Therein lay the problem, for while Drayya was especially talented in the art of opening chest cavities, she’d neglected to learn how to close them. The responsibility, then, fell on Lüngen to guarantee that Lieze wouldn’t be suffering from any life-threatening infections in the near future.
“Somebody take that pipe away from him.” Lieze commanded, “The last thing I want is a sprinkling of tobacco in my guts.”
Lüngen had the grace to set his pipe aside while he tended to the wound with needle and thread. The process didn’t take more than a few minutes. He was astonished by the intrinsic healing factor of Lieze’s corrupted flesh, which seemed so desperate to reconnect that his help was barely needed.
Drayya rolled the phylactery between her fingers. It wasn’t any more glamorous than a common bauble, but the profane sorcery at work within its aquamarine shell was apparent by the wisps of unnatural smoke trapped within its shell.
“I can’t believe it was really in there.” She said, “I mean - of course it was! Why would we have tried something so foolish if we weren’t 100% sure?”
“It is exactly the sort of gambit I would expect from Ignas.” Lüngen chimed, pushing a needle through Lieze’s skin, “It all makes so much sense now. Lieze was always intended to contain his phylactery. He wouldn’t have been content storing it anywhere else.”
The stitch of his handiwork was barely visible against the onyx colour of Lieze’s body. As soon as he snapped the remainder of the thread, Alistair lowered his hands and took in a breath. A sharp pain stabbed into Lieze’s abdomen, almost as if (strangely enough), she had just been carved open and sewn back up again.
“Marché…” She sat up with a groan and wagged her finger at Alistair.
The curly-haired boy nodded. His psychic commands summoned a Rot Behemoth from the throne room horde not a few seconds later. Alistair clenched his eyes shut as the creature’s silhouette loomed over him.
“Am I to die?” He asked, “Then, before I return to the Lord’s side, would you answer a simple question, Lieze Sokalar?”
She shook her head, “No.”
He wasn’t allowed the opportunity to retort. The Rot Behemoth’s turgid fist fell upon him like a boulder, and in the next instant, Alistair was nothing more than an unsightly stain of blood on the chamber floor. A note of pure elation passed through Lieze’s body like an electric shock, invigorating her with peace of mind.
Quest “Ancient Soul” Completed! Reward - 9,000xp
Level Up! You are now level [38] HP + 0 MP + 55 MIND + 1
“Thank the stars. All that man did was talk…” Revitalised by her level-up, Lieze had no trouble hopping off the table, “At last, the king is dead.”
“If only he was the last of our problems.” Drayya lamented, “Phylactery or no, going up against Sokalar is worse than suicidal. If any of us get out of this alive, I’m expecting to take a break for once.”
Lieze held out her hand, “Give that to me.”
Drayya tossed the bead through the air, causing it to reflect the light of the rising sun. Another notification popped up to celebrate Lieze’s accomplishment as soon as she caught it.
Quest “The Secret of Lichdom” Completed! Reward - 5,000xp
-That confirmed it, at least. She had always imagined a phylactery as some grand contraption held by steel vices and surrounded by deadly traps, but the real thing was meek and pitiful. She made use of her [Identify] feature to examine its peculiarities.
Magical Item - [Phylactery] Description - Any creature that has completed the [Gain Forbidden Knowledge] ritual may spend [12] uninterrupted hours attuning to this item. Once attuned, the Phylactery acts as a container for the creature’s soul when a mortal vessel is unavailable. If the attuned user’s health is reduced to [0], their soul is trapped by the Phylactery. Once [2] hours have passed, a trapped soul may choose a new vessel within [1km] to inhabit, providing said vessel has the same arrangement of limbs as the previous vessel and is not inhabited by another soul. The user’s soul retains its level, and any benefits imparted by its level are passed onto the new vessel where appropriate.
“Immortality…” Lieze muttered, “Imperfect, perhaps, but amazing nonetheless.”
She couldn’t destroy it. There was no telling how much work had been poured into its creation. For all she knew, Sokalar might have received it as inheritance. The curiosity of shielding one’s soul from the Gods and hiding it within the realm of mortals was no doubt a complicated affair.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She understood its machinations - a feat that not even Sokalar could claim. All she needed to do was complete the [Gain Forbidden Knowledge] ritual and attune to the phylactery. It sounded so simple in concept. But before she could devote any time to that pursuit, she would need to guarantee that Sokalar would never make use of its power again.
“We need to prepare.” She said, “As strange as it sounds, this castle is now pivotal to our survival. We must have a strategy in place for when Sokalar marches his army through the gatehouses.”
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The Golem was dead, but Lüngen had yet to return.
Sokalar had always considered the possibility of his betrayal. The man was particularly emotional for a necromancer - even guilty, at times - but when push came to shove, he would always submit to his master’s will. It would have taken something particularly shocking to coax him out from the Lich’s sphere of influence.
Sokalar had already envisioned the path of destruction his thralls would follow on their way up to the castle. He simplified the capabilities of every thrall and Deathguard down to a game of numbers, and envisioned every possible trap that could await him given the hillside’s topography.
But it was not enough. Too many details yet eluded his mind, and that simple fact was devastating to his pride. Who had summoned the Golem? Had Drayya and her cult already reached the castle, and if so, had they defeated Alistair? Had Lüngen betrayed him, or merely perished in the line of duty? His problems compounded, relying on one-another for information that had yet to be revealed. For the first time in decades, he was stricken with inaction.
There was a loathing that carried on the winds. Sokalar had always despised the sunrise, but on that day, there was more to the dawning light than usual. He could pick out the motes of necromantic energy flitting through the air like dandelions - a great concentration of power bundled with potential.
It was not his. In truth, he was not certain that it belonged to anyone in particular. Not even the Order at its absolute peak was suffused with such activity. Indeed, he had only sensed the disturbance on one other occasion since his arrival in Tonberg - when he was reintroduced to Lieze.
“Master Sokalar?”
A Deathguard approached him with head lowered, seeking counsel on the army’s next move. The answer was obvious, but no member of the Order would dare commit to any strategy without the Lich’s explicit permission. He could not expose his uncertainty without risking the loss of that unconditional respect.
“The time has come.” He declared, “Prepare to move on the castle.”
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What remained of the twisting walkway leading up to Tonberg’s fortress was not as fortified as Lieze hoped. The Flesh Golem had torn its way through entire gatehouses and created a convenient slope of rubble and dirt leading straight towards the gardens.
“Hey.” Lieze called, “Come over here.”
The recipient of her order was a Dark Caster. Speaking to a thrall would normally be a sign of madness, but that thrall in particular was more than willing to exchange a few words.
“What are your orders?” A voice slithered out from its atrophied windpipe.
“Even considering the strength of our thralls, we don’t stand a chance against Sokalar’s overwhelming numbers.” She explained, “-But the tide of this upcoming battle will shift once his army draws near. Until then, it will be your responsibility to thin their numbers with spellcraft. Is that clear?”
“Yes.” The thrall was deathly still, but responded to her question with swiftness.
“We’ve inadvertently made the path towards the castle more accessible for Sokalar’s troops.” She continued, “But in doing so, we’ve also created an effective chokepoint. That breach in the lower wall will limit the amount of thralls that can pass through. For as long as we can hold that point, our forces will be evenly matched.”
“Speaking to dead men, Lieze?” The proximity of Drayya’s voice caused Lieze to jolt. She barely had time to turn her head before the girl was standing right next to her, “None of this really matters, does it? The battle will be decided by your actions.”
“...That’s no reason to be neglecting the fundamentals.” Lieze looked ahead, towards the shelves of rubbled watchtowers and roads, “Sokalar will have a plan. He always does.”
“Marché is stationing his cultists around the battleground as we speak.” Drayya pointed towards seemingly mundane structures - half-destroyed walls and hidden corners obscured by darkness, “We’ll lure the army towards that enormous hole in the wall where your Golem made its exit before catching the Deathguards’ thralls off-guard with an ambush. Once the perimeter is reinforced, it will be a battle of attrition - one we’re destined to lose.”
“What about Lüngen?” Lieze looked around for the man, but he was nowhere to be seen, “I don’t plan on letting him sit around and smoke while we’re out here risking our lives.”
“He’s working to raise some of the Artificial Scions that were killed by the Golem.” She replied, “There’s not much we can do by ourselves, you know. [Blood Spikes] might be effective against one or two targets, but we’re against an entire army this time around.”
“Take the Manticore.” Lieze said, “It’s powerful enough to deal with everything short of Sokalar himself.”
“Ohh, there’s an idea.” Drayya smirked, “If I manoeuvred it to the back lines, we’d be able to sow some chaos where Sokalar least expects it.”
“No.” She shook her head, “He isn’t going to organise his thralls like that. Lüngen informed me that he and Sokalar witnessed the Manticore during the Golem’s advent. He will place his least fortified thralls - Dark Casters, mostly - towards the centre of his army and surround them with Briarknights. If you were to land the Manticore, you would be overwhelmed and killed.”
“Hm…” Drayya closed her eyes in thought, “That does sound like something he would try…”
“It sounds counter-intuitive, but our most effective strategy is also the most straightforward one.” Lieze continued, “Sokalar has spent months outwitting his opponents. He accounts for unconventional strategies with such enthusiasm that he often neglects to consider the beauty of simplicity. If he wishes to overcomplicate things, then we won’t interrupt him.”
“If you say so…” Resigned to Lieze’s confidence, Drayya could only stare towards the sprawl of Tonberg’s streets, where the surging tide of Sokalar’s army blotted the grey cobblestone roads with discoloured flesh, “It won’t be long now. 10 minutes. Maybe not even that.”
“Yes…” Lieze paused, “It’s strange. During the siege, I could have never imagined the events that would come to pass over the next two months.”
“How do you think I feel?” She puffed out her cheeks, “All of a sudden, I’m the one taking orders from you. Do you have any idea of how wrong that is?”
“I would rather you were here than there.” Lieze said.
She didn’t realise the weight behind those words at first, but Drayya’s silence ended up making her wish she hadn’t said so. The two of them were allies once more, but never had either of them considered rekindling the friendship of their youth. It was the first pang of empathy Lieze had felt since her childhood.
“Lieze.” Drayya called her name.
“What is it?” Her gaze was met. Anything could have been said, but Drayya found the inside of her mouth turning to sand under the weight of Lieze’s expectation.
“...Nothing.” Her conviction crumbled just as quickly as it arrived, “It’s nothing.”