Ahnasha was not terribly concerned if anyone from the group nearby happened to be looking as she and Fendros kissed. It was not as if they were making themselves the center of attention. "I might get you drunk, but not for that reason." She chuckled. Although, Fendros' next question did give her some pause. She tilted her head with an uncertain look in her eyes.

"Um...how about we put a hold on that discussion for another century or so? At least until I have more than a century to spend with you." She finally answered. 

---

The next three years was a time of development for the Champion’s pack, and the war effort in general. Meesei and her pack continued to be the spearhead against the enemy’s efforts, at least in the north. They were frequently undertaking missions across Skyrim and its neighboring provinces. They had their failures, but it was word of their successes that spread with greater strength through the clans. Their reputation grew into something that was larger than life, partially because of the tangible impact of some of their missions onto the war, and partially because of a concentrated effort by Saras’ agents to spread the narrative of her pack being heroes. He felt it was best for morale for the people of the clans to believe that they had powerful allies. For those who did not often interact with the Champion’s pack, even many of those in the Silent City began to believe the mythos surrounding them. A fact that was aided by them frequently being away from the city on their missions. Fortunately for Ahnasha, Fendros, Janius, and Kaleeth, that did not mean they were always away from their children. Obviously, they could not join in missions, but depending on the nature of what they were doing, it was reasonable to allow them to stay in camp with Leaps’ protection, or at one of their outposts in the area. 

After so much time dedicated to her magic, Ahnasha almost felt lost without the need to practice and learn more, now that she had attained the knowledge she had been seeking. So, she simply continued to research other aspects of necromancy and conjuration. She was quickly becoming a master of her craft, so there was no sense in not further developing those skills. It provided a good distraction from the frustration of gathering souls for her ritual. As she expected, gathering what she needed was a slow process. Thanks to their missions, it was not too difficult to find people to kill, and even one mammoth during one opportunity they had to hunt, but acquiring black soul gems was a challenge. She was set back months when the circumstances of a mission forced her to transform and lose her satchel, and the gems contained within. After that, limited the number she could carry at once so as to limit the potential for loss, but that also slowed her progress. However, despite the delays, she was growing tantalizingly close to having enough souls to carry out her ritual. 

Aside from the missions and her contributions to decision making in the clan, Meesei dedicated quite a lot of effort to her magical research. With Sabine, they continued practicing together, but Meesei stopped considering it training. In fact, Meesei was glad to inform Sabine that she was no longer her apprentice, but a peer. There was certainly a great deal that Sabine could learn from Meesei, but Meesei was insistent that she could learn from Sabine as well by working together in their research. It had been almost ten years since Sabine had first started her training. Ten years worth of training under a powerful mage and experience fighting a war that demanded perfection from those participating in it. 

Much of Meesei’s research centered around Mora’s Black Book. In Apocrypha, she was free to pursue any kind of knowledge, from any place or time in Nirn’s history, or even beyond Nirn in some cases. She was quite eager to share with Sabine stories of the libraries of information she uncovered from the ancient Ayleids and Dwemer, or the magic of the Chimer or Psijics. Her greatest challenge, according to Meesei, was simply to decide down what paths she should dedicate her limited time. Should she pursue the shadow magic of the Second Era nightblades, the Thu’um of the Dragons, the mysterious secrets of the Ayleids, or to shape reality itself with the Elder Ways of the Psijics? Such were discussions she had at length with Sabine. Ultimately, Meesei decided to allow Sabine the unique privilege to make use of the Black Book as well, describing her as the only other person in Tamriel she trusted to make responsible use of it. Whether she accepted the offer or not was entirely up to Sabine, and Meesei would not attempt to influence her one way or another. Although, Meesei herself was becoming more comfortable with the book. She did not increase the number of times per week she restricted herself to using it, but she did allow herself to stay in Apocrypha for longer at a time. 

As was often the case, Meesei’s pack was undertaking a mission, but what was unusual was how mundane it seemed. They were carrying out a simple delivery, from the Blackreach clan to another clan in High Rock, near the city of Evermore, but what they were carrying was obviously important. It was the personal project that Meesei had been working on for some time, and that she had been notably silent about to most of the others in the clan. She had spoken to Saras about it, but he was certainly good at keeping secrets. They had taken a covered wagon through the Reach into High Rock and had stopped for rest and supplies and one of their outposts at the southern tail of the Wrothgarian Mountains when that outpost received word from a runner that one of their packs, or rather, a sleuth of werebears, were outnumbered and trapped by a group of the enemy. Meesei was initially reluctant to diverge from their current task, but since the runner claimed that their allies had uncovered some potentially important information about the enemy’s operations in the area, she agreed to have her pack help rescue them. 

The werebears had used the mountainous terrain to their advantage to keep themselves alive. They had situated themselves inside a cave with an entrance near the top of a steep hill, allowing them to repel every effort the enemy outside made to attack. However, the enemy had their soul-tearing gas, and their supply of the antidote was limited. All that Vile’s followers needed to do was to wait until their gas was effective once more. There was no other way out of the cave, so the werebears’ defensive position would become their tomb without assistance. Outside the cave, there were twenty or so warriors, archers, and mages that had fortified themselves with rough wooden barricades made from nearby trees facing the cave entrance. They wore no uniform, but the distinct glint of silver could be observed among some of their weapons. They were in a small valley between two steep cliffsides, so there were only two viable directions from which to enter and exit the area, though there were some trees and shrubbery that one could use to conceal themselves. 

From the east, the bored looking Breton warrior leaning against the side of a carriage heard the footsteps before he saw the threat, thanks to the spell of invisibility that Meesei had cast upon Kaleeth and Lorag. Neither of them were particularly quiet, but the invisibility was enough to allow Kaleeth to strike the first blow. Her mace struck down upon the Breton’s head hard enough to essentially cause his head to explode, before he could even draw his silver sword. The six nearby soldiers reacted more than quickly enough to draw their weapons, but their numbers were not quite the advantage they were expecting. Long gone was the Kaleeth who was clumsy and uncertain, relying on sheer strength to have any success in a melee. Now, she was a collected and disciplined warrior. The bronzed color of her full plate armor stood out against the relatively lightly armored warriors standing against her. For Lorag, he had taken advantage of the resources afforded to the Champion’s pack to forge himself armor and weapons made from orichalcum in a recognizably Orcish style. They were both skilled and well-armed enough to hold a front line, even when outnumbered, as long as they had protection from ranged threats.

Though she was still an archer much of the time, this particular situation called for a different strategy from Ahnasha. Prior to Kaleeth and Lorag’s approach, she had used her own invisibility to sneak around to the far side of the enemy fortification. When Kaleeth and Lorag successfully gathered all of the enemy’s attention, Ahnasha picked out one of the warriors out of everyone else’s current line of sight and drove a dagger through the back of his neck while bringing her hand up to his mouth to muffle his screams. Before he could even fall to the ground, she reanimated his freshly-killed corpse into one of her thralls. Then, she moved on to the next target to do the exact same thing, as she could maintain multiple simultaneous reanimated thralls. The moment someone noticed her, she would command them to attack. 

Meesei had not yet revealed herself, but rather was waiting for the perfect time to strike.