Rosewell awoke, unhappy. She sent out messages to have animals delivered for Harlan’s training after breakfast.

Then she went out to the Menagerie, Harlan was still there, a second group of researchers and enchanters had come after the first went to get some sleep.

He looked haggard, he hadn’t eaten anything since his very late dinner.

She was at least glad that dinner was the only meal the royal family all had to attend unless they were completely unable to.

“This is enough, I will be temporarily taking the boy to a different project. use what you already have and I will tell you when next he is available. ”

The researchers hadn’t even managed to figure out how to switch the base soul time once locked, making one that could switch on its own was far away, and she just took away their favorite pet who never complained and barely needed food.

At least in their eyes. Harlan would’ve passed out after 4 more hours, without food his body had already started eating him for nutrients.

“Harlan, come please, let us speak over breakfast.”

He had a glimmer of hope in his eyes for a moment, then he realized she hadn’t been involved with his training since the incident.

Something was up but he couldn’t just not go.

She led him into her room where a full breakfast had already been set out on a table with 2 chairs that weren’t there when she left.

Eggs done hard boiled, soft boiled, scrambled, omelette, poached, sunny side up, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy of sausage and of egg, hash browns, toast, tomatoes.

Rosewell knew how the researchers were and that he was likely to be starved and tired, so she had a much much larger breakfast set up. She liked little more than poached eggs on a split biscuit with sausages on the side. She saw the glimmer of hope reignite in his eyes.

“Please, sit, I do hope they at least gave you dinner and a break last night.”

“Dinner, yes, but it was already dark out. No breaks.”

“Then eat, and recover, I shall also allow you a nap, assuming you can take one. I really am sorry they treated you so poorly, I was taking care of Esparella for much of yesterday and I just couldn’t leave her alone. I know you’re made of sturdier stuff. I must also apologize about how I handled the riot, you were not at fault. I just… Relly has been really hurt by it all.”

Emotional appeal, check.

False vulnerability, check

Compliment, check.

Humble apology, check.

Excuse that makes her look more caring, check.

Giving basic human rights as if they are a reward, check…

She hated doing this but she needed to get Harlan to trust her, to make herself seem more like a harsh mother than a warden.

“I won’t force you to talk but if you would like we can.”

“Sorry but I just need to eat, I can almost feel my body fat being used up.”

She took her time with the small breakfast she had and then just watched him, she almost thought he had some kind of spatial stomach. She then added a mental note to check if Fomorians digest food faster.

Finally done with his meal Harlan was very groggy, she had also had them put a little bit of sleeping potion in the food she knew she wouldn’t be eating.

All the better to make him feel satisfied.

He yawned loudly.

“Are you going to take me back to my room now for my nap?”

“Oh no need to open a gate just for that, my bed is right here.”

Harlan felt adrenaline flood his body, this all felt wrong to him, the sleeping potion was already beginning to fade as he tried to flush out poisons from his blood with light magic.

He looked around, trying to remember the path they took here, 1 door in, maybe a servant’s hidden door, windows just outside, maybe he I run I’ll be able to make a break for it, try to glide down he thought.

Harlan was about to run when Rosewell locked him in place with a spell, the air around his body was solid like stone, only his chest and mouth had some space to allow him to breathe.

“You need to calm down, right now. It’s fine, this is not a trap.”

“Thank you madam jailer but I am pretty sure I just flushed poison from my blood and all of a sudden I don’t feel so tired.”

A spectacular backfire on her part, he was actually tired already, making him paranoid.

All the kindness after their last encounter was too much too quickly, she still thought she was fighting against a 7 year old who might be overly mature.

But Harlan had been tightly wound, far too tightly wound. He would’ve ran as soon as he was invited into her room but his stomach was stronger than his brain at the time.

“I can explain.”

“Which part? The poison or you trying to get me in your bed for some reason.”

Harlan was too young to know the extra subtext to the statement, the Princess blushed.

“W-WHAT, I am not into children for that sort of… no never mind, forget it. I am supposed to make you be friendly with the kingdom after you get out of the program, that’s all, I was trying to be nice. I thought you were a 7 year old, not a bitter teenager with a dirty mind.”

“Oh, well what did I say that was so dirty?” she blushed a second time, Harlan had outwitted her with strange accusations without even realizing it, putting her on the back foot.

“No, not again, never mention those words to anyone. Let’s restart this conversation. Harlan, I would like you to train in necromancy today, I have laced your food with a sleeping potion so you will be well rested after last night’s marathon of soul magic, it is for that same reason that I had a very large breakfast prepared, as I know how draining working with souls can be. We will be going to a different area of the castle when you wake up to avoid prying eyes while you work. I was told directly by my father that I needed to start these experiments today.”

“Alright, I don’t have a choice then. But I HATE being manipulated, it's bad enough being a… A crapping caged animal.”

She laughed at his poor attempt to swear, her plan from last night was a complete failure, honestly was best for him.

“Of course, honesty from now on. I’ll even answer your question from when we first met, a black badge doesn’t exist because if someone deserved to have one we would just have them killed.”

“Is there any way you can get a letter out? Just to say I’m still alive at least?”

“Once I have enough to report on necromancy to my father, yes I will personally make sure they receive your message. I’m going to stop this act. You will do well, and I will reward you, you do poorly and I will not, but unless you intend to fail I will not punish you, does that sound fair to you? Shake on it? I’m told farmers like that kind of thing.”

And the deal was sealed with a firm grip from both sides.

Inside her mind Rosewell was both relieved and fuming with anger at her failure; she wanted to be put in charge of the facility because she liked children but didn’t want her own due to the political mess they would be born into. Now she was being pushed into a different kind of mess and had been accidentally outsmarted by a child who just happened to be lucky with his words.

After 2 hours Harlan was awake and refreshed.

And very glad to see all his limbs were still attached, Rosewell was in the bed next to him reading something.

If Harlan was a bit older he might’ve made some remark about sleeping with older women, but he wasn’t there yet.

“Good, are you ready to move right now? Or do you need to do anything else?”

“Bathroom.”

“Left wall, gold handle.”

“Thank you.”

Then it was off to the dungeons, they hadn’t really been used in a long time since the royal family just executed anyone who who’ve been moved into them, most had been restructured into small labs or storage areas.

The only cells left were carved directly into the stone with tools instead of magic, the 4 cells had been refurbished into one large artificial cave with many spells to avoid detection and spying.

In it sat 50 rabbits, and a tree.

Harlan had no idea how to do necromancy and there was no report of what it actually looked like when Fomorians did it, they liked to hide this the most since it was their greatest art and only way to make moves outside of their lands, the undead who they have captured all had their souls detonate destroying their body as soon as they realized they couldn’t get away.

“What do the undead look like? Are they rotten? Do they look like living people? How about wounds? I have no idea what I’m doing here.”

“I was reading over their reports from all over again, even the confederation gave over some reports when we asked them, to answer your question it depends on the type. most basic looks like how they died wounds and all. We’ve seen that some of them rot, we think they may only preserve the stronger bodies or they just don’t preserve them when they think they would be destroyed shortly. We have also seen walking skeletons, and worst of all are their shades.” she shivered at the thought, having once fought one when she had given the idea of going to the frontier a try, she had no idea how they even knew she would be there.

“Shades are bad news, very bad. If you know how a dark orc words with their coat of void its not unlike them, but they are bones that have been coated in metal under the void, they don’t care about silver weapons so they are not related to the normal things people falsely call undead like vampires and ghouls, they are fast too, possibly gravity magic at work to lighten them before a jump. Corrosive touch, they seem to be trained in a variety of weapons, we are quite certain they are Fomorians who have willingly undergone transformation. they are too smart to be a soul that has been cut up for its parts like what you’ve done on weapons, if they did leave enough of a human soul to be as quick witted as they are then it would just be whoever they killed but with a new body or a relatively simple but powerful golem if they cut it apart.”

“That’s… that is a lot, I think I’ll try those simple ones first.”

Harlan grabbed the first rabbit and snapped its neck, then once he saw the soul fade he repaired the damage. Then tried to pull the soul from a second rabbit and place it in the dead body, it took 2 rabbits before he got a soul instead of a rabbit shaped blood bomb, he would very much need a bath once he was done. When placed in the first rabbit's body it sprung to life, and then seized and died, the slight differences in bodies made the soul think something was wrong with the body, the confused soul then tried to make the brain slightly change its paths and it had an aneurysm.

“Next idea.”

The tree in the cell was of course a mimic tree, placed in a large pot and with a barrel of the sedation water next to it with instructions on how not to be eaten or let it wake up.

Harlan killed another rabbit and then healed its body, took a shard of mimic soul, stabilized it, put it in the rabbit.

Explosion, the soul was too powerful, it didn’t take root in the body before it had burst.

Next try, same thing, unstable soul.

Almost better, it seemed to try and grow into the body somewhat, then the entire thing squirmed and burst.

Next, very very small sliver of mimic soul.

It took root, no signs of bursting, it stood up and blinked at him. A success!

Then it stood on its hindlegs, its bones burst from its skin, the soul was still growing, and it remembered what it SHOULD be, so the bones became roots, fur became bark, fat and muscle for the branches and leaves.

Harlan threw up when it started screaming, Rosewell burned it until there was not even ash, a smoking crater white hot in the center was all that was left.

“We will never do that again, we will not mention that such a thing is possible, stick with rabbit souls in a rabbit body.”

It took 2 more hours to use up all but 2 rabbits.

“Wait… maybe if I? But that shouldn’t… if it? No? YES YES YES!” Rosewell was worried about his mental state after 3 hours and 48 rabbits

Harlan took a rabbit in his hands, and DIDN’T kill it, instead he pulled out its complete soul, he had gotten rather good at this. Then he took a marble sized piece from directly in the center, a soul had every part of what makes a being as pillars coming from the center, he then took that small soul marble added in the slightest sliver of mimic soul, pumping it full of mana until it grew into a perfect replica of the original soul due to the bottom of the pillars had the blueprints of what was above them. With the mimic soul adding malleability to it.

He had handed the soul to Rosewell to hold, then he killed the final rabbit, and did the same with its soul.

He put the souls in the opposite of their original bodies.

He placed them side by side, they started to wake up.

The moment of truth.

They started sniffing each other, they just stared for 2 minutes, then it all went… right? Wrong? They ate at each other, even the loss of a limb and nearly all their blood didn’t stop them, they had remained functional even when he severed both their heads, the bodies trying as hard as they could to move to the head, the soul had set well and diffused like a life stag, giving it control even over severed limbs.

They kept like this for another 5 minutes before they burst.

“It’s a start! I almost did it! I made these things just like how I heard undead should be! Tirelessly fighting even as they are chopped to bits! Other than the exploding part they are perfect!”

“Harlan, you need to take a break, you are starting to worry me at this point.”

Harlan didn’t realize what was so wrong, he did his job, she should send the letter today if he pushes the matter. Then he looked down, the room was covered in blood, he was covered in blood, an eye was in his hair, who knew how many teeth and bone shards. Rosewell was only clean by virtue of being able to stand back and put up an air wall.

“Right… right I’m not ok, I need a bath…”

Harlan had remembered the path, he wanted to just walk to her room and wash up.

“You cannot even THINK of walking through the castle like that, the rumors about you are already bad, some people want you dead because they don’t think it's worth the risk, some because they don’t want me to gain any political capital. This would make everything worse. Stay right here, I am going to go get the gate mages, 2 of them here, 2 of them in my bathroom, you will walk right into there.”

“Right… yeah…” 3 hours of heavy soul magic had him worn out nearly as bad as a whole night of just extractions.

When the 2 gate mages walked into the cave after a few minutes they had no idea what happened, did the princess have this child tortured? Was he forced to fight a pack of dogs with only his hands?

“Thank… need bath…”

One calmed when he noticed the boy was just tired but unharmed, the other went into high alert around him. Nothing gets covered in that much blood without a scratch and is good news.

Harlan walked right through, to the horror of the gate mages on both sides, then started picking body parts out of his hair and clothes.

The princess sent them away telling one of them to make sure a large lunch is prepared, and the other to find a maid to help wash him, he was far too tired to be left alone in water.

The maid was young and very much not ready to be picking teeth bones and an entire lower jaw from his long hair. She was however glad for the hush money instead of being threatened into silence.

She would get a barber to cut it short after lunch.

Harlan slept well into the night, Rosewell even had him moved to a guest room with a doctor on standby, he had never naturally slept for longer than 6 hours.

He finally woke up, found a bucket next to him.

Puked up acid, saw a platter next to him with food and just started eating, not bothering with silverware, it was too dark for anyone else to see without magic anyway.

Once he was done, he found the room was laid out exactly the same as the princesses, he washed up, and went back to sleep, the doctor didn’t even wake up.