The door closed as the lich left and the group was left in stunned silence, “Alright… I know I was the only one with wits enough to talk to it, but what the fuck was that?” Kevin asked, staring at the closed door.
His words seemed to shake most of the rest of them out of their silence, though Natalia shrugged, “I was composed myself, you know. And I think God gave up when bringing it to the next life.”
A young man coughed lightly in response, “I doubt that,” he said, quickly continuing at the stares of the others, “Well, think about it. She literally just said that she died and was being torn apart all the while. I doubt any god would do that to some random person. Beyond that, didn’t she say she was also from Earth? I mean, we’re the only people we’ve met who can relate, so that’s good. Right?”
“I don’t know,” a woman beside him said, “I mean, it’s a damn skeleton. Who knows what it lost when it got revived. Can we even trust it? Will it just kill us and turn us into undead the moment we’re alone with it? We can’t be sure.”
The man rolled his eyes, “Because bloodthirsty monsters are well-known for their honesty and penchant for making deals with merchants.”
“That’s exactly what it wants you to think!” she growled.
The two glared at each other for a moment before Kevin clapped his hands, “Hey, hey. Calm down, you two. No need to get your jimmies in a jostle over traveling with an undead ‘lich.’” They all gave him flat looks, “What? What did I say wrong?”
“Well,” Natalia began, “Who the hell says ‘jimmies in a jostle?’ You’ve got to be over fifty,” Kevin rolled his eyes, “And, you’re kind of blowing off the fact that she is a fucking lich. You know, those things from stories that are pretty much always evil. Or aspiring bureaucrats, but that’s not the point. What you said is basically saying we should hang out in a goblin’s cave-”
“There aren’t any goblins,” Bella said, “Not that I’ve heard of, anyway.”
“Whatever. Then it’s like saying we should just climb into the mouth of a hungry dragon. It makes no sense,” Natalia growled.
Kevin rolled his eyes, “I thought you were for the lich lady.”
“I am,” she said, shocking a few of those around them, “But I also know that everyone needs to be on board or else we’ll get kicked off because someone was being stupid. Don’t think I don’t know someone would do something dumb enough to get us booted.”
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Some guilty looks passed around as Kevin nodded, “I agree with her; all of us need to be on the same page for this to work. Alright, who’s in favor of riding with the lich?” he asked, raising his hand and watching a few others do the same, “Alright, who’s against it?” Just as many hands were raised, leaving the vast majority of them undecided, “Hrm,” he grunted, “So how do we do this?”
Bella stood, leaving Philip’s side as he slouched in his chair, and strode forward, “I don’t think this is a good idea, so I’ll represent the ones who don’t want to.”
“Fair enough,” Kevin conceded, “I’ll just say this: The only way we’re getting to this Aekan place is if we take her up on her offer. If we really need to ask someone else for a lift when she offered would not only be rude and could cause a bit of hatred, but could also mean we get a bad reputation.”
“Bad reputation? From refusing a ride from a lich?” Bella said, “How?”
“Think about it. One of the gods of this world is a god of death, more specifically the god of undeath, if I remember correctly. She is basically one of that god’s people, able to reason and work with the living unlike what I heard about other liches. She’s got to have a good reputation for that. Refusing her help on the basis that she’s a lich would cause problems.”
Bella shook her head, “She’s not that loved, you know. Most don’t really care about her. We would earn a bad reputation for refusing from the church, but from what I gathered, they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. What we should consider is if she’ll double cross us and kill us while we’re, what? Level ones and twos?”
“Level doesn’t mean everything,” Natalia said, “If we were smart about it, we could fight her off, along with whatever monsters she cooked up.”
“But that means we’ll have to travel with those monsters while we’re on our way,” Bella cut in. Some of them looked uncomfortable at the prospect of sharing spaces with various undead monsters, but they looked to Kevin for a counterpoint.
He shrugged, “Look, we’re just going off of our assumptions. I mean, do we have to make a decision now? Can’t we, I don’t know, take a little tour of the skiff before we commit to anything?”
They spent a few minutes pondering Kevin’s suggestion before reluctantly nodding. With total agreement, they decided to tour the lich’s skiff before making their decision. Natalia volunteered to share the news with Captain Ductur, most of the others following her out to go about their own business for a while. Eventually, the only two left were Bella and Philip, “Are you alright? You’ve been moping this whole time.”
Philip looked up at Bella’s caring visage and gave a weak smile, “I’m just… trying to understand. That’s all.” Bella nodded, pulling up a chair in front of him and gesturing for him to go on, “I mean, he died. He died! They burned his body in the middle of the desert. And then…”
“He came back as that,” Bella finished, nodding along, “Look, I get that, but… that’s not your friend anymore. Sure, she has some memories from Earth and knows a lot about it, but she’s still different. Would you call a tree grown from the skeleton of a mouse a mouse itself?”
Philip smiled a bit brighter, “No, you wouldn’t. I get what you mean, Bella. I… Thanks. A lot.”
Bella patted him on the shoulder, “It’s not a problem, Phil.”