Koyuki, the Necromancing Foxkin

The next morning we met Brian again, this time north of the docks at the river. Helena joined me once more, despite it no longer being my birthday. Garm joined as well, even though he didn't like the cramped sewers, but he wanted to be with his pack. I tried to argue that he could stick with Cassie, Skadi, Ivy and Kasai, who were working on the brewery, but he decided to join us instead.

"The whole group is here again, I am actually surprised." Brian said. "I would have assumed Lady Helena would stay at the academy."

Lady Helena? I guess he found out that she was a noble, however he didn't seem to care overly much.

"It takes more than a sewer to keep me from Koyuki." Helena replied.

"I believe she is going to use the fact that she is here to persuade Koyuki to go clothes shopping." Garm's left head stated. "Helena is among the few living who value fashion."

My eyes widened as I stared at my grinning girlfriend.

"Maybe, but for now I am just here to support Koyuki." Helena said.

"Right. So today we are at the river because I will show you the purification facilities. We are outside the fresh water one. Right down here…" He pointed at stairs going down towards the river from the quay. "... it goes to the entrance. It's… What is that?" Brian stopped and pointed at Andy. I had decided to bring him along in addition to my tier threes today.

"This is Andy, he is only a tier two undead but he can shoot infused water, which might be helpful to clear obstructions. He can also crawl on walls which could help, I think." I replied.

Brian shook his head. "I always thought necromancers were sort of limited, then again there has been a company using them at the docks too. I guess as long as you are here personally I don't care who does the work. Anyway, let me show you the purification facility."

He led us down the stairs towards a metal door, guarded by a soldier. "Hi Rick, I am here with some volunteers." Brian said.

Rick's eyes widened. "Whoa, you are Koyuki!"

"Um, yes. Hello Rick, I am Koyuki, this is Helena and these are my undead." I said.

"They volunteered you? Crazy bastards…" Rick mumbled.

"You know her?" Brian asked, sounding surprised.

"She has helped the guards before and is quite the powerful necromancer. She is included in our briefings so we know about her undead army." Rick said.

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Brian looked at me, my undead and then back at Rick. "Right, let's get this over with."

Rick unlocked the door for us and wished us a nice day. Inside we found a stone chamber with a small wooden table, where two guards were playing cards under the soft glow of a magical lamp. They nodded towards us and Brian nodded back. The chamber itself had a few cupboards and a ladder going down to some pipes, which had a complex glowing rune structure on them.

"You don't have to understand the runes, you just have to feed them some mana. Since the fresh water is kind of important, those get checked regularly by a licensed mage. Your job here is just to make sure there is enough mana. You aren't allowed inside here without supervision. So do you thing and then we are off to the sewers and the waste treatment." Brian said.

I climbed down, placed my hands on the glowing structure and simply fed them my mana. Helena offered to help but I was fine, so there was no need. After that we said goodbye to the guards and left.

"The sewage treatment is further down the river, so we are now going to enter the actual sewers and do some work. " Brian said.

The work was the same as yesterday, clearing obstructions and recharging some flow runes. To Nyx' delight we found some rats, which she hunted and snacked on, together with Yoru. What we didn't find were any actual monsters, or criminals. Then again, our party was hardly silent. I kept chatting with my friends while we walked and worked.

"I am somewhat disappointed that we haven't run into any criminal gangs, or a nest of vampires, or something." Rose said.

"Why would there be a nest of vampires?" I asked.

"Since we got this duty Skadi lent me one of her books, and the story had a lot of vampires living in the sewers! They came out at night and started a murder spree, it's quite exciting!" Rose said.

"Aren't the vampires the bad guys in that book?" Helena asked.

"I don't mind, a lot of books humans read have humans as the bad guys." Rose replied.

"Skadi usually reads fiction, sometimes questionable fiction…" I said.

Hatsumi smiled. "Her book about the vampire maid was a great inspiration."

"You dress up like a maid because of a book? Wait, aren't you an undead?" Brian asked.

Hatsumi smiled at him, showing her teeth.

"You even have fake teeth?" He asked.

"Who said they are fake?" She replied.

Brian looked at her, then shook his head and mumbled: "I wonder who is getting punished here… weirdos."

"But she is a vampire!" I protested.

"Look, I am not a mage and I am not really into necromancy. I have no idea what your tiers are, I am sure they are super important. But even I know that you don't just have a vampire as a servant. I have been told to expect a bunch of undead in your company and I have been assured they are controlled. Honestly, if you were a real danger the academy would have thrown you out, so I never had any doubts there. I don't know what you did to get 'volunteered' for this and I don't care much either. You do your job and we are good." Brian said and started walking again.

I was surprised at first, then I thought about it for a moment. "You know, I wouldn't have known anything about necromancy if I hadn't come to the academy. I guess I shouldn't assume that normal people know a lot about the undead."

"I am from the north and we fight undead quite often." Helena said. "Even I was surprised by your tier threes. I knew they could be controlled, or reasoned with in some cases, but I would never have expected them to be my friends."

"Pack. You are more than a friend." Garm said.

"Meow." Yoru agreed.

Helena smiled. "Thanks."

We continued our patrol and ended the day at the waste treatment plant. It was larger than the fresh water purification facility and had two large tanks. One worked with earth and water enhancements to separate the waste, which was dumped into the second tank for incineration. The fresh water flowed back into the river through a pipe. We filled some more runes and then called it a day, once again finishing at around 14:00.

"So, that concludes the introduction." Brian said. "Tomorrow I expect you to patrol on your own, I will meet you in the morning and give you a map, then I will meet you when you finish. You have afternoons off to do whatever."

Maybe Gronir pulled some strings so I could work on my undead? I was looking forward to using all the goblin corpses!