Kaiser refused to examine the carcass in detail until they had searched the rest of Bastos. He sealed it inside his storage space, isolating its influence from the surrounding land, then spent the better part of the afternoon walking through every affected farm.
Ludwig had expected the lich to make several unsettling observations about the corpse before disappearing into whatever laboratory he had constructed beneath the White Citadel. Instead, Kaiser stopped every few hundred paces to examine the air, press his fingers into the soil, or study the water passing through the irrigation channels. He inspected the barns where the starving cattle had been kept and remained motionless beside several wells for so long that Ludwig began wondering whether liches could fall asleep while standing.
Each examination ended the same way. Kaiser would rise, wipe the dirt from his fingers, and tell them he had found no trace of another source.
