A Bored Lich

The other half opened his eyes in reality. The rusty spear laid across his lap vanished, leaving behind only bits of rust. He slowly stood up, holding his throbbing head. \'What happened?\' he thought. \'What am I doing here?\'

He looked to Frey but before he could say anything, the Lich spoke up as a voice in his head. \'The real Doevm split his soul back into the two of us and put me in control. He put you through a trial to overcome your…our rage. You failed so I contracted a demonic weapon to suppress the rage and return you back to sanity. Now, activate our life essence so I can blast the wall.\' He turned their shared head towards the back wall.

\'Last time, I checked you lost to me,\' the other half thought. \'And you also wanted me to abandon my friends. Why should I listen to you?\'

\'Because while you might be in control of soulmana, mana, and life essence and even though you are human, you still understand why the real Doevm put me in charge of our physical body. Stop being obstinate and cooperate so we can be whole again. I don\'t like this any more than you do.\'

\'I understand.\' The other half glanced at the two group members lying unconscious on Amphiboards. \'What did you do to them?\' Strangely, the other half didn\'t feel that angry, or at least as angry as he thought he would be.

\'You did that,\' the Lich responded. \'With your bloodlust. Frey is barely going along with us. Hurry up and smash the back wall.\' The Lich reeled back before striking the back wall and, at the last second, a torrent of blue life essence erupted from it. The wall cracked to match the rest of the deteriorating tunnelway. Frey had to leap out of the way of a falling rock.

"What the fuck are you doing now? You almost killed me." Frey yelped, barely able to stand with the shaking. 

The Lich pretended not to hear him. Another swing and the wall crumbled to bits. \'Good.\' The Lich thought, staring at the cloud of dust that had risen up. \'Use mana to erase Frey\'s memory.\'

\'I\'m out.\'

\'Then soulmana?\'

The other half shook his head: \'We don\'t have enough to get through Frey\'s defenses. We only have life essence. Our body\'s non-physical state is-\' The Lich doubled over as a massive headache hammered in memories from the day\'s events into his skull. \'So that\'s what happened,\' the other half thought. \'In that case, just go ahead. It\'s most likely there, and that\'s our only chance of resolving this situation now.\'

\'That\'s what I\'ve been trying to do,\' the Lich thought. When the dust settled, rays of light shone through the hole in the back wall. \'This cave. It\'s too irregular.\'

"What is that?" Frey asked, staring ahead. The Lich silently walked over the thin, crumbled layer of rock, through the hidden entrance.

Frey gulped down his saliva and followed behind while dragging the other two companions, but the Lich turned around and shook his head. "Leave them here." He pointed to the shards of some sort of cracked crystal on the ground ahead. "It seems this ancient place is not the most stable." Frey frowned and pushed them to the side before following behind the Lich.

\'You should hurry. I\'ve never seen him that angry before.\'

\'I know.\' The clack of the Lich\'s hurried footsteps against the solid stone floor echoed throughout the large black stone chamber. Many thick white stone pillars along the left and right sides of the chamber had intricate depictions of the various buildings. Embedded in the high ceiling were thousands of light crystals, dimmed over the centuries. They were arranged just like stars in the night sky. Something smashed against the ground, a loose light crystal. Doevm took a step back and another fell inches from him. The rest shook but held firm.

\'I knew it,\' the Lich thought. At the back of the room were two giant doors, perfectly fitted to take up the entire wall. The Lich could nearly make out his reflection in the doors\' metallic luster. However, everything was distorted, a result of the black scorching at the doors\' outline. At the bottom intersection of the two doors, was a hole the size of a man. Torn bits of metal were strewn about the ground. While the condition was deplorable, the inscription was still legible.

"Those that know the origin of magic,

Those that realize she is not everlasting,

Even those that happen to come across these doors,

All are welcome.

Confident that no person will find this until long after my demise,

I made this to warn you of the repeating future.

Please hear me.

Even if it takes until every last plant is gone,

Even when the last humans die out,

Even after the gods have finished their game,

She must be stopped."

When the Lich was finished reading the inscription, the doors did not light up with a blue radiance. They simply sat there. Vacant. Dead. \'Just as I feared. I should have realized something was off when Arthur told me of his memory loss. He wasn\'t supposed to be there so his memory was wiped. The passageway must have been sealed by the remnant of Draken\'s soul. That\'s why this door hasn\'t been found for so long. The Resistance leader must have stumbled into it.\'

"Wait here," the Lich said before starting towards the doors. He passed by the pillars and recognized the descriptions as designs for building Draken Capital. It even had details of the underground bunker he had fashioned out of the giant\'s corpse. When the Lich neared the doorway, the musk of burnt metal assaulted his senses of smell. He ran his hand along the doorframe and the black powder stuck to his hand. He took out the paper he had found at the entrance of the caves and found that it had the same black powder. He sighed as he took out the last item, he needed to confirm his suspicions, a map of the caves by the Von Trike family. \'I can handle them later.\' He stepped through the hole in the double doors and the world went dark.

He held out a light crystal. The walls, the floor, the corners, and even the ceiling had that same black powder. As opposed to the other legacy he had stumbled upon, this one did not have mana crystals embedded into the ceiling nor see-through pillars with blue swirling masses. Even the Ploly bricks that had made up the ground and the red velvet carpet were gone. The bookstand at the back had been split down the middle, and shards of a glass-like material littered the ground. The Lich picked a shard up and examined it closely. \'It\'s the same material. He must have broken it to examine the inside before putting it back together. My guess is that he thought he needed it to be whole to work or he had plenty to spare.\'

The Lich knew better than to leave it. He ripped off sections of one of his clothes and carefully set the shards in it before storing everything in his spatial ring. \'I can\'t test it now but I can reassemble this later with magic.\' He glanced around one more time. \'Everything was just destroyed as if the Resistance Leader didn\'t want anyone to know. Why did he spare the rest, the chamber I had walked through? Maybe he couldn\'t examine the rest so he hid it and intended on going back later. The best way to hide something is in plain sight after all. Under the guise of a contest, he could get others to clear out the venomous salamanders for him.\'

\'Then he wouldn\'t have to worry about being interrupted. Smart but risky, too risky a play for someone with that kind of intellect.\' He clicked his tongue. \'He\'s dangerous but not because he has power, not because he can bend people to his will, not even because of his advanced weaponry, but because, no matter how I think about this, I can\'t predict him. It\'s like he wants to win by showing everyone his cards. He\'s looking down on everyone. This,\' He brought out the shards of glass-like material. \'This was a hint he left behind on purpose. Of all the types of humans, his kind is the worst to handle. Worst of all is that I can\'t manipulate him like the others.\'

…

"Again," Doevm pointed to the Undead, a simple skeleton standing at the center of the forest behind his library. Grime covered its every bone. Gwenivier, who stood just to the left of Doevm, held out both of her hands. A magic circle formed under the skeleton and with a burst of mana, several highly pressurized streams shot up. "Stay focused this time." Doevm reminded her for the fourth time that day upon seeing some of its bones crack. "Control the streams like your own limbs."

"I can\'t hold it!" Gwenivier shouted as the spell faded out of existence. "Why the hell am I learning how to clean an Undead anyway? It\'s too hard to combine wind and water in the same spell. They\'re two different elements after all. Then I have to bend them to my will and split my mind in two. It\'s impossible. Let me learn something for a fight. I need a weapon. Maybe some of your deadly light spells I\'ve heard about or the-"

"Never," Doevm cut her off. "I told you I\'d teach you the basics and this is the basics. I have seen your flaws and will provide solutions accordingly."

She spat on the ground: "This is bullshit. How am I supposed to use Lich\'s Cleanliness anyway?"

"Like this," Doevm raised his skeletal hand. The forest lit up and shook as a giant magic circle appeared. The surrounding dirt lifted up into the air. The trees were uprooted along with any other form of vegetation. It all circled above the skeleton, which flew into the air. Another magic circle made the debris fuse to the skeleton. When the Undead dropped back down, a crater formed around its massive form. The Guriant slowly stood to its full height, towering over both Gwenivier and Doevm.

"Oh dear there appears to be a threatening creature in our way," Doevm said, acting out the situation he wanted to convey, but Gwenivier just glared at him. "Now, simply clean it." A magic circle formed under the Guriant. It had the exact same design as the one Gwenivier had used, the exact same amount of mana, and it had been placed at the exact same location. When the tight streams of water, assisted by wind mana, shot up, they dug straight through the Guriant\'s defensive layer. Trees shattered, their broken bits falling to the muddy earth. In a few seconds, the spell had cleaned the hulking Undead down to the bone. "You know the basic elements from your prior "training". Now you need to push yourself. A magic circle is only one part of a spell. It changes the mana\'s form. Next you need to manipulate the result. It\'s not the spell that\'s the problem. It\'s you. Think. Be creative. Magic is not a weapon. It is not something so simplistic."

"I get it," Gwenivier snapped. She glanced at the sun. "Our time\'s up. Can\'t I just learn a lightning spell or something next time?" As she stormed off, Doevm\'s flamed eyes narrowed. He reached out and a fly\'s corpse appeared on his hands. One spell later and it stood up and flew over to her sleeve.

\'That look. I\'ve seen it hundreds if not thousands of times. Greed. That\'s why I don\'t trust humans, especially not humans like you. Arthur. You blind, trusting fool. You\'ve accidentally let a parasite into my library.\' He applied several protections to himself before the flames in his eyes went out. His vision shifted to that of the fly on Gwenevier\'s sleeve. She was inside of the library, where Arthur was drying himself off.

"How was the lesson?" Arthur asked as he went for a hug but she lightly pushed him away.

"You smell. The lesson was great. I love talking with him and I think I\'m really going to get this magic down. He seems to not like me much though." She casted her head down and pursed her lips.

"That\'s just because of who he is," Arthur said as he went back to the side of the library and lay down on the stone. Gwenivier waited, staring at him until the moment he shut his eyes.

She smiled and her head turned towards one of Doevm\'s bookshelves. "Maybe just one won\'t hurt."