The Necromancer's Stone; Plotting

Thalia sat at her desk.  Enchanting was one of the less interesting classes of the day, so she'd taken out the notes on one of her private projects so that she could get something productive done.
She had several projects in the works; strategies for taking down various local authority figures, new ways to exploit the TacSim system, a record of the who's-who of the school social structure and how they got there, complete with blackmail potential.  But her big project was the one she saved especially for this class, the longest one of the day.

As Professor Zinksfeld droned on about how something or other pattern distortion could be used to cause X effect, Thalia set down her pen and thought.  Any decent necromancer could summon a fairly standard skeleton, and most could go so far as to produce a golem from any provided element.  But what she needed was a golem stronger and smarter than any other, and that could be created as easily as a skeleton.  It was the philosopher's stone of proper necromancy, The Champion without parallel, that could be produced in the numbers of the undead.  If she could pull it off than for that alone she would be remembered as a legend in her own time, and if she used it then her own time would be both long and interesting.
"Are you listening Thalia?"
Of course not, she'd learned everything she needed to about enchanting by flirting with the old men with their glittering robes in town, they'd been happy to tell her all of this and then demonstrated it by setting her up with a fine collection of potent jewelry and a fair few sets of glittering robes all her own.  But she didn't have the GPA to just tell the professor that, at least, not this professor.
"Yes Professor.  You were saying how a slight bubbling pattern along the inner third ring of a self-refilling enchantment can cause ordinary beverages to become carbonated during refilling."
"That was ten minutes ago Thalia, what was I saying just now?"
"You were asking me if I was listening."
"Don't get smart with me girl.  If you don't intend to pay attention in class then I'll make sure you're no longer required to attend, permanently."
Thalia weathered out the urge to make a witty retort, and simply replied, "I'm sorry Professor, I'll pay better attention next time."
"Now maybe if you could share with us what you've decided to think about instead of the task at hand?"
"I was just thinking about all the breakups and make-ups of the past week.  With the way some of the girls go from one boy to the next you'd almost think they were getting paid for it.  Of course, if Kelly Warner is to be believed than some of them may actually..."
"Kelly, you b----!  You swore you wouldn't tell anyone!"  Exclaimed one of the girls in question as she flew out of her chair at another, horribly confused, girl.  Thalia had, of course, never actually been told any such thing.  She was simply very good at listening and had conveniently been forced to spend a few detentions painting all of the stalls in every bathroom in the school.  Convenient because all it took to write an enchantment to record conversations was a carved pattern on every door, none of which could be noticed through the new layer of military gray paint she'd put on them.
Obviously she hadn't carved the patterns herself, that would be too easy.  She'd manipulated several people with much darker secrets into doing so for her.  People who would never dream of raising an accusatory finger in her direction without quickly adding, 'Him, on the other side of the ginger girl I've never seen before.  He's the one that did it'.  And in exchange she had overlooked some of their indiscretions, as evidenced by the fact that they had all been selected as a result of her already being able to prove that they'd been in the girl's restrooms before.  It was win-postponed loss-loss, since inevitably everyone but her lost when she ran out of ways for them to justify her not turning them in, and anyone she couldn't blackmail was losing as a result of the various actions of those that she could.  She did help that later group when she could, but she had an evil reputation to uphold; even if much of that reputation was that people couldn't actually pin anything evil on her without her pinning something much worse on them.
And all of it justified as the bell rung to send them to their next class just as the Professor turned to face Thalia again.  Another day, another plot, another victory; almost made her wonder why she even bothered with magic in the first place.