Darion asked the system that night.
How is loyalty increased?
The answer ca back straightforward:
[Loyalty increases through repeated successful command execution.
Each ti a bound undead receives a clear instruction and carries it out completely, the binding strengthens marginally.
Consistency matters more than complexity, simple commands executed correctly many tis produce faster loyalty growth than complex commands executed occasionally.
Ti spent in active deploynt rather than inventory also contributes, though at a slower rate.
Ti spent in inventory produces no loyalty growth.]
He read it twice, fully understanding, then dismissed it.
So it was exactly what it sounded like.
The undead needed to be used. Not thrown into combat or tested in difficult conditions, just used, repeatedly, with clear instructions that they followed correctly.
The binding was like a muscle in that regard. It grew through exercise and atrophied through disuse, and his venomous four had been sitting in inventory since the clearing, which ant they had been doing the equivalent of nothing for days.
He summoned them that night in his chambers.
The four appeared in the limited space available, green light fading, and stood looking at him with patient emptiness.
They were unsettling up close in a way that the skeleton knights weren’t, or at least in a different way. Thier grey flesh was still recognizable as faces he knew, the dark vein markings spreading from where the bites had been, the green eyes in familiar skulls.
He looked at them for a mont.
Then he started.
"Move to the wall," he said, pointing to the far side of the room.
They moved.
"Stop."
They stopped.
"Return to where you were standing."
They returned.
’Hmmm,’ he thought. ’No difficulty or glitch. Or is it because it is just very simple commands?’
He did this for an hour that first night. Simple positional commands, nothing requiring judgnt or interpretation, just move here, stop, move there, stop.
The kind of instructions a person could follow half asleep.
After the first hour he varied it slightly, one at a ti rather than all four together, specific individuals rather than the group, commands that required them to distinguish between his instructions for them specifically versus instructions for the others.
It was tedious in a way that few things he had done since arriving in Percvale had been tedious.
The hunts had been dangerous and the graveyard work had been physically exhausting but both had had a forward montum to them, a sense of moving toward sothing.
This was just repetition in a small room at night, watching undead knights step back and forth across the floorboards until he was satisfied enough to stop and send them back to inventory.
He went to bed late and started again the next morning.
He moved the exercises outside on the second day, into the section of the courtyard behind the castle that was enclosed on three sides and not visible from the main gate.
More space ant more varied commands, enabling longer distances, different directions and instructions that required the undead to navigate around obstacles rather than just move in straight lines.
He also started working on stop-and-hold commands specifically, which he had identified as the most critical skill for what he was planning.
Moving was one thing. Stopping completely, freezing in place, staying absolutely still regardless of what was happening around them, that was what the infiltration would actually require.
A venomous undead that moved well but couldn’t hold perfectly still when it needed to was a liability.
The first day the stop-and-hold compliance was rough.
He would give the command and they would stop, but there was so small movents and weight shifting, the fragnted combat instinct interpreting stillness as a ready position rather than actual immobility.
He corrected it each ti. Again. Stop. Still. Hold.
By the second afternoon it was cleaner.
He was in the courtyard on the third morning, running the four through a sequence of movent and hold patterns, when Garren appeared at the door that led from the main corridor and stood watching for a mont before speaking.
"So this is what you’ve been doing," Garren said, bowing slightly in salutation.
"Yes," Darion replied smiling.
Garren ca closer and looked at the four venomous undead standing in a line, currently mid-hold, waiting for the next command. His expression was the one he used for situations he had decided to accept without fully understanding.
"The loyalty," Darion said, without waiting for the question. "It’s too low for what I need them to do. I’m building it up."
"By having them walk back and forth."
"By having them execute commands successfully and repeatedly. The binding strengthens each ti." He glanced at Garren. "Think of it like training. You don’t take an untrained knight and put him in a battle. You drill him until the responses are automatic. Sa principle."
Garren looked at the four figures, then at the loyalty logic Darion had just laid out, and arrived at the pragmatic conclusion he generally arrived at.
"How long?"
"Another day. Maybe two." Darion gave the next command. It was: move, disperse, take positions at the four corners of the courtyard space. He watched them go. The movent was cleaner than it had been two days ago. Noticeably cleaner. "The numbers are moving."
"And the clock is also moving m’lord," Garren said.
"I know."
Garren watched the four undead hold their corner positions without drifting and said nothing further for a mont. Then:
"The training schedule is running. The hunt yesterday went well. Their was no losses. The at sales are steady."
"Good," Darion said impressed. He had taught the knights, including sir Garren how to hunt better, being more tactical and having a plan.
They learnt well and were now going on hunts without him.
"Twenty-five days left on Aldric’s deadline," Garren said, sighing. "Our situation feels hopeless."
"No it isn’t" Darion said quietly, looking at Garren. "I’ll tell you soon once I can be certain it works."
Garren nodded and soon went back inside.
On the evening of the third day, Darion summoned the loyalty stats and checked them properly for the first ti since he had started.
He wanted to know if the undead were ready, so the plan could be ready.
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