Authors Note: This first chapter takes place many years after the start of the story. It is a perspective of certain story events that will happen later from the point of view of those outside the central cast of characters.

Three weary people sit in a wagon slowly making its way down a well used trail. An elvish warrior works though the routine of maintaining his shield and mace while listening to his two companions discuss their current problem.

Dirt: "We were supposed to bring her back alive" The dwarven earth mage had a point. Their task had been to recover a demoness and bring her back to the temple for interrogation.

Shiny: "I am aware of out task, though I don't see how we were given much choice in the matter dirt" The Deva mage was right as well, though the racial tensions between deva and demons hold back in his magics less then he should have during the fight.

Dirt: "Stop calling me dirt!, and your the one that over did it on the attack spells!"

Shiny: "I can't pronounce your name so I'll keep calling you dirt. And why don't we just get her restricted"

Dirt: "Because, Shiny, only a demon can bring back another demon, unless you have the kind of money to have an alchemist brew one of those fancy concoctions of theirs."

Normally, that would be true the elf thought to himself. There were many ways to bring someone back from the dead, but all of them had a cost. Take someone to the church and the resurrected person is bound the the deity that powered the resurrection. Same with working through a demon. A necromancer could do it but only neutrals get to retain their sense of self. If they had a necro bring back the demon she would just be a mindless undead thrall. An alchemist could make a potion to bring her back but the materials to accomplish that feat would bankrupt a small kingdom. A dozen other options ran through his mind as Dirt and Shiny kept bickering. 

KetelinSeth: "There is.. one way" the elf said, pausing in his tasks. "Though it has its own complications."

Shiny: "Do tell leader." both deva and dwarf now silent as why waited to here a way out of their problem.

KerelinSeth: "Are either of you familiar with The Enchanter, or the Unchained?"

Dirt: "I've heard the rumor, no way its true though, someone like that would have been killed off."

Shiny: "True, the church would not tolerate such a power unchecked. The demons and royals would be even more aggressive about such things."

KerelinSeth: "And if I told you that I knew that the rumors were true, and where to find the enchanter?"

Shiny: "Then I would wonder why you haven't sold that information and retired. I'm sure its worth more then the bounty on the demoness"

Dirt: "And I still wouldn't believe you. Someone with the power to bring back the dead, at no cost, and freeing them of all magical bonds in the process is just not possible."

KerelinSeth: "It is not without cost" 

Shiny: "So tell us leader, how would you know of such things, and what cost is the cost."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

KerelinSeth: "Stagnation, the slowing of ones growth, and that it can only happen once, for normal people in any case."

Dirt: "What do you mean by that?" 

Both dwarf and deva were now very focused on what the old elf was saying, so he set his equipment aside.

KerelinSeth: "You are aware that fighting enemies, casting spells, training, and nearly everything else related to your job grants experience. If you are brought back by The Enchanter, that gets halved. It takes twice as much effort for any growth for the rest of your days"

Shiny: "And only one resurrection?" 

KerelinSeth: "A question first, if you don't mind. Were you born a deva? or made into one?"

Shiny: "Made, why do you ask"

KerelinSeth: "Then you could get brought back twice by the enchanter."

Dirt: "Ok you still haven't answered how you know all this."

KerelinSeth: "I supposed I've said to much to leave it at that. That story begins at the fall of Calin's temple"

The deva knew that tale. Every deva did, a powerful necromancer found a way to create mindless undead immune to holy magics and used them to burn a major city, and the primary temple of its patron goddess to ash.

Shiny: "that was over twelve hundred years ago leader. Your old but your no elder"

KerelinSeth: "Oh I am that old, but I didn't spend all that time as an elf. When the temple fell I was a deva, and like all deva that fell that day I was brought back as an undead. and before you keep asking more questions just let me tell the story"

"Being a mindless undead is not exactly accurate. I still had my mind, just no control over my body. The necromancer the turned me made me into a death guard and set me to defend one of his safehouses. A role I was very well suited to despite being a mindless undead. So for over a thousand years I stood sentinel in an underground treasury, surrounded by other former deva. We were all waiting, either for an invader or the return of our master. What eventually came was an army. We were all put down rather quickly as we were overwhelmed by better geared and more numerous forces."

"My body now unmoving I expected to finally be dead for good, but whatever the necromancer had done to us kept our souls bound to our bodies. The army's leader noticed something about us and had all the undead sent to a lab for research, where we all spent another roughly two hundred years either being experimented on or kept in storage."

"Eventually, I was found by the enchanter."

"At that time he as a young boy, Participating in a research study for one of his classes. I listened as he asked the instructor why they were doing experiments on bodies that still contained souls. The teacher didn't believe we still had souls, nor did any researchers, or anyone else that had seen us in the time we had been there. To prove his point the boy use his power on me. We spoke, soul to soul where he asked if I wanted to return to living, or be freed to move to the afterlife. I chose to live. He then asked me what I would live as, and gave me the choice. Remain an undead, free of any bindings and given full control over my body, become a deva again, but one with no ties to any god, or return to being an elf. I decided I would start over as an elf if I had the choice."

"He explained to me then how my growth would be slow now, and that should I die again he could not bring me back as an elf. Only deva and undead would be options if it happened again. There are other costs I won't go into but that is how I and three dozen others became unchained."

Dirt and sat staring at me for a several minutes.

Dirt: "If that's true, how are you not insane from a thousand years of boredom?"

KerelinSeth: "Part of the resurrection restores you to perfect health, both physically and mentally. Injuries gone, illness as well, birth defects corrected, and any traumas of the mind are... sort of smoothed over. I remember being undead for over a thousand years, but its like I slept for most of it. I remember being in that lab and all the experiments I went through, but there is a sort of clinical detachment about it in my mind."

We sat in silence for a long while. Our journey would be longer now, taking our target to the enchanter would take weeks. He would bring her back, if she accepted his offer. But knowing him she would be staying in the city, and under his protection. We would likely get the information we needed, but our client will be upset with us not bringing her back. They won't be the first to learn the hard way just why Seth, and those he protects, are left alone by the powers that be.