Their forces were tired and bloodstained. Mine were fresh – or maybe better than fresh, because the orcs especially were on an adrenalin rush from the thrill of battle.

For defeating the Ritual Faction, you have earned 1000 experience points. You need 165 to reach sixth level.

Really? Missed by less than 200? To be fair, the army of L’shan had done most of the work, and we’d just cleaned up. They were probably getting all sorts of XP.

“We should slaughter all the humans, and revel in the conquest until they submit to you entirely!” Zargaza said. “We shall make them give their best warriors to you as slaves.”

Yes!

“Uh, no.”

“We can’t wait until they’ve recovered,” Zargaza insisted.

“The valiant vixen is right,” Gren said.

“We won’t wait. Not long, anyway. Valeria, ask them for a parley, and tell them they have only a short time to accept until we attack. I want to speak to General Vargos in person.”

Val nodded. “Good. I hope they accept.”

“Me, too.”

Ten minutes later I walked into a clearing to meet the General. We had more information by then, gathered by Xyla mostly, and my flanking zombies were in place. Also, I’d recovered a little bit of the mana I’d used in raising the dead. They had lost hundreds of people in the attack.

I didn’t have enough mana left to waste on Polymorph.

He had three soldiers with him. I had Valeria, Gren, and Lysandra. Of course, I was cheating, because I also had Lesseth in the bag, and Xyla inside a tree.

“You don’t look like Abby,” the General said.

“Actually, this is what I look like. I was in disguise, before.”

“Hmph.” He wiped at his forehead, and I saw that he had a wound, still bleeding slightly. It didn’t look serious, but the fact that he’d probably directed healing elsewhere made me think better of him. “So, you attacked your own troops from behind. Why?”

“The enemy of my enemy is not my friend,” I said. “And those were no troops of mine. They came from a faction of the demons known as the Ritual Faction, which advocates the practice of human sacrifice. Oh, and orcs, trolls, elves – anyone they can get their hands on, really. They’re the evil you came here looking for. They came looking to kill me. I just – arranged an introduction.”

Vargos shook his head. “But that paladin, Talos, told us –”

“Told you what, exactly?”

“Ah. That you sent them. Not that they were yours. How did you send them?”

“I told their spy you were part of my forces.”

“You’re sneaky,” he said.

“Yeah. No doubt about it. But not evil. And now I want to make peace. You’re pretty much surrounded, and my troops are fresh and even eager.”

He glared. “We have lost many good people because of you.”

I shook my head. “No. Not because of me. Because of your decision to come here, and keep going even when I asked you to turn back. Even after you determined that I was not evil, you decided you knew better and decided to keep going anyway. You led them to this. I just fought you as intelligently as I could, not because I wanted to kill your people, but because I am sworn to protect mine.”

“As we are sworn to protect her,” Valeria said, and put an arm around me.

Lysandra put an arm around me, too. And then Gren put her arm around Lysandra’s waist.

“Is there anything more good than love?” I asked the General.

I didn’t want to waste time. If they still wanted a fight, I’d give it to them. I’d hide the undead and the demons for now, but not the women I loved. And besides, I wondered what effect our previous interaction had.

“I prayed to L’shan, as you suggested,” he said. He turned to the priest next to him. “I asked L’shan about the – about the women, together. I asked him for some kind of sign.”

“And?” asked the priest.

“Every night since He has sent me dreams. Erotic dreams, involving women making love to each other. I – believe it might be a sign,” Vargos said.

“A new revelation from L’shan?” asked the priest.

“Maybe. If the dreams continue – then I shall have to believe that.”

Valeria gave me a funny look. I shrugged.

“As a peace offering,” I said. “We have prepared one hundred copies of the book of L’shan. Not a mere gift, however. A trade.”

“One hundred – what? How?” Vargos said. “Who did you kill for them?”

I shook my head, and pulled one out of my bag, and handed it to him. “No one. We have a method for making books, that’s all.”

“It’s a lot smaller,” he said, suspiciously.

“Yeah. That’s because the font is smaller. By making the letters more regular, it can still be readable even though it’s smaller.” And okay, I might have changed a few words here and there.

He opened it up and flipped through it. “This is – one hundred?”

“We can make more. We have made more, in fact, over three hundred. It’s just a question of whether you have anything to offer us, in trade. But I have another offer, as well.”

“What’s that?”

“If you like, I will let you leave eight soldiers here. The demons have done the same, as a guard. You can give me a guard, too. I’m well aware they will keep an eye on me and report back, but as long as they are willing to help me do good for the people around me, and fight if they agree that my opponent is evil – well, I’m willing to have them around. It’s up to you. Of course, they can’t go beating up my people. Even my dead people.”

“You admit your necromancy.”

I shrugged. “I admit liking girls, too. I admit to enjoying my steak medium-rare, if you want to call it admitting. I do what I need to do to make things right here, and if I never have to kill anyone again, and therefore never get a chance to raise another undead – well, I’ll call that a win. But I am a strong believer in turning my enemies against each other.”

I don’t know what swayed him. Maybe it was that as a General, he cared about his soldiers and enough of them had already died that day. Maybe it was his erotic dreams of hot girl-girl action, which had been one of the hoped for results of my spell. Maybe he didn’t believe that someone truly evil could make so many copies of the book of L’shan, even if I had edited out the homophobic parts. It could be a combination, of course. But he nodded. “I see that. Very well, your majesty. Our people shall not bother yours anymore, and – well, we will see what we can trade for more of these books. A hundred now, you say.”

“A hundred.”

“And an eight person guard?”

“Eight,” I agreed.

“Very well,” he said, and took off his glove.

We shook on it.

For defeating the army of L’shan indirectly, you have earned 2000 experience points. You have reached sixth level.

For using General Varsho’s sexual predilections as a key element in your strategy, you have earned 1000 experience points. You need 29,165 experience points to reach seventh level.

That almost distracted me from using my brief moment of contact to check on what I’d done.

Sexual Empathy.

Yeah, Imbue Fetish had definitely started to take effect. According to the spell description, the effect would only intensify. I felt a little bad about that, but only a little.

“If you wish to come again, in person, to visit, you’re welcome to do that,” I told him after we let go. “Say anytime after a month or so. Just don’t bring an army.”

“Can I bring my wives?” he asked.

I smiled. “Sure. As long as you come as a friend.”

“Well,” he said, with a slight smile. “I don’t know about a friend. But someone has to negotiate for more books. Might as well be me, if you don’t mind me coming as a diplomat.”

“Not at all.”

“It won’t be entirely up to me. But I appreciate you attacking the demons when you did,” he said. “We got a lot of experience for defeating them, but we would have lost many more men if you hadn’t helped.”

“Well,” I said. “I’m not evil. And they were. But a warning, of sorts, General. Heed it or not, as you like.”

“Hmm?”

“If you go fighting people just because you don’t like the fact that they are demons or orcs or trolls or whatever, which they had no say in, or if you go attacking people just because you don’t approve of who they choose to love or how they love them, one of these days you may find yourself detecting as evil, yourself.”

He blinked for a moment, and looked like he was going to argue with me. “You make a good point. But the necromancy thing – surely no one would choose a life of necromancy if they weren’t beyond the pale.”

I smiled. “That’s just the thing. I didn’t choose it. It’s a long story, but a necromancer cast a spell that backfired, and it gave me his powers. And I will use everything I have to protect those who have put their trust in me.”

“A nonintentional necromancer,” Gren said.

“It’s not her fault,” Valeria said.

“It was an accident, right?” Lysandra asked.

“Exactly,” I said.

“If you wrote a book about it, you could call it –” Gren started.

“Just don’t,” I said. “If we included this conversation, the reader would think I was doing some cheesy fourth-wall breaking thing, even though it’s just an ordinary conversation.”

“Usually you only cut me off when I talk about your enormous penis,” Gren said.

“Wait, what?” General Varsho asked.

Valeria elbowed Gren for me.

“She’s telling the truth!” said the priest.

“You have a dick?” Varsho asked. “But you’re a chick.”

“Rhyming,” Gren opined, “is so much less sophisticated than alliteration.”

“Did we really need to talk about this here?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t have even thought about it if you hadn’t interrupted me,” Gren said defensively.

General Varsho’s retinue whispered among themselves.

“Mind if I have the books brought forward?” I asked, to change the subject.

The General shook his head. “I’d love to see them. A hundred books of L’shan!”

“Yes. And we tossed some other books in there, too.”

I waved to Kendala, and she and Rargar carried two large boxes of books forward.

“We have discussed it,” said the priest. “And we think that given that you have a penis, that it is not a sin for you to be married and have congress with women.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But it’s not a sin, anyway. It has nothing to do with whether I have a penis or not.”

They looked a little startled at my rejection. Maybe it wasn’t very diplomatic of me.

Oh, the looks on their faces!

Varsho opened one of the boxes, and handed out the printed, slightly edited books of L’shan for everyone to look at. They oohed and ahhed. “The printing is clear, but legible!” one of them said. “With the result being a small, slender volume that will fit anywhere.”

“Maybe we should travel about and leave them in inns for people to find,” another suggested.

“What are these?” Varsho said, flipping through one of the other books. “It has pictures, as well as words. But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Ah, you have to read then right to left.” I demonstrated. “They are called manga.”

“Why are they backwards?”

“That’s a really long story,” I said. “But I think you’ll enjoy them. They’re for your personal collection, General.”

He flipped a little further. “This shows two women –”

I nodded. “These particular manga are called ‘yuri.’ Just light entertainment for you to enjoy.” All of them were set in the distant past, so he wouldn’t be able to learn much about Earth technology. The one he was looking at reimagined the world of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but all the characters were lesbians.

He looked at me. “You’re a strange woman, Abby. In so many ways. Thank you. I shall be back to visit in peace.”

“I look forward to it,” I told him.