Despite my best efforts, I could not control my breath as a natural fight-or-flight response kicked in when I laid eyes on Ligram. Daphne’s body wasn’t doing me any favors, and the spear was the one thing keeping me on my feet.

“You’ve given those fools quite the runaround, haven’t you?” he said.

“You killed her,” I replied, my eyes struggling to decide which body to focus on.

“Yes, yes. She was going to get in the way. Can you really blame me for that? Would you have done different?” he asked.

Despite seeing where he was coming from, I refused to verbalize it and instead pointed my spear at him. I knew it would do little to deter the man, but it was the only thing I could think of to hide my fear.

The old man chuckled at my defiance, and he once more shook his head. Raising a crooked, wrinkled finger and dragging it down, the tip of the spear became laden with weight beyond what I could lift, pulling the spear tip into the ground. No matter how hard I pulled or pushed, the weapon would not move.

“No weapon and no magic. What are you going to do, little girl?” he asked, a question I did not have an answer to.

It was a fact I was quick to despise as the ground beneath the old man shifted. From the shifting ground came four bony hands attached to an arm just as decrepit. The fingers found a hold in the earth below and pushed their bodies to freedom.

While it should have been obvious, I let out a gasp when the form revealed itself to be a skeleton. Upon seeing the undead, I was more than willing to abandon the spear and flee. I couldn’t take two steps before something grasped my body, halting me in my tracks.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you run, little girl. Not when I have so many tests I want to run with you,” Ligram said, clicking his tongue as my body was forcefully turned back toward him.

“Gehenna said you wanted to take me in. You’re not allowed to hurt me!” I sputtered.

“That’s what the Order wants. For some reason, they think they can turn you against The Nest and join them. Likely just the Merthic woman’s desire to fulfill her mother’s wishes. A fool’s errand, really,” he replied.

“You’re part of the Order, aren’t you?”

“Only for my own gain. I don’t really care about “freeing humans from the thumb of dragons” or whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish. What I do care about are my experiments, experiments you are going to help me with,” he remarked. “Get to it.”

The moment the man finished his sentence, the skeletons surged forward, each trying to push past one another to get to me. Out of instinct, I reached out for the spear. The spear didn’t budge at first, but after a minute it was free.

By the time I had it in my grasp, the first skeleton was upon me. Without a care for the spear tip, I swatted at the boney figure like it was a club, bashing the bones and forcing them to fall apart in a heap.

That’s not too bad, I thought.

Before I could rejoice in my small victory, another skeleton was upon me, and he grabbed the spear, preventing me from swinging it again. In terms of strength, I could overpower him with relative ease. The problem came from the two others. While I could hold my own against one, the other two skeletons moved around and grabbed my arms, dragging me down to the ground.

Boney fingers tried to pull me down into the ground, and while the hard ground would not give, the fact there was one on each arm made it impossible to fight them off.

Although I was hesitant to use magic out of fear of the drawbacks I was already facing, I found it hard to believe I could escape without it. Pushing past the growing sense of nausea, I coaxed the ground beneath me to shoot up as jagged pillars, piercing the heads of the skeletons holding me down. As their bodies fell limp, I grasped the skull of the undead on top of me and let fire flow from my fingers.

The flames swept through his body, enveloping his bones and scorching them. As the skeleton turned black, I noticed carvings on the bones. Like with the teleportation circles, I did not recognize them, but the sight alone was enough to give me a sense of despair. There was nothing good that could come from runes, regardless of what they did.

The engravings drew in my fire, and while it started by filling them in, they soon started absorbing the flames, sucking them in as if I directed them there myself. When I tried to stop my magic, the flow would not stop and continued against my will. My nausea worsened until seeing straight was nothing more than a pipe dream before I could put an end to my fire.

I knew it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but it looked as though the skeleton was laughing at me, mocking me for being a fool for doing such a thing. While he laughed, his bones glowed the same color as my fire, radiating heat just the same. When the bones burned my skin, I realized what I was seeing was not a hallucination but the real thing.

Not knowing what to expect, I shielded my face from whatever was to come. Seconds after I raised my hands to protect myself, the skeleton exploded. Shards of bone flew in every direction. Most bounced off to the side and in the air, but there were still plenty that shot into my arms and torso. While nothing cut deep, it was deep enough to sting and draw blood.

I cried out in pain as I tried to pull myself to my feet, each shard implanted in my skin crying as I moved. When I failed to find my footing, I settled for sitting and waiting for everything to stop spinning.

“Wonderful, wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!” Ligram cheered.

“What was that supposed to test?” I asked.

The answer to my question was not one I cared about. What I did care about was if it would distract him long enough for me to stand on my own. With a little luck, it would preoccupy him enough that I could cast another spell.

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Fog. I’ll use fog, I thought, knowing attacking him would be a fool's errand.

“Runes meant to absorb magic. It was a shame you destroyed the first three the way you did, but that fire? Perfection,” he answered.

“Why didn’t you use your own magic then?”

“My undead will not be fighting me. Why would I test them as such? I already know the runes cannot take high levels of mana without imploding. No point in wasting undead learning something I already know,” he explained.

“Why would you need to test that?” I pressed.

“Simple, I need to know how much they can take when dealing with future members of The Nest to see where they can be improved and perfected.”

“Why would you need to know that? Going head on with The Nest isn’t in your best interest, is it? Otherwise, would the Ordelia Order be doing that already?” I asked.

Ligram did not respond, at least not at first. I could feel his eyes looking me over, and I flinched when he laughed.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked once he regained control of his voice.

“You’re Ligram, but do go on if there’s more,” I answered.

“Yes, yes, that is my name, but who is Ligram?”

The old man did not give me enough time to consider the answer before he started laughing once more. At the same time, the light illuminating the city streets dimmed, allowing his light green eyes to outshine everything. My lungs had the air ripped out of them, and when I tried to take a breath, I found there was nothing for me to take in.

“I am Ligram, the King of Liches, Lord of the Undead, and Master of Death itself!” he boomed. “Gods of the dead and death alike tremble at the sound of my name. The afterlife has tried for millennia to stop my necromancy, and for millennia, they have failed. Every hell and every heaven have barred me from their gates. My soul has rotten away, and there is no longer anything for demons or Grim Reapers to grab ahold of!”

To boast further, Ligram raised his hands into the air, causing transparent heads the same color as his eyes to pull free of the ground. Once free, they weaved around his body, with a few venturing out to take a bite at me. Before they could sink their ghostly teeth into my flesh, an invisible cord ripped them back to him. When he dropped his staff back to the ground, everything ended. Not only did the faces return to the ground, but I could breathe.

“The Ordelia Order is lucky to have me join their ranks, even if it is only temporary. I, and I alone, am the reason the Order can be as bold as they are,” Ligram finished.

“So you’re the one who got them in so close to The Nest,” I asked, coughing through the words.

“Of course I’m not. My work would never be so shotty,” he answered.

“Then who did?”

The old man opened his mouth to answer, but shut it as his familiar smile grew on his face.

“Perhaps I’ve said too much. Oh well, it won’t amount to much,” he mumbled, stroking his chin. “You’ve stalled for long enough. Let us move on to my next experiment.”

By the time Ligram came to his decision, I had regained enough of my bearings to see straight, but I had zero confidence I could take on whatever he threw at me. With no other choice, however, I raised Gehenna’s spear toward him for whatever was to come next.

Tapping his staff against the ground twice, his light green light spread across the ground like cracks, creeping their way toward Daphne’s body. When I realized what he was doing, it was too late for me to do anything about it. I grimaced as his magic infected her as it spread through her limbs.

Wobbly legs pushed her body back up, and shaky hands reached towards me. As if it were her first time walking, half of her legs gave out beneath her, and she collapsed into a heap. What I was not expecting was for the parts that hit the ground to disintegrate into dust.

“A puppet?” Ligram screamed, his head shooting to the sky.

I followed his gaze, but the sound of an explosion diverted my attention. A few streets down, I saw both Gehenna and Gor in full sprint.

"Ligram, you worthless lich!” Gor shouted, her large hands reaching to grab the old man by the neck.

Gehenna was quick to intercept the lizard woman with the sword I planted on her.

“Now is not the time to quarrel amongst ourselves. The Nest has learned of our position, and if we stay here, everything we have spent building will be for naught,” she reasoned.

Gor glared at the elf as if doing so would make her relent, but when she saw she would not, the lizard woman let out a sigh.

“Fine. Be sure this sack of bones comes along this time,” she relented.

A swipe of her club ripped a portal into the air that sucked in the surrounding dirt and dust. When she walked through it slapped shut just as it opened.

“Ligram,” Gehenna began.

“I know, I know. Wouldn’t want to tear down everything,” he yielded.

Pointing his staff into empty space, an empty portal swirled into being. Unlike the lizard woman’s, his exit released dust and ash that sizzled in contact with the ground. There was a reluctant sense of astonishment when he walked in, no different from seeing someone walk through fire.

“One would think someone as old as him would know the pointlessness of theatrics,” Gehenna commented as she turned her attention to me. “I believe you have something of mine.”

It was hard not to feel grateful for her intervention, even if she was not the one responsible for it. Despite the gratitude I felt toward her, I hugged the spear tighter, unwilling to give her anything.

Rolling her eyes with a chuckle, Gehenna extended her hand out to her spear. No matter how hard I grasped the weapon, there was nothing I could do to stop it from escaping my grip, and it flew back to its original owner.

“Your little trick surprised me, child. Despite having little Aura to work with, you made more of what you had than most others would have. While we may be on opposite sides, I must congratulate you for that. We could most certainly use someone like-”

“I will not join you or the Order. I will never turn my back on The Nest,” I interjected.

My words pierced through the air the elf was trying to put on, and she frowned when she could not make her proposition.

“I used to think like you, Guinevere. I used to think that dragons could do no wrong and my people foolish for rejecting them. I no longer think that, and for good reason, I just wish you could have seen what I did so you could avoid the mistakes I made,” she mourned, shaking her head.

“You turned your back on The Nest for a pipe dream. I will do no such thing,” I chastised.

Gehenna shook her head at my words.

“Is that so?”

With a bow and not another word, the elf turned around, and her form glowed. Seconds later, she dissipated into the same lights that the others appeared in.