"What do you need us for?" Nok trotted right behind his sister who was being dragged by her arm.
"To stop me when I beat Kalla to an inch from death! It's supposed to be a punishment, not a reward!" Scarlett snarled.
She flung the Necromancy lab's door open while projecting a wave of darkness magic to protect herself from the stench and kill the flies that she was certain that plagued the place.
Yet it didn't help her to prepare for what appeared in front of her eyes. The lab was spotless, with not a speck of dirt or blood thanks to several undead rats with a wet rug stuck between their half-open ribcage.
They used it to clean the floor and the stone slab that Kalla was using as an operating table. The moment the rag was too dirty, they would jump inside a bucket of water and squeeze the rag with their small ribs until it was clean before resuming their work.
The undead even picked up the papers that she dropped on the floor after filling them with her notes, arranging them in neat stacks according to their subject.
"Interesting. Fascinating. Wonderful." Kalla spoke to herself as usual while cutting open the body of a still-living man with a scalpel and tearing his life force apart with her personal tier five Body Sculpting magic spell, Life Cutter.
Her victim screamed at the top of his lungs, but she didn't seem to mind. Quite the contrary, she considered it a form of feedback to her experiments as she probed his innards.
Kalla had never been fond of shapeshifting into a human since she considered two hands insufficient for her line of work. Spirit Magic required too much focus and mana, making it unsuited for her relentless research.
Even though Kalla's Wight form looked similar to an undead, she was still alive. She needed to eat from time to time and to sleep when Invigoration stopped working. Her body was half comprised of living shadows that replaced her flesh while bones made up the rest.
She had modified her own ribs as well, turning them into long tendrils that she used as limbs to wield instruments or interact with her specimens.
"Is this what happens when you destroy the life force of healthy organs? The flow of blood stops and- Who's there?" Kalla turned around abruptly to face the source of the retching sounds that disturbed her focus.
"I'm glad to see you again, too." Scarlett's voice oozed sarcasm. "What are you doing here and why you didn't take proper care of neither my home nor of your children?"
"Are you back already?" Kalla was flabbergasted. "It's a bit early for dinner and I'm on the verge of a breakthrough. Please don't bother me and I'll join you in a while."
"What do you mean, back already? It's been five years, not a few hours!"
"That long?" Kalla's astonishment grew with each revelation. "By the way, I don't like what you did with your hair. No matter what the modern fashion sense dictates, you look ridiculous."
"I got electrocuted, what's your excuse?" Scarlett conjured hard-light combs that returned her fur back to its original state while she pointed at Kalla's bone tendrils that still held the living organs of the wretched man.
The Wight retracted the flexible ribs into the shadows of her body just in time before Nok started to puke.
Nyka just focused on her meal, puncturing the man's jugular with her fangs and s.u.c.k.i.n.g him dry in a matter of seconds.
Kalla's experiments made the blood taste funny, but the life force of the once-powerful mage tasted like the sweetest honey to her as she added it to her Blood Core. The red nectar carried not only life, but also mana that she made her own.
"Where that guy comes from? I hope you didn't kidnap one of the runts from the White Griffon." Scarlett asked.
"I don't have time to waste committing crimes." Kalla replied. "After losing Phillard, Headmaster Linjos needed a scavenger for the castle dungeon. Humans like some flair for their executions, I need specimens, and Nyka needs food.
"I simply found one solution that fixed all of our problems at the same time."
"The Headmaster now is Marth, Mom. Linjos is dead." Nok said.
What seemed like just a slip of the mind worried Scarlet to no end. The lack of care for her environment but the lab, the loss of track of time, and most of all, the indifference towards her offspring were all typical signs of the Lich race.
Body modification was creepy but not unusual for mages who didn't trust anyone to be their assistant, just like the lack of compassion for all those who messed with their research.
"That's it. Give me back the ownership of my house." Scarlett extended her right paw, hoping there was enough of her friend left in that skeletal husk to honor the pact they made before her departure.
No mage could walk away from their lab for too long because all the spells and even the arrays they were imbued with needed a sliver of mana and maintenance from their owner to keep working properly.
Also, without someone operating the defensive system, anyone competent enough could disable them one layer at a time and pillage the abandoned lab. Scarlett needed someone to take care of her home and Kalla a safe place to stay, so she had replaced her own imprint with the Wight's.
Now, however, the Scorpicore wasn't so sure that Kalla would renounce such power without a fight. Especially since as long as the arrays obeyed the Wight, she would have the upper hand despite the gap in both mana core and battle experience.
The red light of undeath in Kalla's eyes flickered for a moment as an awkward silence descended between them. Her gaze remained steady as she pondered her next words.
"Nyka, where did you get those clothes?" Kalla said while putting her paw above Scarlett's and returning the house to its rightful owner. "It puzzled me for a while, just like Nok's astonishing growth rate."
"My growth is normal, it's you who didn't give me a proper look during the last three years." Nok said.
"And I showed you these clothes dozens of times." Nyka furiously tapped her foot on the ground, pouting.
"How long since she last got out of the lab?" Scarlett asked.
"I'm not asking you, but them." Scarlett cut Kalla short. "You'd just answer some nonsense like, yesterday."
Hearing the Scorpicore taking the words out of her mind made the Wight wonder if maybe her old friend had a good reason for being so angry with her.
"A couple of years ago, during the crisis in Laruel." Nyka said. "Marth needed her help against some undead plants and Mom rushed at the opportunity to collect more samples."
"It was a great learning experience that showed me the importance of light magic to craft powerful undead. Between that and my own experiments, I only need a white mana crystal to start the transformation into a Lich."
