Foglat was old, too old. He had seen so many things in his life. There were things he remembered that were good and many more that were not. But at last, he was coming to the end of his days. He had been a teacher of magic for the last quarter of his life.
He couldn’t count the number of students he had told to avoid the path he was considering. The temple of Reyalla was a place of learning magic. Most just called it the wizard’s guild but it was more. Reyalla was the goddess of life and magic so where a normal wizard’s guild would only have wizards, her temples had clerics as well. She was a very well regarded goddess by any standard and her temples got the same regard.
Why then was Foglat so worried about the magic research in front of him? Why would he fear any kind of magic? Put simply, it was taboo and he knew it! This was a manuscript detailing the process of becoming a lich. By all rights he shouldn’t even be looking at this manuscript but burning it.
There were creatures described as evil and then there were those described as pure evil. Liches were counted among the latter. Foglat knew that already and had no desire to become a being of pure evil. The thing was, as he was reading it, he found several places where the rituals called for certain items of evil. There were spots where the rituals called for the mage to make vows to the gods of evil.
Everywhere Foglat looked in the original manuscript, there were processes that asked for evil to be inserted into the process. Foglat had an idea then. What would happen if he were to insert good items and vows to good deities in place of the evil ones.
It took him a few moons to finish his secret research project. He had to keep it secret because the ritual for becoming an undead was forbidden. Especially to an adherent of the goddess of life, Reyalla. Foglat however, had an idea to become the first pure good lich. If this worked he would revolutionize magic theory.
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He really wished he could see it performed on another individual but he had to keep it secret. Nobody would volunteer for this sort of thing so it was left to him. It would be a one chance sort of thing. He made his preparations during the night but he had his ritual set to happen during the next day.
It was a holiday and almost everyone would be out of the temple. The temple would not be this deserted for another year. Truth be told, Foglat would have liked another year to prepare and refine the ritual. However, he could feel himself becoming increasingly weaker and worried that he might die before he got the chance to finish the ritual next year.
He made the preparations the night before so here he was out in the courtyard of the temple. He had locked all of the doors that led to the courtyard and had shuttered all the windows. He began his ritual and after three uninterrupted hours he had come to the conclusion of the ritual.
Foglat paused here for a good several minutes. The last of the ritual was stabbing a dagger into his heart. It wasn’t too late to stop, sure he had made vows to most of the gods of good but he could probably get out of those vows. Then again, he might not live long enough to cancel all the vows he had made, unless he could live on as a lich. Ok, so there really wasn’t any turning back.
Foglat plunged the dagger into his heart and as he was fading he suddenly felt himself drifting. He opened his eyes and he could tell that he was different. He could feel that he wasn’t alive by the lack of pain. Wait, there was pain, a sort of burning pain in his feet.
Foglat looked down and he saw that his feet were on fire where he stood. He began dancing around trying to stomp the flames out. This only seemed to make it worse. Then his feet began to crumble to dust and her fell face first on the ground. The pain grew more intense by the second.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped. Foglat looked around and spotted a pile of ash and robes where his body used to be. He then looked over at the vessel he was supposed to have his soul stored in. He had used the horn of a unicorn that was killed by mistake on a hunting trip some years back. Suddenly the horn grew brighter and he was expecting to be drawn into the horn where he could await the respawning of his body. The horn didn’t draw him in though, it exploded. The last thing Foglat heard was a woman’s voice whispering as though in his ear. “Foglat, I had so looked forward to speaking with you. What am I to do with you now? Why did you forsake me?”