Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Loimy! My love!"

"Hey, it's been a while since she was around" Maliah casually commented, currently having her arm slung over Loimos's shoulder, an attempt at a friendly gesture that only ended up looking ridiculous as her feet had to be rather far above ground to accomplish such an action, she had to scale that height difference to go with whatever went through her mind.

It was not worth it at all as getting so close to him with her heightened senses only exposed the assassin to his corpse-reek, as much as she might love to lay in pools of blood and stabbing people to death, advanced putrefaction was not amongst the list of things she appreciated.

Contrary to the one who had just entered the room and instantly went to embrace Loimos, One was a fine rot and putrescent-stench connoisseur, and as such, her manic attraction had only gotten worse and worse as the primeval rot grew in strength since that fateful day.

"Oh, how I missed you, I wanted to visit everyday but those three harpies kept holding me back!"

"Where is the rest of Alizée anyways?" descending, Maliah questioned, those girls were quite nice acquaintances.

"I left them in the dust when we got there, they could not smell all that goodness, unlike me…" taking a strong whiff of her beloved corpse, rising one foot up and giggling like an especially weird schoolgirl.

"You can smell him even through his concealments? Aye, I can actually believe it…"

After much face-rubbing, the vampiress finally stepped back from Loimos, fixing her hair and clothes, although there were risks to start breathing heavily or sweating profusely, she had still managed to appear rabid in both appearance and behaviour, when having planned on only the latter transpiring.

One was not dressed in her typical black armour with hints of dark red, no signs of the paired blades she usually carried either.

Nor was she dressed like a pretty lady in a meaningless attempt to appeal to the skeleton, instead, the vampire was garbed in ample white and grey clothes, sporting some sort of stained apron, twirling and pushing both index fingers together, trying to find the proper words.

"Aherm… I came- I mean, I have come here because we have made a great breakthrough in the creation of our drug…"

"That is good to hear"

"Is it?!"

'How needy are you that even Loimos finds it necessary to praise you instantly?' The Death Dealer's expression was worth a thousand words, sure, even if, as an undead, Loimos was objectively one of the better picks, One seemed overly infatuated.

Was the rot rod so enticing? The image only inspired rivers of puke to Maliah.

"What is the breakthrough about?"

"We have managed to keep the strength of the drug and the speed at which it affects a living all the while making it into a gaseous state! It can permeates an area from the ground, up to three meters in height, even in the outdoors but that is if simply allowed out of its container, we made talk with Gharl and Tiloh to create tools to spray it out and include it into explosives" she talked passionately, before, the whole drug production thing had been handled by people that were under the effect of her vampiric charm, but after a while, One had taken a knack with all this alchemistry.

"And so… I wanted you to see it, and you know… Tell me what you think" she pulled two vials of the transparent drug out, one containing the liquid solution, which looked almost exactly like regular water, and one containing the gaseous form instead, which appeared empty at a glance.

One of the design philosophies followed by One and her team was for their concoction to be as hard to detect as possible, be it by sight, by smell, by taste… Any possible means for a potential victim to even just suspect that something was off had been covered up, to the point that this drug had already been produced under other forms than the basic, water-like formula, hidden as alcohol and all sorts of beverages if need be.

Loimos did not wait around and decayed away both of the vials, instantaneously adding it to the roster of what he could replicate, and indeed, it was a very impressive leap from what it used to be.

"You and your team did a good job, One, in the state that it currently is, it can already be put to use by the vanguard" receiving such high praise, it looked almost as if the vampiress was going to collapse into a puddle.

"Let's test it right now" Maliah showed her neck, and without hesitation, the tip of Loimos's finger turned into a needle.

"Not bad" The Death Dealer was wholly unaffected, her body combating the foreign invader and beating it in mere moments without any effects taking hold.

"Tell me, what of the other drugs in production?" Loimos asked, bringing One back from whatever lurid fantasies were going on inside her head.

"They are all making steady progress as well! The addictive one is our second top project but we would need a bit more test subjects"

"Islanders are already being rounded-up for such usage" the skeleton responded, making the vampire beam a bright smile.

She quickly went over all of their other projects, ranging from simple stimulants to dangerous poisons.

"Do keep in mind that you will soon receive methods pertaining to the art of the Bellistian easterners, feasts and meals will surely prove of use to your work" stated Loimos, the acquiring of this method of power alongside the rest was going to be a great step for the empire, and not just in terms of military might.

One saw this as a warning to not expend all of the test subjects as she would require them soon, but the truth was that a whole lot of such subjects would soon arrive, after all, Belliste was made up of five regions, and after much investigation, there was nothing to stop Loimos from taking the residents of the Central Plains and use them in various areas that he would not have considered for the four other regions, considering that they brought value in both knowledge and individuals.

Abducting their people would be probably seen in a negative light, but the fifth region, no one but those within cared for it, in fact, he was planning on having it be in access to the four warlords, a gift of sorts.

They who had been locked in conflict without much to show for it would surely be delighted to be granted new territories.

It might be a bit of a cheap manner to gain some of their appreciation, but if it worked, it worked.

"Huh… Though, I wonder what I am going to be doing now, we won't be having good conflicts for a long while now…" Maliah fell right back in the armchair, indeed, things were going to enter a sort of stasis for the war-side of things, expansion would still be occurring, but very slowly and with only miniature living societies in the way.

"Well, apart from killing and such, what do you usually do?" One asked.

"If I am not preparing my stuff to kill, killing, or enjoying killing… Nothing, stare at the wall perhaps?"

"I know exactly how to get you occupied then!"

The two women engaged in conversation as the sun began rising over Belliste, it was time for Loimos to honour a duel, it was not just going to be a confrontation, it would be a very important moment, which would determine whether or not the Northern Swamp was going to be fully loyal to the empire from the get-go, or not.

Because of course, Loimos could not just use this occasion to flex his overwhelming power, he had to demonstrate that he was worthy of respect and admiration in the eyes of the pyromancers. Discover stories with My Virtual Library Empire