Lieze awoke with her brain feeling like it was trying to break free of her skull. She hadn't experienced such an awful headache since her introduction to communion as a child. An arid wind blew in from the tent's pegged flap as inaudible conversations slithered into her ringing eardrums. She peeled herself off the bedroll with a groan just as Drayya poked her head into the tent.
"Good afternoon, sleepyhead." She smiled, "How are you feeling?"
An inviting smog wafted from the clay cup in her grasp. While Lieze rubbed her eyes free of sleep, she walked over to the bedroll and offered the concoction with both hands. The bitter smell caused Lieze's nose to wrinkle up. "What is that?" she asked.
"Something Lüngen brewed up. There were notices plastered all over the kitchens in the border about it." Drayya answered, "It's got an acquired taste, but apparently it sobers you up like nothing else. Try it."
Knowing that 'no' wouldn't be an acceptable answer, Lieze took the cup and brought the foul tea to her lips, resisting the urge to gag as the sting of pungent herbs stormed her taste buds. The flavour was so irredeemably awful that her body was reinvigorated by a mixture of repulsion and adrenaline. She wouldn't have called it a 'cure' for a hangover, but it did the trick well enough.
"...Hah." She was still struggling to keep her eyes open, "I want to go back to bed."
"Now you're just being unreasonable." Drayya hid a modest giggle beneath her scolding, "You were so excited about getting back to work on your Bonecrawlers, too. We do have a war to win, remember."
Perhaps it was the light filtering in from outside, or the comforting warmth of the tent's interior, but Lieze had never felt so relaxed since the days of her childhood. She felt like laughing and crying and despairing all at once, unable to comprehend the scope of her newfound peace. There was no Lich to force his experiments upon her, no peers to torment her, and no limitations to prevent her from realising her potential.
"You're wearing that look on your face again. Is something bothering you?"
And then there was Drayya. No matter how neutral her expression, Lieze could never seem to hide anything from her. The constant prodding for reactions had once been an annoyance, but now, Lieze couldn't imagine herself in the same position without Drayya at her side. All of a sudden, she had found herself acting considerate towards another human being - a long-forgotten sensation that sheared through every lesson she'd been taught by Sokalar.
"...This tea is awful." She said.
"Oh, I see where this is going." Drayya nodded her head, "You want me to say something like 'let me have a taste', then you'll suddenly pull me into a deep kiss, and when we part, I'll wear a cute blush and follow up by saying that the tea was bitter, proving you correct while simultaneously commenting on the tumultuous nature of our relationship."
Lieze blinked.
"...Uh, no." She said, "I was just giving my opinion. I really do think it tastes terrible."
"I knew that!" Drayya nodded fiercely to distract from her reddening cheeks, "I was just thinking out loud! It was a joke! Are two girls not allowed to joke around with one-another!? We live in very remarkable times, you know! Very progressive times!"
Lieze pulled her forward by the shoulder to silence her tirade with a shallow kiss. Drayya's mouth became crooked with embarrassment, unsure of whether to smile or frown.
"You're surprisingly romantic for someone who butchered her way to the top of a death cult." Lieze muttered, "-But try to have some modesty, at least. I'm awake now, so let's have a look at the Bonecrawler to see if any adjustments need to be made."
...
..
.
Lüngen was instructing the rest of the Deathguards on the specifics of creating Bonecrawlers when Lieze and Drayya emerged from their tent. A steady supply of skeletonised thralls were slowly but certainly transforming into the nimble arachnids, each specimen marked with one or two iterations on the base design for the purposes of experimentation.
"Oh…" The portly archivist turned his head to spot his two students approaching, "How nice of the young lady to join us. I suppose you've yet to build up a resistance to Dwarven ale, Lieze? I haven't seen you sleep in since you were a youngling."
"Yes… I don't think I'll be laying my hands on any more alcohol for the time being." She nodded, "I suppose Drayya informed you about my plans regarding the Bonecrawlers?"
"-And what an excellent plan it is, if you don't mind me saying!" He rubbed his hands together, "We've always been left wanting for speed, but the rigid teachings of Ignas have left the Deathguards unable to fathom the existence of new thralls. With your help, we might make competent necromancers of them yet."
"We'll need at least a few hundred to act as decoys for the mountain siege." She watched the Deathguards attempting to replicate her efforts, forced to recall that not everyone was blessed with the power of the Scions, "-And we can't stay here for long. I don't doubt that at least one Dwarf was able to escape from the battle. Once news of our arrival is relayed to the mountains, we'll only have so much time to begin our attack before victory becomes a distant dream."
Another week, she thought. That was how long it would take to march her army across the plains before the mountains would come into view. If Alberich had time to prepare for her arrival, she'd be contending with the full might of the Dwarven army and its enchanted siege weapons. Suddenly, the act of sleeping in until the afternoon filled her with self-loathing.
"Well-" Lüngen placed both hands on his waist, "I suppose we'd better get started, then."
With the Deathguards gathered and the alchemy table accounting for any serious mana loss, an efficient production line of Bonecrawlers had been established. Lieze spent the next few hours tutoring her followers on the specifics of manipulating a Gravewalker's bone structure into the desired arrangement, using the opportunity to improve upon her first design and reduce the mana cost associated with the process.
Manipulating one bone at a time was too cumbersome and expensive. Using a Bonecrawler as reference, Lieze was able to memorise the construction of its body, creating a kind of mental blueprint that removed the need for meticulous effort. With speed on her mind, she cut down on the amount of bones necessary to construct the creatures, halving their maximum HP but resulting in less effort on the caster's part and enough leftover material to create two Bonecrawlers from a single Gravewalker.
Lieze's MP - 2,091 / 2,245
Lesser Bonecrawler
Level 17 Undead
HP - 246 / 246 MP - 0 / 0
BODY - 17 MIND - 0 SOUL - 0
She was pleased to see that the smaller revisions retained the original thrall's level. Smaller jaws and weaker frames sliced their combat effectiveness in half, but the weight-shedding had a profound effect on their speed, which Lieze had every intention of improving with [Necromantic Alchemy]. The Deathguards took to her lessons well, eager to wield their necromancy in a manner that differed from their usual affair of mindless corpse-raising.
"Hm…" Lieze watched the skeletal spiders skittering across the ground with a hand on her chin, "I wonder…"
She walked over to a skeletonised thrall and ordered it to relinquish one of its ribs. With astounding obedience, it tore free a piece of its own body and handed the bone over. Lieze splintered it into as many tiny fragments as she possibly could. Taking in a breath, she communed with the Blackbriar and attempted to conjoin the remains into a Bonecrawler that was barely larger than a house spider.
Lieze's MP - 1,210 / 2,245
The concentration required to work at such a miniscule scale haemorrhaged her mana. Using the template of a Lesser Bonecrawler, she spent a quarter of an hour perfecting an even smaller design, ending up with something that looked very much like a common insect from a distance.
Miniature Bonecrawler
Level 1 Undead
HP - 1 / 1 MP - 0 / 0
BODY - 1 MIND - 0 SOUL - 0
"Making scale models of your design, are you?" Drayya observed the process with an amused smirk, "Very artistic, but don't you think it would be more efficient to focus on something that could aid in the war effort?"
Lieze sighed to dampen the pain of her oncoming headache. The Miniature Bonecrawler was so fragile that she had to watch where she stepped for fear of crushing it. There had never been a thrall so pitiful and weak since she relied on an undead rat to aid in her escape from Helmach's precinct.
Then, as her mind strayed to the next step, a text box appeared in front of her face.
Ability - Necromantic Alchemy (Infectious Bite)
Description - Bestow a thrall with the ability to inflict living creatures with a curse. Whenever a living creature is bitten by a thrall infused with [Infectious Bite], they have a predetermined chance to be cursed.
Chance of infection (Max of 75%) = Thrall Level / 2 + Owner's Level at Time of Infusion
When cursed in this manner, a living creature will transform into a mundane Gravewalker after an amount of days equal to their level. Additionally, any Gravewalker created in this manner will also receive the [Infectious Bite] infusion. Symptoms of the curse include paleness, increased appetite, vomiting, and fevers.
By the time Lieze had acquired [Infectious Bite], Tonberg had already been conquered. Nightcrawlers were the only worthwhile hosts for the infusion, but their constant travelling over the continent made it difficult to create any Nightcrawler Breeders. But something as small as the Miniature Bonecrawler could easily slip into the mountains undetected.
She could imagine the chaos - Dwarves falling ill, only to transform into Gravewalkers and infect others with the same curse. If left unattended, it was a crisis that could devour the entire country from the inside-out. Lieze's high level guaranteed a good chance of infection no matter how weak her thralls were, making the proposition all the more enticing.
Her plan was taking shape. Suddenly, the impenetrable defences of the Dwarven Mountains didn't seem so intimidating. By the time her army arrived, a combination of Marché's sabotage and the rate of infection may have already done most of the work for her. When Lieze began her explanation of the plan to Drayya, she was sceptical at first, but as the pieces fell into place, she found herself nodding along to the idea.
"If we sent a dozen or so of those Bonecrawlers towards the mountains, we could begin our attack without even showing up…" She muttered, "Who knew that conquering a country was so easy when you rely on the most deplorable, dishonourable tactics?"
Defeat was no longer a concern, and all it took was for Lieze to experiment with her powers a little. She had forgotten what it felt to experience anything comparable to joy when practising necromancy. Her army was a limitless font of potential, she realised - just waiting to be exploited in the most horrific manner possible. All she had ever needed was a slight push in the right direction.
"...We should experiment with the idea of creating more thralls." Lieze said, "These Bonecrawlers are only the beginning."