While walking to their lair I watch through the mice their reaction to my simple message, in it I expressed my desire to meet fellow practitioners of the art and exchange knowledge and goods. I included that I would meeting them soon at midnight tomorrow from the message and that I would be bringing only a few minions along with an assortment of talismans/charms to barter. Their reaction initially was rather amusing until their leader now labeled beanpole for proprietary sake managed to calm them down through threats of firebolts. After a bit of thinking he then gathered a few I assumed to be core members around him and had the rest wait in ambush in side areas with their minions to surround me. Looks like they are not planning on talking, good I was not truly keen either. With no further incidents to report aside from the goblins I spent a little bit refining some energy and working on the necessary materials for future work, it is good the goddess was through as I have a nice reserve of material to make use of.

After leaving a few pre arranged plans for my minions I walk through the crack in the wall of a steep mountain to enter a larger cavern complex. After boldly walking in with my visible guards I stride up to where beanpole is waiting with his cohorts at a meeting table arranged on the cavern floor.

“Greetings fellow magiers, I thank you for arranging this place for us to meet. I am eager to speak with some fellows’ after a long time with only my own company. I hope we can have a beneficial exchange where we both walk away enriched”

“Well that would indeed be the ideal but we would like to first exchange a few pieces of information so that we know about each other. First off I am called the Lector of our little group here and I offer my greetings to a brother of the arts”

“Thank you, I am known as Elder Ossis and I extend my greetings to you. As is the way of our people I decided to pay a visit to the local sect of practitioners in order to pay my respects and hold an exchange as is often the case between those that like me travel and the more sedentary groups. I have heard whispers of the cursed lands further from here and felt that it would worth investigating for myself. Of course I made sure to search for a local sect in order to find out local conditions and what has already been found about the lands”

“That is most informational Elder Ossis and I thank you once more for this opportunity, we are most eager to have this meeting and ask about what items you may have and in exchange we can provide what we have discovered about the cursed lands”

During the course of this discussion he has looked rather nervous and anxious, looks like he is not the founder here and fears that he was never informed of some things. From the looks of things their founder either left or died and he picked up the reins, I doubt their master was especially powerful but certainly better than this lot by far. Let us see if I can pressure him some more with his lack of knowledge of common customs, he most likely wants to know what I have on me before springing the ambush. His flashes of greed looking at my attire and the bag one of my guards is holding cannot be hidden, the rest are looking less enthused about this plan. I am in luck since from my observations this lot is a meek group who gathered around the only leader they have, so far there does not appear to be a right hand man to take care of. All I need to do is cut off the head and the rest will fall in line for me.

I gesture to the minion with the bag and he takes out a few trinkets to place on the table. We both take a seat at the placed chairs and I pick up a simple bone charm. It is a scrap of bone off a shoulder blade of a wolf and carved with a few sigils and emitting a faint necromantic energy. All my wares are genuine talismans and charms but only offering a slight ease to manipulating necromantic and death mana/energy. My carved staff makes it easier to gather large quantities of mana or energy but all of these things are something that any experienced necromancer will know is apprentice grade items. However from the eyes of the beanpole he feels like he is looking at an offered pile of gold. He however is not stupid enough to try to ask for the staff but instead signals to take a closer look at my charms, I give the go ahead and he looks over the items. He is bluntly poking the trinkets with his mana to explore them, he never did get far in any of his studies did he to not know finer ways of doing things with less risk.

After setting down the item in his hand he asks me about the rest of my wares, I take the opportunity to have another half a dozen charms placed on the table, all in all about 10 trinkets are here. They all offer some small boon to a necromancer or his creation, useless to me but of great worth to these ones. Time to see to the extent he intends to take things, regardless I have enough strength to do what I want so this is simply a charade for me.

“As a gesture of good faith I will offer one item for free and can trade another two for what information you have on the cursed lands. The rest you will have to barter for with other information or items of use, I do not care for gold or silver so do not bother offering such items”

“Your wares are most fine indeed and I will gladly accept your initial offer, here let me get you the scroll with our information on the cursed lands”

He takes the three trinkets and moves them to him, gesturing to one of those standing by him he whispers a few words. He thinks he is being quiet but I can actually hear everything going on in this cavern system thanks to my mice, his flunky just left with orders to start the ambush and that if I die he will give everyone a share of the trinkets.

“So shortly my fellow will be bringing the scrolls with the needed information but for now about the rest of the talismans. I can offer some of our arcane knowledge along with this powerful skeleton knight to you”

He gestures to the iron rank skeleton and it shambles over, it is dressed in some leather and mail armour with a iron sword and wood shield. Certainly to this lot it feels as if he has a knight but to me it is a weak minion dressed in fancy items.

“It is certainly a high quality minion but are you sure you wish to offer it in exchange?”

“Why of course, you are obviously a man of great character and ability. To establish favorable relations and of course your continued supply of such items is something worthwhile even for my skeleton knight”

With this he has the skeleton warrior walk to my side, and with a signal from him It stands down for me to examine. Taking a few cursory looks this appears to be indeed an iron strength skeleton but it has much better potential that is wasted with such weak necromancy. After a little time to examine it he has it attack me in supposed surprise attack while the rest of the pack starts emerging to attack me and my guards. A simple wave of my hand for dramatic purpose and I have overwhelmed the hold this cabal had on its undead and they all stop in place and collapse.

The skeletal knight falls over in a heap of armour while the talismans that beanpole took fly back to me. Beanpole makes no resistance or reaction to what goes on since he is now but bones, my spectres are enjoying a most tasty meal right now. They would have cut his throat to sever his voice box then slowly drained him of his energy and flesh leaving only a skeleton all while in total silence and only faint outlines seen, a rather deliberate terror tactic for not always is noise needed to inspire fear. My warriors have meanwhile disabled the ambushing acolytes and now stand guard over the proceedings, a few are bruised or in chokeholds but none are even moderatly injured or dead. I turn to the flunkies by what used to be Beanpole and give a smile to them.

“So that little affair over with, do you have any words in protest to my having taken over this little group of yours now do you?”

“No master it was most gracious of you to rid us of that lout”

“Thank you for freeing us from his tyranny”

A few more sycophantic words are spoken though they appear to have put a bit of their true feelings into those words. I doubt I will have to stamp out a rebellion here, they are not stupid and feel that the undead are under my total control. Hmm more fodder for me to work with, while this lot is weak I do need some rank and file members and not troublesome geniuses. Well regardless they will likely be seeing a decent amount of what I do so no need to hide some of the lesser stuff and it will be a learning experience for those smart enough to comprehend what I do. Of course this is after I ‘ensure’ that they never betray me, I take the matter of disciples seriously even if they will only be novitiates. Whether they will advance further then that will depend on the future.