The laboratory pulsed with a low, steady hum. Arcane lamps flickering across steel tables and rune scribed slabs. Crystalline tanks cast warped reflections against basalt walls, filled with dormant shapes submerged in faint blue liquid. The scent of blood, salt, and burning bone ash clung to the air.
Corvin stood over a massive Bearkin body, its dark fur shaved along the shoulders to reveal muscle like carved marble. The creature two and a half meters tall and broad as a siege door lay still under necromantic stasis. It had taken three of his summons to lift the corpse onto the arrayed slab, and five separate runes to stabilize its returning essence.
But this one wasn't just another test subject.
Corvin had named him Bob.
There was something in the Bearkin's wide set, almost gentle eyes. Even when dulled by death and return, it was still in it's gaze. That, sparked a memory from another life. A face that belonged to another war. Another world.
