Scarlet, still in a deformed state as an after-effect of her encounter with a three-headed dragon and the 'F' wand, is in Babel, where she is given the opportunity to pass judgement on two captured Eeee pirates. (This is meant to show that the High Prince is interested in seeing justice done against the perpetrators, and to fend off ideas that Babel might be secretly approving of the attacks on the Aelfin.) One of the pirates only hurls insults at Scarlet, while the other claims patriotic motives against Rephidim. Scarlet sentences the first pirate to be dealt with according to tradition – that is, put in a cage with a horrib, where he will be paralyzed, then have a horrib egg implanted in him, slowly dying as the larva eats him alive and emerges as a new horrib. The second pirate is sentenced to five years of slavery.

A mage advises Scarlet that there are difficulties in the attempts to return her to her natural state, and that her present form may require magical "treatments" to maintain it. It is doubtful whether she can be returned to a form approximating her original one. As an alternative, a female Eeee is brought in, who claims to be innocent, but is accused of being a "consort" of the pirate captain Dagon, and a harlot. Scarlet is offered the alternative of having this Eeee's body as a new body for herself, in a magical transfer of life.

Scarlet agrees to the process, despite the screams and begging of the female Eeee, and the ritual begins…