Anastacia stared at a small bag that Dammar had placed on the table in front of her. On the outside it didn’t look like much - just a regular brown leather bag - but its contents made it slightly more special. The necromancer didn’t even need to check to be sure, as the stench of flesh had burned itself into her nose over the years, to a point where she could accurately guess how old the carcass was when she smelled one.

“I’d like to say this is the first time someone has given me a body part in a bag, but it’s not even close. I’ve lost count ages ago.” She said and covered her nose. “An elf huh? She’s not going to be punching things with the hand, so the slight fragility shouldn’t matter… Suppose he didn’t just hand it over?”

“Not quite, things did get a bit out of hands and there was a scuffle. The owner should still be alright though – or all left.” Dammar laughed. “You didn’t say how much of the arm you needed so we just sort of guessed. Didn’t cut it too short, did we? Can’t exactly go back for more on this one.”

“Just a handful would’ve been enough, I have to cut some off actually.” Anastacia noticed a red spot on the bag and gagged. “I hate to say this, but I probably have to save the extra bits. Properly treated bones are pretty hard to come by and I might need them in the future. I don’t want to send someone to chop bits off bandits every time I have to make some trinket.”

“Would you say they are hard to get your hands on?” Maximillian pointed out.

“Nice.” The necromancer nodded. “But I need to thank you guys for lending me a hand with this. Is there anything I can do for you?”

The dwarf had to think about what to say for a bit. “They paid pretty handsomely for getting rid of the bandits, so don’t worry about it too much.”

Rosie had been listening to the conversation from her post behind the counter and had finally heard enough. “All of you, out! You can come back when you’re out of puns!” She growled and pointed at the door.

The three adventurers left without protests, though on the way out, Anastacia turned back to Rosie with a wide grin on her face. “Can’t handle us, huh?” She asked but only received a very tired sounding sigh as a response. She separated from the group as she had the hand now and needed to address it and the other two adventurers wanted to find Xamiliere, who had gone missing almost as soon as they left for their quest.

Next step on the necromancer’s plan was to clean and prepare the bones for the blacksmith, so he could carve the patterns into them. Back at Mournvalley, the cleaning was done in two ways: by throwing the bones into a massive well, full of rotten meat and beetles and letting them scrape them clean; or by handing the corpse to a necromancer that preferred to work with meat and waiting for them to be done with it. Anastacia wouldn’t have minded the beetles since they at least somewhat resembled what happens in nature anyway, but she once saw someone get pushed into the well and couldn’t unhear the screams for weeks.

But somehow that was still better than having to go and meet one of the necromancers that actually enjoyed working with flesh, for they were the madmen and women among a nation full of insane people. Most necromancers would gravitate towards only using bones since it was generally clean and the usefulness of bone as a material wasn’t really news to anyone. But then there were the deranged bastards that could barely function within the society of necromancers. Unruly to a point where some of the royals suggested getting rid of them before they started using whoever they could catch as material, since it was pretty clear that they only obeyed because the rest of the necromancers kept feeding them endless amounts of bodies to work with. The possibility of them escaping into the wild when the revolution interrupted their supply was truly terrifying to Anastacia, and she could only hope that Coquelicot had realized it in time. She would have to ask about it when she met the new high necromancer for the next and hopefully the last time.

Neither of these options were available for Anastacia at the moment though and she was forced to improvise. She left the city and only after being absolutely sure that no one would see her in the dark, she emptied the bag on the ground. Without looking at the hand, she backed off and started ripping off chunks of meat from it with necromancy, screaming internally the whole time. She could have spent more time carefully cleaning out every little nook and cranny but didn’t want to do it in the slightest. With most of the fleshy bits gone, she carefully put the bones back into the bag and started looking for an alternative for the beetles. Leaving the bones to a marked spot and just letting whatever bugs go at them would have probably worked, but there was always the risk of having some animal drag them away and having her friends go and get a new one didn’t appeal to her at all. Decreasing the total number of hands per person in the world wasn’t what she was looking for here – though with Coquelicot around, she did have a few more attempts left before going into the red.

While walking around in the dark, she kept checking her surroundings for anything potentially dangerous, but it also allowed her to notice a long line of small insects on the ground. “An anthill!” She yelled and started following the queue. Hoping that ants would eat elf flesh, Anastacia shoved the bones into the nest and made sure she would be able to find it again by orienting herself based on the barely visible lantern of the gate guard.

“Why does it have to be flesh and bone? Why can’t I be like a pastrymancer or something…” She wondered while carefully stepping over tree roots in the dark.

“Wouldn’t that just be a baker?” Someone asked from the darkness.

Anastacia recognized the voice but was still surprised by it and stumbled on something. “Damnit Xammy, I’m wearing the new cloak! If there’s even a speck of mud on it, you’re washing it!”

“Yeah yeah, my bad. I just didn’t expect to find you here so late. Here, let me help.” The spriggan said and sprouted some glowing mushrooms on herself to light up the area.

“Where have you been? You were supposed to stay inside.” The necromancer asked while getting back up. She picked one of the mushrooms from the spriggan’s shoulder and looked at it more closely. “Can I have a pot of these for my room?”

Xamiliere grabbed a handful of dirt, poked her finger into it and handed it to Anastacia. “Give that a day or two. But yeah, I’ve been following the kid with a beard and princess Maxine from the shadows. Those two need adult supervision at all times. They might be good at this, but I get a bit antsy when they’re alone out there.” She explained and offered the rope tied to her waist to the necromancer. “Please don’t tell them about this.”

Anastacia snatched the lead and started pulling the spriggan towards the gate. The guard didn’t even bother asking why there was a necromancer pulling around a floating, glowing spriggan entering the city and just let them pass with a little nod. He hadn’t worked there for too long and didn’t know them personally, but there were a few individuals he had been warned about.

“Have you considered trying to contact Vilja and have her give you your weight back? I don’t know if she can be summoned or something, but she was nice and probably would do it if you ask politely.” Anastacia suggested.

“If the priestess can’t help me, I’ll rather stay like this than meet that thing again. I have no idea what kind of goddess she is supposed to be, but for us ageless folk, Vilja is the end and the emptiness that awaits those that outlast everything else. It’s hard to explain it to such a fragile thing as a human, but imagine seeing the first thing ever that can kill you. Would you ever willingly confront it?” Xamiliere explained and shuddered when remembering the meeting with Vilja. “Now, I’m not exactly immortal, but dying isn’t something I need to think about, or at least didn’t before meeting her…”

“Huh… I guess she is a bit mean-looking.” The necromancer shrugged. “If I see her, I’ll ask about it.”

With the hand dealt with, Anastacia took a long bath in a futile attempt to cover up the imaginary rotten smell with the scent of soap and some kind of flower oil someone had forgotten there. While splashing around in the tub she started to hum a song she had heard years ago but couldn’t remember what the lyrics for it were, aside from a few lines here and there. “And that’s how you kill a knight with a kite…” She recited from the ending of the first verse. The song itself was the closest thing to a children’s song the necromancers had, and from the clumsy rhyming and rhythm it was clear that they weren’t the most musical people under the sun.

As she kept humming, Anastacia started to plan a schedule for training. She didn’t know exactly how much time she had before she would get summoned to Mournvalley, so she wouldn’t waste time with new kinds magic just in case she wouldn’t be able to get past the basics. It was more important to hone her necromancy anyway, since Amaranth would no doubt have the advantage in the fight, as even right by the gates of Valor, not Coquelicot, any of her apprentices or Anastacia herself could even consider overruling Amaranth’s control over the undead dragon, and on the inquisitor’s home turf things wouldn’t be any better. Anastacia would have to rely on her almost impenetrable defenses, as that was what she excelled in. All she really needed to do was to get close enough for a single attack and it would probably be enough, as Amaranth was far from the fit young type the rest of the inquisition represented, and instead was probably closer to eighty or ninety years old. “And that’s how you decapitate a warlock with a peacock…” She finished the second verse while wondering if it was too much to hope that Amaranth would just die of old age.

She wondered whether she should get King and wash him in the tub as well, as the flowery scent would really suit him. He used to have a slight mossy tang to him when Anastacia first found him, but it had since disappeared as he didn’t live in a forest anymore. After working in the kitchen, he would smell like whatever the meal of the day was, which was also nice, but the necromancer still preferred the sharp scent of a forest. “And that’s how you gut a giant with a cormorant… This song is terrible.” She finished the third verse and got up to call the simulacrum over.