Beckyann smiled, brushing an errant
strand of blonde hair back over her shoulder as she leaned over the
table of supplies. She looked up to the Death Knight that had
summoned her to the supply room, nodding her approval. “It appears
everything is just as I ordered it. Excellent work.”
The Private nodded, turning to head
towards the door. The room they were in was filled to the brim with
crates and sacks of materials that had been newly delivered. Beckyann
had gone through the arduous process of requisitioning most of the
materials from Central, and she had pulled out all of the stops with
ensuring that the paperwork was in proper order. She would need many
of the materials if she wanted to further her necromantic research
after all, and it never hurt to be prepared.
Also, who really wanted
to fill out the requisition forms more than once anyway?
Beckyann
had been summoned to the supply room just as she was about to leave
for one of her outings. She smiled, reaching up to carefully arrange
her hair as the other Death Knight opened the door to leave. Much to
the surprise of both of them, another Death Knight stood silently in
the doorway as the door swung open.
“Oh
good, you are here,”
the undead woman in the doorway said, her tone filled with malice.
“This will save me the trouble of hunting you down.”
Beckyann
tilted her head, studying the other woman closely. She wore the
typical garb of the Ebon Blade, her body encased in dark saronite
armor and a runeblade strapped to her back. Like many of the fallen
Knights, she wore a thick saronite helmet that completely obscured
the sight of her face and left only the twin glowing orbs of her
cursed eyes glowing from within. Her voice had echoed with a hollow
sound from the helmet, but such things were of no concern to Beckyann
given the people she regularly came into contact with. She put her
sweetest tone into her response, “Can I help you with something,
miss?”
The
other Death Knight ignored the question, stepping into the room and
pulling a small notepad and pencil from her belt. She practically
stalked up to the nearest supply-laden table, her tongue making an
echoing clicking noise from within her helmet as she began to check
off the supplies in the room, “You are Sergeant Eastberg, correct?
You are the one who submitted the requisition.”
It was
not actually a question, and Beckyann's eyes narrowed at the tone,
“Yes. What business is that of yours?”
The
woman didn't even look at Beckyann, one hand diving down to her belt
to pull out a badge. She thrust it in Beckyann's face as she
continued her perusal of the supplies in the room, “Captain
Pendagast, Central Supply Office. I'm here to audit the supplies you
requisitioned.”
“W-what...”
Beckyann stuttered. She was forced to move out of the way as the
woman brushed past her, still clicking her tongue as she made notes
in her pad. “I d-don't understand. I filed all of the appropriate
forms and I-”
“You
ordered four sacks of grave dust, but only a single crate of bat
wings,” the woman murmured, cutting Beckyann off and still ignoring
her questions. Beckyann could feel her ire rising as the woman began
to nitpick. She absolutely detested people
nitpicking her work.
“Well,
I'm going to be performing a number of summoning spells that req-”
she began.
“And
you believe these femurs will be sufficient? Clearly you are either
reading novice tomes or you've completely missed the mark on the
spells you are attempting,” came the nasty response. “I'd have
thought that someone of your rank would at least be aware of the
basic principles of necromancy by now. I'm not sure what kind of
operation the 1113th
is, but they should re-evaluate their promotion and reward structure
if they are putting people like you in
position to requisition supplies.”
“Now
wait just a minute, I'm-” Beckyann stuttered.
“Have
you even actually performed these spells before?” the woman
continued, walking around Beckyann again and making more notes in her
pad. “I'm going to have to closely monitor your requisitions going
forward as you simply have no idea what you're doing. Look at
this...you didn't even include any corpse-eyes amongst this batch of
materials. It's like a child filled out this form.”
Beckyann's
temper had reached its boiling point. There was nothing worse than
someone trying to gainsay her work or worse, attempt to override her
research with their own. She had suffered it for years as an
apprentice in the Kirin Tor and had ended up with only a mediocre
position as a result of her inability to handle the criticism. In
undeath, absolutely no one was
going to make her feel like this. Unfortunately, it would not be wise
to outright slaughter a Death Knight from Central out of hand.
“Fortunately,
I don't believe I asked you,” Beckyann replied, malice in her tone
demonstrating her barely restrained fury. The Private that had
originally lead her to the room actually blanched and backed out of
the doorway, recognizing one of the blonde woman's temper tantrums
brewing. “In fact, given that my requisitions were filled out
properly, these materials are now the property of the 1113th,
and if you do not leave our store room this instant, I
will assume you are attempting to steal them and deal with
you...abruptly.”
The
other woman whirled, her glowing blue eyes affixed on Beckyann, “You
dare talk to me like
that? You are nothing but a jumped up boot-licking private that
doesn't know her unholy spells from her frost spells. Your idiotic
research is amateurish at best, and dangerous at worst!”
Beckyann
marched across the room, shoving her face inches from the darkness of
the woman's helmet, her eyes boring into those blue orbs, “At least
I know enough necromancy to make myself look acceptable enough to
show my face. At least I'm not a hideous, rotting corpse
hiding away behind metal because
I'm so ugly that I couldn't be deployed anywhere near the living lest
they slaughter me out of pity. At least I'm not STUPID ENOUGH TO RISK
MY OWN UNLIFE BY MEDDLING IN THE AFFAIRS OF OTHER PEOPLE WHEN I
SHOULD KNOW BETTER!”
Captain
Pendagast drew her runeblade, the tip pressed against the soft cloth
of Beckyann's dress, rage in her tone, “I should gut you where you
stand, bitch.”
Beckyann
smirked, necromantic energy flaring in the air around her as the
runes on her hairpins activated. Unholy magic blanketed the two of
them, the scourge-light in Beckyann's eyes glowing so brightly that
it began to flow from her eye-sockets. While Beckyann might not be
fully versed in summoning and spirit anchoring, there was suddenly
not even the slightest question about her grasp of deadly necromantic
curses and combat spells. The force of her magic was enough to set
her foe's runeblade quivering as the magical fields collided.
“Please
do. I mean that most sincerely,” Beckyann murmured, her tone the
most murderous of threats.
With a
snarl the Captain from Central stepped back, sheathing her runeblade
and shooting a rude gesture at Beckyann. “This isn't over. See if
your next requisition gets through. No one gets in my way, you
understand me?”
Beckyann
merely smirked, checking her nails as the other Death Knight stormed
out of the room. Just as the Captain cleared the doorway, she lashed
out with her magic, tendrils of dark energy hitting the door and
slamming it hard against the retreating Death Knight's rear end.
Beckyann
laughed aloud as she heard the woman's cursing echoing back into the
room from the corridors beyond. She might not know everything about
necromancy, but the things she did know were handy in their own
right, at least if one needed something destroyed anyway.
She
really really hated busybody
nitpickers after all.
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