Jace was expecting a prison. What they found after a few minutes of travel was more akin to a throne room. It actually reminded Jace of Mumm-Ra’s temple from the Thundercats cartoon in the 80s. Immense statues of demonic creatures flanked an open aisle leading to a dark pool of water. At least, Jace hoped it was water. A dozen steps rose behind the pool to a stage where two sarcophagi sat connected with tubes and cables that looked like a cross between alien technology and demonic squid tentacles. A raised stone altar ran up the center of the stairs, connecting the pool’s edge to a pair of cables that joined in with the rest of the machine.
“Ancient spirits of evil,” Jace muttered, “transform this decayed form to Mumm-Ra, the ever-living.”
{Wow,} Gracie said. {You are old.}
Jace ignored her and focused on the scene before him. Esther and Snowy stayed back, not wanting to venture forth. Jace caught Esther’s right hand slinking under the pleats of her skirt where her gem bag was and where the undead stone was stored. “Keep your weapons ready,” he said, trying to find her something else to do with her hands. She jolted to attention as if she had been in a trance, and her hands snapped to the hilts of her rapiers. “I don’t know what we are going to face.”
{Neither do I,} Gracie said. {You are pretty far off-script at this point. Normally Elconoric is standing at the top of the steps and thanking you for freeing the stones. They are already loaded into the equipment, and he is only missing the girl, who is in a holding cell waiting for you.}
Jace saw the three empty sockets, one on the central altar and two on a box between the coffins where the cables terminated. One was above the other, with several carved arrows showing the power flow from the input gem to the output.
{You need to get the girl and bring her back. The lich can’t leave this room, but there are passages and rooms beyond this hall to hold minions or worshipers. They are all empty, save Draeklynn.}
Jace hesitated to move any closer, fearing the demonic statues might come to life. It looked like they were doubling as support pillars, and perhaps they couldn’t move without the vaulted ceiling crashing down, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it. Jace swallowed his fear and was about to investigate the setup closer when the water in the pool rippled.
A smooth head rose through the surface as a human face emerged. What Jace had thought was a bald head was instead a golden cap covered with gemstones. Assuming this was the lich, Jace had expected an old, shriveled man playing the part of a beggar looking for food. Instead, he had the body of a youthful athlete, muscular and lean. He wore only a loin cloth, and Jace heard Esther gasp sharply at the attractive man.
“Don’t flirt with the 300-year-old undead guy,” Jace said.
“Three hundred?” she asked. “Too young for me.”
This drew a look from Jace, and he turned back to the woman, but she kept her eyes glued forward, her hands still on her weapons. Jace returned to the lich, who stepped out of the water and picked up a robe hidden behind the pool’s rim. “You are late,” Elconoric said, his voice filling the room as if amplified by perfect acoustics. His baritone timber moved through Jace like warm tea on a cold morning. He heard Esther gasp again. His vampire companion was supposed to be the one that enthralled people, not the other way around. Jace wasn’t sure how to defeat this creature with Esther’s help. If she were on the other side, this would be hopeless.
“I said,” the ancient mage repeated, “you’re late. I’ve had to purge the bath for any remnants of energy from the last feeding. I didn’t find much.” He paused and looked at his reflection in the still pool. After removing the golden cap, he had wavy brown hair, and he ran his fingers through it as he examined his appearance. “Not bad for now.”
Jace still hadn’t spoken, waiting for an opening or opportunity to work a plan. Elconoric walked around the pool to stand in front of it at the same elevation as his guests, only 40 feet away. “I am usually alerted to your arrival by the descent of the stones. I have not seen them. Did something go . . .” his voice trailed off as his vision adjusted to the low light in the room, having just been submerged in the magical water. He was looking at an orc, a winter wolf, and a vampire with a heartbeat.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked.
“Our apologies, your grace,” Esther said, stepping before Jace and kneeling on the ground. “We have brought the stones to facilitate the ceremony. We thought it best to present them ourselves.” She said this with her eyes on the ground. Jace’s jaw was there too.
“Lift your face to me, my dear. What have they done to you? Do you have the life gem? Is it masking your true form?”
Esther obeyed and lifted her eyes to the lich. Now Elconoric gasped and took a step back. “No, but you are truly alive. How?” He looked back at the device he used to suck the essence out of his bicentennial sacrifices. After a transfer, he felt almost alive. His body warmed, and his skin glowed with power, but his heart did not beat, and his lungs did not draw breath.
“My master did this to me,” Esther said humbly. Her eyes left the lich’s briefly to look up and back at Jace.
“The orc?”
“He is more than a simple orc. He is the most powerful being in the realms.”
As Elconoric laughed, Jace looked with awe at Esther. Was she playing? Was she setting him up? Was this a plan that could work? Or was she enthralled and just saying what she believed?
“You wish to be more than animated flesh and blood?” Jace asked once the lich’s laughter died down. “More than an imprisoned undead?”
“Does this look like a prison?” Elconoric shouted. “I am more free than you, more than all of you up on the surface, moving through your wasted lives, not understanding strength or hunger. You live, you fight, you die, and for what? If you only knew what true power was.”
Jace frowned. Was this the best Gandhi could do? A tired speech about power from a megalomaniac. Still, he could work with this. He allowed his frown to persist as he waited for the lich to finish his diatribe. “You have all the power in the world,” Jace said, trying to make it both a statement and a question, “yet you wait on us mere mortals to provide the means to continue your existence. And you look upon my living vampire with envy.”
“Your vampire? Envy?” Elconoric boiled with rage. Jace hoped he hadn’t pushed it too far. “How do you say these things? You do not know of what you speak.”
“Don’t I,” Jace challenged. “I am more than I seem.”
“We shall see,” the lich said, and Jace saw him begin to cast a spell.
{Well,} Gracie said with a sense of resignation, {It was fun while it lasted.}
Jace knew he couldn’t repel whatever the undead mage was about to cast and looked forlornly down at Esther, who still knelt before him. Who knows what her fate would be? He paused. The woman flicked her wrist without turning around, and an emerald light flickered through the air before him. Jace reached out, grasped the life stone in the center of his palm, and felt the energy course through him just as the lich’s death spell washed over his body.
He didn’t die.
{I think she has now officially saved your life more often than you have saved hers.}
Elconoric’s eyes had gone black during the powerful spell, and he hadn’t seen the transfer of the stone. While he didn’t comprehend the game mechanics, he had instinctual knowledge that Jace couldn’t have recovered anything from his inventory in the time it took the lich to cast the spell. He did not know what this orc had done to withstand his most potent magic, but he wasn’t as dismissive as before.
“What are you?” the lich asked.
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“I am your savior,” Jace replied. “Your death magic has no power over me. I alone hold the key to eternal life. I can bring the dead back,” he motioned to Esther before him, hoping his pastor would never hear any of this. “I can bring you back.”
“And if I do not want to go back? If I have grown accustomed to this . . . life?”
Jace shrugged. “Then we will perform the ceremony, and you can sleep for fifty years without ever knowing what it means to be truly awake. To be truly alive. You may not desire to see the sun or an ocean horizon, but what about the taste of wine on your tongue? The feeling of blood pumping through your body? The smell of roasting meat? The touch of a woman.” Esther did her part by catching the lich’s eye and licking her lips. “If none of this appeals to you, just say so, and we will do as you wish.”
“I do not believe you,” Elconoric said. “I do not trust you. With what power do you do this?”
“With the power of the stones,” Jace replied. “The power of dragons, the oldest living members of the surface world. And with the power of youthful life.” Jace looked around as if searching out the hall for the first time. “Where is the girl? Was not a sacrifice sent ahead of us?”
Elconoric’s face was unreadable. Was this orc telling the truth? Did he truly have this power? His eyes went to the vampire still on her knees. How else could she be explained? Either way, they needed the girl. “She is in one of the rooms in the back. Fetch her while I consider your claims. I will not be played the fool.”
Jace bowed respectfully, and Esther rose from the ground. They saw an open door behind the dais and quickly left the room.
“What happened in there?” Jace asked once they walked down a dim corridor lit by magical red torches. “Did he cast a spell on you? Were you enthralled?”
Esther spun on him. “No more than you were when we first met,” she bit back. “I think I handled it much better than you did.”
Jace conceded the point. “But now, what do we do?”
“Making the plan is not my job,” she replied.
Jace conceded that as well and was soon lost in thought. Esther turned to Snowy. “Can you smell the girl? I am sure she is frightened.”
The wolf put her nose in the air and soon had the scent. Less than a minute later, the trio stood outside a door barred from the outside. Once inside, they saw a young woman lying curled up on a hard cot. A bucket of dirty water sat beside her and nothing else. Jace moved to her side to see if he could heal her. She was at level 9, and he assumed the 23 HP that showed above her still form was not her full health. He had a ring that healed Ordered characters double but could do nothing for Chaotic. Before wasting the little mana he had regenerated, he asked Gracie.
{She is usually Balanced, but she isn’t always even a “she.” Sometimes she is a male elf or a halfling. The roles of Draeklynn and Dayrin vary from quest to quest, depending on the player who initiates them. I can’t see her character sheet unless she joins your party, which she will do if you ask her. Of course, she will die shortly after you feed her to the lich, so it is short-lived.}
Jace decided not to dwell on his operator’s negativity. Snowy could heal a party member by 50 points three times a day, and she had already done that twice. Of course, Draeklynn wasn’t a party member yet. Jace was about to put his hand on her arm to wake her when Esther stopped him.
“Boss,” she said. “You might want to do something about your face first. You’re kind of orcish. Trust me; it isn’t the best thing to wake up to.” She paused awkwardly. “I mean, I don’t mind. I think you look fine as you are. I would love to wake up to your face. . . I mean, I’m not saying I want to wake up next to you, or that I don’t, but I mean . . .”
Jace held up a hand to stop her rambling. “I understand.” He spent 25 mana to return to his human form. It would last 30 minutes, but Elconoric would likely dispel it as soon as they returned to the main hall anyway, fearing more trickery.
Draeklynn’s eyes fluttered open when Jace gently shook her arm. It took a moment for reality to set in, and she jolted upright on the cot and attempted to push her back through the stone wall behind her. “Who are you people? Where am I? Was I dreaming?”
Jace smiled at the frightened young woman to disarm her fears, founded though they might be. “We are here to help. What do you remember?”
As she half closed her eyes, trying to pry into her memories, Jace took a moment to examine her. She was young, maybe 18 or 19. Esther looked to be in her 20s, but when you gazed into the fallen angel’s eyes, you could see she had an old, if not immature, soul. But Draeklynn’s brown eyes were consistent with her youthful appearance. Jace detected intelligence there that he wasn’t used to seeing. Outside of Pieter, Drescher’s mage, he hadn’t met anyone with an Intelligence above 14 and hadn’t exactly stared into the half-insane level 22 wizard’s face for long. As this young woman searched her memories, Jace knew she would be a powerful ally if he could keep her alive.
It took a while for him to look away from her eyes, but he backed up to give her room. She had dark skin. It was hard to put a nationality to it since she had natural blonde hair, which, combined with the room's low light, probably made the hue look darker. Plus, it wasn’t like she came from the Middle East or India. Either way, it marked her as a foreigner in Gershire, where most people looked like Northern Europeans.
She was beautiful, but not in the exotic way Esther was. She was more innocent and pure. She wore the standard dress of a first-year student at the Academy, a blue tunic tied at the waste that would hang down to mid-thigh with a white shirt and gray pants underneath. She was sitting now, but Jace guessed she was a few inches shorter than Esther at about 5’6’’.
“I remember a voice,” she said. “No, not a voice. More like a song. It drew me to a shimmering light. Sliver, woven through blue surrounded by a . . .” she lost the words. “And when I stepped through . . .” Now she sat up away from the wall, and her voice dropped an octave. “When I stepped through, he was there. Cold, lifeless, and gray.” She looked around and down, seeing the thin cot and the dirty stone walls of the dim room. “I am still here, aren’t I? You aren’t here to help.” Her eyes fell on Esther, and the magical woman couldn’t help but read the vampire’s power. “You work for him.”
“We don’t,” Esther said. “We were sent here by Dayrin. He wants us to save you. If you join us, we can work together.”
“Master Dayrin?” she asked, still hesitant.
Jace noticed that while the teacher had an endearing name for the student, she still referred to him as “Master.”
“Yes,” Esther answered. Jace let her continue, thinking the woman’s soothing voice might be better for Draeklynn to hear now. Plus, he still didn’t have a plan. “He said that if we can get the lich to drink this, it will kill him.”
This? Jace echoed. He did turn now to see Esther holding the vial of dragon elixir. He patted down his chest and pants in the stereotypical reaction to having your pockets picked. Sometimes he wondered how he kept anything in his inventory. “Esther?”
“What? That is what he said.” She then paused and saw his physical reaction to her theft. “Oh, you mean that. You still have problems with that? I saved your life back there with the life stone. I thought we were a team?”
Jace just waved his hand, saving this fight for another time. “Yes, we are. Go ahead.”
Despite the gravity of their situation, Draeklynn smiled at their antics, endearing them to her.
[Draeklynn Ember has joined your Party.]
“This is dragon elixir,” Esther said, returning to the young woman.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I know. I helped Master Dayrin harvest it. The Academy sent us to dispose of the dragon’s body, but we couldn’t do it. It would have been such a waste, so we hid it instead. But I don’t know how you will convince the lich to drink that. I can feel its power from here; I am only a novice. He was a master before falling and has only become more powerful.”
“You know his history?” Jace asked. “We were told it was a secret known only to a few in the school.”
“Master Dayrin told me,” she said. “I don’t know why he would. He told me many things he probably shouldn’t have.”
Jace smiled. Because he is in love with you, you naïve girl. Unrequited love is always confusing.
“Of course,” she continued in a more somber tone, “then I went ahead and walked through the lich’s portal two weeks later. Serves me right.”
Jace spoke up. “I’ve told the lich that I wield the power of life, and I can make him whole again. I’ve claimed to have dragon magic that can help bring him back to life. I know that the potion stands out in the magical plane, but can you mask its fire nature? Elconoric will already assume it belongs to a dragon.”
“Do you hold the power of life?” she asked Jace, beckoning to Esther to hand the vial to her.
“We have secured all three power stones, but I don’t know how to use them. Plus, I really don’t want to bring him back to life unless that makes it easier to kill him.”
Draeklynn listened as she held the vial before her, falling into its incredible magic power. She went so far as to pop the cork and inhale the red vapors. After a few moments, she shook her head. “This came from a dragon so much more powerful than me; I can’t begin to understand it fully, much less mask its true nature. It will kill him, but I don’t know how to make him drink it.”
“The other option is to have you drink it,” Esther said.
“What? No!” Jace said, turning to his unwise friend. “That is not an option we are considering! We are yet to meet a challenge we can’t overcome. We can do this without resorting to sacrificing Draeklynn. There has to be another . . .” but his voice trailed off as he looked at the wide-eyed expression plastered on Esther’s face.
Jace turned slowly back to Draeklynn. The woman had a pained expression and was holding an empty vial. “She’s right. Master Dayrin is right. This is the only way. My life was forfeit the moment I stepped through that portal. At least this way, I will kill the lich too.”
{It’s not Esther’s fault,} Gracie said. {It is in Draeklynn’s script. She was always going to drink it.}
Jace took a step back from the young mage in horror, barely hearing the explanation. No point in fighting it now. He had to change gears. “Is it easier to mask inside you?”
“Yes,” she said, wincing as a wave of agony swept through her. She recovered quickly. “It is small but growing. It is trying to create another mana core within me. A dragon core. Now it is only a seed. Until it grows, I am stronger and can contain it. I’ve practiced with Master Dayrin. However,” she paused as another wave hit her, and she spoke through gritted teeth. “We have to hurry.”
“This isn’t a plan,” Jace said. “This is madness.”
“Then what is the plan?” Esther asked as Draeklynn rolled on her cot in agony.