A Bored Lich

Doevm sat at the center of the quiet room. His legs were crossed and his hands were on top of his knees. The bed had been pushed up against the door to prevent anyone from interrupting the process. With each long, slow breath, he regained a small portion of his mana. Elero was at the side of the room, regretting every decision in the last two hours. Her back was against the wall, trying to get as far away from the heretic as possible.

Complex designs made up of mana danced around the gray carpet, spreading its black aura through the room. From under his closed eyes came a small streak of the same black aura. The temperature declined, but that wasn\'t why he was shaking.

\'Not yet,\' he thought as he internally cleaned more books. \'I need more mana if I am going to do this. The bigger or more powerful an Undead, the more energy it takes to control them. Even if I am just going to control the arm for a second, I need most of my mana. Two hours of meditation hasn\'t been enough, and I am running tight on time. If only my body could handle the strain, I would have done already.\'

The mana flickered when Elero sneezed. He couldn\'t see it, but he imagined her eyes going wide as she flattened herself even more against the wall.

\'Do not push my emotions away. Let them flow in. That is a lot easier said than done.\' Each book he cleaned made the mana circle both flicker and strengthen. His expression shifted as he experienced sadness, hatred, happiness, love, and even feelings he could not attach a label to. He let them all flow in, and he accepted their full weight.

\'The mages in the Capital don\'t realize what I\'m doing yet. They just feel a source of mana, one of many in this city. They probably think that this is but a simple exercise.\'

\'But when I release this spell, they\'ll know, and they\'ll come for me. I have to run immediately after finishing. I only get one chance at this.\' His hands became steadier by the second. The ball of mana inside of him condensed even more as the unkempt strands of mana untangled themselves.

The magic circle\'s many intricate patterns stretched off the floor and onto the walls, even going so far as the ceiling. Typically, magic circles were flat, but he bent his to the shape of the room, lest his designs stretch out for anyone to see.

…

Elero occasionally peeked out of the curtains, expecting with a faint hope and fear that the skeletal arm would move. \'Maybe I should kill him,\' she thought. \'All dark mages have done horrible things. I doubt he\'ll fill our promise on my legs, even if I go along with his plan. To him, I\'m no more than an insect.\'

\'Still,\' she thought as she hovered her hand over her spacial ring, debating taking out her rapier or not. \'Why did he come to me as a healer? He had read through the book and had a clear understanding of the healing art. Isn\'t that something that has never happened before in the magic world? I don\'t remember much, except something about two opposites. I never liked listening to those War Mages preach for hours on end.\'

\'I know enough, from how War Monks describe heretics, that he is different. His skin isn\'t pale. He has a pretty slim muscular build. He looks more like a warrior than someone who manipulates others into doing their bidding. He is wearing a mask, but he doesn\'t seem to care about hiding himself under a cloak. He doesn\'t seem to be wicked just…broken.\' She cursed and leaned against the wall. \'What should I do? What if he\'s telling the truth? Goddess, should I even pray to you, you whose servants could never fix me? I\'m beginning to doubt you even exist.\'

She took deep breaths and drew her rapier. \'Even though he isn\'t like them, that doesn\'t change that he is one of them. He wants to make a hole in the Capital, which will kill thousands of people with the quake. Won\'t that make the ceiling cave down? How can he be so confident that his plan will work? He acts like he has done this before.\'

\'I know what I said to him, but that was in the heat of the moment. I can\'t let him kill people. Then I\'d be just like my brother.\' She left the wall, making sure to step around the complex designs. \'I will be a knight, sworn to kill people like him.\'

Before she could take another step, the magic circle shifted, and the designs stretching over the entire room condensed to Mr. Lich\'s hands. He stood up. As he walked to the window, everything not nailed down flew around the room. She wasn\'t a mage, but she could tell that the violent energies swirling around him were dangerous to her and the user, since cuts appeared on Mr. Lich\'s skin. His eyelids cracked along with sections of his flesh.

The single flame on the right side of his mask brightened as it grew almost four times its original size. The curtains were ripped off the window, which broke open along with every other piece of glass on the building. He pointed to the center of the Capital, at the skeletal arm which held a light crystal in its grasp.

The mana tore through the air and through anything in its path. People on the street ducked and screamed. Mr. Lich was blasted back and bounced off the bed. Elero wasn\'t watching him.

She was looking where everyone in the Capital was looking, the skeletal arm. For a few seconds, nothing happened. The arm remained still, and Elero breathed a sigh of relief. That didn\'t last long, however, as one of the skeletal fingers moved, then another.

Her grip slipped from the window frame as the floor shook below her. All of the capital did.

Deep cracks ran along the flat stone roads. The people walking along it swayed back and forth like most of the buildings in the Capital. The first to fall were the shabby buildings in the red-light district, then most of the middle-class houses.

Standing tall above everything, waving back and forth in order to free itself, where piles of dirt and huge boulders were knocked loose, was the skeletal arm. Its light crystal pulled loose of the ceiling it had been supporting for centuries. Its skeletal fingers moved again, followed by the wrist, followed by the elbow as the hand fell down towards the earth.

The arm sunk into the earth like a hot knife through butter, striking far from any structure. Then came the bang which echoed off the Capital\'s walls and assaulted their ears. Elero couldn\'t even hear the Colosseum beginning to collapse.

A giant dust cloud engulfed the entire capital. People had to hold onto the ground to keep from being blasted away. The Capital went dark as their sun, the biggest light crystal in the world, was sunk into the ground.

Elero stood up from the mess, leaning on her rapier like a cane. \'Now\'s my chance,\' she thought as she tightened her grip. Mr. Lich stood up, still a little woozy from using so much energy. He had to lean against the wall as he walked to the gaping hole where the window had once been. \'He is weak after using so much energy. He can\'t hope to beat me.\' She pulled the nails out of her braces and wrapped them in life essence.

\'but…what if he\'s telling the truth?\' As she looked at his frail back and the new wounds along his body, she couldn\'t help but think to the look she had given her, the one filled with sadness and such hopelessness. \'This doesn\'t make it ok,\' She put her rapier back in her spacial ring. \'but I can\'t make this choice, not now.\' Deep down in her heart, she knew everything he had done was for a reason. While they had only interacted for three hours, she knew what kind of person he was. She picked up one of his drawings which had fallen to the floor. \'He really intended on healing me…\'

Mr. Lich wobbled to the hole, the glass shards still hanging from it, and jumped out.

Elero peeked over the hole at the crowd. He was already out of sight. She cursed at herself. \'What should I have done there? I don\'t know. Why did he have that look, smile, and laugh which I know all to well? Why did he seem like he was the one who was in pain, not me.\'

Elero jumped back inside to avoid getting hit by debris. She looked out into the Capital again, at the people laying on the street. \'No matter what I think, I should have killed him.\'

Then the shaking earth froze. The dust cloud that had engulfed the Capital shrunk, as if being sucked back by a strong wind. Fallen buildings pieced themselves back together. The dark Capital lit up under hundreds of magic circles. The cracked streets snapped back into place, the damage disappearing under the glow of mana. On the street, dozens of mages appeared, all surrounding the nobles\' quarters. They raised their hands and the skeletal arm flew out of the hole and back into the collapsing ceiling.

Before Elero could figure out what happened, there was a knock at her door. The magicians on the street turned to face her.