Albie filled a beaker with his own blood. He cut the sack of spider eggs and with a pair of tweezers pulled a few of the eggs into the blood and channeled the life force into the eggs. The eggs popped in the blood. A single spider crawled out of the blood. The little spider got down the side of the beaker before it stopped moving. Albie checked for life in the tiny creatures' body. It was generating no life force.
The sun was coming up over the city. Scab was leading his forces well. The walking corpses had switched to lying in the street. The small army of walking corpses was laying low. Even Scab was laying still in the sun temple. He seemed to have decided that his solders would be at a disadvantage during the day when they could be seen from a few streets away.
Bags was on her way to the bank to the bank. Albie wanted to see how the orange coats were dealing with last nights events. A vengeful ghost couldn't be killed by men with guns. The young mage wanted them to feel helpless. Scared into paralysis was ideal. Bags had been there before and was hard to notice at the best of times.
Albie changed up his experiments with the spiders instead trying to channel life force to change the spiders he would try to learn prematurely hatching them. Forcing bees to grow was not new to him but spiders were a different animal.
A loud Yelping came from downstairs.
Albie watched as another small egg explode as he tried to force the egg to hatch.
The yelping grew louder and then the lab door was opened. A clawed hand slunk back into the shadows. Two bees carrying in a dog flew into the lab. Albie touched the dog and began sucking the life out of it. The hound whimpered as it became a husk. The mages hunger growing wile using his store of life force to grow spiders. The bees ate the dogs shriveled husk and flew out of the room. The bees were serving him well. He should really bind one to himself. They had a unique view of the world.
Neither Scab nor Bags was looking at anything interesting yet. Scab was staring at the temple entrance waiting to ambush anyone who bothered to check inside. All bags saw was sewer tunnels.
A young spider hatched from its egg crawled for a moment then died. The mage smiled his chapped lips at his progress. He was putting to much life energy into it. The little spider body just couldn't handle it. Control was key here.
"Father," hissed Scabs voice in his head. "Why did you let that man escape last night? Ending his life would have been easy."
"Scab," replied Albie. "I was once told by one of the village men who had come back from war talk about how he had been part of a siege in this city. Rossvelt the nation on the other side if the river had attacked Yourz. They assaulted the city walls three times. They made it over the walls once. Do you know what ate at him most?"
"The dead?" asked Scab.
"No," Answered the mage. "It was the screams of the solders in the hospital. The men who were dying slowly bothered him the most. A dead man doesn't scream all night. Not without help anyway. You can throw a blanket over him and pretend he doesn't exist. But a man who's hurt or broken is harder to ignore. Everyone around him must deal with the constant reminder that he might not leave in one piece or die over the course of a week… If you had killed all the men in those patrols, you would have left a pile of half eaten bodies. Not easy to look at but hard to recognize. Five men disappearing in the night is desertion. One man screaming about walking dead men that ate his friends alive. That is a story that will chill men's bones. If told a few times by different men, it will freeze their wretched soles. Men like that can't fight back. They can only resign themselves to the next life. Scare them Scab. Chill their Bones. Murder their courage. Brake one mans mind yourself and let him poison his friend's minds for you. Do you understand?"
"Yes Father," answered Scab. "I will see if I can brake more for you."
"Good," responded Albie. "I'm glad we had this talk. Now I am in the middle of some experiments and need my head to myself for a few more hours."
"Yes father," responded Scab.
I hope he learned his lesson. Thought Albie as a spider hatched from it egg and began to crawl around the table. Albie checked it with his magic. It seemed perfectly healthy.
Next step is to make it bigger.