Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

Valeria came through and managed to get us some of the drugs for Cassie's potion. Her only request was to see the new undead, once it had been raised. While she was not going to watch the process itself, Valeria was curious enough to show up.

"Um, this does not look like your normal blood potions, is there some green in the red?" I asked, as Cassie handed me a bottle. We were once again in a lab and the snake corpse was on a table in front of me. We had washed it and soaked it in a minor undead enhancement potion overnight.

"There were some curious reactions with that drug but I am very confident this will do fine. There is a lot of mana in that thing!" Cassie said confidently.

"Ok." I said and took the bottle. Rose was helping me with the blood part and we would do another joint casting. She was currently petting the head of the snake. Nyx jumped on the table, sniffed the corpse and started licking the body.

"Uh, Nyx? What are you doing?" I asked.

Two suspiciously innocent looking eyes stared at me. "Meow."

"Maybe she likes the potion you used on the corpse?" Helena wondered.

Skadi shrugged. "Cats just like to lick things."

"This is fascinating, is this normal?" Valeria asked.

I scratched my head. "It's kind of normal, it always depends on the undead I create. This should only be a vampiric tier two so nothing that interesting. I guess the missing head makes it a bit special."

One could argue that my circulation technique made most of my undead a bit special but that was a secret. Since Valeria had provided the corpse and the materials for the blood potion it would have been rude to stop her from watching. Thankfully the circulation would happen inside the corpse and would not be visible.

Rose had been practicing her own circulation and it seemed to have improved her necromancy. I was rather proud of her! I was looking forward to our joint raising of the snake.

With everything ready I opened the potion and Rose took control of the blood. It flowed inside the corpse, then I took the head and pressed it against the body.

"Aehm."

I looked up and saw Garm's left head holding a small red ribbon in his mouth. "Maye it would help to keep the head attached during the raising…" The right head suggested.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I smiled and took the ribbon. "Sure."

Nyx helped me to tie the bow by placing a helpful paw on the ribbon. It really did look cute and the red colour was convenient because some of the blood leaked from the snake. With the ribbon in place I pressed the head against the body again and started forming the runes in my head. Rose was circulating the blood and preparing her own contribution to the spell.

I began to cast the raise undead spell…

"Something is wrong, the spell feels weird." I said.

"Something is happening with the blood! It's uh, bubbling." Rose exclaimed.

"Oh crap." Cassie said.

"What?" I asked.

"This is a venomous snake, there is probably still some venom in there which might be reacting with my potion, I hadn't thought of that!" Cassie said.

"Meow!" Nyx exclaimed and I felt something in my mind. Was Nyx trying to do a joint casting? Was there something she could do, as my guardian?

I frowned as the runes in my mind were nudged. Nyx was trying to change my spell somehow. Wait, that was more than nudging! I had worked hard on those modifications! Oh, now Nyx was trying to get me to add a rune?

"Koyuki, we should trust Nyx!" Rose suggested.

This was getting complicated and I started to sweat. The new runes required a lot more mana than I had anticipated! I had to draw deeply from my core to keep the spell active! I somehow felt my other undead pour mana into the spell as well. It was changing the corpse but it was working! I felt my magic take hold…

Helena caught me as I almost fell face first on the poor snake. My vision was a bit blurry and I leaned into my girlfriend as I was breathing heavily. Cassie offered me some water and I drank. Meanwhile Hatsumi offered Rose, who looked tired, a blood potion.

"Thank you." I said and closed my eyes for a moment.

"Sorry, I did not expect there to be some venom left inside the corpse." Cassie apologised.

"None of us did, I guess we learned something new." I replied.

"In most cases it would not matter but an earth based venom does not play well with the blood potion brewed. It tilts the balance away from blood because there is not enough water mana to counter the additional earth mana and I assume the venom might be attacking the blood itself." Cassie explained.

"Oh, did we destroy the blood affinity?" I wondered. I checked my link and there was a new undead, so at least something had worked.

"Meowsssssss."

I opened my eyes and looked at the snake. Then at Nyx, who was now curled up next to it. My other cats sat around Nyx protectively and studied the snake.

"Koyuki, are you alright? Is it always this dramatic? Why does your snake meow?" Valeria asked, while standing nearby and looking concerned.

"Ah, Nyx likes to make undead meow as a prank. She seems tired since she helped but she had enough power left for that it seems. Or maybe one of the other cats did it? As for me, I am just tired. It's only magic fatigue, nothing to worry about. Despite the amount of mana I have, I tend to use quite a bit for some of my undead. The complications made it more expensive in this case. I guess the spell had to repair something? We will have to see what we have created." I replied.

I felt quite excited about the new undead. While things did not go according to plan the result seemed stable. Hopefully it did not turn out too weak because of our problems. The snake itself had changed a little as its scales were now alternating between black and a dark purple.

"It's cute!" Rose said and petted the head again. She looked a bit tired but myself and Nyx seemed to have taken the worst hit.

"Feels nice." The snake said.

"Really? Are the cats still pranking me or is it one of you?" I looked around my undead.

"I believe our new friend spoke by himself." Kaito stated.

"But but…" That was not possible! I did not cast a tier three spell! The runes… wait, what runes had Nyx pushed on me? They had been somewhat familiar but I had been so busy and focused on keeping my spell from collapsing…

"Oh, you have a new tier three!" Helena said, sounding very enthusiastic.

Part of me was really excited and a part of me imagined being called to the headmasters office to explain this accident.

"We are so getting extra lessons next year…" I mumbled.