A Bored Lich

"Hello nice to meet you. I am Miss Vessa." The corpse gave a bright smile as she shook Thomas\'s hand. He felt her cold, clammy grip, which was slightly sweaty.

"Um…" Thomas stood there numb, too many questions floating around his mind to vocalize a single one of them. So, his body just did what it was trained to do in these kinds of circumstances: he looked to Doevm and pleaded for help with his thoughts, which he wasn\'t sure if Doevm could read or not but he was desperate enough.

Elero however, stepped forward. If Thomas wasn\'t so panicked, he would have thought two wings sprout from her back. She raised both of her eyebrows, and shook hands with herself while mouthing the words, "Nice to meet you too."

"Nice to meet you too," Thomas blurted out. "My name is Thomas Virility." He tried and failed to give even a fake smile. He could even smell her breath. It was as if something had crawled into her mouth and died. "It\'s good to meet you too."

"You said that already," Miss Vessa\'s smile grew wider. "but unfortunately, we must catch up and talk later. I do have a shop to run after all, no matter how little of a shit I care about it. Just know that when the academy begins its new semester, I would like to talk to you. But onto other matters…" She jumped over to the boat. "Would anyone like to spend some points?" She held out some menus, but Doevm shook his head.

"I know exactly what we want to spend our points on," Doevm said. He waved for everyone to dump their corpses in front of the boat, which everyone did. Then on top of the pile, Doevm put the map of the bobcats. "I want to convert them all to…" he glanced at the menu. "Watersnake venom antidotes."

"A strange request," Miss Vessa stroked her thin chin. "but who am I, the strangest of them all, to judge?" she cackled. Copper life essence appeared around her arms, which lengthened at visible speed over to the corpses and pulled them into her own spatial ring. "In total that is 3842 points when divided by the price of Watersnake antidotes makes you just about 48 potions. I have to ask though. Why do you want these when you are going after venomous salamanders?"

"How did you know that?" Thomas asked.

"Simple," Miss Vessa replied. "Firstly, you are heading towards the west part of the swamp, and the most dangerous creatures with venom over there are the salamanders, which these antidotes also work on. Strange that you know that. Secondly, I sold a map to that part of the swamp to some particularly infuriating youths with black, charcoal-like masks not long ago. Thirdly and most importantly, I recognize the spatial ring." She pointed at the two extra spatial rings on Thomas\'s hands.

"Stealing points is fine. Stealing personal property is not. I\'ll go return the spatial rings to their owners if you don\'t mind. Actually, I don\'t care if you mind. I\'m doing it anyway." She waved her hands, which extended and grabbed the spatial rings. She put them into a section of rotting flesh at her hip, which stretched out like a pocket. After, she pulled out the 48 vials of Watersnake venom antidotes from her spatial ring. She walked over but when Doevm reached out to take them, she pulled away. "Sorry," she chuckled. "I don\'t really like people touching me. Bad memories from my youth with her. I\'ll just leave these here."

She set them down and practically lept back to the boat when Doevm leaned forward to grab them, nearly flipping it over. She laughed and bit her lip. "Welp, is that all?" Without even waiting for a response, she followed up with. "Well good. This has been very awkward and I think I\'ll go scream into the setting sun. Goodbye." She paddled off as fast as she could, a faint trail of copper life essence behind her. She stopped after a few strokes and turned back.

"Oh, one more thing. If you plan on going after that group, I would definitely not advise mixing swamp water with the salamander venom, as that would make a mist that would be capable of knocking out large groups of people without killing them. I would also not research the amount of…You know what?" She stood from her boat. "Fuck the rules. Fuck those brats. Mix about a gallon of venom with eight ounces of water and add in some of that white stone, and you have yourself a bomb. Just make sure to have a container. Now goodbye…again." She paddled off, leaving the group in stunned silence.

"She knew my mother?" Thomas thought aloud. He glanced down at his hand. He smelled it and recoiled. "I have never in my life met a stranger person." He glanced at Doevm. "Well, a weirdo of that kind at least."

"I can hear you," Doevm said but on the inside, he was smiling. \'Damn right I\'m not a regular human.\' "Thomas, take out everything you\'ve gathered." Thomas did as Doevm said, brining out a pile of sticks that was almost taller than himself. Frey and Elero raised their eyebrows at it.

"So are you guys going to help me with them?" Thomas sighed and picked one up.

"Well no," Doevm tossed his sheathed dagger over to Thomas. "You\'re going to make your own spears from now on."

"B-but you can make them so much better…probably." All but Thomas laughed.

\'There we go,\' Doevm thought. \'We are all back to normal. For now at least.\' Thomas\'s shoulders went slack. He put all the sticks, his paddle, and Amphiboard into his spatial ring, hopped on Doevm\'s Amphiboard, and took out a stick to work on. When he unsheathed Doevm\'s dagger however, he halted. "Something wrong?" Doevm asked over his shoulder as the group started west.

"A little," Thomas said as he changed his grip on the dagger. "It\'s just that it feels a little...wrong." Thomas pulled out his own spear, which was a little dinged up but clean for the most part. Then he compared it to the dagger. He rubbed his hand along the grip. Bits of dried blood flaked off from under the worn leather wrapping. He could see the imprint of Doevm\'s hand in it. He shook his head, put his spear into his spatial ring, and got to work.

During the journey west, Doevm would occasionally look back at Frey. \'I said that I was out of patience, but maybe I should just try another approach. Maybe if I put him in a fatal situation, one where he can\'t run, he\'ll break out of that shell. Frey, you know there is something more in life than your family. All I need to do is convince you of that reality by pushing you until you break. After, I\'ll pick the pieces. I\'m sorry. If it wasn\'t for me, you would not be going through this right now. You would have a father, a mother, a loving sister, and you would never know what it would be like to be alone. That one spell messed it all up. A single miscalculation from over a century ago.\'

They rounded several structures until they finally got to the west-most side of the swamp, where the biggest white stone structure was still standing. Although time had worn it down, although the battle, which the country had barely been able to fend off, had battered its sturdy walls, although Doevm himself had cracked its walls, it was still there.

Nearly a century ago…