AN: Troll asked for it.
So, here it is.
...
I'm so sorry.
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Lichs' POV
My fingers brushed past the course bark. My legs took me flying in no particular direction. All around, a maze of spiraling towers all crowned with leaves surrounds me. Life, joy, light. All around, the forest is bursting with the wonders of nature. So much so that if I could still cry, I would.
It makes me sick.
I giggle, and take another look around.
"Ah, I should really stop making that noise. It's weird. But, well..."
I lift a hand, and snap my fingers. "...maybe just occasionally. Hehe~"
The temperature drops, and everywhere I touched, trees become ruptured corpses of themselves. Shards of wood blown off from the force of expanding water would have caused most of the trees to collapse, but something very special was holding it up.
Clear, crystal ice. Rising like pillars, shattered trees lie entombed within the frozen tombs like a fossil immortalized in stone.
That's better.
I skip happily now, razor-sharp grass bending underneath my feet. It's funny, but ones' own mana will go to extreme lengths to avoid harming its' owner.
Magic was weird like that.
I breathed in the sharp, cutting air. No longer did a gentle breeze flow in between the branches like some sort of whispering voices, but rather it hissed through the gaps of frozen water like blood being squirted from between your teeth. And as I breathed in the delicious air, power came too.
For a moment I simply stood, entranced all at once by the beauty, the wonder, and most of all, the ecstasy of inhaling mana like air.
I could go drunk on it. I could get lost in it. I could lose my mind, and become but a husk and a soul, separated and alone.
Well, that is, if I were weak. Luckily, I'm a bit of a bad-ass.
I continue walking, letting my vase of mana slowly fill up. My cute zambies hungrily took their shares, and I had to give them all a pinch to remind them who's in charge. Bodies with souls are such a hassle. I passed by a red-horned deer. And gave it a tap as I passed by.
Ah...mammals are so useless whenever it goes below freezing.
I left behind a pile of finely-ground deer-ice.
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Rolants' POV
For the last...long time, I'd been wondering about what to say. Gratitude, apologies, curses. But, over-arching all of that, was the fear.
Because what Shess put in my back had woken up.
And it disliked pretty much everything.
Beside me, the Jo's were shivering. They grumbled about how this was supposed to be a lush rainforest, and how they should be scratching giant-mosquito bites instead of goose-bumps. Of course, they weren't really complaining, as giant-mosquitoes found only in mana-infested areas are always hostile and their venom is almost always fatal.
But this bitter cold made silence disturbing, so naturally something needed to be said. As always, I'm thankful for my brothers support. Ever since our monastery burned down, I've relied on them for a lot. Too much, if I'm being honest. Though they complained about the cold, and I offered quiet agreement, the truth was I didn't feel a thing.
I doubt I'd feel much of anything for awhile.
Meanwhile, there were a bunch of undead following us.
At first, I wanted to destroy them. As a man of god, undead are my ultimate foe. But as I am now...saying undead are my foe is like saying the sun is the enemy of all plants. Ridiculous. Still, finding out that the little girl who gave us everything is a necromancer, of all things, was a bit of a surprise.
But now I understand. I heard about what happened at her gate. Rumors of a horde of undead, thousands strong, battling the enemy in an ever-winning battle, where every fallen foe became another tool of their destruction. The truth was more terrifying.
"I count...two-hundred living corpses, a hundred bone-warriors, and even a couple bone-squires. What the hell are they feeding kids these days..." grumbled Jo. And I share his opinion.
Bone-Squires are an evolution of high-quality corpses stripped of flesh and enchanted with black-magic. Usually, one in the area means that a huge horde of undead is somewhere close, or someone painstakingly created it. Their individual strength wasn't something to be feared, they were only slightly physically superior to their lesser counterparts, their threat lay in their intelligence.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Undead are strong, unwavering, and never-tiring. Killing them requires time, strength, and skill. The only good part is that they're stupid. But Bone-Squires are different.
They can command their brethren, and give basic instruction. The skeletons below a Squire become hardened, cunning, and loyal. Instead of a large clump of flesh that never grows tired, they're a group of difficult to kill, never-tiring, and skilled soldiers. From that point, things simply go down hill.
Which is why whenever something like that appears, the church immediately orders extermination, and purification. But I'm glad it's here.
In front of me, a large hole in the side of a mountain disappears into darkness. Outside, Shess is building an igloo.
"Oh, hey Plain! Come over here and help me, some of these blocks are really big, and I can't put my arms around them..."
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LIchs' POV
Dreams.
I don't have them.
I think they're a waste of time.
So why am I in the middle of one right now?
I'm in a long hallway, devoid of furnishment or decoration. Bare grey walls surround me on all sides. I briefly ponder whether the walls are stone and, like magic, slabs appear and take shape. I think of it like dirt tunnel, and the walls obligingly respond.
I change it into a sweet-smelling wood, and inhale.
...I can smell. Strange, that something I was once so used to would provoke such nostalgia in me. I thought about what carpet feels like, and beneath my toes it appears. And I also realize.
I'm in my own body. Or it looks like me. And it feels...so...wrong. I picture Shess, and start to walk down the hall.
I...whatever my name was, I was a weakling. Someone who could only take what was given to me. And I was always given grief.
I hurried my steps. And my thoughts turned towards the most recent one...
A door opens to my right, and I peek in.
Ah. Yes. That's what it felt like to be torn apart and eaten like a chicken fillet. I'd almost forgotten. I turned away, and kept walking.
Doors whisked past me as fast as my thoughts, and slowly I got the hang of it. The farther forward I went, the older the memories. Bringing up specific ones would bring certain doors towards me. I don't know if it was the nostalgia, or perhaps I wanted to test the limits, but I went to the very first memory I had.
A baby-blue door with a childish handle. Inside...
---
"...why is he so quiet...?"
"It's alright, dear. I'm sure it'll be okay."
"But what if he's not able to speak?!"
"You don't need words to plant a field. It'll be okay, darlin."
---
I hadn't known what they were saying then, of course. It wasn't until I'd learned how to understand speech that I recalled the memory and slowly analyzed everything everyone had said about me up to this point. This brought another memory to mind...
A door. Metal, with bars. Rusted. Cracked. Broken.
Leaking.
The doorknob had nails driven into it. Something told me this would hurt. I was thankful for the pain.
---
My stomach screamed and my lungs froze. Yet another kick driven into my stomach to keep me from gaining my feet.
"Oi, come on. If you hit him that hard all at once, we won't get to keep going for as long."
"Yeah, yeah, but he was getting up. Creepy little bastard, always staying quiet."
My brothers continued. I tried to recall a happy memory, to go to my happy place, to think of something uplifting.
Nothing came to mind.
My oldest brother came by, holding a jagged piece of wood.
"Hey, this is boring. And my knuckles are sore, how abo-"
---
I blinked. In front of my, I say a second door, even more broken than the first. But the most defining feature were the black and purple tendrils weaving in between the cracks. I gave on a poke, but it didn't budge. No matter how hard I pulled, the lock only seemed to grow tighter.
So...this is what is holding my back. I had a thought.
I went back to that night, the one where thirteen doves and one demon came together...
A giant, spiked door. Steel and blackened tendrils sealed the door as if an unspeakable horror lay beyond. It was a seal worthy of a god.
And if I ever wanted my true power back, that was what I had to get through.
"...hah...fuck my life..."