“I assure you, you’re in no danger here,” The owner of the voice said nonchalantly before pausing. “Well, as long as you do nothing foolish, of course.” They amended.

That was pretty damn hard to believe, considering the source.

The path of undead had opened up into what looked like a…lab of some kind. In the odd green light of the underground cavern we’d been led to, there must have been dozens of workbenches both lined up against the walls and in neat rows in the floor space. Even more undead Orcs than had been forming the path were wandering the rows and...appeared to be checking various pieces of equipment? I watched as one former Orc stirred an unfamiliar potion, mindlessly turning a rod to swirl a pewter pot over an open flame. Another was assisting by seemingly minding the flame. Plenty of other scenes just like that occurred all over the bizarrely inappropriate lab space.

But none of that caught either my attention, or those of my companions, more than the master of this mausoleum.

What Dusk had called a Lich.

They, it, was some kind of floating…skeleton person, and yet their ‘body’ was altered. They had four skeletal arms, for one, while their skull seemed to have been replaced with something non-human. Non-Orchish, even. I think, from my time as a hunter, that it might be a bear skull. Seemingly grafted onto its smooth surface was a pair of what looked to be an impressively large set of moose antlers. The skull was directed our way, somehow watching us with eye sockets that possessed the same firey blue glow that the undead did. Their body was concealed by an impeccably maintained black silk robe fluttering in a non-existent breeze, with a short crimson cape thrown over the top set of their bony shoulders. They floated over a central slab in the middle of the cavern, seemingly under their own power, while an open leather-bound book did the same in the air next to them.

We seemed to have interrupted them in the middle of something, considering the surgical implements held in their four hands. My gaze drifted downwards to rest on the slab, and when I did, my heart stuttered in my chest.

Sylvia saw it too. Her hand, which had somehow ended up clutched in my mine, tightened. “Hook…” She whispered frightfully.

Our dwarven leader was lying on the slab that the Lich was floating over. The best I could say about him was that he was still breathing, from the stuttery rise and fall of his chest. But he was absolutely covered in blood.

Because it looked like the Lich had opened up his rib cage.

Even from where I stood, I could see straight into his chest. I watched in horror as the dwarf’s heart pulsed rhythmically, somehow still pumping blood through his body despite being exposed to the air.

He was awake, too. Hook’s head was turned to look our way, watching us…calmly?

Wait, what?

Brutally suppressing the emotional response the sight had instilled in me, I took another look.

Hook didn’t look alarmed at all. There was an almost bored look in his completely aware gaze. While his left arm looked to be strapped down, I watched as his right hand made an almost soothing gesture in our direction. Despite everything, I thought the dwarf was bizarrely saying that everything was…fine?

How the fuck was everything okay?

While I was inspecting Hook, everyone else was still for a moment. I think the Lich was watching us to see what we would do next.

I don’t think Dusk saw Hook’s gestures in her horror, because she made a move.

The wrong one.

Violently drawing the extendable spear I had lent her earlier, she triggered the mechanism. When it had reached its full length, she uncharacteristically snarled in an animalistic manner and made to leap at the Lich.

I saw the Lich tsk to himself, his bony jaw shifting slightly. One of his four hands rose, holding a blood-stained scalpel. Murky green Mana that practically screamed its strength into the world swirled into being, cupped in his thin fingers.

Fortunately, I had activated Sylvan Vigor active at full strength only a few moments ago.

I grabbed Dusk in a full nelson hold, my arms coming up from under her own to lace behind her neck. The Gnoll woman tensed in surprise, trying to instinctively bash my nose in with her skull. Thankfully, I took it on my chin. I still winced from the force of it, feeling a gash open up.

The Lich thankfully paused, eyeing me contemplatively.

“Nathan?!” I heard Sylvia exclaim, startled. “What are you doing?!”

“Gambling,” I grunted out, fighting to keep a hold of Dusk.

“Let go of me!” Dusk snarled again, almost rabidly. She struggled in my restraining hold, nearly overpowering me even in her disadvantaged state. Still, even if she was stronger than I was, she didn’t have the leverage to do anything about it.

“Hah,” The Lich chuckled dryly. “If you’re gambling, boy, then I’d say you played your hand well.”

“Dusk. Dusk!” I shouted at the Gnoll, as she writhed in my arms. “Look! Look at him! Does Hook look like he’s in pain?!”

Dusk’s struggles slowed, as she raised her furry head and took a closer look at Hook. Said spymaster had tried to raise up a little off the slab at Dusk’s fury, only for the Lich to casually push him back down with one skeletal arm. Even then, with his organs nearly falling out, Hook still didn’t look like he was in the agony he should be.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He just looked alarmed at Dusk’s reaction.

Sylvia came to stand beside me, having noticed what I did. “Sir?” She asked the splayed open form of Hook tentatively. “Are you…all right?”

I didn’t blame her for the doubt in her voice.

Hook tried to answer her, but only managed to wheeze. Probably because I could see that one of his lungs was deflated, in the open cavity of his chest.

I shuddered, but still didn’t let go of Dusk.

Since he couldn’t speak, Hook instead shrugged his one available shoulder.

The Lich spoke for him.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s ‘all right’,” The talking skeleton said, idly dancing a scalpel across one of his four sets of bony knuckles. “When one of my assistants found him after his apparent fall, the dwarf was near death. I was just in the middle of some, shall we say, ‘advanced first aid’.” He chuckled, the laugh ringing hollow from his animalistic skull. “His left arm is well and truly shattered, as well as a truly staggering fifteen of his ribs. One lung is deflated, while the other is currently struggling from bone shards embedded in it. There’s some additional organ damage in this fellow, but nothing that a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix from his Status.”

Dusk finally slowed, the Lich’s explanation finally piercing her fury. Instead, I could see the Gnoll woman start to outright boggle at the necromancer’s words.

I didn’t blame her. I was feeling it myself.

Gradually, I let go of Dusk. She slipped out of my arms bonelessly, the fight having apparently left her.

Meanwhile, Sylvia continued speaking for us. “Are you saying…that you’re trying to save his life?” She asked incredulously.

The Lich’s skull tilted to the side. “Indeed? Isn’t that what I just said?”

“But you’re a necromancer!” I nearly shouted, stopping myself at the last minute. “Isn’t death your whole thing?”

The floating pile of bones snorted. “My whole thing indeed. Young man, just because I’m quite skilled at necromancy doesn’t mean I’m not a skilled Surgeon as well. Even Liches used to need Professions, you know.”

“And…what will you do when you’re finished with your ‘surgery’?” Dusk asked slowly.

The Lich shrugged. “I shall pat the fellow on the back and direct him towards the surface, along with the rest of you. Really now, you’re all being quite rude,” He said, pointing a hand holding a bloody pair of forceps at us. “I’m performing quite the service for you, you know. I was paid good coin for similar procedures in life and here I am doing it for free.”

Hook raised his free hand and made a soothing gesture towards the Lich, while simultaneously shooting the three of us a nearly murderous look. He mouthed a sentence at us slowly.

‘Don’t antagonize him.’

Dusk, Sylvia, and I glanced at each other. I deliberately tried to calm myself as I smiled uneasily at the necromancer. “Ah…we apologize. Thank you for attending to our companion, Mr…?”

The Lich paused for a moment, tapping his skull over where his lips would be with one free hand. “Ah. I haven’t thought of names in quite some time. Hmm…” He said slowly, before making an amused noise. “I have an idea. You may call me Tlazocuauhtli, in honor of the city we reside under. Tlazo for short, as I doubt any of you are very familiar with Orcish.” He outright laughed then, the hollow noise echoing oddly off the stone walls of the cavern. ‘Tlazo’ paused at our perplexed expressions before shrugging. “The joke doesn’t translate well into Common.”

“I…see,” I said slowly, to the obviously insane necromancer. “So…Hook, our friend will be healed when you’re finished?”

“Yes, yes,” Tlazo said idly, bending back down to dig around in Hooks abdomen. I winced at the squishing and crackling noises that followed. “Well, not outright healed. I have no talent in that school of Magic. Rather, I will mend what I can while keeping him alive. When the procedure is complete, I will then graciously provide a potion to help him along and let his Status do the rest of the work. The dwarf shall be quite weakened for some time afterward, but he will recover. Eventually.”

I tried to keep it in. I really, really did.

But I had to know.

“Sir?” I asked tentatively, causing one of his glowing blue orbs to look up at me. “What are you doing down here? It’s just…we were ambushed by quite a number of undead before this and…”

“And you want to know if they were mine,” Tlazo answered, audibly bored. He fully raised his head, while two of his arms worked on autopilot with a set of needle and thread, stitching up something inside Hook without even looking. “Well, not entirely. Those are little better than semi-wild automatons, risen from being within the zone of my influence. I think of them as being wild hounds that keep the riff-raff away.”

“Those 'wild-hounds' nearly killed us,” Sylvia said quietly.

The Lich made a dismissive noise. “And? I’m not the one barging into someone else’s home. Don’t complain when the local wildlife tries to take a bite out of you. Really, it’s not much more different down here than a particularly musty jungle. Kill or be killed, as they say. Brace yourself, this will feel quite odd,” He said to the very attentive Hook. The dwarf tensed up as Tlazo ran a hand up and down the length of Hook’s apparently shattered left arm, a green glow affecting it. There was an odd crunching sound, like dozens of bones setting themselves back into place.

Hook shuddered. In fact, I shuddered as well.

“I’m not above sending grave diggers on their way if they manage to make it all the way down to my lab, however,” Tlazo said idly, spooling out another length of thread and resuming his stitching. “Well done and all that, etcetera, etcetera.”

“We’re not grave diggers,” I said, a little incredulous. “We’re just…” I winced and quieted under the harsh stare that Dusk sent me.

Tlazo paused for a moment, looking up at me. If he still had them, I’m sure the Lich would have been raising an eyebrow. “Just?”

I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, I didn’t have to say anything.

Hook unexpectedly coughed, his lungs apparently re-inflating. Leaning over the side of the slab he was on, he spat out a disgusting hunk of dark red blood and meat. Taking a deeper, clearer breath, he answered the Lich. “Taking the back path into Tlatec,” He said hoarsely.

“Oh?” Tlazo asked curiously. “The Orcs have shut their gates? Why?”

“Because…there’s a war on?”

“Oh. Ugh,” Tlazo literally waved my words off with one of his free hands, suddenly disinterested. “How pedestrian. I was hoping something more interesting was happening.”

I…guess a Lich located in an underground tomb wouldn’t know all that much about what was going on with the surface world.

However, he was interested in something else.

Or rather, someone.

“My dear, I have to say you intrigue me,” Tlazo said suddenly, casting a gaze over Sylvia. She tensed at his regard. “I can’t quite feel your bones. And…that’s quite a well-done illusion you have over yourself, for your level. Whatever could you be hiding?” Before she could even answer, the Lich waved his hand.

And the human-seeming illusion that Sylvia had been wearing since we’d arrived outside Elderwyck shimmered away. Her true Mithril self was reavealed, shining silver in the odd green light of the necromancer's torches.

The firey blue orbs set into Tlazo’s skull shut on and off a few times, as if he was blinking. “What? Did you perhaps transmute your entire body, young lady? That would be quite a feat, I must say.”

Did…this guy know nothing about the Sculpted?

How long had he been down here?

As Sylvia began to haltingly describe what the Sculpted were to a suddenly enraptured Tlazo, I wondered if it was a good idea to be telling him.

What good could come from an apparently powerful Lich becoming interested in the living again?