Infiltrating the Metacarpal had been embarrassingly easy.
I had walked through their checkpoint behind a face they'd never catalogued and a Demonic Essence signature suppressed to read as nothing more threatening than a mid-tier administrative clerk, and not a single one of them had looked twice as long as I brought the insignia of a higher tier member.
Well, then again, I did silently annihilate a couple of guards beforehand, so I guess that didn't really count?
The Carpal Cluster had rebuilt their skin over the decade I'd been absent, and it fit them well—the hallway curved overhead in rib-like arches sanded smooth but still bearing the yellow-ivory grain of calcium that had once belonged to something living.
Wall sconces sat fitted into joint-carved cradles and threw low amber light across the floor in long copper-tinted pools.
