We met back at our usual lab. Skadi carried big bottles of blood, it seemed their trip was successful.

“What is that?” Cassie asked, pointing at the corpse.

“It’s a rock armadillo. We will see if it makes a good undead.” I replied.

“Looks a bit cracked.” Skadi remarked. “I hope you got a discount.”

“I haggled a bit but I have no idea what this thing is actually worth.” Helena admitted.

“The body underneath seems well enough. Being an undead the armour should not be that important. Maybe it can use ice to fix the cracks, or something. The draugr does have a decent ice armour.” I said.

“Ok. We got a lot of pig's blood from a butcher. But we won’t be able to submerge the entire corpse like you did with Frank.” Skadi said while placing down the bottles.

“I think I can slightly improve the blood.” Cassie added while placing down some ingredients. “It’s not going to be a real potion but I can help Skadi to infuse the blood.”

“What if we place it into a water bath and use the hole it has to pour the blood inside it?” Helena suggested.

“We would risk the blood and the water mixing. We could end up with rather diluted blood.” I pointed out.

“Not if I use my magic to keep the water at bay. Actually, what if I freeze it? We could keep the corpse in a block of ice. That would prevent any blood from leaking.” Helena proposed.

I pondered that. “We could try that. You manage the ice. I link with Skadi, who manages the blood and then I raise the corpse. Cassie helps Skadi with preparing the blood.”

We started our plan. We placed the corpse in a tub and filled it with water. Then Helena froze it. The entire corpse was covered in ice, except for the hole in his armour, where it was stabbed. Helena made sure to keep the water out of the corpse itself.

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Skadi and Cassie returned with a cauldron containing the blood they had prepared. Then they poured it into the corpse.

Now came the difficult part. Skadi took control of the blood and started circulating it through the body. Next, I needed to connect to it and insert some necrotic mana. Then I would have to raise the corpse quickly.

We had mingled our mana when I taught my friends the circulation technique. But I had trouble connecting to the blood. Then I had an idea. I held up my finger to Nyx and mentally asked her to prick it. She complied.

Now I had a small bleeding wound. I put my hand into the corpse to touch the blood. This was better. My own blood helped me to form a connection.

“Ugh. Yeah, this feels weird.” Skadi said.

“I almost puked when we made Frank.” Helena said.

I was getting nauseous. The earth mana inside the blood was not agreeing with me. I had to be quick. I pushed some necrotic mana into the flow. The blood… It reacted. It began to darken. I had a feeling we did not have much time before it would be destroyed.

I was fighting some dizziness. I could hear Skadi groan. I tried to focus harder. I tried to raise the corpse while I still pushed mana into it. Somehow, I managed to complete the spell. I fell to the floor, breathing heavily and tried to keep my food down. Next to me, Skadi vomited.

“Uh… I will get something to clean.” Helena offered.

Cassie knelt next to Skadi. “Are you ok?”

“I will be fine in a minute.” Skadi reassured her. “The necrotic mana was hard to handle. And once the corpse rose I was hit with a big chunk.”

“You should both vent. Just in case you somehow got foreign mana into you.” Cassie suggested.

We both complied. I started feeling better soon. Helena did not just bring something to clean, she also had some fresh water for us.

“Thanks.” I said and accepted the drink.

“So, did it work?” Helena asked.

The ice covering the corpse turned back into water. I could see some blood in it. Apparently a part of it was leaking from the undead.

I focused on my new creation. It seemed a bit damaged. I quickly applied a necrotic heal to it.

“I think we did not manage to use all the blood in its creation and the remaining blood did some damage. But it is recovering.” I reported.

While we recovered ourselves I could see some slow changes in the undead. I could see the fur and skin underneath the armour turn grey. The armour itself turned from a dark brown more into a black. The creature's eyes were red with a slight glow.

“It does look cool.” Skadi said, she sounded better already.

“I do have a link, feels like another tier two, as expected. The link needs about the same amount of mana as Frank, maybe slightly more.” It was hard to judge the exact amount.

“What can it do?” Helena asked. “Any ideas? Can it use blood? Can it use ice?”

“I think it needs a bit more time to recover. Let’s clean the lab and move to the training area.” I suggested.

“Why don’t you and Skadi sit down and let us clean.” Helena said.

“Yes, you girls recover. You did well!” Cassie said, while patting Skadi on the back.