Ewoden led the way, his knowledge of the corridors and layout of Fanum-Divus proving invaluable. As expected, a literal army of the terracotta homunculi were stationed in and around the Ark itself. Where it connected to the city, the ship had a dock with a massive square door that opened from the hull. This was shut tight and guarded well.
The ship had no deck upon which to stand. The vessel was curbed cylinder, pointed at both ends with small guiding wings along its sides. As he drew closer to it Raziel could make out the large engraving across the ship’s entire hull. The delicate impressions of feathers were done in painstaking detail; a pair of angelic swings sweeping from the front of the ship towards the back. It seemed to be like an angelic arrow awaiting the bow to make it fly.
“You never explained why you need to get onto their ship.” Ewoden said as they observed the large door, the seeming only way of getting onboard from a side corridor. The homunculi had not noticed them yet, remaining deceptively statue still.
“I am looking for something.” The blue wraith replied, eyes busy studying the doorway. There had to be an alternative method of entry rather then this front door. For the vessel only to have one door seemed very inefficient. Surely they would not load everything the ship was through the same way? But Ewoden had been quite adamant that this was the only entrance. That he knew of anyway.
“What?” The emissary asked, looking back over his shoulder. Raziel shook his head with a frown.
“You would not understand if I told you.” He said, still observing. As he watched, two more homunculi came out of a side tunnel entrance near the large door and came up to another two directly in front of it. They said nothing to each other but the two parties exchanged places, the new arrivals taking the guarding posts while the other two marched back in through the tunnel door.
“Where does that passage go?” He asked, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the smaller doorway.
“The corridor system.” Ewoden told him. “There are the large main corridors like this one but inside the walls are dry runs, smaller tighter corridors where you can move around quicker. The entire city is honey combed with them.” The emissary let loose a low evil chuckle. “It makes the hunt very interesting.”
Raziel ignored the gallows humour, his mind racing for a possible solution to their problem.
“Is there anywhere where the Ark is still under construction?” He asked. Ewoden’s eyes narrowed in thought.
“Yes.” He admitted and then shook his head, perhaps guessing Raziel’s train of thought. “But we’ll not get through there, too many slaves at work. Someone will be bound to see us.”
“I can hide myself.” Raziel stated. “And you can pass for human amongst them.”
Ewoden gave him a long steady look.
“Not amongst the slave race of Fanum-Divus I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“They all have gold hair and eyes, like that young lad you saw earlier.” Ewoden explained. “We take our cubs from amongst the slave race yes but I am not of their kind. I would he spotted in an instant.”
Thankfully, Ariel’s giggle at the use of the word ‘cubs’ sounded only in Raziel’s mind so Ewoden did not hear her. Raziel supposed he was using the word the same way a vampire would refer to a fledgling.
“We will have to risk it.” He decided. “Can we get to the construction site through those dry runs?”
Ewoden nodded sharply. He did not take them far. It was a short, twisting route through the gaps in the walls. They rose up several hundred feet before they reached the level they needed to be at.
Ewoden led them around a section he said was a station for homunculi before they saw the ship again.
While the vessel had looked complete from below; its top half was still undergoing work. Thin scaffolding traced over the vessel like a delicate spiders web, a cocoon of supports upon which sprawled a host of humanity; slaves all, working to complete the work started eons ago.
As Ewoden had said, they were all golden haired. From above it had the queer appearance of a nest of yellow spiders enveloping a butterfly’s chrysalis. 
What Raziel was really looking for however was way inside and after a moment, he saw it. One of the finishing touches to the vessel was the tips of the wings where they curved up to meet at the back. These had not yet been entirely completed, the inside metal scaffolding still visible.
Raziel pointed to it and following his gaze, Ewoden’s eyes brightened at once.
“Can you get to that?” The blue wraith asked. The emissary considered. He no doubt noticed, as Raziel had, the vast amount of homunculi amongst the slaves. There was little to no chance of getting through that multitude unnoticed.
But the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“Speed will be more valuable then stealth.” He said eventually, pointing down at where the scaffolding as attached to the city itself. “We can move unseen up till there. After that it’s not all that great a distance. If we opt for speed…”
He trailed off and the two of them looked each other gravely.
“Even once inside they’ll pursue us.” Ewoden said.
“Is there any viable alternative?” Raziel asked.
Another pause.
“Aye, so be it then.”
And so it was. The two of them moved slowly and unobserved up until they reached the scaffolding, the ship looming before lime with the hundreds of slaves sweating over their labour.  It would be no frontal assault or fight to the finish. Neither of them could waste time on meaningless skirmishing.
Then they burst forward, running as hard as they could over the thin scaffolding they ignored every homunculus and startled slave they past.
One terracotta puppet tried to block Raziel’s way with a shield but the blue wraith slide through its legs, dragging his talons sharply across its ankles. There was a loud tearing sound and the puppet toppled forward, its legs breaking away with its liquid insides pouring out.
He didn’t waste time seeing if he had finished it off, Raziel just kept running.
To his left, Ewoden was shoving slaves out of his way as he ran. Casting him a sidelong glance Raziel could see the emissary slowly changing.
His body began to grow, twisting up with muscles expanding and bulking. His arms and legs grew long and out the back of his tattered kilt ran a long bushy red tail. His face pushed out; elongating into a feral snout full of teeth. Now fully in werewolf form he was clearly the largest of their pack; galloping on all fours knocking the slaves down and covering more ground with ease.
They were both about two thirds of the way across the scaffolding when the alarm began, if an alarm is what it was. The sound was a high pitched wailing sound coming from the city behind them.
Raziel quickened his pace, racing up to the side of the ship itself where the scaffolding turned up vertically along its side. Then he began to climb, scaling the support structure towards the still open top.
Ewoden was right behind him but scaling faster, his long arms able to grab to higher ledges to pull himself up.
Aware of the intrusion by now, the homunculi were all converging on them; with more coming out from the city in support. But they acted too slow and by the time they had reached the ship to try and stop them, Raziel and Ewoden had already reached the top of the vessel.
Ewoden reverted back into human form, shrinking in upon himself with an audible gurgling sound of relaxing muscle and moving liquids.
He went first, slipping down into the ship, climbing down the interior walls. Raziel followed after him, not climbing but dropping down; using his tattered wings to slow his decent.
The interior of the ark, or at least the part in which he found himself, was far less impressive then its angelic outer façade. Perhaps this was due to the construction equipment stacked all around, hiding the developing ship from view. The wailing alarm was muffled inside but still a constant reminder of their peril.
Ewoden dropped down with a thud beside him, glancing around quickly.
“We should move quickly and find whatever it is you are looking for before the entire vessel is swarming.” The emissary said, looking off down the interior scaffolding leading further into the ship.
In full agreement on this Raziel followed him quickly.
The corridors of the ship were perfectly round. There were no walls, floor or ceiling; just a cylinder with round doors branching off into other round corridors. They were more like pipes then actual walkways.
As they proceeded, Raziel began to feel more and more disturbed. He could not put this feeling into words but he felt a resonance from deep within the vessel, travelling along the floor upon which he stood to enter his body.
It was almost like the beating of a heart, although far more sluggish. Its touch felt him feeling soiled, as if he were drawing closer to some putrid and unwholesome.
Deep within his mind Ariel shivered in the same revolution, perhaps more as her spirit did not have a body to shelter her from the sickening effects. He saw he form beside him, projected only for his eyes. Her face was gradually reverting back to the skeletal corruption as they progressed.
Ewoden paused and opened a side door in the left hand side of the corridor, dropping down a short distance to a raised platform. Raziel followed him, the revolting sensation lessening a little in the room beyond.  But when he saw what lay in this room, he stopped and stared in appalled horror.
.
 “The Ark housed more containers, but the animals shuttered within where twisted horrors and abominations of nature. This was no ship of the divine but rather a vessel of sickness.”
.
The cages inside this room were smaller, cramped and compact; some barely large enough for the pitiful creatures shoved in them.
And the creatures themselves; twisted blends of animals that could only be artificial blends. Snakes with bat wings they couldn’t lift, reptiles with dozens of legs all stuck out in absurd directions. One beast seemed almost human where it not for a massive bulls head with curving horns that stared at them mindlessly from behind the bars of its cage, droll running from the corners of its leathery lips.
The air was filled with a sticking miasma of diseased faeces.
“What are these wretches?” Raziel asked in stunned dismay, looking around at the poor creatures.
Ewoden’s expression was fixed, grim with its lips pursed.
“Chimeras, creatures blended together by Ambraxas to create new forms.” He said with a rigidly control neutral tone. “This is how the Lycanthropes were born.”
Raziel pondered not only what dark transmutation process could make such horrors and at what mind would conceive of such madness?
They descended to the floor and moved amongst the cages. Raziel did his best not to look at them but there was one he could not avoid, for a puddle of thick sludge was leaking out the side of it.
Now he understood Ewoden’s pain and anger, and that of the other werewolves, all too well.
They had gone only a short distance, stepping out into an area where several larger cages made a circle; when Ewoden stopped dead in his tracks and glanced up sharply. Raziel followed his gaze towards a platform projecting out from the nearby wall. A doorway opened out onto that balcony and standing in it was a figure.
Shadow obscured Raziel’s view of whoever it was.
“Ah yes, Lycan prototype number seven.” A cultured voice said, with an accent so like the Seer’s that Raziel blinked. “Oh what was your name?” The figure clicked its fingers several times to prod its memory.  “Ewoden, that’s right.”
Ewoden’s eyes began to slowly widen and his lips pulled back over his teeth, displaying enlarged canine teeth.
“Cowardly bastard, Ambraxas!” He hissed, spreading his arms; fur growing over them up to the elbows and his nails turning into claws. “Now I’m finally going to make you pay for what you’ve done!”
The figure sighed theatrically.
“Oh this tired old vendetta again?” It asked, stepping forward. “How many times must I send you and your mongrels off running with your tails between your legs before you learn your place?”
Raziel shot Ewoden a glare.
“You never said you’d tried for him before.” The blue wraith accused. Ewoden’s gaze did not waver from his enemy.
“I might have put you off going if I had.” He remarked, quite truthfully.
The figure above stepped into the light and Raziel stared up in baffled astonishment.
“He’s Hylden…” He breathed, staring at the being that could only be Ambraxas-Divus.
He had the same crest of their kind, the same pale skin and skeletal like frame; but he was more like the Seer in that he had thick brown hair tied back in a ponytail behind his back, sprouting from behind his crest.
His face was completely unblemished by the signs of corruption the demon dimension had left on the mass majority of his kind and his eyes were blue, not emerald green and glowing.
So this was how the Hylden race looked like before their banishment; beautiful in their own right.
But what was a Hylden, a race who worshiped the Keeper, doing in the upper echelons of the Wheel of Fate?
Ambraxas wore spectacles, fashioned to be able to fit onto a head that had no visible ears and their tinted glass shone red. He was dressed in a similar white robe Raziel had seen his past Divus self wear.
 “The wraith? Here?” Ambraxas asked, looking down at him with Ewoden apparently already forgotten. “On the Ark itself?”
The Hylden Divus straightened, readjusting his glasses. His face was devoid of any hint of corruption but there was still a calculating cruelty set into those eyes behind those spectacles, all the more insidious for it being entirely his own.
“Oh dear oh dear, not good at all.” He carried on apparently to himself. “I can’t have you all ruining my experiments, not at so delicate a phase.” Promptly he turned his back on them and walked back through the doorway behind him. “Here, play with some of your old friends, Ewoden, while I let our king know that he has an uninvited guest.”
There was a sudden loud grating sound and Raziel looked down to see two gates, which he hadn’t even noticed, creaking open.
A series of low growls echoed out from the wall beyond and shapes began to move.
Ewoden watched those forms manifest out of the darkness.
“No…” He breathed, face filling with horror.
.
“The wolves that confronted us were unlike those Ewoden was pack leader for. These were feral, devoid of any human qualities that they might have had. Ambraxas had stripped away their minds to leave them little more then guard dogs.”
.
Their heads were covered in scars, as if someone had opened up their skulls to operate on their brains, thick stitches visible under the thin fur. In lupine form the three werewolves came out towards them, padding slowly on all fours; thick steaming saliva dripping from open jaws.