A Bored Lich

Wilhelm\'s eyes blazed with a white, flaming aura. Within the ruins, only four souls remained, paired off; Merlin stood with Dag near the entrance, while Ver Dilen and Sindre occupied the bottom, where Wilhelm had landed.

Whether due to Wilhelm\'s increased strength or the fallen tree, the ruin quaked as he landed on a stone pillar in a rippling lake. He rolled forward like an unstoppable ball of white flames, sprinting towards Sindre faster than ever before.

\'I can\'t hear her anymore,\' Wilhelm could barely think with his heart pounding against his chest like a war drum. Despite the reassuring blaze of Sindre\'s soul, a sign of her vitality, his jaw refused to unclench. Sickeningly, his gaze fixated on the broken arrows and splotches of red staining the area around the stalagmites, their presence revealed by his aura in the encompassing darkness.

Light struck the back of a single figure, Ver Dilen, who turned around with his filthy fingers around a delicate neck. Wilhelm took a moment to recognize the face — it was Sindre\'s. His blood ran cold at the sight of her. Crimson dyed her golden hair, dripping down her twisted limbs, bearing fresh marks of a savage beating. In comparison, Dag and Merlin seemed to have been spared.

The ruin quaked once more, deep cracks spiderwebbing down the sides of the cavern. Ver Dilen\'s mouth opened and closed, but Wilhelm didn\'t hear a single word, drowned out by the boiling aura around him. In the blink of an eye he knelt by Sindre\'s side, casting a healing spell over her. "Everything is going to be ok," he reassured her. "I can fix this."

Ver Dilen immediately pivoted and hammered an enormous fist down into Wilhelm\'s awaiting hand. In a flash of white, Ver Dilen\'s imposing figure, bearing a fist-sized dent in his face, hurtled down the cavern with a metallic screech, leaving behind scattered shards of shimmering metal.

Wilhelm paused, his fist still outstretched, trembling in silence as he longed for Ver Dilen to come crawling back. \'I was too late again!\' he cursed himself. His hand instinctively sought comfort in the trinket around his neck, but as his fingers traveled down the ragged, yarn chord, they brushed the sharp edge of the acorn, a painful reminder of the moment it had been severed, the failure he had sworn would be the last, but was only the first. Sindre\'s labored breaths snapped him out of his adrenaline-filled rage, and he knelt by her side with another healing spell.

Within that moment, Wilhelm wasn\'t sane nor rational enough to wonder why Ver Dilen had gone this far. He winced as her blood got on his fingers, afraid to even touch her. His magic circle quivered with his wavering focus. "Goddess," he muttered under his breath. "Please, lend me your aid in rectifying my sin of sloth. I am but a mere vessel, insufficient for their needs."

A delicate, ethereal hand stretched out of the darkness, gently caressing Sindre\'s cheek with radiant light. Relief washed through Wilhelm, as if the weight of his burdens suddenly weren\'t as heavy.

The hand vanished, and Sindre\'s eyes opened with a start underneath the radiant light. She took in a sharp breath before coughing back to consciousness, though she seemed too weak to move. "What took you so long? Wait, are you crying?" Her voice rattled out of her throat.

A smile forced itself onto Wilhelm\'s face, but he quickly averted his gaze to wipe away the tears welling up in it. Turning back to Sindre, his voice trembled as he spoke, determined, "I swear to the goddess, this will never happen again."

Sindre placed a hand on Wilhelm\'s knee to steady his shaking even though simply moving made her face contort in pain. "You didn\'t fail, you had faith in us. Ver Dilen was just strong."

Wilhelm\'s aura flared at the mere mention of Ver Dilen, quickly calming as Sindre squeezed his knee. "I know," Wilhelm said aloud, then repeated under his breath, "I know..."

Even within the aura\'s presence, Sindre remained unfazed. "Hey, this isn\'t like your village. I\'m alive, though it really fucking hurt. Make it up to me by kicking his ass."

Wilhelm smiled and gently kissed her forehead. "I\'ll be back before you know it."

She smiled, closed her eyes, relaxing with faith he\'d pull through, and said, "That\'s more like my hero-" 

"You\'ve failed her, hero!" Ver Dilen\'s voice echoed throughout the entire ruin, a cold dose of reality as he came charging towards them.

Wilhelm leapt to his feet with his back to Sindre so she couldn\'t see the face of a man prepared for carnage, aura flaring with his copper life essence. "Maybe," he spat. "but you\'re the one who just messed up by pissing me off."

"Try it!" Ver Dilen yelled back, sprinting towards them with life essence trailing behind his thundering steps. The fist-sized dent in his face remained, yet it was less like a broken face and more like a sculpture that had been "artistically" rearranged.

"Wait!" Sindre suddenly yelled out, Ver Dilen\'s deformity reflecting in her wide eyes. "Wilhelm, you need-" The ruin violently shook once more, drowning her voice out as the deep cracks expanded and broke apart, showering the area with stalactites and debris. Enormous, blackened roots came tearing through the floor.

Wilhelm could have hit himself, considering his virtual memories as the ancient tree, where his roots had slowly crept into the stones of the ruin, becoming its foundation over centuries. \'What\'s wrong with me? Why do I keep messing up today?\' Wilhelm thought.

Wilhelm\'s stomach lurched as the floor abruptly vanished beneath him and Sindre, as though invisible hands were tearing the cavern apart. Ver Dilen\'s disappointed gaze followed Wilhelm\'s descent into the depths, his voice barely audible as he muttered Wilhelm\'s infamous title within the monastery: "False Hope."

Mid-fall, Wilhelm instinctually shaped his mana into a protective magic circle around Sindre. From it sprouted a thick, spongy cocoon that absorbed the impact of her landing. Wilhelm, however, slapped against the base of the crack, a sharp cry escaping him as he scrambled to his feet.

Wilhelm locked onto Ver Dilen, fists clenching and unclenching with overwhelming rage. Nevertheless, he fought to suppress the seething anger bubbling up in his gut, his horror intensifying as the underground ruin shattered and shifted ominously behind Ver Dilen. Jagged rocks and debris rained down, threatening to crush them at any moment. "My friends are in danger!" He yelled. "Save them. I\'ll forfeit this stupid hunt!"

Ver Dilen shook his head. "I cannot do your job."

A nagging seed of doubt took root in the depths of Wilhelm\'s mind, spreading its rotten tendrils. "Why don\'t you start!?" Condensing life essence and aura around his legs, he launched ten, twenty, thirty feet, flying into Ver Dilen\'s stomach.

The two plummeted into the bottom of the ruin, wrestling for control as they plummeted into the once-calm lake, transformed by the quaking into a merciless torrent, thrashing and surging with unstoppable force. Wilhelm and Ver Dilen tumbled wildly, at the mercy of the raging current. Ver Dilen quickly assumed control, using the force of the current to slam Wilhelm\'s face against the slick rocks.

Wilhelm\'s consciousness flickered, assaulted by the invading water creeping toward his burning lungs. He desperately thrust his free arm out of the water, fingertips barely hooking the bottom edge of a cavern entrance. Life essence and aura surged around his arm, amplifying his strength as he pulled on the fulcrum, inadvertently dragging Ver Dilen with him.

Propelled by the relentless current, they hurtled over the entrance, plunged down a vertical shaft, before crashing into a massive horizontal door frame, forcefully ripped from its original location on the wall. Wedged in place, the door frame still boasted its sturdy stone doors, handles, and hinges. Amidst the rush of water carrying debris and the remnants of Sindre\'s shattered arrows and sigil-adorned orb, Wilhelm fixated on the inscription that adorned the doors:

  "Those that know the origin of magic,

Those that realize she is not everlasting,

Even those that happen to come across this door,

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."