There was an incident, far before we understood much at all about mana beast behavior, when Hunters never bothered to clean out a nest’s eggs or children. As immoral as it may sound, making sure that no children are alive when destroying a nest is crucial. Leaving children just gives them a chance to grow and become strong with the lack of guardians protecting them.
-Excerpt from ‘Hunter’s Handbook’
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“You know, I wonder why they haven’t tried to shoot you in the soul…” Jel said as she cradled Mori’s armored head in her lap, for lack of a better term for the two bony appendages, “I mean, we already guessed that they’re going after you because they know you’re a lich, right? So why don’t they just go for the soul?”
Mori sighed, struggling to shrug her shattered shoulders, “I don’t know, Jel. Maybe they are trying to dislodge my soul.”
She shook her head at that, “No, that wouldn’t work!” she emphatically exclaimed, turning to Pride, “Pride and me have been doing a bit of research on lich stuff-”
“Without telling me… Wait, where did you even go to get-”
“And we learned that liches are impossibly hard to kill without siege equipment,” Jel continued.
Fanrik nodded as he held a small stone in his hand, enchanting it with pure mana runes, “That is not too far from the truth. An exposed soul crystal is a poor idea for a lich, but a great deal of firepower is needed to break it; a mere stray round does nothing to hurt you.”
“Exactly,” Jel affirmed, “That’s why I’m wondering why they haven’t gone for her soul… Mistress, do you feel any pain in your soul?” she asked.
Mori shrugged, “Meh, nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t feel any aches or pains or anything, so that’s good.”
Jel smiled, laying Mori’s head on the sands below, “It is. So, what should we do now? They know we’re here, and will probably try to take our heads off if we try anything… Wait, what if…” Jel smiled, turning to the new addition to their group, “Hey there… how would you like to poke your head up there and have a look around? The mistress made your body able to regenerate, so even if you lose your head you should be fine!”
Idle strolled up behind Jel, knocking her on the head and sighing, “I don't think we should do the same thing we just did; they’ll expect it.”
“But we know they’ll expect it,” Jel rebutted, “But they know we know they’ll expect it. But-”
“Stop with that endless loop…” Pride said with a bit less of his namesake than usual, “I gave up trying to understand that rabbit hole when we played tic tac toe…”
“You guys played tic tac toe?” Mori asked from her place on the ground.
“I won,” Jel said with pride.
The new undead clicked a few times and began climbing up the hole. Fury tilted his head as they watched her go, “I think she’s tired of your bickering.” The Clockwork undead let loose a bout of static, accompanied by a few clicks, “Oh yeah, she’s tired of this.”
After a few moments of the damaged bot climbing up the packed sand surface, she took her place there and rested her large rifle in front of her. A few moments passed, but nothing met her as she peered around. After another few moments, she shifted and the rifle fired.
Mori watched with concern as the bot nearly fell from the recoil, but she managed to stabilize herself before meeting the same fate as Mori. Just as Mori was about to congratulate her, another shot rang out from the bot’s rifle. Then another. Then a fourth. And the Clockwork toppled, taking the same fall as Mori and landing right next to Mori, shards of metal falling from a large bullet hole in her head.
She clicked weakly, turning her head to Mori, “Look, I don’t know how to fix that… Jel, can you try your mana on her? She’s looking…” Mori took in the fist-sized hole punched through the bot’s head, “Not good.”
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Jel looked at the bot for a long second, concentrating so much she was almost glaring, and pointed towards the edges of the hole, “Mistress, look at this,” she said. Mori craned her neck to look at the point Jel was pointing at, grinning when she saw the slowly reforming metal of the bot’s chassis.
It was nowhere close to Mori’s impressive regeneration, but it was fast enough that Mori could consider the experiment a success. The only thing left to do was to see if the linking part of the spell worked, then she was ready to start her project. “That’s a good start, but it’s a bit…” Mori trailed off.
“Slow?” Juka said from the side as she leaned over Jel’s shoulder to get a closer look, “I mean, the fact that you can just do this sort of thing is really cool— I mean, most necromancers can’t do this sort of stuff— but you’re saying it could be better?”
“It could be,” Mori said, “But why do you say other necromancers can’t do this sort of stuff? I’m sure they can make undead like… I dunno, like Aerolat, I guess.”
Fanrik shook his head, “Nope. If a normal necromancer tries to create an undead like this, it’ll just break out of their control and start going on a rampage, killing or stealing or… I dunno, doing a sacred duty. Beyond that, there are a few sore spots in history with necromancers trying to make immortal warriors and it blowing up in their faces. If you want these sorts in large numbers, I would keep them a secret.”
“I will,” Mori assured, “But I have to wonder, why haven’t I heard anything about dangerous undead before? I mean, there are plenty of people who’ve droned on and on about losing control of my undead, but Fara didn’t mention the whole immortal warrior problem.”
“I think it’s a secret or something,” Jel cut in, “I haven’t heard anything about it either.”
“Jel, you can’t know everything.” Jel gave a pout and Mori gave a laugh.
Fanrik cleared his throat, “She’s sort of right. It’s pretty private with the necromancers guild and the Blue Robes. I just learned about it from working with a necromancer a while back. He was more open about it than most necromancers, so I learned a bit about the work,” he explained, “Something about souls and the Creators and something else I couldn’t follow…”
Mori shrugged his anecdote off, “Maybe you can tell me later, but for now I think I can actually sit up. Let me see…” she pushed herself up, her body handling the strain just fine, “Alright then. Let’s see if I can do this again…” She began to climb the packed sand wall of their hole in the ground, only for Mae to place her hand on Mori’s shoulder, “Mae?”
“Mistress… Do you have another plan, or are you planning on getting shot again? I don’t think we should waste any more time waiting for you to remake your body.”
Mori nodded, “I know, I know… I have an idea, but I’ll have to test it first.” She climbed up to the lip of the hole, weaving a spell and casting it all around her, feeding the demanding spell with her two mana dynamos in her armor. A blue-brown barrier formed just as she poked her head above the lip of the hole. Before a full second had passed, however, a dull ping sounded from her barrier.
A crushed bullet fell down into the hole as Mori turned, glaring at the Sniper lying down on the dunes, devoid of emotion. In an instant, she fired a powered beam of light at the Clockwork, cleaving straight through it and killing it. She ignored the system message and got to work.
She shot out another beam at a Sniper more interested with the distant figures atop the wall of the base camp, watching to confirm its death after cleaving it in twine. She was about to find another target when four flying figures rose up behind her, a shield around them, and began chasing after the far-off Snipers.
Another barrier came from behind her, as the rest of her undead began climbing out of the hole. She was happy that she had backup, but still worried about the issue of those explosive rounds that tore through sandstone like paper.
Her worries were confirmed when the thunder of a distant round echoed across the sands, the barrier around Jel and her small group of undead shattering. The round tore through the midriff of Frankie, who had joined Jel and Pride, and threw him down into the hole, his upper and lower halves only connected by the Infiltrator body grafted to his flesh. She grumbled as she whipped her head around to find the offending sniper, only to find the desert eerily absent from Clockworks. Fury and the three zombie sisters were still tearing up the army of Snipers camped outside of the fort, but she could not see any around.
Another shot tore through a normal zombie, an orc, and tore his upper body from his lower body. Despite seeing where the shot came from, she could not find the Sniper. Another shot rang out and another zombie was killed.
Just as Mori was ready to extend her already-taxing barrier to the rest of her undead, a shot came from behind them and wove between their crouched forms, landing somewhere in the mesas a mile off.
Mori turned to catch sight of her Clockwork undead, hanging off of the lip of the hole and her sniper aimed. With a happy click, she swiveled to look for other targets. Despite her best efforts, the Clockwork did not find any other Snipers. She gave an unhappy click as Mori smiled, “Don’t be so down. You did good,” she said. The Clockwork gave a happy click and clambered up to join her, “Alright, let’s get everything underground and done. We leave the Clockwork undead down there to keep it all a secret.” She turned to Fanrik and Juka, “Can you two do that?”
They nodded, “I’m not a snitch,” Juka said, grinning, her sentiment echoed by Fanrik.
“Thanks. Alright, let’s move. Fury! Mae! Ally! Tisi! Come on! We’re done here! Also, grab any of the ones you took!” she shouted. She may have lost a few zombies and Frankie may have been a bit damaged, but she was happy; she was getting some new bodies to play with, even if they were of the mechanical variety.