pack of clothing, and tools for upkeep.”

“I’m looking for something more long-term,” Elia hedged. “A permanent kind of body. Something that won’t break easily in combat?”

“Ah, you want something fighty.” The body stopped mid pirouette, without falling over. In the back, a long, skittering figure walked over to Elia. It looked like someone had given a cow-sized shrimp a pair of boxing gloves “This is the P(R)WN Mark two-b. An optimized combat body with only moderate signs of use and abuse, this baby will get you anywhere you want, especially if it’s to the top of the hostile-dregs-killed-per-month leaderboard. The previous user had their spirit flayed from a particularly nasty soul-attack, but the mechanics are still good as new. Look at it go.”

He zoomed left, he zoomed right, he did a pirouette with a lot less skill than with his previous body. Elia was about to mention how she was not too keen on evolving into a crustacean, but his pitch wasn’t done yet.

“And watch these arms. Two ten-pound fists that can punch right through limestone. Fifty thousand newtons of force. I won’t show them off here or I might really break something important, but just so you know, these claws come with modular choices. Spears, clubs, saws, extendo-arms and kitchen rasps, you name it, I’ll find a way to integrate it. And did I mention the color vision? Where humans only have three photoreceptor cells, this baby has up to twelve–“

Elia gently but firmly caught the two split mouth-bits he was using for vocalizing. “I’m not interested in becoming a shrimp-girl. Also, there have to be some negatives to changing from bipedal to… twelvi-pedal.”

“… Some previous users did mention mild nausea, disorientation, and an instinct to filter-feed after the first week. Janette the despoiler still only eats liquid food.” His face lit up again. “But, but, bu-ut, if shrimp aren’t to your liking, I have a dozen other mostly finished combat models. Here’s Ursanus, the bear I made from some divine monster’s shin bone. This here is called the goblin, for reasons that are very self evident. Oh, and the manticore, that’s an, ah… delicate work in progress I’d rather you don’t touch?”

Elia moved under the dreadfully tipped tail attached to the frame of a woman, possibly in her early thirties. She was curvy, but in an awfully realistic way, and tastefully dressed in a way that reminded Elia of home, eyes shining in a deep and intimate blue.

It didn’t seem like it had been created on a whim.

“Wow, this a special order for some lone bachelor?” she asked.

Kasimir paused. “That… was part of an experiment. I wanted to see if I could generate a spirit from the energy of souls. I modeled it after my wife back on earth. It didn’t work. Souls are just energy you see, no spark of divinity, of mortality, of people. I’m sorry, but this one isn’t for sale.”

Rude Rye’s voice echoed in her mind.

Elia made a very polite face. She had been this close to calling the man’s wife-bot a bimbo. Thanks god she hadn’t.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

She went on, wandering through the workshop to marvel at the bodies numbering easily into the hundreds. They were stacked wherever there was space, and there wasn’t much left even in this rather large estate. She walked past more figures made in the shape of animals, bodies that were evidently made for some singular tasks, but also more normal ones.

No matter how many she looked at, none of them made her want to jump out of her skin and into theirs of metal or stone. It wasn’t even due to any practical concerns. She would have loved one set of arms that were swords, another that was a spear and shield, and then a third that ended in normal human hands. She would have loved to be a bit taller, have hair she could change on a whim, but what about food?

“Hey Kasimir,” she called, “Can any of these bodies taste?”

“Well, I have been able to replicate the receptors for salty, sugary, sour, and savory on most of these things, but the problem is the smell. Even human-level smell requires too many receptors and I can’t work on such small scales.”

“Hum,” she hummed. If that was the case, then she’d taste food less, but that didn’t make the simple act of eating too much less enjoyable. Hopefully. But still, the only way she could describe looking at these bodies were that all of them were like boots with just the wrong size.

It was likely that she’d need a custom body to feel more comfortable in than her current one. The hope was that she’d find one that was alright, then swap into that and hope it would coax out Rye.

Her little odyssey through the puppet masters workshop went on, further and further into the bowels of the workshop. The models around her changed in turn, becoming more laden with dust and rougher around the edges. By the time they’d arrived at the once glorious common room with its large fireplace and glass dome bathing the room in twilight, half of the dolls didn’t even have detailed faces.

Above them all stood a practically gargantuan mannequin, draped in layers and layers of bedsheets.

“Oh,” Kasimir said quietly, wringing clockwork-bekki paws. “I forgot I put that there.”

“Looks like you went big and went home,” Elia said, tugging the cloth off and coming face to face with Rhuna. “OHMYFUCK!”

She leapt near five feet straight into the air, only finding purchase on the balustrade of the swinging stairway one story above. Rhuna didn’t move. On second look, it was a statue but one that looked just like her, down to the fibers of its feathery mane. the only thing that did not fit was the warm smile plastered on its face.

She looked downright heroic. She appeared revered.

Elia slowly dropped down from her perch. “What is that?”

“Hubris, I guess,” he said quietly. “It’s a monument, with the intent of providing a convincing replica of what we think the great goddess Worga looked like. All the statues we have found were defaced and her murals scoured. We had to combine a bunch of themes from her daughters to even get close. The blazing embers of Wroti are in one hand, the golden scales of Aurana in the other. We even added some feathers for Uovis, even though the goddess of wisdom is adopted and thereby of lower rank.”

“Adopted wisdom?” Elia asked. “Couldn’t they… make one themselves?”

“It’s fascinating. You see, the world once had many gods that ruled their own little states and cities. But then one group of gods decided to band together, make a divine empire of sorts. As empires did, they conquered, and the conquered were given one of two choices: Submit and be subsumed into the pantheon via marriage, adoption, and service, or perish. The rest is, well, history.”

Elia looked up and up at the imposing ten foot statue. She could believe that that kind of eternal empire came from these hands. The visage of the amazoness spoke of power, of adoration through fear and respect, of not tolerating any trespass. It was as if completely hewn from a single colossal piece of stone, and yet it looked so alive.

Some part of her reveled in the thought of taking this body that was meant for gods and using it for her own needs. “Has anybody ever, well, ridden it?”

“None of the gods we called into it responded. It’s not meant for mortals, and they were rightfully distrustful of us,” he said with conviction. “We tried to lure them into this avatar, then we would kill them for their shards, their souls, and everything that made gods, gods. A god is incredibly hard to kill, you see, but they can be changed in a way that is almost comparable to death.”

Aurana is watching intently

Valti is watching with dread

Well, that was possibly the last thing she’d like to have heard today.

“So, you wanted to summon a god. And then loot them. Bold move.”

He nodded, slowly. “We didn’t know the ramifications of a greater grail shard missing a powerful owner. I’m sure you’ve noticed how hard it is to dream now, after Yolon died and his greater shard went missing.”

Ah. Well. There was an awkward conversation waiting to happen. One Elia was neither prepared for nor one that she was going to have here with the body swapping tinkerer in front of his god robot.

“Why does it look like Rhuna?”

“Because it is Rhuna. We made two versions, in case one broke. She never returned the other one. That woman is the only one who can practically live in it twenty four seven. It was only with her help that all of this was even feasible in the first place. We don’t even have the materials, or requisite boons to make something like this anymore.”

“Huh.”

They stared at the statue in silence.

“Do you think piloting it feels like piloting a mecha?” Elia asked.

“This is, predictably, also not for sale,” he answered with a dismissive scoff. “Besides, without the necessary divine power, it would be dreadfully sluggish. You would feel more like seventies godzilla.”

“What about a test drive?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just a little one?”

“No.”

“Aw.”

Elia averted her eyes. Yes, there was some part about this that spoke to her. Perhaps that was the hubris he had talked about. Or just the idea of taking one of the gods’ toys and rubbing her undead stink all over it.

Kasimir just stared at her with a blank mechanical face. “I can see my stock still doesn’t interest you.”

Elia sighed. “I think even if you offered me a custom build, I wouldn’t be satisfied. My priorities are all jumbled up today, sorry.” She took a deep breath. “I recently took some damage after fighting a big dude. I’m still feeling it even after drinking some bowl of respite water.”

He blinked at her with a whirring mechanical eyelid.

“Oh. Well, I’ve certainly heard of cases of permanent damage that cannot be reversed by the bowls. Follow me then, and we’ll have a look at your souls, spirit, and all that wibbly-woo.” He led her into a back room where he bade Elia to wait in a comfy plush armchair. “One second, let me get the right body for this.”

Elia nervously counted the cracks in the ceiling as she waited for him to return. When he did, she was surprised to see an actual human being. He was a rather short man who once must have been pudgy like a marshmallow, with cheeks rounded in a jolly way. He was also showing signs that the curse of undeath had taken more of his body than anything else, but in his case, it simply gave his body a complexion like a dark marbled wood.

“Not gonna lie, I’m surprised you don’t have a mechanical body optimized for this,” she said as her chair slowly reclined until she was lying quite comfortably on her back.

“Well, all great power comes with a price. When you transpose a spirit, your body and sense stats don’t carry over. It’s only the spirit and with it an imprint of the mind that makes the journey. The magical juice, plus Id, Ego, Superego. Have you read Freud?” He took one look at her. “No, probably not. Can’t recommend it. Find yourself a good summary if you need to.”

“We’ve got AI that does that in 2022.”

He clicked his tongue. “Now you’re just making me jealous, and I put people into robots for a living. Now, look straight ahead, and if you feel the inexplicable cold of the infinite deep sea rush over you, don’t worry. That’s part of the procedure.”

A crystal strapped to his forehead flickered on, glowing in colorless light.

Elia squinted. “This kinda feels like I’m at the dentist.”

“Any opinion on those?” he asked as he tapped her arm with a small wand.

“I’m neutral. It’s hard to go wrong with teeth.” Unlike other places. It was always a new round of chaos whenever it came time for a diagnosis. Her mother would never let anybody so much as touch her body until she had opinions from at least three different doctors. “What are going to do with that?”

“I am going to do a routine check of your stats. The attendants only know how to do things that have to do with affixing souls and whatnot. Flex your hand please.” She balled it into a fist. “Ah, that one is aligned with your body. Warded too. Lesser shard, lucky you. Now, shut off one of your senses.”

She closed her eyes and imagined how their relationship would have been with the her of today. Would she still love her? Her mom had never been much of a hugger, but if Elia returned some time after she’d left, she was sure her Mom would crush her with so many regrets.

Elia felt the wand tickle her sides.

“Sense is fine, though your instinct seems to be bundled up in a boon I can’t quite locate.” Kasimir coughed. “You’re doing very good, Elia. Next, I would like you to think about something important really hard.”

She thought about her dad and all the times she had refused his calls. There was always an excuse; she was busy gaming, drawing, chatting with friends. In hindsight, their daughter’s terminal disease mustn’t have been the only thing that weighed on her parents’ minds. Elia had been kind of a bitch, and it took two hundred years to finally notice all the small times they tried to reach out and she swatted their hands away.

It was nice that the world hadn’t taken these memories from her. But they were hooks digging into her skin without strings attached. It was time to let go.

She breathed in once, then out, and found that some of the fog had cleared away. Future. It was time to think about the future.

“Mind, strong concentration. Sharp and chipper. Very good. For the last part, could you channel some of your reservoir, perhaps not into a boon if you know how?”

Elia did know, she’d sat in on Rye’s conjuration lessons. She’d taken over learning the boring stuff, while Rye took the burden of making sense of things that just didn’t make sense. With a flick of her hands, she goaded a trickle of reservoir through her channels and into the air where it dissipated without doing much.

“Hmm, your spirit looks a tad odd. You’ve got an overexpressed reservoir, but unlike the channels-flow codependency, there isn’t a danger of unbalance. Wow, it’s warded too. Hey, are you the person that’s been killing all the demigods lately–“ He furrowed his brows. “Oh.”

Oh? That was not a sound she’d ever want to hear a licensed physician say.

“Hey, you and Camille were in the same class, right?” she asked to distract herself.

“Hm? No, I was the bus driver.”

Not a licensed physician then.

Suddenly, he gasped.“What is that?”

“What is what?” she asked, as he continually prodded and poked where her clavicles met.

“There seems to be a smaller spirit within yours. Odd. That shouldn’t be possible. It looks parasitic. One moment, I’ll zap this sucker in a sec.”

His wand thrummed with malign energy.

“NO! No, don’t you dare.”

“Don’t?” He squinted as she held his wand-hand in a deathgrip. “Miss Elia, this is a serious affliction. It could have all kinds of unforeseen consequences if left to fester; you must have already noticed some drastic changes.”

“That’s Rye. The original owner of this body. I summoned her with a boon.”

“Which one?”

“Psychometry.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not. Essence of Ego. And you better not remove her, or I will remove you. From life.” Elia breathed in, then out. “Sorry. We’re good friends, we even swap who’s in control and backseat eachother every now and again. Just tell me if anything looks off about her, or if it seems like we’re… merging.”

He eyed her with some apprehension. “If you say so.”

Kasimir fetched a pair of bicycle glasses and went to work. It was odd, feeling his cold prods as if they were pushing out from inside her body. Dreadful minutes turned into half an hour. Eventually, he leaned back in his little stool and said nothing for another while.

“Well?”

“Have you ever heard how a pearl forms inside a clam?”

That one tidbit was somehow summoned from her mind, though she didn’t see how that was relevant. “It’s a self-defense mechanism. When a piece of sand or something gets inside, the clam forms a protective shell around it and – wait, are you comparing me to seafood?”

“As far as I can tell, there seems to be an odd inclusion. I didn’t see it at first because it was so well hidden, and because so many of your boons were in the way, but it seems your passenger has wrapped itself around some sort of intrusion into your spirit. It has turned completely in on itself, shunting off access even to my wand.”

“How bad is it, doc?”

He held up one hand and disappeared out of the room. Elia felt the sweat pooling under her clothes. The only thing worse than a terminal affliction was the time waiting for the verdict that would make or break her life. The sense of déjà vu she felt in this moment was the worst kind.

Kasimir burst into the room, carrying some sort of mechanical behemoth of a machine which he set up on three pairs of extendable legs. He didn’t acknowledge her as he turned valves and dialed in a racket of variables.

“What is that?”

“A little machine I invented for piecing together memories of captured enemy dregs. The exact function is complicated, but suffice to say it opens up the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind while increasing awareness of the ensuing cranial simulation of past memories.”

“It looks like a death laser.”

“Oh shush, we're all undead here,” he said as the death laser hummed to life. “Now, open wide.”

“Nnnh.”

Elia grasped the sides of her chair. It blinked and warbled and suddenly, there was a flash and the odd taste of chewed rubber.