Back at my room I told my friends about the conversation.

“We need to go on the offensive!” Cassie declared.

“Um, how? We don’t know who is responsible for the poison.” I pointed out.

“We could try to find some evidence.” Skadi suggested.

“How?” I asked.

“Undead spies! You should get some undead rats and send them snooping!” Helena suggested.

“Hm. Skeletons are sort of obvious though.” Cassie argued.

“And a tier two is not that intelligent. They would not be able to properly report what they saw.” I pointed out. “Nyx could do it, but she is famous. And I am more comfortable with her guarding me. Also, she is not the best at communicating either.”

“Meow.” Nyx commented.

Helena looked at me. “Koyuki, I have a question.”

“Yes?” I responded.

“You can order an undead to obey someone else, right?” Helena asked.

I nodded.

Helena continued: “But the other person does not have a link. So the undead follows the spoken words…”

I scratched my head. “I see your point. They have to understand words, otherwise this would not work. Hm. I admit, I have never considered that. You think I could order them to listen to a conversation and repeat it?”

“It’s worth a try.” Skadi said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

We used Frank for an experiment. He listened to Skadi and Cassie’s conversation, then was ordered to repeat it.

“This book is great. Yeah, you should read it. I really like…” Frank said with a monotone voice.

It worked but we quickly figured out a flaw, the undead could not tell us who the speaker was. Frank simply repeated each word he heard.

“Hey, you can command an undead who it has to obey, so they need to be able to distinguish between different people, right?” Cassie asked.

“I am not sure how it works. Do they use their voice? Looks? Actually, could you fool an undead by imitating a person?” I wondered.

“Regardless, you could order an undead to only repeat Archibald’s words, right? We would only have half of a conversation but it would work.” Cassie suggested.

“Hm. Maybe we could assign a primary target and have the undead distinguish between it and someone else. We would not know who Archibald is talking to, but we would have the whole conversation.” I mused.

We tried the new theory. I ordered Frank to hold up his hand when he repeated Cassie’s words. It worked!

“Could we have a gesture for all suspects? One for Archibald, one for Florence,...” Helena asked.

“I think, at some point it will be too complicated for a tier two. I am not sure how much or how long he will remember either. We should try to keep it simple.” I replied.

“What about writing it down?” Skadi suggested.

“I don’t think a small animal could write.” I said. “Actually, I am not sure if a rat skeleton could talk…”

“We should make them better undead anyway. What about draugr? An army of rat draugr spies!” Helena suggested.

“Actually, that would not be a bad idea.” I agreed. “A draugr rat might look like a normal rat, from farther away. And a draugr would be more capable than a simple skeleton.”

“There are not that many rats inside the academy. I think people would notice. And what about the teachers? They will be able to spot an undead.” Skadi pointed out.

“Maybe we could just hide one in some of the students’ rooms? Hey, could you do an undead spider?” Cassie asked.

“Well, I did raise the spiders during the field trip. But a small one? Smaller bodies can often hold less magic. Is there a tiny magical spider?” I wondered.

“Or we could use something that can camouflage itself on the ceiling. Maybe some sort of salamander.” Skadi mused.

“What we need is a rat sized spider, so it can climb on walls, which is able to camouflage itself.” Helena announced.

“And such a thing exists?” I asked.

Helena shrugged. “No idea.”

Cassie tapped a finger on her lip, as she was thinking. “Maybe a camouflage potion…”

I pondered our plan. “You know, I think we could try a rat. That should be an obtainable corpse. We could go into the city and Nyx could hunt us some. Then we can see just how capable a draugr rat is. Frank was a human once. I think he might have an easier time with language than a rat, even if both are tier two. We need to find out if a draugr rat could listen to a conversation and repeat it, like Frank.”

“Good idea. I will work on a potion and see what I can come up with. The best stealth potions are too complicated for me but I think there are some simpler ones which could help.” Cassie said.

“I will look into earth spells.” Skadi said. “There might be something to help blend into the stone wall. Maybe we can put a spell on the undead. It would be for a limited time but we could listen to some conversations that way.”

“I will look around the Academy and find out where good hiding spots for an undead spy would be.” Helena suggested.

I was not certain how feasible our plan would be, but it was a plan. And it would feel good to finally do something other than wait for assassins to strike.