By the time Able wad done eating breakfast a dozen black masses were writhing on the floor. The puddles of black slime reached out for life unable to move themselves but reaching for the young mage and his life force. He had finished his breakfast and turned his attention to the rat in the jar. He rotated the jar above his head inspecting the creature. The rat in response moved in the jar to always be facing him.
It was a girl. Not very old but in breading age. Its hair was black. Its beady little eyes watched him. Animalistic fear reflected in the black spheres.
"Quite a few possibilities for you," declared the mage stepping over the mounds of goo between him and the stairs. "Whatever happens next won't be pleasant but will definitely be better than being burned alive. There is already more than enough fertilizer in this city. I just need the right shovel."
Albie had reached the lab. The black curtains were closed to prevent the sunlight from entering. The dog sized bee May buzzed on a counter as it rested.
The other smaller bees were all awake and buzzing around gathering pollen and in some cases meat. Mays' wings buzzed in the same way a dog's legs sometimes run when they chase a rabbit in their sleep. The young mage thought the behavior strange and placed the jar of rat on the counter. He reached out and touched May using his magic to sense the bee for sickness.
Mays life force was weak. Her essence slipping away. She was only about three days old but didn't seem to have more than a day left. Most likely the result of his modifications the monster bees. They were an unstable organism. He had killed many bees in his attempts to make may and her sisters. Albie had hoped they would stay with him longer. What he had to do now was decide if he should kill her now and harvest her blood stone before she died naturally. Have her go fight the orange coats until she died, or let her die peacefully thus exhausting the bloodstone.
Albie gently rubbed Mays mind awake. He sent a need to collect her sisters in the lab. May stood up on wobbly legs. She hovered to the floor before crawling out of the room in a tired Stager.
The young mage moved back to his books looking through Sculpting life for ideas. Most of the book was written about modifying bees as well as domestic farm animals. Rats were not mentioned except in a section describing a modified cat for better rat hunting. It did mention using pregnant mother animals to give birth to modified stronger offspring. If he wanted larger rats, it might work. By implanting them with blood stones as pups they could be controlled in adult hood. If he could use life magic on animals the same way as he did on plants, he would be able to grow the population of giant rats into a sizable force. If he could breed them to be smart enough to learn instructions, he might be able to use them as gatherers. Perhaps a dog would work better for this purpose, but he had seen many dead dogs in the streets and he already had a rat he could use.
By the time he finished reading, planning, and coughing enough liquid unlife to fill a test tube May and her sisters had returned. He helped them onto the lab table one at a time until all 20 of the large bees were on the table. Then he sent thoughts of sleep to his daughters. The old ladies quickly fell into a deep slumber. The mage pulled out his knife and began petting spring. She was the oldest of the sisters. With a quick cut she was decapitated. The life force in her body recoiled into her blood stone. He moved the body onto a different counter. Carefully he cut into the bee carful to not split her stomach ang release the acid inside until he collected a dull red gem the size of a pea. It had started out as a bug sized sip of blood. The size he found remarkable but its clarity lacking. He could take the stomach acid later for know he would collect the other stones.
After preforming the same surgery 19 more times he had 20 pea sized blood stones. With a little bit more of his own blood he combined the stones into one large one. It still had some cloudiness and it was less round than he hoped. The experiment was risky and of his own creation. He would have liked to test it out first but had no other test subject. The vengeful mage decided what he would do if he ever got a prisoner. He called the lurker to him as he poked his finger with a knife to create a tiny blood stone. The lurker arrived by squeezing itself through a howl in the floorboards. Albie silently wondered why it didn't want to use the door.
"I need you to pull out my right eye," said Albie removing the moon charm. Pain entered every muscle fiber in his body as he took the necklace off. He left the charm on the table in front of him as he struggled to stand. The pail lurker after a pause raised its hand and its fingers stretched out.
"Quickly!" growled Albie through clenched teeth. His howl body sweating as what felt like acid pumped through his veins.
The claws stretched into his face and grasped the eyeball. With a pinch Albie couldn't feel over the rest of the pain the lurker pulled out his eye. Quickly after Albie Grabbed the large blood stone and jammed it into the socket healing the crystal into place. His new right eye was read and looked almost like the compound eye of a bug.
He put the moon charm back on and the pain began to fade. To Albies surprise he could see the shifting black mass that was the lurkers hand through his right eye. He held an enchanted preservation jar out and the lurker dropped hi eye into the crystal jar. Step one was done now he just needed to fit his eye into a rats socket.