And aggressive stair girl...decides to escalate again.

"What's this?" she asks, plucking the skeleton from his shoulder.

"It's mine," he snaps. "I made it out of a squirrel I tortured to death."

...She blinks at the 'tortured to death' bit.

"Now why would you go and do something like that?" she asks after a moment. "You know you don't actually get more power out of it if they suffer."

He grins.

"No, but it's fun."

"Nasty little boy," she sneers. "What's so great about you, that Sorani Savaross favors you so?"

"It's because I'm better than you. Give me back my squirrel."

"You are not," she says flatly.

"Give me back my squirrel," he repeats.

"I don't see why I should."

"Yeah? Want to find out?"

She freezes him in place again and turns to leave.

He hits her with the pain spell.

She is enveloped in complete sensory noise. Searing heat and freezing cold and agonizing pain all over her body - blinding white light in her eyes, a deafening roar in her ears, taste and smell overwhelmed by nameless intensity -

She collapses to the ground. Her hold on him evaporates.

He keeps it on her for a full minute and then lets up and retrieves his squirrel.

She does not get up immediately, or in any way attempt to stop him from retrieving his squirrel.

Satisfied, he walks away.

Savarosse is very pleased with him.

Good! He's pretty pleased with himself too!

He has been progressing excellently in his studies, and taking decisive action like that against his co-prentice deserves a reward beyond just dessert; are there any materials he would like for magical experimentation?

"A drakelet," he says immediately.

"Alright," he says, clearly having figured out what prompted Tassairen into poking at necromancy in the first place.

A few days later he presents his student with a (drugged for convenient storage) drakelet, and advises him on when the drugs are likely to wear off, assuming he wants it more sensate when he kills it.

Yes, yes he does. He learns all kinds of interesting things about drakelets before it dies.

The next lesson is devoted to less haphazard necromancy than he managed with the squirrel. Here is a trick to use the corpse's lingering ripples to make it behave more like it did when alive; here is a clever trick to let the skeletal wings lift it like they still had membrane...

Ooooh. He is going to have the best reanimated drakelet.

Excellent.

After what he did to that one girl over the squirrel no one messes with it.