Kano awoke surrounded by gray light and bound within an intricate lattice of hardened slime. Struggling, Kano found that she could scarcely move.

“Oh, good,” said Werisah, “you’re awake.” It was hard to make him out through the light, but his skin had reverted to being soft and pale. Whatever had happened to Kano seemed to have fixed her vision as well.

“I thought I killed you.” She distinctly remembered the feeling of his spine breaking.

“Admittedly you made a valiant effort of it, but I’m afraid I’m still very much alive. Though I couldn’t say the same for you, up until very recently.”

“How long ago did I die?”

“Oh, just an hour or so. You shouldn’t be suffering any ill effects.”

“What happened? Why did you bring me back?”

“As a matter of fact, I was happy to leave you to rot in the dirt, for reasons I’m sure you can appreciate. But Angakkuq was quite insistent that you be saved.”

“And how did you ‘save’ me?” She was already dreading the answer. Whatever the necromancers had done to her, it couldn’t be anything good. She didn’t feel any different as far as she could tell, but that didn’t mean much.

“Angakkuq has restored your body, but that’s only the beginning. Now that you’re alive and stable, we’ll move on to the real reason you’re alive: so that you can serve as our first test subject. You should be proud. You may very well be an important part of revitalizing this world. That or you’ll die.” He shrugged. “Again.”

Rather than pride, all Kano felt was anger and confusion. “Why would you choose me for this crazy experiment? I thought An was trying to create something that could form its own souls, or whatever. How am I any use for that? In case you didn’t know, I’ve already got a soul.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that. And though we won’t be able to use you to create the finished product, you’ll still make for a valuable sample. If we can turn you into a viable, stable organism that can accommodate your existing soul, that would be a promising sign. But I’ve tarried long enough with these explanations. It’s time to change the world.”

Before Kano could say a word in response, she was enveloped by the slime. Her flesh softened and began to change, and she lost consciousness once more. When she next opened her eyes, Werisah and An were standing beside her.

“Good, you’re awake,” Werisah said, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d wake up at all. But now that you have, I’m happy to pronounce the procedure a complete success.” He cleared this throat. “Though we’ll have to continue to monitor you before we can determine how viable your new form actually is.”

Filled with dread, Kano looked down at herself. She was no longer bound, and her body… As far as she could tell it looked normal. “Wait, what? Aren’t I supposed to look different?”

“No,” Werisah said, with a cold, superior smirk, “that’s part of the beauty of it. Your body as you once knew it no longer exists. Instead you now inhabit an exact replica. Perfect down to the last detail. The only difference lies in the core components. I assume you’re familiar with the matter you were covered in previously?”

He gestured to the slime around them. The light had faded away, but she was still in the center of Eomonsa’s biological construct, though it was now empty. “That’s essentially what makes up your body now, though it’s unlike the prototype you encountered before. With Angakkuq’s help, it has been refined and enriched. Perfected, if you will. And as you can see, it’s now capable of forming new living organisms, ones capable of containing a true, natural soul.”

Kano blinked. “So my whole body is made out of that goo now?” If both the necromancers hadn’t looked so serious, she’d have assumed he was joking.

“That’s an inelegant way of putting it, but I suppose you’re more or less correct. Though describing it as mere goo does me a great disservice, given the ingenuity behind its creation.”

“Yeah? And what do you call it?”

Adjusting the sleeve of his robe, Werisah coughed lightly and said, “Yes, well, moving on to more pressing matters. I believe we’re done here. At least for now.”

“You’re letting me go?” Kano asked. Not that she was unhappy about it; she just couldn’t believe it. “What makes you think I won’t just try to kill you again?” She was already thinking about it.

Taking two steps back and one to the right so that he was behind An, Werisah said, “I had hoped that my show of good will might be met with a little gratitude. And that you’d be able to see the true value of our work.”

“Kano,” An said, looking her right in the eyes, “please, just walk away. None of us will gain anything from fighting.”

“Stopping you before you turn anyone else into goo seems like a benefit to me.” Kano took a step toward them. As far as she was concerned, the only thing that had changed was that she had another chance at stopping them. Hopefully this new body they’d given her would be up to the task. The necromancers being destroyed by their own creation seemed like a fitting end.

“I told you she couldn’t be reasoned with,” Werisah said, still sheltering behind his colleague.

Shaking her head, An sighed. “Yes, I know. And it seems that you were right. Go ahead.”

As Kano was moving toward them, her body seized up midstride, and she fell to the ground. Lying there, Kano could just barely make out Werisah approaching. “Eomonsa may have been an idiot, or rather, he was certainly an idiot, but I’m impressed by the efficacy of the remote control he developed. It really is remarkable. Fools can prove to be surprisingly useful, it seems. Wouldn’t you agree, Kano?”

She tried to put her outrage into words, but despite her best efforts, her vocal chords refused to cooperate. Kneeling down in front of her, he continued. “But don’t worry. I’ll make sure you don’t come to any harm. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t say that. It’s hard to know exactly what experiments we may need to perform going forward. But I’ll try to keep your suffering to a bare minimum. Under the circumstances, I’d say that’s more than fair.”

Kano’s body stood up stiffly of its own accord, and she fell in line behind the necromancers as they left. Appalling as she found it being essentially a passenger in her own body with no way to break free, it did give Kano plenty of time to think. Once she’d grown tired of plotting revenge and imagining the ways in which she’d destroy the necromancers accompanying her, Kano’s mind turned to thinking about herself.

On the plus side, if her body had been replaced, maybe that meant she wasn’t going to die anytime soon. But given that she was basically enslaved, she wasn’t sure if that was much of an improvement. She did find slight solace in the fact that An, whatever her flaws, had showed some semblance of benevolence toward her. Galling as it was to rely on her, she might be Kano’s only chance at a modicum of free will in her new life.

Though how long that life would be, regardless of her own decisions, was still rather uncertain. Assuming whatever the necromancers did going forward didn’t kill her, there was always the chance she’d explode, as many of An’s other subjects had. She vividly remembered the sight of meaty chunks splattering the walls. Was the same thing going to happen to her?

Though horrific, at least it would be a hilarious way to go. After all the effort she’d made to fight or monitor the necromancers, dying from one of their failed experiments would be ridiculous. Particularly when it was one of the very experiments she’d been trying to stop. It would vindicate her decision to oppose them, though she wasn’t sure how much comfort that would bring her after her insides were littered across the land.

At least it would be a dramatic way to go. Better than having her brain abruptly stop working. That would have been far too dull. Easier to clean up, sure, but cleaning wasn’t something she’d have to worry about anymore. Not that it was something she’d worried about much in the first place. After marching for a while behind the necromancers, Kano realized they were heading back to the citadel.

What had been the point of their rather dramatic abandonment of the place if they were going to go back? She wanted to sigh. There really was no understanding the machinations of necromancers. After all her effort to do so, all she could conclude was that they were insane. They may have seemed deceptively reasonable at times, particularly An, but within their breasts beat a heart heavy with madness.

Not that Kano had much idea how hearts worked. She had difficulty even visualizing it. Did necromancers have hearts? Despite Kano’s experience with killing them, she’d never taken the opportunity to look inside their bodies, mostly due to a lack of inclination. She’d seen the insides of more than enough ghouls as it was.

Necromancers probably weren’t all that different, though, for all that they put on airs. Ghouls or naturals could probably do what they did just as well, if they had any motivation to do so. Perhaps that was the key difference, more than anything to do with souls. She’d never met a natural or a ghoul with any ambition, herself included. They all just moved in response to the whims of the larger world around them. Living or dying as they danced to a tune dictated by someone else. It made her sick.

Why did necromancers always have to come along and ruin everything? Her present state was just the latest in a nearly endless list of grievances they’d inflicted upon the rest of the world since their creation many years ago. Even the humans had ultimately been destroyed by them, for seemingly no good reason at all.

After all that, she was amazed they could talk about doing things to better the world with a straight face. Was there no end to their hypocrisy? None that she could see. Perhaps even more surprising than their lunacy was that they were able to conceal it so well. It was only when their grand works came to fruition that one could appreciate just how far removed they were from reality.

Kano was certain that whatever An and Werisah were working on would turn out the same. There really was no other outcome. And so, the ruin of the world would advance another step.

They might even end up wiping out Shorinstown entirely, much as they had the ghouls in the citadel. Kano felt a little bad for Miusvon, misled by An’s fraudulent benevolence. Had she really thought she was doing Kano a favor by doing this to her? Making her into a slave?

It would have been easier to bear if she’d done it out of malice, at least Kano could understand that. This was just incomprehensible. As the citadel drew closer, Kano wondered how much longer it would be before the necromancers’ efforts finally flowered.

She couldn’t imagine it would take very long, judging by her own body. As far as she could tell, she was exactly what An had been trying to create. The final product couldn’t be far off, presuming they didn’t suffer some sort of catastrophic failure.

She’d give them roughly even odds of either happening. Maybe somewhat slanted in their favor now that Eomonsa was gone. If there was one thing she agreed with Werisah about, it was that his former partner was an idiot.