Hank Blakhamar stepped up on a Disk, rising slowly up ten feet off the ground to look around. I’d given him a very, very accurate rendition of the landscape through my Commune with Nature, and he was looking at it mentally while surveying the area visually, along with a lot of other older dwarves, orcs, and their descendants.
The Deadzone for the nearest Shroud was literally a quarter-mile away. This section of the coal mines was old and worked-out... and the tunnels connected with others far older down below, going down far, far deeper than the mine overseers had intended. They’d wisely blocked such tunnels up, but something clawed and untiring had worked them open from below, and there were hungry dead things wandering the old mines down there, looking and craving dead flesh to fill bellies that would never be satisfied...
Everyone there was getting the feel of the loose undead down below. The undead were still bound to the Shroud, but were kept outside its Zone as scouts of some kind instead of being pulled back within. It was only possible if they stayed below ground. Touch the sunlight, and they’d go right back into the Shroud like any other Shroudbound undead.
Nature didn’t extend into the Shroudzone, its awareness cut off by black interference and negative energy as smoothly as a knife... and unlike most Shroudzones, that interference extended down deep, into a cavern and cave system miles below, which itself led off into other places in the Felldeep.
Hank Blakhamar grunted, a sound reflected and imitated by one means or another by all the men and women here. He looked down at me, and nodded shortly. “There’s work to do here. We got this, Lady Traveler.”
And I knew that they did, nodding back as I ‘ported away, while logistics in the background continued to do their thing. They’d be inviting in Russians from all over who wanted to fight soon enough...
Commands were going out, and like a well-oiled machine, the army of orcs and dwarves and humans and their Children began to set up their base camp to start on the work of extinguishing a Shroudzone above and below.
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It wasn’t a title I spread, and it probably wasn’t true, given I was an Ur-Priest, but trying to say no to it was literally impossible with Moonlit Hair, so, eh. It didn’t ring like a Title, thankfully, so it was obviously dubbed by mortals.
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There was silence for a long minute or two, as the Leng ghoul thought about this unexpected acknowledgement. I could just extort the information I wanted from him, but I had chosen to keep the relationship pragmatic and professional. Either method was perfectly valid, but this one soothed his undead ego.
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“” I warned him.
He knows I can make a Ring. I half-smiled despite myself. “
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Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
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“” he agreed without a hint of shame.
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There was a slight hiss. “
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“” he replied pitilessly.
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If he was alive he’d probably be choking on his tongue at the opportunity that had just fallen into his lap. Even if he had to share it later to extract more information from his colleagues now, it was the meatiest of meat pies to the lore-obsessed ghouls of Leng, who filled their endless years with all the knowledge that they could.
“” he finally managed to say, having shut off his microphone for a time, and still letting a quiver of dark excitement show through.
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He could not help a slow and sinister laugh escaping him at this. “
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That did make him withhold a snippy reply. “
Protracted negotiations were a given, but my Law was at twelve Ranks, Diplomacy and Intimidate the same, and if I couldn’t lie to fool a child, my Insight was cranked so high that he couldn’t successfully lie to me, either. It was merely a test of patience, ironing the details out, getting advice from the appropriate parties who would sign off on it to approve, and negotiating world-wide contracts with Ghoul Sages without the approval of secular governments...