Xaviers!

Will, groggy, began to regain consciousness, flexing his neck some as he tried to take in his surroundings.


The first thing he noticed was that he was clay. Humanoid--even roughly the right color--but anyone coming into contact with him would be able to tell the difference between flesh and clay pretty quickly.

The second thing he noticed was that he was nude, suspended in the air, spread eagle, thanks to large poles that went through his wrists and ankles. That was less than ideal!

From his spot, face down, he couldn't see that much. He wasn't in the barn anymore, that much he could tell--the floor below him was tiled. He had been moved somewhere. There were some faint sounds of trucks and things, so he couldn't have been too far out of the way of society. Near a highway? A major road?

The final thing he noticed was that he was unable to shift, so he couldn't simply slip out of his predicament.

"Hrm. Resilient little bastard, aren't you?" Roland said, closing a door as he entered the room. "Thought you'd be out for weeks."

He was carrying some sort of bag, which he set about emptying just out of Will's field of vision.

"Nnn...wh...whaz going on?" Will slurred.

"An end to a long-standing problem, and the salvation of humanity. Boring stuff, you know."

He pulled out a long syringe, held up to the light, and tapped it a couple times. "This is...well, it's a mixture of things. Moly. Lotus. Rakovnik. Hazia. Alihosty. Gingold. And about half a bottle of Draino, for good measure."

He jammed it into Will's back, ignoring his howls of anguish and agony.

Roland returned to his table, and pulled out a couple more implements out of his bag--large, oddly colored candles.

Humming to himself, he walked back over to Will, and jammed the candles deep into the clay, making a circular pattern with them. He slid a large tub underneath where Will was suspended, and started lighting the candles.

"That little concoction should make sure you're nice and docile while these do their stuff. We'll talk later. Or not," Roland said, finishing his work, and leaving the room.

The candles burned, as Will tried to fidget his way out. He couldn't understand why he couldn't shift--or, escaping that, just pull his hands free from the poles. I mean, it's just clay, right? Clay separates.

It had to be something to do with what Roland had injected him with, and so he fought, and he fought.

It wans't very effective, however, and the candles continued their burning. Soon, bits of warm, melting clay began to drip off of Will, falling into the tub below...

A few hours later, melted clay filled the tub, very nearly to the brim. Roland stood over it, kicking it once to make sure there was no further movement, and then bent in to pick up the remnants of the melted candles.

He stuck one finger into the semi-solid clay, swirling it around a bit, gauging it's temperature. He took his clay-covered finger, and stuck it in his mouth, sampling Will's consistency. He made a face.

"No, not quite done yet, are you? Well, we'll finish this up soon enough," he said, dragging the tub over to one corner of the room, where a heating element had been installed under the floor. Turning it on, Roland left the room once more.

An hour or two later, Roland returned to the room, to a bubbling, more liquid tub.

"Much nicer," he nodded, shrugging off his shirt and stretching out. "See, you CAN make yourself useful, when I put my mind to it."

He climbed into the tub and lowered himself in, grunting slightly as he lay down. "Much nicer, indeed."

After soaking, Roland got out of the tub, dripping bits of Will as he reached for a towel to dry himself off.

"Delivery truck comes soon, so we'd better get you rendered," he said, cranking the heating elements up to their maximum.

He walked back to his Table of Goodies, pulled out a couple of unlabeled bottles, and dumped them into the tub as well, causing it to begin to change color.

Roland carefully emptied the last of the tub into a specially-designed metal flask, twisting on the cap and locking it tight.

He placed the flask into a large crate, and then pushed the crate further into the warehouse in which he had been staying, next to a number of other wooden crates.

Then, whistling, he stepped out into the night.