Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

Our remaining trip was rather uneventful and we arrived at Lupos as planned. Thankfully the guards already knew about me, which made it a lot easier to enter the city with a bunch of undead.

We rolled through the gates of the academy in the evening, which would make it a bit harder to get everything organised. I needed a place to store my undead and the two wagons we owned. On the bright side, most students were not back yet, which meant more space in the stables.

"I guess I better talk to the headmaster." I said, as we left our carriage.

"Good luck." My friends told me.

"Do you wish us to accompany you, Koyuki?" Kaito asked.

"I don't think we should crowd his office and remind him of all the tier three I have." I muttered. "However, Nyx, you can come with me."

"Meow." Nyx looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"You are responsible for Kyan after all." I said.

"Oh, can I come too? I helped!" Rose stated.

"This isn't about getting credit." Helena said. "Koyuki is just looking for someone to blame."

"'My cat did it' is a valid excuse." Skadi said.

"Meow!" Ivy protested.

"A growing pack is a good thing." Garm said.

"He can't be mad at Kyan, he is so small and cute!" Rose protested.

I shrugged. "You can come if you want, first we have to see if he is still in his office."

As it turned out, he was still in his office. Erik looked at me from behind his desk and sighed. "What did you do this time? How bad is it?"

"Sir, why do you assume something bad happened?" I asked.

"It's evening and the first thing you did was come straight to me, before someone else had a chance to report on your latest adventures. So, what did you do?" Erik asked again.

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"I, uh, I made another tier three, by accident! And I brought back a bunch of goblin zombies, some additional corpses and two wagons. Hm, I also have a new experimental undead bug called Andy but he is mostly interesting for a necromancer, I think." I reported.

Erik just nodded along. "I see. So you haven't started any political issues I have to be aware of?"

"No sir!" Then I thought about it for a bit while he kept staring at me. "Well, there is a crawler problem in the north and there was this attack when we fought the goblins for Duchess Barkworth…"

So I ended up telling the headmaster about our trip, the discovery of the crawler nest and the battle against the goblins.

Erik listened while stroking his beard. "I see. The crawlers might be an issue but I trust Count Frost to handle that. The poison used by those assassins might be a bigger concern, it's definitely something the army needs to know about and we have to warn other necromancers. However, I haven't heard anything yet about this new tier three. Did Rose accidently create a vampire?"

"No sir! She helped me with a tier two because I wanted to create a vampiric snake." I reported.

"Of course you did." I heard Erik mutter.

"However, there might have been a bad reaction between the potion Cassie created and the venom left inside the snake corpse. So the whole animation went a bit wrong, then Nyx helped with a suggestion and the snake became a tier three. Say hello, Kyan." I reported.

Kyan's head poked out of my sleeve. "Hello."

Silence filled the room as Erik stared at us. After an uncomfortable amount of time he spoke: "So, Nyx helped you? Can she talk now?"

"Meow!"

"Uh, she still speaks in her own language, sir. However, she was able to offer suggestions for runes inside my head in a joint casting." I said.

"So when things went wrong with your spell, your instinct was to pull even more individuals around you into the spell and just follow the advice of a cat? The advice of a tier three, who you can't even properly talk to? You did not consider just, you know, stopping?" Erik asked.

"I encouraged her to keep going! Nyx would never do anything bad!" Rose said. "Eh, I mean not on that scale, she might steal a snack or so…"

"Sir, I have this special guardian bond with Nyx and she has protected me many times." I defended the feline.

Nyx, who sat on the floor next to me, nodded.

"I admit that our knowledge about this guardian situation is limited. I am not suggesting that Nyx is going to betray you but you need to remember that her own knowledge is limited. She also seems just as reckless as you, or your whole group for that matter." Erik said. "And you are still ok with the mental strain, even with one more tier three?"

"Yes, sir!" I replied.

"Hm, I will let Gronir be the judge of that, he likely wants a look at your tier three anyway. Is there something else I need to know about this snake?" Erik asked.

I hesitated. "Sir, I am not entirely certain what type of undead he is. The venom introduced too much earth mana so we lost the blood affinity, he is an earth undead with perhaps a hint of water. He also bonded to the ribbon he is wearing."

"I will let Gronir handle that and listen to his report. You know, I think I have a splendid idea! Since you need a lot of storage for your undead and you have neglected your water affinity a bit, how about you use it for the common good? The magical water infrastructure of the academy and the city are looking forward to your volunteer work, in your free time." Erik said.

Oh no, this sounded even worse than extra classes! I had no idea what water infrastructure he meant but I had the sinking feeling it might include the sewer system.

"Sir, for how long will I, uh, volunteer?" I asked.

"Well, it's Frigday evening so you can start on Lunday and do it for three weeks, until classes start." He replied.

My ears drooped, Lunday was my birthday and I had hoped to spend it with Helena. I also had all those corpses left, I guess I had to work on them in the evenings.

"Now it's late, I will send someone to get your undead horde settled and I expect you to report to Gronir tomorrow and show him your tier three. Dismissed."

I saluted and left. "This could have gone better." I mumbled.

"It's ok, we will help you with whatever task he has for you!" Rose assured me. "And who knows, maybe we will learn something interesting?"

Rose's words did make me feel a bit better, maybe it would not be so bad after all.