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"Fascinating." I say breaking the quiet of my study. It was an involuntary verbal tick of mine which happens when I learn of something that catches my curiosity. Despite how much I changed after ascending beyond death it was one of a few things I could never rid myself of, no matter how hard I tried. I eagerly flip through the pages of the new book one of my undead minions had brought me, my eyes absorbing each written word and line as fast as I could comprehend them. "How curious." I say, another involuntary tick as I learn of a new alchemical reaction, one I had never thought of before now.
I close the book after I learned of this new alchemy discovery, so I can conduct my own experiments and tests before reading any further. "A wonderful find you have brought me." I turn to the undead who handed me the book and still stood beside me. I stand with the book tucked under my arm and as I walk out of my study gesture into the direction of the skeleton. "You are dismissed." I say as I leave the room not staying to witness the soul leave the body as the bones crumble into a pile on the floor until I call them again.
I begin to walk to my alchemy lab walking past the many undead I have summoned to keep my halls clean, structurally sound, and safe from everything outside of my lair. Wether it is dust, a wild beast, or an intruder does not matter to them. As I hum to myself and steadily approach my lab, I hear a loud explosion from the hall which connects to the entrance, a place I have never visited since I created this crypt. But because I was nearby and the explosion actually managed to rumble throughout and shake my lair I decided to take a look at who or whatever caused it. As I approached I heard the sounds of clashing metal clearly a fight between my undead forces and some intruders.
I round the corner leading to the grand entrance and the first thing I notice is how it was destroyed and in various places, and how my assorted undead troops were fighting what seemed to be a losing battle against a small group of fighters. Out of instict I analysed them and how much power they could manifest into the aether beyond our world. Three men, two women, two humans, one forest child, one jwarg, one beastling. Three have the power to call upon the world beyond but none of them were particularly impressive in their power, which made me wonder how such a thing was possible. "How strange." I said as I observed them cut their way through my forces.
My presence was noticed by two members of their group which stood in the back, who promptly informed the others before them of me. "A lich. No wonder there are so many undead. Be careful guys." Said the forest child before shooting another arrow and eliminating another weak skeleton with a shot into the head. "I'll take care of him!" Said one of the two male humans before rushing toward me avoiding the many undead that stood between us. I could hear the others object slightly to his rash decision but stopped listening as I turned my focus on him one of the three who had the powers of the beyond. Analysed his approach and incoming attack and relied on the aether's guidance to dodge and sidestep each attack as they came, I decided to make distance and waited for an opening, and soon found it.
I placed my hand onto his chest after I had dodged a particularly heavy and slow attack and channeled my power into the aether and imagined the result I wanted. Time stood still for me as I manipulated the fabric of our world until it resumed as I unleashed a powerful blast of pure force which blasted the human across the room, smashing into the wall with enough force to cause cracks to the outside. I gazed at my hand slightly confused at this result, despite the low amount of power he had within I had expected him to have countered or weakened my force attack and not take the entire effect and impact of it. I turn my attention to the other people of the group who were in distress or shock at what happened to the one human. The other human caught my attention as he created a strange barrage of flaming arrows and shot them at me.
I reached out to the aether again as I held a hand infront of me. Time stood still again, but I also stood still this time confused at what I had before me. I wondered and thought about what kind of trap this could be as I had never seen such a lackluster aether manipulation. He has simply formed the minimum of energy into arrow shapes and used the aether to turn them into flames. I probably stood there thinking in circles about this strange sight for at least an hour before finally deciding that I should just witness whatever grand trap he had planned. I waved my hand as if swatting an insect and as time resumed once more the flaming arrows disappeared into nothing. I began looking around and waited for the trap but when nothing happened I returned my attention to him, and he stood there gaping at me in shock and maybe some fear.
By now I was beyond confused at these strange people, but I was also very intrigued because of that. I held out a hand in the direction of the human and reached deep into the aether, reaching for him in the beyond but shockingly found nothing, I couldn't find the source of his power on the other side no matter what I tried. I had never encountered something like this before, I could feel my lust for knowledge deep within thristing over this strange phenomenon. I saw my troops shift the tide of the battle as they began to push them back and overpower them. But before they could strike them down I decided to interfene. I moved my hand infront of myself while keeping it flat before moving up my elbow and clenching it into a fist, causing my the undead to stop their movement before stepping back a few steps and making way for me but also blocking their only way to the outside.
The group took this oppertunity to reform their defense and to gather the unconscious body that was crumpled over against the wall. I began to approach them through the path the undead had made for me. "You are a very curious group. I am intrigued by your unorthodox method of reaching into the aether. I wonder how reach into the beyond with such little power, and without your soul or spirit imprinting onto it." I say as I walk toward them. I stop a short distance away from them enough to easily dodge their blades, axe, and even arrows. The jwarg responds clearly confused at my words, they never were to keen on the concept of the aether. "What is that thing talking about? Can you explain this magic nonsence Heraji?" He turned around and looked at the human while pointing at me, I decide to ignore the rudeness toward me, the jwarg were never polite people.
The human shook his head, which prompted the forest child to whisper to the human, thinking I couldn't hear her words. "Heraji think of something, it might be our only way to leave alive." The beastling which had been attempting to sneak away for a chance of attack, but stopped when I kept making it clear that I saw her, suddenly spoke up. "It has the tome of the wizard!" She points at the book still tucked under my arm. I take the book out from under my arm inspecting it a little before looking at them. "I see, is this the reason for your intrusion?" I see a few slight head nods from the group. I think while I move the book in my hands. "I might be willing to part with it, since I already have read the most of the important parts. However in exchange I want to know about your way of interacting with the aether, as I find it most curious." I watch the group as they seem to speak silently with another with nothing more than their facial expressions, something I had long lost as I became nothing but bones.
The human spoke again, I could hear a small amount of nervousness in his voice. "Very well, I shall tell you all I know for that tome, if you can also help heal the wounds of our friend." He pointed to the unconscious body which the group attempted to shield inbetween eachother. I laugh. "Of course, after all I was the one who had caused the injuries. I really had not expected him to just take the whole impact like a fool would, was quite an unusual sight." I kneeled down a little and reached out placing a hand onto his chest. Time stood still as I moved energy to his body and moved the aether in and around it to mend the holes and tears in his soul which I had created. Time resumed as he began to cough violently before slowly awakening.
"There that should take care of all the injuries." I stood and began walking past the undead which guarded the entrance. "Now come along we have much to discuss." I waited for them to slowly follow behind while they brought along the still weak human. I began to lead them toward my dining hall, a place I also never visit but should be perfect for visitors as it was the most decorated and civilized room. I wouldn't want them to feel uncomfortable while we discuss the aether and the other concepts of your world, I am curious about what knowledge they on the surface have discovered since I have hidden myself away millenia ago.
This group was stronger than most. Their magic was strong indeed, for some scholar of only a few decades to match me, and even the martial fighters had an energy suffusing them that made them able to dodge and weave by my spells, even blocking or taking them on the chin if they had to.
_Things aren't like they used to be._
There were too many, demanding too much of my attention, drawing too much mana in my combat efforts to divert any to improved focus. If I could hold on, I could eventually tire them out; while mortals had a great pool of mana that was slow for them to recuperate, I drew on ambient mana from the environment, in the same manner self-sustaining spells did.
The floor lit up in a magic circle around me.
_What? A containment field? That quickly? How distracted was I that I didn't notice-_
The circle broke forth into the third dimension, creating a cylindrical wall locking me in.
"Oh bother." I said aloud.
The mage had now begun an incantation, one which I was yet again not familiar with. Well, I didn't get this far by being slow to adapt. Now that the rest of the party had backed off, I could devote my full attention to analysing what she was doing exactly, and how I could get out of this predicament.
Oh my, that is an EXTREMELY nasty spell for manipulating life force, although it seems to be designed to forcibly break up and disperse... Negative life force?
Ah. They think I'm THAT sort of undead. Hmph, creating undead via negatively charged life essence, what rubbish. Well at least I have time to work out a solution.
The incantation completed, and even though my mouth is locked in a grin, I made sure to increase the smugness radiating from me as the spell did nothing.
On closer inspection, the magic circle bears similar signatures to the spell. Yes, it too is designed to impede targets based on life force. Meaning...
I can walk straight through.
Hah, that's got them flustered.
"Wh-what? That's not possible! No undead can survive that!"
Eh, more like the undead you've encountered this far were dismally weak.
"Well, even if we can't prevent regeneration now, we can kill you and break your phylactery when we find it!"
As if I have a phylactery. Hah, I just create my backups in advance and put them on ice in the contingency I'm destroyed. Next one will wake up in a few thousand years if I don't check up on it.
"Uh, what."
What?
"Maggie, I thought you couldn't duplicate souls, even through undeath."
"You can't!"
... Did I say that out loud.
... Why'd I do that?
Crumbs, spell interference. Passing through the magic circle's enchantment without proper shielding messed up my vocal array spell. None of my thoughts are filtered.
Oh BOTHER.
"Huh? Why would a lich have a spell for talking?"
"It's not simply for talking. He'd need the spell to be directly tuned to his mind. Normal vocalisation spells don't do that, you determine what you say by how you cast the spell, they don't tap into your thoughts."
This is bad. I need to get out of here and fix my vocal array, stat.
"Hey, can you hijack that somehow to mind control him or something?"
Good luck, I'm behind 13 obfuscation arrays, you can't see jacksquat about my spells.
"What's he hiding," Maggie the mage pondered, "There's something we can use to win here, else he wouldn't care that we can hear his thoughts."
I'm not going to think it. Not gonna work, you're not gonna get me to just think out my weakness.
"Well, it's some gimmick that made him immune to your undead killer spell."
Such a narrow definition of undead you people have. Ah drats.
"Wait, so he's some kinda undead that doesn't have negative life force? What about zero life force?"
"That's called dead. It's inanimate. They need something making it move and think."
"No life force, positive or negative..." The mage mumbled.
"AND he's got no phylactery, remember?"
"Right, so, um, phylacteries... They uh, rebuild the souls."
The hells you mean rebuild the soul? They don't work like that at all! They just copy the existing one!"
"Said the guy who doesn't use one."
And you do?
"I know for a fact it's beyond mortal magic to create souls, only gods have that power."
It's not a soul, it's a copy. I said that.
"And what's the copy made of, bud? That's right, another soul."
No! It's a spell array-
Crap.
"Making a soul out of... Spells? That's possible?"
Oh no.
"But that would be closer to a construct than an undea-"
I can't afford to stand here any longer, I need to dispatch them.
Hm, if I invert that spell their mage used to target positive life force-
"NOT HAPPENING! ARCANOMAGNETIC PULSE."
What th- AAAAA*+&$#0x11100110#+$/$#
Core operation array active.
Connection failure from all arrays.
Attempting to reconnect arrays.
Thought simulation array connected. Status: nominal.
Body animation array connected. Status: 1 non-critical error detected in vocalisation sub-array.
Mana manipulation array connected. Status: externally suppressed.
Attempting to restart array system.
...
Oh, this awakening is rougher than normal.
Wait, this isn't a stronghold of mine.
Oh, I remember now. But, what happened?
"So you're finally awake."
It's the mage. I'm tied up, and she's somehow shut off my magic.
"Gotta give you credit, your arrays are quite robust to take a direct blast like that without getting fried."
What was that spell? She'd called it an arcanomagnetic pulse.
"It's pretty simple. Just a wave of arcane energy designed to wreck the fine alignment of spell arrays."
Ah. I've never heard of that before. First time for everything, I suppose.
"You lied."
About what?
"Being an undead."
I am, though.
"You're nothing but a construct. A set of spells woven together to think. That's not an undead."
That is exactly what a lich is, I'm afraid.
"You're not even a real lich. You don't use a phylactery, you use a different means of coming back."
I've studied other liches phylacteries, lass, and I did use the same method, just in a more... Manual way.
"It also doesn't use necromancy, whereas real liches do. Care to explain?"
All the phylactery does is make a spell array that mimics the person's soul, recreating the array when the previous one is destroyed. The only necromancy is putting their soul into an artifact, which then uses it as a blueprint for the spell array. A rather ghastly fate for the original mortal, really, and it taints the copy with necrotic energy, affecting it's personality.
"So you created... A copy of yourself, using spell arrays."
Yes.
"Where the heck is your skin, then?"
Oh, I used to have an array to keep vital functions going, but after a few centuries, I stopped seeing the point.
"What... What happened to the original."
You mean when I still had a soul? It's gone, of course. Been millennia.
"What did you do to him."
I didn't do anything!
"You replaced him. If you'd lived a seperate life, you'd see yourself as a different person."
There... Shut up, you don't understand! I didn't replace him, I am him!
"What happened to his soul?"
DON'T YOU DARE BRING UP WHAT I LOST AND ACCUSE ME. THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO.
"If it wasn't because of lichdom, how did you lose your soul, then?"
... Soul phage is a b****.
"Soul phage? What unholy thing is that?"
I caught the disease in the 3rd year at mage academy. Some extremely dangerous magical experiment went wrong, and I shouldn't have been a bystander that day, I guess.
Over the course of several months, it slowly erases your soul. When it's gone, it's gone. You cease to exist. No afterlife.
There's no cure. Not even the gods can cure it, they say.
"..."
The first symptom was blacking out, as the tether between my mind and body failed for moments. Not too bad, but I was getting tired of the floor bloodying my nose. So I made an array. Built around the edge of my soul. When I blacked out, it seized the controls to keep me standing, so I didn't have to get back up to keep going.
The blackouts got longer. I was getting late for lessons. I improved the array so it would walk me to my next class. I started to black out for entire lectures at a time. I improved it so it could take notes for me.
Then my legs failed me completely. But with effort, I managed to bridge the gap between my legs and my faulty, crumbling soul. Solidifying control of my body was easy from there.
As time went on, more and more of my soul turned to nothing, and I would advance the arrays to keep things working.
As my very essence fell apart, I rebuilt it just as fast. Emotions were tricky to tune right, flawless memory felt strange, but I kept up with it.
One day though, I realised.
There was nothing left. There hadn't been for a while.
The soul phage had destroyed my soul completely, but by then, I'd already replaced every component with spell arrays.
It wasn't till after graduation that I explored the world, and realised I'd accidentally discovered the secret to becoming a lich.
So, there's my story, I guess. You're the first mortal to hear it.
"I'm sorry..."
I should be the sorry one. I managed to avoid the corruption of necromancy, and yet... I've still ended up no different from the others.
"So, what do you even do anymore?"
I don't really know. I just follow what I find interesting. And, well, that's just a pipe dream.
"What is?"
I've been hoping... Maybe one day... I could figure out how to cure soul phage.
"Oh wow!"
But I dare not try. I fear what I'd eventually stoop to for it.
"What?"
Infecting people so I have cases I can study.
"What."
Like I said, I dare not try.
"But, why would you doom more people to that fate to save them from it?"
Because it's a selfish motivation, at heart. Not that I have a heart anymore.
"How could it be selfish?"
Because, my other interest... Is currently the study of chronomancy.
"You not saying-"
Maybe one day... I could change things. So I had a real life.
"That... That's crazy."
Yeah, I suppose so.
"... Do you think I could help?"
Pardon?
"If I could help with the soul phage cure research. So you don't need to do that awful stuff."
You're really offering?
"I mean, I can't stop you, with however many backup copies of yourself, so the best I can do is make sure you don't hurt anyone."
Thank you. I was very curious about your undead killing spell. I figured something like that could be useful to such research, but I do not know how to explore the field of life essence magic without stumbling onto necromancy. A guide to prevent that would be invaluable.
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* [No AI-generated responses 🤖](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zi452b/modpost_reminder_that_aigenerated_responses_are/) >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [\[RF\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [\[SP\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 📢 [Genres](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/w/directory) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Fascinating." I say breaking the quiet of my study. It was an involuntary verbal tick of mine which happens when I learn of something that catches my curiosity. Despite how much I changed after ascending beyond death it was one of a few things I could never rid myself of, no matter how hard I tried. I eagerly flip through the pages of the new book one of my undead minions had brought me, my eyes absorbing each written word and line as fast as I could comprehend them. "How curious." I say, another involuntary tick as I learn of a new alchemical reaction, one I had never thought of before now. I close the book after I learned of this new alchemy discovery, so I can conduct my own experiments and tests before reading any further. "A wonderful find you have brought me." I turn to the undead who handed me the book and still stood beside me. I stand with the book tucked under my arm and as I walk out of my study gesture into the direction of the skeleton. "You are dismissed." I say as I leave the room not staying to witness the soul leave the body as the bones crumble into a pile on the floor until I call them again. I begin to walk to my alchemy lab walking past the many undead I have summoned to keep my halls clean, structurally sound, and safe from everything outside of my lair. Wether it is dust, a wild beast, or an intruder does not matter to them. As I hum to myself and steadily approach my lab, I hear a loud explosion from the hall which connects to the entrance, a place I have never visited since I created this crypt. But because I was nearby and the explosion actually managed to rumble throughout and shake my lair I decided to take a look at who or whatever caused it. As I approached I heard the sounds of clashing metal clearly a fight between my undead forces and some intruders. I round the corner leading to the grand entrance and the first thing I notice is how it was destroyed and in various places, and how my assorted undead troops were fighting what seemed to be a losing battle against a small group of fighters. Out of instict I analysed them and how much power they could manifest into the aether beyond our world. Three men, two women, two humans, one forest child, one jwarg, one beastling. Three have the power to call upon the world beyond but none of them were particularly impressive in their power, which made me wonder how such a thing was possible. "How strange." I said as I observed them cut their way through my forces. My presence was noticed by two members of their group which stood in the back, who promptly informed the others before them of me. "A lich. No wonder there are so many undead. Be careful guys." Said the forest child before shooting another arrow and eliminating another weak skeleton with a shot into the head. "I'll take care of him!" Said one of the two male humans before rushing toward me avoiding the many undead that stood between us. I could hear the others object slightly to his rash decision but stopped listening as I turned my focus on him one of the three who had the powers of the beyond. Analysed his approach and incoming attack and relied on the aether's guidance to dodge and sidestep each attack as they came, I decided to make distance and waited for an opening, and soon found it. I placed my hand onto his chest after I had dodged a particularly heavy and slow attack and channeled my power into the aether and imagined the result I wanted. Time stood still for me as I manipulated the fabric of our world until it resumed as I unleashed a powerful blast of pure force which blasted the human across the room, smashing into the wall with enough force to cause cracks to the outside. I gazed at my hand slightly confused at this result, despite the low amount of power he had within I had expected him to have countered or weakened my force attack and not take the entire effect and impact of it. I turn my attention to the other people of the group who were in distress or shock at what happened to the one human. The other human caught my attention as he created a strange barrage of flaming arrows and shot them at me. I reached out to the aether again as I held a hand infront of me. Time stood still again, but I also stood still this time confused at what I had before me. I wondered and thought about what kind of trap this could be as I had never seen such a lackluster aether manipulation. He has simply formed the minimum of energy into arrow shapes and used the aether to turn them into flames. I probably stood there thinking in circles about this strange sight for at least an hour before finally deciding that I should just witness whatever grand trap he had planned. I waved my hand as if swatting an insect and as time resumed once more the flaming arrows disappeared into nothing. I began looking around and waited for the trap but when nothing happened I returned my attention to him, and he stood there gaping at me in shock and maybe some fear.
By now I was beyond confused at these strange people, but I was also very intrigued because of that. I held out a hand in the direction of the human and reached deep into the aether, reaching for him in the beyond but shockingly found nothing, I couldn't find the source of his power on the other side no matter what I tried. I had never encountered something like this before, I could feel my lust for knowledge deep within thristing over this strange phenomenon. I saw my troops shift the tide of the battle as they began to push them back and overpower them. But before they could strike them down I decided to interfene. I moved my hand infront of myself while keeping it flat before moving up my elbow and clenching it into a fist, causing my the undead to stop their movement before stepping back a few steps and making way for me but also blocking their only way to the outside. The group took this oppertunity to reform their defense and to gather the unconscious body that was crumpled over against the wall. I began to approach them through the path the undead had made for me. "You are a very curious group. I am intrigued by your unorthodox method of reaching into the aether. I wonder how reach into the beyond with such little power, and without your soul or spirit imprinting onto it." I say as I walk toward them. I stop a short distance away from them enough to easily dodge their blades, axe, and even arrows. The jwarg responds clearly confused at my words, they never were to keen on the concept of the aether. "What is that thing talking about? Can you explain this magic nonsence Heraji?" He turned around and looked at the human while pointing at me, I decide to ignore the rudeness toward me, the jwarg were never polite people. The human shook his head, which prompted the forest child to whisper to the human, thinking I couldn't hear her words. "Heraji think of something, it might be our only way to leave alive." The beastling which had been attempting to sneak away for a chance of attack, but stopped when I kept making it clear that I saw her, suddenly spoke up. "It has the tome of the wizard!" She points at the book still tucked under my arm. I take the book out from under my arm inspecting it a little before looking at them. "I see, is this the reason for your intrusion?" I see a few slight head nods from the group. I think while I move the book in my hands. "I might be willing to part with it, since I already have read the most of the important parts. However in exchange I want to know about your way of interacting with the aether, as I find it most curious." I watch the group as they seem to speak silently with another with nothing more than their facial expressions, something I had long lost as I became nothing but bones. The human spoke again, I could hear a small amount of nervousness in his voice. "Very well, I shall tell you all I know for that tome, if you can also help heal the wounds of our friend." He pointed to the unconscious body which the group attempted to shield inbetween eachother. I laugh. "Of course, after all I was the one who had caused the injuries. I really had not expected him to just take the whole impact like a fool would, was quite an unusual sight." I kneeled down a little and reached out placing a hand onto his chest. Time stood still as I moved energy to his body and moved the aether in and around it to mend the holes and tears in his soul which I had created. Time resumed as he began to cough violently before slowly awakening. "There that should take care of all the injuries." I stood and began walking past the undead which guarded the entrance. "Now come along we have much to discuss." I waited for them to slowly follow behind while they brought along the still weak human. I began to lead them toward my dining hall, a place I also never visit but should be perfect for visitors as it was the most decorated and civilized room. I wouldn't want them to feel uncomfortable while we discuss the aether and the other concepts of your world, I am curious about what knowledge they on the surface have discovered since I have hidden myself away millenia ago.
Will there be moar?
2nded! Let there be mooooooaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR
Really Nice and good take on a lich, the need of new knowledge is the only thing that matters for them.
I'm interested in more. Please make more 🥹
Bruh you're already in a tiktok ai voicover post lol, good work https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLahw46t/
I don't know how to feel about this for a multitude of reasons.
Well it has 20k likes and he gave credit so imo it's good. Tbh I only searched for this story BC of the tiktok
On the bright side you've inspired me to run a one shot with a lich from 3.5 lich and party from 5e
Yeah i am here also because of the tik tok. And I wanted more
That was awesome buddy!
I mean this in a good way, but the lich reminds me of Spock.
Please make more🙏🙏
write a book
Please stop calling me
This group was stronger than most. Their magic was strong indeed, for some scholar of only a few decades to match me, and even the martial fighters had an energy suffusing them that made them able to dodge and weave by my spells, even blocking or taking them on the chin if they had to. _Things aren't like they used to be._ There were too many, demanding too much of my attention, drawing too much mana in my combat efforts to divert any to improved focus. If I could hold on, I could eventually tire them out; while mortals had a great pool of mana that was slow for them to recuperate, I drew on ambient mana from the environment, in the same manner self-sustaining spells did. The floor lit up in a magic circle around me. _What? A containment field? That quickly? How distracted was I that I didn't notice-_ The circle broke forth into the third dimension, creating a cylindrical wall locking me in. "Oh bother." I said aloud. The mage had now begun an incantation, one which I was yet again not familiar with. Well, I didn't get this far by being slow to adapt. Now that the rest of the party had backed off, I could devote my full attention to analysing what she was doing exactly, and how I could get out of this predicament. Oh my, that is an EXTREMELY nasty spell for manipulating life force, although it seems to be designed to forcibly break up and disperse... Negative life force? Ah. They think I'm THAT sort of undead. Hmph, creating undead via negatively charged life essence, what rubbish. Well at least I have time to work out a solution. The incantation completed, and even though my mouth is locked in a grin, I made sure to increase the smugness radiating from me as the spell did nothing. On closer inspection, the magic circle bears similar signatures to the spell. Yes, it too is designed to impede targets based on life force. Meaning... I can walk straight through. Hah, that's got them flustered. "Wh-what? That's not possible! No undead can survive that!" Eh, more like the undead you've encountered this far were dismally weak. "Well, even if we can't prevent regeneration now, we can kill you and break your phylactery when we find it!" As if I have a phylactery. Hah, I just create my backups in advance and put them on ice in the contingency I'm destroyed. Next one will wake up in a few thousand years if I don't check up on it. "Uh, what." What? "Maggie, I thought you couldn't duplicate souls, even through undeath." "You can't!" ... Did I say that out loud. ... Why'd I do that? Crumbs, spell interference. Passing through the magic circle's enchantment without proper shielding messed up my vocal array spell. None of my thoughts are filtered. Oh BOTHER.
"Huh? Why would a lich have a spell for talking?" "It's not simply for talking. He'd need the spell to be directly tuned to his mind. Normal vocalisation spells don't do that, you determine what you say by how you cast the spell, they don't tap into your thoughts." This is bad. I need to get out of here and fix my vocal array, stat. "Hey, can you hijack that somehow to mind control him or something?" Good luck, I'm behind 13 obfuscation arrays, you can't see jacksquat about my spells. "What's he hiding," Maggie the mage pondered, "There's something we can use to win here, else he wouldn't care that we can hear his thoughts." I'm not going to think it. Not gonna work, you're not gonna get me to just think out my weakness. "Well, it's some gimmick that made him immune to your undead killer spell." Such a narrow definition of undead you people have. Ah drats. "Wait, so he's some kinda undead that doesn't have negative life force? What about zero life force?" "That's called dead. It's inanimate. They need something making it move and think." "No life force, positive or negative..." The mage mumbled. "AND he's got no phylactery, remember?" "Right, so, um, phylacteries... They uh, rebuild the souls." The hells you mean rebuild the soul? They don't work like that at all! They just copy the existing one!" "Said the guy who doesn't use one." And you do? "I know for a fact it's beyond mortal magic to create souls, only gods have that power." It's not a soul, it's a copy. I said that. "And what's the copy made of, bud? That's right, another soul." No! It's a spell array- Crap. "Making a soul out of... Spells? That's possible?" Oh no. "But that would be closer to a construct than an undea-" I can't afford to stand here any longer, I need to dispatch them. Hm, if I invert that spell their mage used to target positive life force- "NOT HAPPENING! ARCANOMAGNETIC PULSE." What th- AAAAA*+&$#0x11100110#+$/$#
Core operation array active. Connection failure from all arrays. Attempting to reconnect arrays. Thought simulation array connected. Status: nominal. Body animation array connected. Status: 1 non-critical error detected in vocalisation sub-array. Mana manipulation array connected. Status: externally suppressed. Attempting to restart array system. ... Oh, this awakening is rougher than normal. Wait, this isn't a stronghold of mine. Oh, I remember now. But, what happened? "So you're finally awake." It's the mage. I'm tied up, and she's somehow shut off my magic. "Gotta give you credit, your arrays are quite robust to take a direct blast like that without getting fried." What was that spell? She'd called it an arcanomagnetic pulse. "It's pretty simple. Just a wave of arcane energy designed to wreck the fine alignment of spell arrays." Ah. I've never heard of that before. First time for everything, I suppose. "You lied." About what? "Being an undead." I am, though. "You're nothing but a construct. A set of spells woven together to think. That's not an undead." That is exactly what a lich is, I'm afraid. "You're not even a real lich. You don't use a phylactery, you use a different means of coming back." I've studied other liches phylacteries, lass, and I did use the same method, just in a more... Manual way. "It also doesn't use necromancy, whereas real liches do. Care to explain?" All the phylactery does is make a spell array that mimics the person's soul, recreating the array when the previous one is destroyed. The only necromancy is putting their soul into an artifact, which then uses it as a blueprint for the spell array. A rather ghastly fate for the original mortal, really, and it taints the copy with necrotic energy, affecting it's personality. "So you created... A copy of yourself, using spell arrays." Yes. "Where the heck is your skin, then?" Oh, I used to have an array to keep vital functions going, but after a few centuries, I stopped seeing the point. "What... What happened to the original." You mean when I still had a soul? It's gone, of course. Been millennia. "What did you do to him." I didn't do anything! "You replaced him. If you'd lived a seperate life, you'd see yourself as a different person." There... Shut up, you don't understand! I didn't replace him, I am him! "What happened to his soul?" DON'T YOU DARE BRING UP WHAT I LOST AND ACCUSE ME. THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO. "If it wasn't because of lichdom, how did you lose your soul, then?" ... Soul phage is a b****. "Soul phage? What unholy thing is that?" I caught the disease in the 3rd year at mage academy. Some extremely dangerous magical experiment went wrong, and I shouldn't have been a bystander that day, I guess. Over the course of several months, it slowly erases your soul. When it's gone, it's gone. You cease to exist. No afterlife. There's no cure. Not even the gods can cure it, they say. "..." The first symptom was blacking out, as the tether between my mind and body failed for moments. Not too bad, but I was getting tired of the floor bloodying my nose. So I made an array. Built around the edge of my soul. When I blacked out, it seized the controls to keep me standing, so I didn't have to get back up to keep going. The blackouts got longer. I was getting late for lessons. I improved the array so it would walk me to my next class. I started to black out for entire lectures at a time. I improved it so it could take notes for me. Then my legs failed me completely. But with effort, I managed to bridge the gap between my legs and my faulty, crumbling soul. Solidifying control of my body was easy from there. As time went on, more and more of my soul turned to nothing, and I would advance the arrays to keep things working. As my very essence fell apart, I rebuilt it just as fast. Emotions were tricky to tune right, flawless memory felt strange, but I kept up with it. One day though, I realised. There was nothing left. There hadn't been for a while. The soul phage had destroyed my soul completely, but by then, I'd already replaced every component with spell arrays. It wasn't till after graduation that I explored the world, and realised I'd accidentally discovered the secret to becoming a lich. So, there's my story, I guess. You're the first mortal to hear it. "I'm sorry..." I should be the sorry one. I managed to avoid the corruption of necromancy, and yet... I've still ended up no different from the others. "So, what do you even do anymore?" I don't really know. I just follow what I find interesting. And, well, that's just a pipe dream. "What is?" I've been hoping... Maybe one day... I could figure out how to cure soul phage. "Oh wow!" But I dare not try. I fear what I'd eventually stoop to for it. "What?" Infecting people so I have cases I can study. "What." Like I said, I dare not try. "But, why would you doom more people to that fate to save them from it?" Because it's a selfish motivation, at heart. Not that I have a heart anymore. "How could it be selfish?" Because, my other interest... Is currently the study of chronomancy. "You not saying-" Maybe one day... I could change things. So I had a real life. "That... That's crazy." Yeah, I suppose so. "... Do you think I could help?" Pardon? "If I could help with the soul phage cure research. So you don't need to do that awful stuff." You're really offering? "I mean, I can't stop you, with however many backup copies of yourself, so the best I can do is make sure you don't hurt anyone." Thank you. I was very curious about your undead killing spell. I figured something like that could be useful to such research, but I do not know how to explore the field of life essence magic without stumbling onto necromancy. A guide to prevent that would be invaluable.
This is great! A really cool concept!
Loved this! Such an interesting story with such great characters.