Chương 17: Preschool

"Would you believe me if I said dead rats?" I asked.

"No."

"That's a shame, kid, because they're dead rats. I levelled up the minions a bit last night and figured I'd bring the bounty home." He rose to his feet, tucking Puggy under one arm.

"Rat corpses are a bounty?" I forgave his scepticism. I am always a munificent demi-god.

"Yep," I replied cheerfully.

"Bork, you chose your path. If said path involves lots of dead things hopping around rather than staying dead as tradition demands, that's on you. Come inside, let me show you the new features of your shed." It had sounded more impressive in my head, but as the kid stepped into the shadowy interior, he seemed suitably cowed. I gave him a moment to stare open-mouthed at the new decor, then went to the desk and picked up a pouch of gold.

He caught it clumsily, nearly dropping it twice before getting a solid grip on the bag.

"What I owed you, plus a fair bit more."

"There's… eight gold and change in here? I only gave you five silver! How did you make so much so fast?"

"And this is why you should trust Uncle Dusty." My permanent grin was genuine this time, and I chose not to mention the additional wealth I'd hidden in my skull-cabinets.

"Hell, kid, I hit paydirt last night. Grimoires, materials, a couple of levels; it was a good night, but you need to shut that door so we can talk." The sunlight vanished as the boy swung the wooden door closed behind him and took a step into the room lit only by my Torch of Everflame. His eyes glowed, reflecting the dancing flame, and he took a deep breath.

"It feels… better?" he said softly. The ambient mana had shifted while I refreshed my lack-of-muscle memory on the moves needed to wield a two-handed warhammer properly. The bones, the mutated skulls that adorned corners and joints, had all been slowly converting this little part of the city into a hive of death affinity. Never neglect the Feng Shui if you want a proper aura. Aesthetics matter.

Explaining what I'd done and why took a couple of minutes, and all the while the black and purple mana was drifting through his skin, feeding his natural mana, reinforcing him. It was baby steps, the impact was limited at best, but long-term, it would pay dividends when we set out to conquer the city.

"You mentioned more gold?" he finally asked.

"You've got the heart of a dragon. Not in a lame way where if you die, a dragon buys the farm. In a cool way, where you feel a need to thrive. Wealth is just a proxy, you know that, right?"

"For what?"

"For competence. Your Gangle isn't going to be impressed by a full purse, but by what it represents. If you're good at something, you get rich. If you suck at things, you stay poor."

"That's a bit harsh."

"When an aristocracy is in charge, I'd be inclined to agree, but I'm not gonna argue politics and philosophy with you, kid. Just trust me. It's not the gold that matters; it's your ability to earn it."

"Dad said something last night. The Houses are losing their power. Lords and ladies are asking for loans that they can't repay."

"The headmaster mentioned something similar to me. There's rumblings from the underside that can't just be wafted away."

"Was that a fart joke?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," I lied.

"What does your old man do, anyway? My briefing had some glaring holes in it that I should try and fix."

"Runs the von Heffleslump Accounting Group."

"The HAG?"

"Well, we don't call it that, but people do say you pay the hag what she's owed or else you get the snip. Is the snip some kind of haircut?"

"Not on the head, would be my guess."

"Oh." He glanced around, his eyes lighting on the new summoning circle I'd made for him.

"Is that Jarnox's Justiciary?"

"Kind of. It's blended with several other protocols. The idea is that it's multifunctional. See how the runes are merged? By controlling the mana applied, you can activate it in different ways to suit your purpose."

"I can't control my mana that well," he said. He put Puggy down, and the skeletal mutt immediately tried to eat my left shin. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Yet. You will, though. How long have we got before the portal to school?"

"An hour. I came out early to see how you were doing."

"You mean you came out to play with Puggy?" I asked, one eyeflame flaring brighter than the other in the closest I could manage to a raised eyebrow.

"Well, that as well," he said sheepishly.

"Dammit, kid. You need to stop that."

"Stop what? I really did want to check you were ok."

"I'm disposable. Get that through your skull, you can always bring me back if this body gets destroyed. So are the other minions. Use us wisely, but don't worry about breaking us, and don't hide what you are. You're Bork the Malificent, the next great dark lord; a tiger, not a kitten."

"I see myself very differently." He made his way over and poked at the alembic on my desk.

"Alchemy?"

"Yes. It's a great little earner. I bought a few bits from Pane in the Glass on Clipper Street, and found the rest."

"Where did you find a full set of intermediate-grade alchemy equipment? That's another seventy-five gold or so's worth of gear."

"I'll show you sometime after you've levelled up a bit more. The point is, I can teach you the art, and we can make more money. Money which we can use for a wide variety of projects. Take a look at these." My warhammer and upgraded gladius reformed from dust and set themselves down gently on the work surface. His mouth dropped open.

"Not important. I got a threshold skill in one of my abilities, and now I can do some funky shit. Look at the enchantments." He turned both weapons in his hands, eyes focused on the tiny runes and sigils. When he started muttering under his breath, I plucked the gladius from his hands and laid it back on the table.

"I've not seen anything like that. The lines were too fine."

"I can shape bone; it wasn't so hard. Doing the same on metal is beyond me without specialist equipment, but it's yet another thing I can teach you."

"What about a bone wand?" Finally, he was catching on to the possibilities. I made my way over to the skull-cupboard where I'd hidden the robes and hats I'd stolen from Antoine. The seal dissolved as I ran a bony digit down the seam, and I pulled out the goods, passing them to Bork.

"They're soft? Not sure they'll fit me, though." Necrosage's Robes of Destruction Increased spell power for all Rot and Corruption spells. Strong Hot Topic vibe. I explained the Identify results to him, while simultaneously vowing to get the kid a monocle that would give him access to a similar spell. It was a decent boost to his Plaguebolt and Withering spells, and after I laid it out for him, he grinned manically, eyes flashing beneath his ginger fringe.

"What else have you got?" he demanded eagerly.

"That's a weird way of saying 'thank you, Dusty.'""I mean, thank you, of course. However can I repay you?" The immobility of my face once again annoyed me.

"Are you, by any chance, taking the piss?"

"Kind of?"

"Well don't. I'm happy to help you, kid, but I don't have to."

"If you don't, then this world dies, right?" Gods save me from kids who remember stuff. That sounded worse than I intended it to. I just meant that I preferred meek Bork to arrogant Bork.

"Yeah, but I only have to help you enough to stop that happening. Beyond that, it's all down to my discretion. You want to be the most powerful being to ever inhabit this verse? I can make it happen. Or I can make it so you only just scrape through whatever is coming. Or let you die trying." He blanched, and I switched from regretting my lack of a face to appreciating it. I wouldn't have been able to keep from smiling as he bought my lie.

Now that I'd resolved not to let him get killed so I could resign, I was going to help the kid as much as I could; he just didn't need to know that.

"I can't wear it to school."

"I know."

"You mentioned dead rats?" I pointed a bony finger at the sacks.

"One is just bones. Thelma ate the meat. And organs. The other is whole corpses ready for zombification. If the mighty necromancer will accept advice from a humble messenger from the gods, I'd suggest we mix in a little alchemy when you resurrect them."

"How does that work?" He opened one of the bags and fell back gagging.

"That one has the complete bodies in it. We've got a bunch of bloodwort and bloatroot. If we cook up some Potions of Biliousness before the rituals, we could make some Boomrats."

"What do they do?"

"The clue is in the name, kid."

"Oooh." His eyes locked on the alembics and mortars.

"Teach me."

"Tonight, if you behave at school."

"I've got PT today. Nomin is going to have a go at me again." Green eyes full of hope turned my way.

"School's a bit like prison, kid. It's why it's such a great social conditioning tool. You don't get to choose who's stuck in there with you, and you've got to figure out how to avoid dropping the soap in the shower. Respect counts for a lot, and it teaches you not to be an arrogant little shit."

"He stays away from me in the showers. It's just in the arena that he has a go."

"It was a metaphor, or a simile or something. The point is you've got to learn to get along with assholes. It's probably the most valuable skill anyone can have as an adult."

"When I rule the city, it won't matter what people like him think."

"The operative word in that sentence is when." Maybe there was some hope for the kid. A few minutes in the death attuned mana, and he was starting to sound more like a villain. Admittedly, a whiny one who was bitching about kids at school being meanies to him, but it was a step in the right direction.

"Did you do the yoga I asked you to last night?"

"Yeah. Took me five minutes to stand up from the loo this morning. Muscles I didn't know I had were hurting." I rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Good. Look, we've got a few minutes before we need to go. One of those bags has complete bodies, the other just has bones. Why do you think I wanted all those bones?"

"For Puggy?" The bonedog wagged his tail and clacked his jaws together.

"Nope." My shin received a sudden burst of attention from the ever-chewing hound.

"We are going to make an amalgam." I shook my leg hard enough to send Puggy skidding away. As soon as he regained his feet, he set about my other leg, trying to yank the bones out of my body and leave me hopping.

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?" I opened the bag and the tiny bones levitated out and began to take form in the centre of the circle.

"All we need is mana, and you won't need it for PT."

"I've only got a basic summoning ritual."

"Kid, you don't need a skill or spell if you know what you're doing. For all its many flaws and weirdness, IMPS is good like that."

"But I don't know what I'm doing!" he objected.

"Ah, well. Good job that I do then, isn't it? Go stand over there, and I'll explain what you need to do." The bones formed a shape much larger than any rat ought to be. One might say it was a rodent of unusual size.