Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

After the meeting with the headmaster I told my friends what had happened as we met for dinner.

"Really? That's harsh. I can understand that they might charge you for storing your undead but forcing you to work like that seems unfair." Skadi said.

"Yeah, that sucks! I am not sure if there is something we can do about it." Cassie mused.

"Please don't poison anyone." I replied.

Helena placed her hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, I will come up with something for your birthday and then we will see about those three weeks. It sucks that you are getting punished for an accident!"

"My aplogiesssss for the trouble I have caused." Kyan said.

"No, it's not your fault! I will happily work for weeks in the sewers and have you than the other way around!" Kyan hadn't been with me long but I would gladly suffer some inconvenience for my undead. While his creation was an accident, now that he was here I wouldn't want it any other way.

The remaining evening my friends tried to cheer me up while being suitably outraged about my punishment. At least I had one more day before my work started and it would be a fun one. I could show Gronir my new undead! I met him inside a lab bright and early to discuss my findings and I was joined by all of my tier threes and Andy.

"Oh? You have an undead crawler?" Gronir asked, as my group entered the room.

"Yes! His name is Andy and he is designed to spit necrotic water, or other liquids. He is sort of a long range spell or potion delivery system!" I announced, proudly.

"Really? Fascinating." Gronir said, while looking at Andy with green glowing eyes.

"Uh, but I also have a new tier three." I admitted.

"Gretingsssss." Kyan said, as he peeked out of my sleeve.

"This is Kyan, he is… we are still trying to find out what he is. I was hoping you could help!" I stated.

"Oh?" Gronir looked at the snake, then at me. "Another tier three? I assume Erik knows about this?"

"Yes." I mumbled. "He 'volunteered' me to help with the water infrastructure."

Gronir sighed. "You really need to pace yourself. I understand that you have a lot of mana and necromancy comes naturally to you, but you can't underestimate the dangers. Losing control, or being overwhelmed by the mental links, is a real danger. I suspect your high tolerance of such things is a mixture of your talent and Nyx but you are a bit of an anomaly. It's not helped by the fact that potential archmage necromancers are rather rare and often hunted down before they can reach their full potential. Our headmaster is understandably concerned, imagine what would happen if you lost control here at the academy?"

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Garm nodded. "The kitchen would never recover from an unleashed Nyx, Yoru, Ivy and Kasai."

"Meow!" I wasn't quite sure if the cats agreed or protested.

"This is a serious matter." Gronir said.

"I can assure you we are doing our best not to mentally strain Koyuki." Kaito stated.

"And if she lost control we could just beat up the new undead." Hatsumi suggested.

"Could you?" Gronir asked. "Or would the new undead control all of you through Koyuki? Or would you break free and just leave?"

"What? Never!" Hatsumi said.

"That was quite rude, we would never abandon her." Garm said.

"Our loyalty is without question." Kaito stated.

"Meow!" The cats agreed.

While Kyan didn't speak I felt him gently squeezing my arm to reassure me.

"Even I wouldn't leave." Rose said.

"Really? You only joined Koyuki to escape death. You don't want freedom?" Gronir asked.

"I want to learn more necromancy from Koyuki and create more undead with her. I really like it here, you will have to meet my horse later! I have a vampiric one now called Thorn!" Rose said.

Gronir looked around all of my undead. "Normally I would be suspicious by so much praise for one's mistress but your group is rather unusual. Very well, I will tell Erik that I see no reason to be concerned about your undead breaking free, for now. While he hasn't asked me yet, I suspect he awaits a report. Also, it might amuse you to hear that Erik found himself more than once inside the sewers during his time as a student. Just don't tell him that I told you."

My eyes widened, the headmaster himself had been punished like that in the past? It was hard to imagine but I guess I had no idea how he was as a student.

"Now, let's have a look at your new undead." Gronir said.

Kyan slithered from my arm onto the table.

"Hm, I can clearly see an earth affinity but I am unsure what exactly he is." Gornir stated after his first observations.

"I am death for Koyuki'sss enemiesss." Kyan stated.

"He has a venom that can turn living things into sand, sort of, then he devours the sand. And he has a bond with his ribbon!" I said.

"A bond to his ribbon? How?" Gronir asked.

"The head of the corpse had been cut off, so I wanted to combine them again and make a vampiric undead. Cassie provided a modified blood potion and Rose assisted me with her blood magic, the idea was to fuse the corpse through the blood. Some of it bled out into the ribbon so it was soaked when I cast my spell. Then it reacted to some venom inside the corpse…" I said.

"Then Nyx helped and suggested better runes! We upgraded the tier two to a tier three!" Rose added.

"Nyx helped? I suppose she did upgrade your cats, so I shouldn't be too surprised. Then again, I would have assumed them being cats mattered, or perhaps this was a different kind of intervention? We need to learn more about your guardian bond but I believe it might be one reason for your continued success." Gronir mused.

"Meow." Nyx stated, proudly.

"The earth mana in the venom interfered enough so we lost the blood affinity. Further, the area where his head was cut off leaks mana into the ribbon now and bonds it to him." I stated.

Gronir looked at Kyan once more with his glowing green eyes. He might have cast a few more spells since it took a while until he talked again: "This is truly fascinating! Maybe you should present him at this year's conference! From what I can tell the ribbon serves as a way to soak up the leaking mana and prevent it from being lost. Essentially without it, he would be quite a bit weaker. I wouldn't be surprised if the ribbon becomes stronger over time."

"He was able to change the colors to match his scales, I was thinking it might be replaceable though." I said.

"I do not believe it is a full part of me." Kyan stated.

Gronir nodded. "I suspect the longer you wear it the more it becomes a part of you. If it ever were destroyed you would have to go through the process of bonding a new one. That in itself would be fascinating to watch. Also, I would like to hear what Cassie used for this. While it was an accident you might be able to combine that potion and the venom deliberately to create this result. You might have stumbled upon a method to create a mummy, or at least something similar. A true mummy would need more bandages and they are one with the fabric, Kyan is more like a partial mummy around his neck in the early stages of bonding."

"Kyan, you are so cool!" Rose stated.

"Sssssss."

"Now for the bite you have described, sand is often mentioned when it comes to mummies. Of course, they are found in old tombs in the desert, which are surrounded by sand. Kyan's powers could be a coincidence resulting from an earth and death mana combination. We have to test this more thoroughly. Black earth vipers are known for their strong venom so I am not surprised that his bite is still quite deadly." Gronir stated. "But you have once more created a fascinating undead!"

I smiled and petted the little snake. All of my undead were just amazing.