Albie worked in his lab experimenting on the apple spiders. The titan was a great success for a creature meant to live for only a few hours, but he wanted something with longer lifespan. A vegetable of a man with no arms or legs sat on a nearby counter. His eyes empty and his mouth sealed into one giant lip. He was surrounded by the corpses of dissected monster bees. The modifications to their systems were closer but the mage believed that when he created the next batch, they would live at least two months. It was perhaps time to create a queen of the race.
The bloodstones harvested from the now deceased bees could be used in other projects. Fireproof creatures were his top priority but building some more specialized undead was still a useful project. Another wight would be useful but perhaps some flesh abominations if built correctly would serve quite well. The flesh mound had proven useful in its own way. It was slow but it was tuff and a horror to the orange coats who fought it. To build such things would likely need more than liquid unlife. Bloodstones would be needed to help bind the creatures together.
Abomination Warfare and Sculpting life were open on the counters. The mage was looking trying to look through both at once looking for solutions for lord brand and technique for shaping the spiders and queen bee. The ash wraith caught his attention along with the creatures known as lost minds.
"Master!" squeaked a shrill voice in his mind. "The dead ones here eating dead meat on top of nest. Make stop! Dead man leak onto nest! Give nest meat taste! Dead men eat nest!"
"Scab are you using the mattress in the kitchen as a plate?" asked Albie through the mind link.
"The meat was lying there when we came in," responded the wight. "What's the problem."
"The mattress is Bags nest," responded the young man. "Could you take your meal off her house?"
"If you insist father," sighed the dead man. "By the way when did you teach the rat the human tongue?"
"I didn't," answered the confused mage looking back at Sculpting Life. "She can talk?"
"If not her than I do not know who has been yelling at us to get off the nest," responded the dead man.
"Fascinating," responded the mage. "On your way up can you gently collect the charred woman on the ground floor and bring her up to the lab. Please avoid contaminating her with unlife. I have an idea in mind for her and don't want the body reanimated before I finish preparing it."
"Very well father," responded Scab. "We will be up soon."
"Bags, come up stairs," ordered the mage.
The sound of tinny grumbling echoed in the back of his mind.
A swarm of bees landed on his shoulder. The mage pulled up ahis sleeve and the twenty or so bees bit into his skin drawing blood. The bees dank his blood before flying to a nearby counter. The mage used his magic to help grow the bees one by one. He had started with the queen and moved on to her workers. By the time bags had made her way to the lab on the second-floor half the bees were the size of dogs. The rat crawled onto her master's shoulder and observed as the bees grew.
"You can speak?" asked Albie growing another bee to massive size.
"Speak," squeaked the rat. "Master make Bags big Rat!?"
"Maybe," responded Albie. "I like you being small though you can go places and see things none of your children can as you are now. Did you want to be big?"
"Big rat! Biggest rat!" Squeaked the tinny servant. "Eat cat big rat!"
"If you are good," replied the mage. "But I have known very few cats willing to back down even to old hunting dogs."
The tiny rat grumbled in response. As the last be was grown to size the swarm flew out of the room to make its nest. A group of unliving carrying the charred remains of the hospitals former mistress entered. The dead men laid the body on the center counter. A pail lurker crouched on a nearby counter.
"Scab how are the unliving?" asked the mage. "Your puppets seemed to have taken a beating last night. Will you be able to replace the losses?"
"I pulled a number of full unliving away from the right before Brand arrived father," answered the dead man. "I should be able to create close to 200 dead men before the night is over."
"Very good," responded the master. "I was thinking on how to increase our forces and though I might make you a sibling. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?"
"Father," hissed the dead man through its rotten teeth. "Have I been a bad child?"
"No," said the mage. "You have been a grate help with building and maintaining our army, but we are not enough. If we want to win, we will need more help. Bags and her children seem to be growing smarter, but I don't think they will be able to organize themselves any time soon. The bees are another option but will take time to set up a nest. They also don't seem to be gaining intelligence with their size. The dead ones are the only ones who can increase in numbers and leadership quickly. At least for now. We need to grow our means off attacking the orange coats and Lord Brand. There are too many projects for the two of us alone to handle. Just as an example I would like to use the stolen muskets however I can only find four ways to get a dead man to shoot a gun. As a test order your dead men to take weapons. The orange coat will be one."
The fallen priest ordered its three subordinates to collect the muskets and powder boxes waiting in the lab.
"Have them load the guns," ordered the mage as he hammered the charred woman into a fine black powder. The eyes of the lurker watching him.
Scab tried to order his minions to load the guns. The former orange jacket began the process of loading the weapon slowly but surely. The other two remained still holding the muskets but not taking action until it took direct control of one of them.
Albie began explaining. "Abomination warfare describes for ways of making a dead man load a musket. First is to use the corpse of someone who had devoted loading and firing to muscle memory. Second is reusing the muscles of a solder in a different body. Or to cut off a musketeer's arms and attach them to a different body. Third is to take manual control of the dead man. Finally it's to teach dead muscle how to load and fire but that is a very slow process as it is hard for dead flesh to learn. Unless you have a stolen mind to help you with the training. I can't expect you to train the dead men to shoot guns, grow their numbers, and help create more specialized undead. Witch is why you will need to find me bodies that might make good wights."
"It saddens I am not enough," said Scab. "But you are right I will begin looking for suitable bodies to make wights as well as harvesting the orange coats for useful muscle."
"Very good," replied the mage. "I hope you become a good older sibling. For the rest of today rebuild the dead men as you see fit."
"Yes father," responded the dead man as proudly as its rotten lungs would let it before leading its servants out of the lab.