Suggested Listening

Elruin sang to the fermenting pool of torture and death. Scratch's taint pulsed through flesh that refused to let itself cease, so Elruin sped the process with her Requiem and Rot of Ages. With time and effort, her power squashed their regenerative power and allowed death to claim them. One after another, their struggles ceased and they joined Elruin's control, even if that control was limited to a handful of the dead.

It was a pity taint was such a destructive thing, as there would have been quite a supply of sarite and alchemical supplies in this pile of corpses were it not for the consumptive energies of undeath. The solution, then, was obvious enough: hunt more goblins later, when they had the time and resources for proper study.

When she had taken as many as she dared, she began to break down the remaining energies. Nothing good could come of leaving the taint to spread and grow, unless she wanted to replace the goblin threat with an undead one.

The remaining members of the team considered the situation in their own way. Until now, Elruin's collection of the dead had consisted of incidental undead, born of circumstance rather than deliberate cultivation. This was different, and nobody other than Scratch was quite certain how they felt.

Ketak had never seen anything like this in any form, but she told herself the victims were worse, so it did not count. Calenda accepted it as a necessity of war, she'd made her peace with worse crimes. Lemia reminded herself that they were desperate and in need of any advantage they could get, especially in such hostile terrain.

Scratch relaxed as the girl walked the desired path without knowing there was a path to walk. "And now you have what passes for your army back, what do we do with it?" In time, her control would grow to such that she could take the entire slaughter pit and a hundred times more, but it would be a long time before they reached that stage.

Elruin gave it a thought, then made her choice. "We promised the morks that we would stop the bad men."

"You made a deal wi' morks?" Ketak sounded about as pleased with that idea as she was with the undead creatures now climbing out of the burial pit.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Calenda said. "We found ourselves in a fight with a group of bandits, nothing too difficult, and then a mork pack came along, promised to show us where they had their main camp. Their assumption was that we're motivated by taking the bandits' wealth, and in exchange we... well, we don't bury the dead when leave."

"I'm not a fan, either, but we got a few secret weapons, in case they're even dumber than expected." Now that Elruin had been so kind as to kill his puppet, Scratch was a lot more relaxed. Controlling a monster like this one while it lived taxed the upper limit of his ability. Dead, it was as silent and compliant as all of the necromancer's dolls.

"Hmm, can't say I appro'e," Ketak said. "But I suppose morks are better 'an bandits."

"We've got days of travel before it matters," Calenda said. "Ell, keep your new 'dollies' in the rear guard. Scratch, you, too. Ketak, you take point while I scout ahead. Everyone keep your eyes peeled, I only like ambushes when I'm on the giving side."

Suggested Listening

Lemia took another crunchy bite out of her ration bar. "Know what? I think I'm starting to like these things. The nutty flavor takes some adjusting to, but they have good texture and are filling. Compared to the entek slime at the school, this is luxury."

Elruin smiled and gave a quick nod, unwilling to speak with her mouth full. It was rude enough to speak at what passed for the dinner table, it was unthinkable to have food in your mouth at the time. It appeared Lemia was not raised on such standards of polite behavior.

"I'm surprised a human would eat our 'ood." Ketak, too, showed no interest in basic politeness. She took another bite out of a small branch once attached to an oak tree. "Most o' you don't look twice be'ore going back to 'e salted meats."

Lemia took the time to swallow her bite. "Why?" She looked at the remaining piece, took another bite while waiting for Ketak's explanation.

"Humans don't like 'e same 'ings silmid like. Same as silmid don't like human 'ood. Don't get how you can get hungry knowing what you killed was 'illed with blood and guts and 'e same meat you're 'illed with."

"Sure, but that's meat, we still like berries and nuts same as you do." Lemia's chewing slowed, then stopped, as she looked down at the mysterious crunchy bits of the ration bar. "These aren't nuts, are they?"

"Some o' it is. Walnuts, more likely 'an not." Ketak took another bite from her strip of tree. Dwarves could and did eat the same meal as their silmid cousins, but also ate a great deal of tree roots. Ketak in particular liked the crunch of bark and texture of tree fiber.

As she stared down at her food, Lemia's skin began to match Elruin's pallor. "And the rest of it?"

"Dunno, but were I to guess?" Ketak considered the possibilities as she chewed. "Meal worms are cheap, 'ind 'em in all sorts o' silmid recipes. Crickets, maybe, but 'at's higher class, maybe tarantulas i' you're a big spender."

"Meal worms?" Lemia gagged, but held her stomach. "I've been eating meal worms for the last four days? I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Not here," Elruin said. "Get out of the cart, first." She then returned to chewing on her snack, unconcerned that she was eating bugs. She learned long ago that one couldn't afford to be a picky eater.

"How can still eat that stuff?"

Elruin looked at Lemia, and did not speak until she finished with her mouthful. "I can see it's clean," she said. "It has lots less of the bad dust that live in people and make them sick than the meat does."

Lemia stared at Elruin for a full minute. "Are... are you saying you can see the things that make people sick?"

"Uh huh. They're all really tiny, smaller than a fleck of dust, but when you get enough of them together I can see them. They can live inside your stomach or blood, and they're all over your skin and food all the time. When you have too many inside you, it can make you sick. Everyone has them." She looked down at herself. "Except me, I don't have any. And Ketak has lots less than you. I think they don't like heat or necromancy, because dead things have the most bad dust, but my dollies have almost none."

Lemia continued to think. "And what's the places that have the worst bad-dust?"

Elruin sat and thought, herself. "Uh, poop is extra bad. All... entek..." she hesitated to say the word, as it was a profanity she saw her siblings get in trouble for using before. "And meat when it starts to smell funny. Milk is bad, water can be bad, sometimes, if it's not clear water. My brothers' still, but the heat kills the bad dust so it's safe to drink. For adults, I wasn't allowed."

"But alcohol can still make you sick."

"Right, because it has poison in it," Elruin said. "But bad dust is different. It eats your insides and grows like a plant. Like taint, but alive. Cooking kills it, but it floats in the air so it comes back if you leave meat too long."

"Ell, if you're right about this, we could revolutionize the entire medical field." Lemia's mind couldn't begin to guess how many techniques could be developed to curb disease if it was more than just blood-mold-like things that ate people from the inside. "And you're telling me that this... bug... food... has less of the bad dust than meat?"

"Kind of?" Elruin squinted at her bar. "I think it has a different kind of bad dust, a kind that can eat bugs, but not people. But the stuff that eats animals also eats people."

"What about plants, do they have bad dust, too?"

"Some, but less than bug bad dust."

"Sounds like the plan is to eat nothing but plants for the rest of my life."

"Maybe?" Elruin went back to finishing her meal, without much thought as to the nature of disease or revolutionary medical thaumaturgy. She was still hungry, and the meager fill of the ration bars left her yearning for more.

It wasn't long before Cali returned from her jaunt into the forest, Scratch and his troll puppet not far behind her. "Good news, found the end of the mork trail. Ambiguous news, no sign of the morks. Bad news, these guys are equipped and fortified. They're using an old fortress, has what looks to be the same architectural style as the centaurs. It's not big, compared to our farmsteads, but it is well fortified."

She knelt in the dirt and began carving a top-down map of the fort. It was an ovular design, with just a single wall and a couple squares inside that represented buildings. As fortifications went, a simple one, but simplicity worked in its favor if it needed to be defended by a small force.

"We can write off my plan to sneak in and slit all their throats in their sleep," Scratch said. "They got a sarite bubble. Not a strong one, bet we could break it, but they'd know when we started."

"Only way in is climbing the wall, or going in the front gate," Cali said. "I counted twenty guards on the walls, between the two shifts. For a fort like that, I bet it means a total of forty men are inside at all times."

"Which means we rush the walls, or set up for a long term siege," Lemia said. "With Elruin's goblins, we could get over a wall fast if we need to."

"Or go under," Ketak said. "Maybe we can tunnel through, or at least sap a wall."

"Or wait, ambush the first party they send out," Scratch said. "They don't know they've been discovered, and that fort does not have enough space to feed forty men for long. They hunt or they starve."

"Which brings its own risks," Cali said. "Much as I love any plan that takes some of them out early, we can't afford to stay here forever. Claron is still active, and the longer he remains in power, the more dangerous he'll become."

"Can we trick them into opening the gate?" Elruin asked. "If we tunnel close, maybe we can climb out and surprise them, like the hobgoblins tried."

"Normally, I'd reject that plan outright," Cali said. "They must have life-detecting magic, but lifesight doesn't necessarily mean an ability to detect the undead. If they don't have a necromancer, it's possible they won't see us until it's too late.

"We could take multiple approaches," Lemia added. "Sap a wall, then while they deal with that we go over the opposite wall. Or have the undead lead a direct assault while we sneak around. If we play to our strengths and hit them from all sides, I think our odds go up."