Kaden started by pulling up Nasky’s status.

[Disowned Daughter Naski - Vengeful Demon]

This Demon, through your machinations, has been disowned by its master and cast out of the hierarchy of Hell. No longer safe in its home dimension, it will never rest until it kills you and everyone you love. There is no escaping its vengeance, there is only delaying the inevitable. You’re doing a fairly good job of delaying. We may have to adjust the meaning of ‘inevitable.’

Level: 27

HP: 1800/2000

Mana: 300/300

Skills:

Talents: Fleshless, Undying, Determined, Survivor

So Nasky had lost all her skills when Asmodius stripped her class. Fleshless - that was her ability to change her shape. Her body was an extension of her will. His will overrode hers while [Binding Mark] remained in effect. With a glance, he forced her to shift to a man. An ugly man. An ugly man with women’s features, who slowly bled back to Nasky. Undying was her ability to reform if her shell wasn’t broken. Determined and Survivor were odd talents. They made her ignore status affects and reduced the damage she took the lower her health, much like Last Man Standing and Sole Survivor.

“Can demons learn skills?” Kaden asked. “You don’t need to breathe. You could be very handy to me in some circumstances.”

Naski brimmed with rage as he had her follow. Once they left the Necrosium, he began to experiment, commanding her to move further and further away. No doubt, Naski could have made things simpler, but she didn’t want to, so he was forced to will every motion.

Range was effectively unlimited.

Next, he stuck a Echo Beetle on her neck. “You don’t actually have eyes. So we’re going to replace one with something I can see through, and then I’ll put you to real work.”

[Disowned Daughter Naski] contests your binding.

Chance of breaking free: 0.03%

The Contest of Will has ended.

Naski remains bound.

Kaden reconsidered. If doing this could give Naski opportunity to break free, he wouldn’t. Yet. He dragged her back into Inventory and returned to the Necrosium—only to find the remnants of a battle. Well, really, a slaughter.

Broken skeletons dragged the bodies of mangled warriors back into the Necrosium in a train of death. Bringing up the train were four [Tomb Champions] of a type Kaden had never seen. Their bones were laced with a purple vine that acted as sinnew, and wrapped around their fingers, giving glistening purple thorns. Worst of all, in their skulls nested a Beast Kaden had never seen, crows with actual teeth and wings that gleamed like the feathers were edged.

[Carrion Crow]

These battlefield beasts are there to clean up the dead, and if there are not enough dead, they will make them. Opportunists, they are always keen to harrass targets of opportunity, knowing that if their hosts kill, the Carrion Crow will feed.

Skills: Razor Beak, Razor Wing, Disorienting Caw

Talents: None

Kaden wanted one. Two. Kaden wanted a nest. He followed the train into the Necrosium and immediately flagged down the first Necromancer he could find. “Where did you get [Carrion Crows]? I want some.”

“Dannae deals with the dead-adjacent. Follow the [Walking Graveyard] to her workshop.”

Kaden practically sprinted to catch up as they bent further and further down, at last, crawling through the doorway.

“Heads on the feeding racks, vines in the trough, bones on slabs,” Dannae shouted as the monsters stood. And they obeyed, tearing their own heads off to put them in rows. The vines slithered like snakes to coil up trellises, while the headless bodies followed paths laid out with marker stones to crawl onto slabs.

Dannae had met him that first day.

Also tried to kill him, but what was attempted murder between allies?

“Kaden.” Sara called from behind him. “I woke and you weren’t in your room. I should have known you’d be down here. Which part is a Beast?”

Kaden pointed to the [Carrion Crows]. “Where do you get them? How do you breed them? Can I buy a pair? How long do they take to reach an effective population? What happens if the parents die and there are eggs in the nest?”

The Necromancer laughed and trotted to one of the skulls and spun it, adjusting a pair of metal latches that allowed the back half of the skull to swing open, revealing a nest of sticks. But in the nest, instead of eggs, glowing spheres of mana rested.

“You’re familiar with mana birds?”

“And [Prismatic Frogs]. The skull is a colony?”

Dannae drew a dagger from inventory and sliced sticks out of the nest. “The nest is the creature which infects bones. The [Carrion Crows] spawn to feed it. And we propagate by cutting—and feeding.”

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Kaden produced Skully. “I want to start a colony of my own. How small can a colony be? How do I know when to propagate? How often should I feed them?”

The sticks oozed dark red sap, and as Dannae collected snippings from each of the skulls, they shifted, attaching to one another. She installed it through Skully’s eye socket. “You’ll want to make a hatch back there so you can trim. When they start to bleed from the eyes, you must trim. You’ll see veins like myceleum, those are essential to reforming the nest in the event of something catastrophic.”

Kaden drank it all in, listening raptly. [Taming] a [Carrion crow] was easy, and he released it when Dannae pulled a lever. A corpse fell from the ceiling—one of the warriors who’d been dragged in.

With expert slices, Danae removed muscle from the thighs and fed it in strips through Skully’s eye sockets.

“I can’t look.” Sara turned away as Skully shook and rattled.

A soft red glow began to shine from Skully, and when Kaden peeked in, three glowing mana orbs nestled next to each other. “How long until they hatch?”

“Hours. The first feeding for any new nest is a frenzy, you’ll want to leave your pet with us until afterwards. The newly hatched [Carrion Crows] will only care about one thing. They’ll just as happily eat you or any bystanders.” Dannae picked up Skully and set him in an empty rack, then hung strips of flesh all around him.

“Kaden? We have a problem.” Sara’s tone had fallen to dead serious. *The Necromancers have started a war with the Emporium. They just struck the Emporium. There’s no question there will be a return strike soon.*

*Going back to Ms. Anderson’s is out of the question if we’re in bad with the Emporium. Selling their weapons to the Emporium might get us back in their graces. But I don’t want to.* He’d never been one to side with the more powerful. Plus, he genuinely liked Duggarn, the Twins weren’t awful, and at least Dannae had given him a new kind of Beast.

Sara opened her scroll, projecting as colors shifted. “Dannae. I ask as a guest. Would you recommend I stay at the Necrosium?”

“Absolutely not.” The question seemed to relieve the Necromancer, who approached them both. “There are always small wars. Always disputes. After all, every last one of these businesses is tied to a Broker in the Underground Market, and the brokers fight as much as they get along. This feels different.”

Different was one way of putting it. “Let’s say we provoked a Broker, made a deal with another one, and have a meeting with a third tomorrow. We’re on the Emporium’s shit list because of—lots of reasons. We get along better with the Trade-Rite, but I’m guessing you do, too.”

“Duggarn will have a better feel for this. He met with Diggus Bikus yesterday. You should ask him. Officially, I told you the Necrosium is your friend and a safe place. Unofficially, our war will spill your blood.” Dannae nodded to the door. “I’ll tell him you want to meet and what you asked.”

Kaden left Skully there in her care, mentally passing the binding to Dannae. “It was easier when our biggest enemies were verdant vipers.”

“It was.” Sara headed out of the Necrosium, threading past the re-animated skeleton of a [Giant Boa] with three separate riders. “I want to head to Trade-Rite and dump everything we have. Gold is the goal. The map can’t keep up with all the shifting points, so our best bet is to stay mobile. The moment we have information on the spellbook, we leave.”

Kaden couldn’t argue with that. “You’re the better negotiator, but I’ll be with you. I always aim to learn.”

The Trade-Rite wasn’t open yet, and Kaden sat in the small bazaar surrounding it, eating breakfast while Sara sipped her tea, which she kept sampling despite making faces that told him it tasted like tea. Kaden shared the system logs for the Dragon Scale quest. “I don’t get many quests these days.”

“Of course not. Quests from the System are designed to lead unclassed people to their Class and help them develop. You are, for the most part, your own Quest Giver now. I’ve got half a dozen Quests for being Party Leader or Business Manager, and delegating clean up of Ashitton is helping me progress in Business Manager.”

“I have an idea I want to practice when we have time. Your ranged summons is terrible.” Kaden regarded her Crawling Horrors as pratically immobile. “I want to train the Falcrow to drop them on enemies. Eventually, I want to train Skully to carry them. Maybe get little hands on his head to hold them.”

“Thats…surprisingly good, coming from you.” Sara dumped the tea out. “I can’t drink this. I want it, but it tastes like tea. If I add enough cream or sugar, maybe.”

He explained about his experiments with Naski. About the chance—non zero—of her breaking free. “I want to use Naski as a weapon but not until I can be certain she’s controlled.”

“And if you can’t purchase [Fate Breaker]—” Sara stopped herself as Kaden looked her way. “What I mean is she’s essential to Professor Treadle’s research. That’s all.”

“You can say it. I know damn well Oberix is going to want something ridiculous. I know it probably isn’t a price I’m willing to pay. I can’t help wanting to buy it.”

Trade-Rite workers blew trumpets at the tent doors to signal the start of the day, so Kaden and Sara took a spot in line. When they finally took their turn, Sara ran negotiations at first, while Kaden looked at a fine collection of bows that produced flaming arrows, or ice arrows, or invisible arrows, which had to be handy for those times when you wanted to shoot at someone and not know if you actually hit them.

“Here.” Sara handed him a gray paper booklet.

A skill book.

Kaden flipped it open and absorbed it. “Negotiation!”

[Negotiation]

Just because someone says what they want doesn’t mean they get it. You’ve learned the very beginings of making a true deal. Advantages will be more obvious to you when [Negotiating].

“I can’t tell you how badly I’ve needed this,” he said.

“You don’t have to tell me. Trust me, I know.” Sara took another book—a real book—out of Inventory. “Negotiation, like Alchemy, is a skill where increasing your understanding will lead to skill level increases. Study it.”

He accepted with gratittude. “There’s chapters on how to be comfortable demanding more. Also one on the best bad deal. An appendix of System consequences for abusing power! Wait, those are barely consequences. Why do I need to talk about my parents?”

Sara looked at the book. “That’s specific to Omnor. It’s common to begin negotiations by naming your lineage. I’ve seen stranger, and if it gives you an advantage, take it.”

She projected her map of Omnor. “Suffice it to say we won’t be going back to the Emporium. Selling Emporium equipment from Emporium employees to a declared enemy business isn’t something they forgive without a few thousand gold exchanging hands.”

Kaden took his can of beetles out. The swarm was up to eleven now, and several white pupa rattled in the tin. “It’s ok, I wasn’t planning on shopping there again. We do need to leave at some point, which will be a problem, but other than that, fine.”

While Sara made notes about the changes in Omnor’s agreements, Kaden couldn’t help the feeling [Master of the House] presented. Something was off. Trinity was skilled at finding stalkers, but unleashing her in the middle of a market was asking for bloodshed. *Someone’s watching us.* Kaden sent the thought to Sara, even as he tried to activate [Stealth Aura].

The skill remained inactive.

Rogues could and did disappear in plain sight all the time. The requirement was that someone not be specifically focusing on you.

Sara didn’t look around, but her pseudopods did slowly rotate. And then she turned, stalking across the market to corner an older man in guady pink shirt and pants. “Can I help you?”

“Me? No. My boss believe you can help them. I’m here with an offer of employment. The Broker Oberix wants something. And they think you can get it.”