Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

We started the day by washing ourselves in the river. Then I made coffee while Skadi prepared breakfast. She made scrambled eggs with pieces of meat. I had no idea what exactly it was.

“This is delicious, what is it?” I asked.

“No idea. I got it from those bandits. It looked good so I decided to cook it.” She replied.

“A shame that it was not labelled. Reminds me a bit of pork, but spicier and more tender.” Cassie mused.

While we were eating the family left their tent and Greg approached us.

“Good morning. I would like to thank you again for your help. Is it ok if we leave after breakfast?” He asked.

“Sure. Could you go to your village and report this incident to the guard? And tell them where we are camped.” Helena said.

“Of course.” He said and went back to his family.

“Are we not going to report this ourselves?” I asked.

“Well, they are going to send someone to investigate anyway. Saves us the trip. And it gives us more time for hunting!” Helena explained.

“Are we just gonna continue to hunt? Like nothing happened?” I asked.

“Surely there are no more bandits around.” Cassie said.

“I don’t think that is how it works. Besides, this group was not after us. We are still expecting an ambush.” Skadi countered.

“So, nothing changed! We are in no more danger than before. No reason to leave. Let’s use the time before an investigator arrives and we get dragged into this mess.” Helena suggested.

“Can we trust Greg?” I asked.

“They were in a cage. And they do have children. They look like a family. I see no reason to doubt them.” Skadi said. “The only problem is if the guard does not believe them.”

“I could send a zombie with them. That should get some attention. And it would protect them. I can dismiss it in a day or so.”

“Good idea.” Helena said.

“We should go through our loot before the investigators arrive. Maybe there is some useful stuff in there!” Cassie suggested.

“True. If they confiscate anything we need to bill them. So we need to know what we have.” Skadi said.

“Might be better to wait in camp until they arrive anyway. Otherwise they could think we were abducted or something.” I added.

“Ok… I guess there is no hunting for us today.” Helena sounded disappointed. I patted her on the shoulder.

“I know you invested a lot of time preparing that trip. I am sure we will have some more time to hunt something.” I said.

Helen sighed. “You are right. I know it would be smarter to wait here until an investigator arrives. I just wanted to hunt something. We did not really find anything yesterday.”

“Except bandits. We found a lot of those.” Cassie said.

“They don’t count. Actually, we could go on a bounty hunting trip at some point…” Helena pondered that. But she seemed in a better mood now.

“I think I will try to transform those zombies into skeletons while you go through the loot. I really want more skeletons.” I said.

Nyx raised her head and licked lips.

Cassie snickered. “I think she expects you to fail.”

“She will have to live with disappointment.” I declared with far more certainty than I actually had.

The family left rather quickly after a short meal. They really did not want to stick around. Maybe it was because of the zombies.

We finished our own meal and Helena volunteered to do the dishes. Cassie and Skadi started going through our loot. I summoned one of my zombies.

In my previous tries I had destroyed the spell when trying to compress it. This time I decided to do things differently. I could not just put pressure on it. I had to guide the magic too. To help with that I studied my goblins. Finally those skeletons were useful again.

After studying the magic inside their bones I imagined something similar in the human zombie. Then I tried to push the magic into the same form. Gently but firmly.

It was hard. I needed to concentrate on every bone in the undead’s body. I had to push the spell from all directions simultaneously. I started sweating. But I did not give up. This time I would succeed!

I had no idea how much time had passed. My vision was getting blurry. Then it finally happened. The spell was condensed into the skeleton!

Flesh fell from the undead. Only bones remained.

“Yes, I did it!” I exclaimed while breathing heavily.

My friends walked over. They had been busy examining our spoils.

“Good job! But you look really exhausted.” Cassie noted.

“Yeah. That was not easy.” I admitted.

While my friends congratulated me, Nyx looked rather disappointed. For once I was the smug one.

“It still needs a wash.” Helena commented. “But I like it. Can you transform your other zombies too?”

“I need a break, then I will try the next one. How long was I concentrating?” I asked.

“Took you about half an hour, I think.” Skadi said.

“Have you girls found anything useful while I was busy?” I asked.

“I found alchemy supplies. Might help to find out what they threw at Frank. I suspect it was meant to incapacitate him. They probably wanted to capture and question us.” Cassie said.

“Sadly they did not have a letter containing their evil ploy.” Skadi said.

“Why would anyone have such a thing?” I wondered.

“Because they were in contact with their noble backer.” Cassie explained.

“And then it turns out the letter was a trap! It accused an innocent.” Skadi added.

“The true culprit was the investigator all along!” Cassie finished.

I looked at them. “You read too many stories…” I said.

Both of them grinned.