We had to spend the night in the field. Securing the scene was important and it would take a bit of time for reinforcements to arrive. We also had the nightshades to deal with. But we knew their location now and we could take them out one by one.

Helena froze the ground, stopping vines from ambushing us. Skadi, Hatsumi and Nyx took care of any vines that were visible. Cassie burned the main plants while I hit them with necrotic rays to wither them.

We became relatively good at taking care of the nightshades. Blake and the soldiers simply watched and let us work. It was good training and it would ensure we had a claim on those seeds.

The next day reinforcements arrived. I frowned when I saw their crest. Half blue, half white with a grey tower in the centre.

"They are from House Winston." I stated.

"Indeed." Helena said.

The man in charge had short black hair and quite the moustache. His smooth face looked like it belonged in a fine suit, not the chainmail he was wearing. The insignia on his shoulder marked him as a Major, assuming the house troops had the same ranks as the royal army.

Blake approached the man and saluted. "Lieutenant Blake, royal army. I was expecting more royal troops, to be honest. Is an investigator on his way?"

The man returned the salute. "I am Major Harper Winston, since this incident happened in the Winston Duchy I shall lead the investigation."

"Sir, this is a national problem. The royal investigator…" Blake replied, only to be interrupted.

"Lieutenant, you are out of line. This will be handled by the duchy. You can launch a complaint if you so choose. For now my man will take over. Do not try to remove any evidence."

Blake grimaced but saluted. "Yes, sir."

"How do the ranks work? Between the duke's army and the royal army?" I asked Helena, while watching the exchange.

"It's complicated and depends on the chain of command. Blake is part of a division that works with my father. And since Duke Winston is my father's liege lord the Winstons can argue that Blake is part of their chain of command. But I am not quite sure about all the details…" Helena admitted.

I had a feeling a lot of this was a mess. The king controlled the largest army, by far. But the nobles wanted power. So partially they had their own people inside the royal army as officers. And they had some control over the royal army troops stationed inside their territory. I assumed there were a lot of arguments about who was in charge instead of cooperation.

"How is Harper related to the duke?" Skadi asked.

"I have not heard of him, so not too closely." Helena replied.

While we talked Harper walked towards us. We saluted.

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He nodded. "Recruits. I have heard you did a good job. I am pleased to see House Frost taking care of their problems. Hopefully we can avoid such an escalation in the future. Now I need you to turn over any evidence you have collected."

"We have handed everything to Lieutenant Blake, sir." I replied.

"What about the nightshade seeds?" He asked.

"Sir, those are not evidence. Those are our spoils and rightful rewards for taking care of those nightshades." Helena replied.

"I disagree. Hand them over." He replied.

"Sir, those are ours, by law." Skadi replied.

"Sir, as an alchemist I can assure you those are normal nightshade seeds and in no way relevant to this incident. We have not touched the remains of the plants. The heating crystal is also still there." Cassie added.

"Girl, I can have you arrested…" He said.

"No. I am Cassie Ashburn, daughter of Countess Ashburn. You have no right to arrest a noble." Cassie replied. "And I have all the seeds." She added with a smile.

The man was clearly angry but she had him there. He could not just arrest a visiting noble from another duchy, especially since she had not even done anything wrong.

"As your superior I order you to hand them to me." He tried next.

"Sir, we are not part of your chain of command and are not obligated to follow your orders." Skadi replied.

"And even if we were you can't order us to turn over our possessions." Helena added.

He fumed for a bit. Eventually he just said: "Very well. I shall not forget this. Hand over the necromancer and leave."

"Do you have a plan to keep him contained? Or are you just going to let him wake up and murder all of you?" Hatsumi asked.

"You dare question my competence?" Harper shouted.

"Yes." Hatsumi replied as she handed over the captive. Then she calmly walked over to us and stood next to me.

"A necromancer is responsible for their undead!" He said, while looking at me.

"Snarky vampires are legal, sir." I replied.

Helena sniggered.

"Meow." Nyx commented.

"What did that skeleton say?" Harper asked.

"Meow." I replied.

"Are you mocking me?" He asked.

"No. Nyx clearly said meow. Sadly, I do not speak cat so I am unable to translate." I replied.

Considering how red his face was he did not appreciate the humor. Of course, I had not lied. I had no idea what Nyx had said.

"Sir, the necromancer is dead!" A soldier shouted.

"What?" Hatsumi frowned. "He was fine when I handed him over."

"You killed him!" Harper accused Hatsumi.

We moved towards the corpse and looked at it. "Arrest the vampire." Harper ordered.

Nyx roared. She had grown to her largest size, her eyes were blazing purple and a blue mist surrounded her bones. While everyone stopped, Hatsumi touched the corpse.

"This man was poisoned, recently. When I last bit him his blood was clean. One of those soldiers did not want him to talk, I suspect." Hatsumi declared.

"Maybe we should arrest Harper and his men." Skadi suggested.

Harper paled.

"We do not have the authority to do that." Blake said. "But the death of the prisoner does implicate the soldiers who handled him. Might I suggest arresting those?"

"Ah yes, yes. Lieutenant Blake is right. Arrest those two!" He pointed at his soldiers who had handled the captive.

"But they alerted us that he was dead. Why would they poison him if they are the main suspects? How was he poisoned anyway? We would have seen if someone fed him something. Was it an injection? A needle? A spell?" Skadi asked.

"We need to check the body." Cassie added. As she touched the man's robes I saw something move, but I was too slow.

"Ouch!" Cassie exclaimed, blood dripping from her finger.

Hatsumi reacted quickly. Her hand shot out and caught something. A small black scorpion had been inside the robe. How had we not caught that before? We had searched him.

Cassie was growing pale and began to topple over.

"Cassie!" Skadi screamed as she caught her girlfriend.

Poison? I still had the vial I had been given a long time ago by Duncan, the royal investigator. The antidote in case someone tried to poison me. I grabbed it from my pocket.

"Drink this!" I offered it to Cassie.

Skadi snatched the bottle from my hand and poured it into Cassie's mouth. Cassie started coughing but color was returning to her face.

"That… that sucked." She wheezed.

Skadi was hugging her girlfriend.

"I… I think I am ok." Cassie replied. We still cast the few heals we knew on her.

Meanwhile, Hatsumi was studying the scorpion in her hand. "This is an undead." She declared.

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