Eight Era, cycle 1720 – cycle of the incontinent cow, season of Unkh, day 82

Joha nodded. This strange man didn’t seem to be a threat; Sylvain seemed to be a man obsessed and, whilst that in itself could be dangerous, this man was not a problem for the Prophet. They could return with the message that the undead weren’t a horde and were more of a threat to the locals than they were to anyone else. Perhaps a powerful necromancer could organise them into a sort of military force, but Joha had already decided that Sylvain had no inclination to do that.

A shimmering curtain of brown light hovered in the air, and Joha watched as a creature appeared slowly from out of it. It was all so sudden that nobody reacted.

‘Heal me,’ it hissed in a voice that was little more than the sound of air escaping from the lungs.

Sylvain looked up and took a step back. ‘You? What are you doing here? You were a mistake,’ Sylvain said, sounding not afraid but guarded.

‘Fix me,’ the creature demanded, and it fired a blast of lightless magicka at Sylvain, but a corpse rose from a table and threw itself in the way.

‘You cannot think to fight me? And especially here, in my domain?’ Sylvain queried, sounding truly shocked.

‘You are but a puppet master; I am a no mere puppet,’ the creature replied.

The creature was a collection of mismatched body parts, presumably one of Sylvain’s experiments. The legs were several inches different in height, but the creature didn’t walk; it hovered a few inches above the ground. Its bare chest showed criss-crossing stitching like a quilt, and the arms weren’t remotely similar. One seemed to be off a bodybuilder, whilst the other was possibly from a child. Its face was largely unblemished, although there were scars near the ears and temples, and the eyes were mismatched.

‘Yet I summoned you, which gives me some command control when it comes to a face off. Do not push me; I allowed you free but I cannot be ordered,’ confirmed Sylvain.

There was a sudden commotion as something else appeared out of the portal and rolled along the floor. Everyone, even the lich, stopped to look.

‘Moojan?’ Joha asked shocked; this was like a cheesy serial novel.

Moojan got up quickly and looked around. ‘Joha? Kaysar? Where am I?’

‘How did you follow?’ the lich questioned in its rasp.

‘A door once opened can be used by anyone,’ Moojan verified.

‘Foolish child, such unthinking action could have killed you. Such a portal is not to be used by the living,’ the lich said.

‘I lost a few life points, sure, but nothing serious,’ Moojan responded, standing and brandishing his sword with a flourish.

The lich turned to Sylvain and pointed a finger at him. ‘You, mage, make me a stronger form so that I might smite these insects.’

‘Kaysar, show this lich what a champion of the melee can do!’ Moojan suggested, with the confidence of someone laying down the Diablos card.

Kaysar looked at Moojan and then at the lich, and then rubbed his arm. After a moment he nodded and stepped forwards, drawing a long, thin sword.

‘Kaysar is one of our elite; I’ve seen him face off against a level-40-plus ophiotaurus singlehanded,’ Moojan explained.

The lich didn’t hesitate; it screamed and fired a continuous beam of dirty, green light at Kaysar, who moved; he was fast, but he reacted to the attack slowly, so the beam hit him before his guard was fully up and he was thrown off his feet.

Moojan blinked, stunned by how easily Kaysar was taken out. ‘Kaysar, you fool, get in the game! Why haven’t you kept in shape? Your legend deserves more than you turning your back on your own gifts!’

The lich cried out in triumph and let forth a strange, painful screech; the sound cut through them, bypassed the brain and set the nerves on edge.

You have been afflicted: curse of the lich

You have been afflicted by a spell from a lich; you suffer the following debuffs:

Strength 25%, concentration 25%, balance 25%, composure 25%

Joha felt his hands start to shake and a cold sweat ran down his spine. The lich thrust its hand into the sky, an ethereal shape formed above the palm of its hand and, with a quick movement, it threw its hand down and the shape shot at Kaysar. The object slammed into him and tossed him through the air again, slamming him into the wall.

‘Kaysar, Kaysar, what’s going on? What are you doing? Fight, man!’ Moojan shouted, and he charged the lich.

The lich flicked its arm, and a shockwave blasted towards Moojan, who dove to the ground in a slide, and the shockwave passed above his head. He jumped to his feet and stabbed at the lich, who glided backwards out of reach. The lich wasn’t fast, but being able to glide meant it was able to skip back out of range with effortless ease. It thrust a hand forwards, and Moojan rocked like he’d run into a wall, and blood burst from his nose and ears.

Moojan dropped to his knees, and the lich summoned another ethereal object, but before it could cast, Nasredin appeared from behind it and stabbed it for a critical hit. The lich jerked sideways from the wound, and Nasredin unleashed a flurry of blows. The lich was struck by the first flurry, but was able to move away quicker than Nasredin could follow and was soon out of reach, only for an arrow to smack into its head; it dropped to the floor, stunned.

A fortifying sound filled the air: a song with a driving bassline, and Tariq’s voice followed the music.

Buff added: song of rallying

The song fills you with strength from its charging rhythm and aggressive lyrics, fortifying your fighting spirit.

Increase of 5% to combat skills

A white haze descended over Kaysar as Wira cast a healing spell, the lich screamed in rage, and all the corpses rose to their feet and charged.

Nasredin turned at the sound of the horde, disappeared using his rogue skill and appeared behind a corpse, digging his dagger into is neck and severing its spine. The corpse dropped, and Nasredin turned at the sound of another reanimated corpse and used his dagger to deflect a blow before jamming his blade up into its jaw to the hilt. However, the creature was immune to such damage, so it struck Nasredin in the chest hard enough to crack a rib.

The lich had moved silently – as it glided, it had no footfalls to give away its position – and it appeared behind Nasredin and cast a spell that wrapped its hand and arm in a ghostly sheen. The lich went to plunge the arm into Nasredin’s back, yet Nasredin was an accomplished rogue in his own right, and somehow sensed the attack and dodged it.

Joha swung his war hammer and crushed the skull of a risen corpse. The rancid and rotten flesh exploded in a pungent stench, which made everyone gag. It was to prove a costly distraction; as Yanto gagged and choked, a corpse moved over to him, unnoticed, and struck him over the head. The fist was thrown with unrestrained power and it hit Yanto with enough force to cause his skull to fracture, and a bone shard embedded itself into his brain. Yanto was dead before he hit the floor.

‘Enough!’ shouted Sylvain, and a pulse of power that felt like walking through cobwebs spread out from him, causing all the dead things to stop moving and then the tethers shimmered in the air and congregated around Sylvain as he took control of all except for the lich, who hissed.

‘You do not control me!’ the lich screamed, and it grabbed a corpse. In moments, the corpse deflated like it was a human-shaped balloon, and the lich threw the corpse at Sylvain, who threw up a hand, causing the body to drop from the air like a brick. The lich had already grabbed a second corpse and then a third before Sylvain understood.

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‘Attack it; it takes the experience of each corpse it feeds on to grow exponentially in power!’

‘Are you serious?’ Joha yelled in disbelief.

Sylvain moved his hands in a complex rhythm and created an orb of nothingness; the orb cast a complete shadow in its wake, which lasted for several moments after the orb had moved. The lich fired its own spells at the entropic orb, and Nasredin took the opportunity to attack, cutting the lich deep in the bicep in an attempt to sever the tendon and stop it from ever casting a spell again.

‘No!’ Sylvain screamed, but it was too late.

The lich picked up Nasredin and held him before the orb.

Nasredin twisted and fought; he stabbed the lich in the arms, but the mismatched creature felt no pain. As the orb approached, Nasredin screamed, and, slowly, his body and clothes hardened and cracked. By the time the orb reached him, Nasredin had crumbled to dust, and the orb exploded unleashing all the energy it had absorbed. The shockwave stuck Joha and removed half his life points; he staggered to his knees with a stunned notification obscuring his vision. He blinked away double vision, frowned as something appeared inches from his face and then screamed as a part of the celling collapsed onto his leg.

‘Joha!’ Moojan called before being interrupted by a second scream.

‘Wira!’ Tariq cried, having been forced to stop his song by the shockwave.

Wira’s cry of pain was curtailed, in turn, as his throat was ripped out by the teeth of a reanimated orc. The curved tusks of the orc had chunks of Wira’s flesh and neck muscles hanging from them, and a heavy spray of blood covered its face.

‘It’s casting a summoning!’ Sylvain yelled.

In the confusion of the explosion, the lich had used the opportunity to cast a barrier and then start a summoning spell.

‘For what?’ Moojan asked, struggling to concentrate with so many distractions.

‘A lesser daemon I think,’ Sylvain confirmed.

‘We cannot allow such a being into the world!’ Tariq said unnecessarily; everyone knew the dangers of daemons.

‘Kaysar, now this is it. Stop this befuddled act. What happened was a tragedy, but put your act in order and take out this creature’s barrier!’ Moojan shouted.

Kaysar stood on shaky legs, held his sword out perpendicular to his body and closed his eyes channelling his remaining stamina. A violet light, dark enough to be near invisible in the gloom of the chamber, surrounded his body and then was channelled into his sword. When the light completely left his body, his eyes opened and he started running as the violet haze surrounding the sword started sparking white lightning. One of the flashes lanced out and struck the ground, and the flagstones shattered, with small stone chips spraying out as shrapnel. Kaysar became distracted and staggered, and then the power channelled into the sword was instantly released in a small explosion that tossed Kaysar backwards.

Moojan’s mouth dropped open and he sprinted over to the dazed form of Kaysar. ‘Look at me; look at me!’ Moojan shouted shaking Kaysar. ‘What has got into you? Wait, open your eyes, and let me see them clearly.’

There was a silence as Moojan and Kaysar locked eyes.

‘How long?’ Moojan asked in a whisper, then asked again, but this time spat it out ‘How long?’

‘It’s not, I’m not… I’m not addicted. It’s only once or twice a week, just enough to stop the dreams,’ Kaysar replied.

‘You’re one of the chosen, one of the elite, and I just watched you fail to hold an ability. That’s basic control,’ Moojan declared, his voice full of loathing.

‘It’s not… I just lost concentration. A bit of a flashback, that’s all. It’s just simple PTSD; I’ll be fine.’

‘You don’t have PTSD; you’re high!’

‘I’m not. I just need a little to cope. You don’t understand.’

‘What I understand is that you’re unable to perform your duties whilst under command and in hostile territory. That’s a capital offence. I could kill you right now, and they’d pin a medal on me.’

‘You four, clear the temple. This will cause a large fallout, and the Trilth Ggagglio may not survive,’ Sylvain said as he summoned a spectral form. The form was colossal; even though the form summoned could only be seen from the chest upwards, it still filled the room from floor to ceiling.

The form held out its hand, and the sound of a million buzzing insects (or perhaps the sound you hear when walking underneath an electricity pylon) filled the room, and light bent and warped until a sword was held in the form’s hand. It adjusted its shoulders and stabbed forwards; the sword struck the lich’s barrier, and the forces involved caused a small explosion that further cracked the already abused walls and ceiling.

‘Go!’ Tariq screamed, and he started to head to the stairs, stopping when he noticed Moojan hurry over to Joha’s trapped body. He hesitated for a moment, but ran over to Moojan and Joha to help.

‘His leg’s crushed; we need to move that boulder,’ Moojan said trying to lift it; he failed, and then pushed his back against it and tried to shove it.

Joha screamed as the boulder ground against his leg; a burst of blood exploded from beneath the boulder as its weight shifted, and it crushed Joha’s leg further. Moojan and Tariq managed to move the boulder, but a shockwave from the breaking of the lich’s shield threw the two to the ground and they dropped the boulder. Joha screamed as the boulder landed on his chest, and his voice was cut out as blood welled from his mouth; he coughed and a stream of blood oozed out from between his lips.

‘Joha, hang on, brother,’ Moojan encouraged, trying to push the boulder with Tariq’s help as further chunks of ceiling fell.

‘Moojan, we need to go; this place is collapsing,’ Tariq declared.

‘I’m not leaving my brother!’ Moojan spat, as part of the roof collapsed around them in an explosion of dust. ‘Tariq, go; it isn’t safe,’ Moojan said, coughing.

‘But you two…’ Tariq began hesitantly.

‘We’ll be fine; I’ve got this.’

Tariq looked into Moojan’s eyes, and then nodded.

‘Moojan, I’m scared,’ Joha said weakly as the room shook, and he coughed up blood.

‘It’s okay, Joha; I’m here,’ Moojan responded, clutching his brother’s hand as Tariq tried to squeeze through the nearly blocked off path to the stairs.

‘I don’t want to die,’ Joha whispered.

‘Shush now; do you remember when we were kids? That glade we used to play in?’

‘You said it was a giant’s footprint,’ Joha recalled, as he coughed up yet more blood.

‘That’s right,’ Moojan agreed, and, as the room shook and collapsed, Moojan took his brother back to a happier time and held his brother’s hand until the end.

*

‘Ah, Spymaster, here you are. I was rather hoping we’d received word from our little “experiment”,’ the Deacon said, clasping his hands together behind his back. The Deacon was a small man with heavily embroidered robes and a hat that would be dashing on someone with a bit more height – or a stronger face.

‘Deacon Maxwell Calder; it’s a pleasure,’ the Spymaster welcomed. The Spymaster had a habit of finding out something you didn’t wish anyone to know and slipping it into a conversation; in the Deacon’s case it was his first name, “Maxwell”. The name wasn’t popular since the genocidal activities of Doctor Maxwell.

The Spymaster wore a robe that hid any hint of shape and a hooded cowl, which hid the Spymaster’s face. The Spymaster’s voice was oily and slightly masculine, but not so much that it couldn’t be a woman putting on a male voice.

The Spymaster was tying up a scroll before attaching it to an albatross. The Spymaster’s handwriting was feminine, but – like the voice – not so much that a male couldn’t have faked it.

The Deacon waited; the Spymaster had heard his request and the Spymaster didn’t forget – ever.

‘The little soirée into Kadambas lands? I am pleased to say that it was, on the whole, a success. Although, that is to say, not without its complications,’ the Spymaster confirmed.

The Deacon didn’t wait this time; the Spymaster wasn’t prone to volunteering information. It was one of the Spymaster’s better qualities, perhaps the only one. ‘And these complications were?’

‘The three young men appear to have died, as we hoped.’

‘Appeared?’

‘We have yet to recover the bodies. However, Kaysar appears to have survived – despite his predilection for narcotics, and we made sure he had access to them. It will be easy enough to make the man into an addict to make sure he will never talk to anyone. The bigger complications being the death of both Mireille and Moojan.’

‘What? How did this happen?’

‘My rats inform me that the creature generated an explosion that allowed one of the abomination’s guards to overcome Mireille. As for Moojan…’ The Spymaster opened its arms. ‘Who can say? Regardless, we cannot admit to their presence. Still, the death of the other three is enough to make a diplomatic scene, and we can make sure the presence of – what I believe is being called a lich – killed our envoy of peace will help raise tensions. That coupled with a few other little incidents should leave us in a prime position to enrage our civilians and create a position where we can claim that we are at war with Kadambas. That is to say, Kadambas is at war with us, and we actually need to retaliate without the need to worry about naysayers querying escalation.’

‘Excellent. What about Mireille and Moojan? Their parents will be asking troublesome questions.’

The Spymaster shrugged. Troublesome questions were the name of the game, and the Spymaster had long since grown accustomed to blanking people out.

‘Their families are favoured by the Prophet,’ the Deacon persisted.

The Spymaster mused over this. ‘We shall give him other sport. Deaths aren’t unknown; I can predate some orders, for which – regrettably – I had the wrong information, and they died in, say, Hevalous?’

The Deacon grunted; he didn’t care where, just that it wasn’t traceable. ‘There will be a war?’ the Deacon asked with a rare sign of weakness in his voice.

‘There shall, depend upon it.’