Deep inside the frosted mountains was a dank hollow, filled with many dangerous things. Rock drakes, stone-fanged Gibrilrickers and Greyworms could be found in every corner of these dark caves. None were foolish enough to venture into such places. Well… None except a certain elf.

“Stupid, talentless Lehelit hack! Who does that gangly freak think he is? How DARE he call me a fool. Ohohoh… I’ll show him who's the REAL idiot.”

Mithlas continued to mutter profanities as he wriggled through the wet, narrow crags. If it weren't for his naturally lithe and flexible frame that all Beohil elves were known for, he would have surely have gotten stuck and starved to death like the few corpses of the desperate Wormeaters that had blocked a few of the passages. Squeezing himself through these slimy tunnels like a worm was more than unpleasant and degrading for an elf of his breed. He was tired, grimy and he smelled like the rotten blood and bile of cave-dwelling animals that he had slain along his journey. He had promised himself that once this was all over, he would march to the nearest bathhouse and indulge in all of its debaucherous pleasures. But first, he would have to find what had been buried deep in these mountains. Sure, he had been following a vague footnote in a ragged old book of tall tales, but something in his gut told him that this was the best lead he had.

“This had better be the place,” he grumbled. As he slid further down the small tunnel, he felt the cold wet of the cave slime squelch against his clothes and seep all the way into his skin. He cringed and let out an uncomfortable whine. “Gods damn it! It just HAD to be in a gods-forsaken cave. Why couldn't these people have chosen a less difficult place to settle?”

Of course, he knew why. He hadn't been that stupid. Just purely frustrated. According to that children’s book and the few remaining fragments of text that had survived the great fires of yore, the Cult of Pithelel had always preferred the harsh mountains, not because they had been driven out by close-minded types - far from it, for Pithelel had been a popular god amongst the old pantheons. In fact, it was their popularity that their followers chose to house him in such remote and desolate places. His followers had been the sensible types. Monks that wanted people who sought out the god of wishes to reflect before making their requests. A god’s followers often reflected upon the god and Mithlas was in no mood to deal with an insufferably moral god. But after much rejection from those old and new, he had very little choice. He was far too desperate to give up now.

Thankfully he didn't have to crawl for long, for he felt a breeze close by in the darkness. Emboldened by hope, he wriggled further and faster with more vigour than before. Too confident, perhaps, to notice that he could have been heading to his death. As he wriggled free from the hole, he felt himself tumble down with a scream. A quick shout of a feather-fall spell kept him afloat enough to grab onto a moss covered ledge with a desperate grip.

When his breathing had become less shallow, his mind had returned to him. Instead of cursing himself for his own foolishness, he had set about cursing out these caves. After his tirade had calmed, he finally did the sensible thing and cast a spell of illumination. Had he let himself fall he would have certainly become the elven equivalent of a ripe tomato, ruptured and messy, with its red juices coating the spiked stalactites and ruins below.

“Ruins?!” his voice echoed throughout. The mountain replied with a warning rumble that reminded him to keep his voice low lest he irritate the mountain enough for it to crush him under rocks or send all manner of beasts his way - mountains were very funny like that. “Are those really ruins? Could it be?”

His smile widened as he saw the preserved stone foundations and structures illuminated by his falling light. A few more spells of light danced off of his excited tongue and lo and behold, he saw the statues, dusted mosaics and carvings interwoven and dedicated to Pethelel. The ruins eerily matched all description and pictures found in that silly book of legends, except that they had now been coated in a thick layer of cave soil and dust.

Mithlas could hardly contain his excitement. With the spell of slow fall still in effect, he wanted to launch himself straight into the ruins below. Reason -thankfully- made him reconsider; the ruins of the temple had been situated upon platforms. Part of the foundation that held the ruins up had crumbled away to reveal abyssal holes that must have went as deep as the rot-soaked domain of the Slyth’taynt and perhaps even deeper.

He shimmied across the face of the rock wall until he was directly above part of the ruins that appeared most stable. Once again, he said the spell of slow-fall and slipped off the face of the inner mountain’s wall. With a gentle clack, his feet finally met solid ground. He stretched out all of the aches that had plagued his body from crawling around in those tight tunnels. After a few clicks of his neck and spine, he dusted himself off and squeamishly rubbed off the slime and cave moss from his clothes with little success. Groaning in frustration, he set himself back to his main goal. All thoughts of his ruined garments faded when he looked upon the ruins.

From above, the remains of the temple had already been quite impressive for something built in a very impractical place, but standing in the midst of it like many had done in the past was truly something. It was like stepping into another world. Another time. Life-sized statues of an old race had been carved in reflective ebonstone. They beheld, with great splendour, dust-caked jars that had a familiar glint that caught Mithlas’ eye. He peered into one of these jars which appeared to have been filled with gold at first glance. With excitement he polished the grime and dust that dulled one of these pieces of gold. Disappointment settled in when he saw that instead of a piece of gold, he had held a lump of mirrorstone in his palm; the jar had been filled with mirrorstone. Peering closely into the stone, he saw the illusory shimmer of gold reflected off of the stone’s surface. Images of riches were marred by a trickle of deep red, as if the gold had become stained with regret and the terrible power it held. The other statues’ belongings were also made of mirrorstone. One statue held a child in their jar that seemed to grow and mature into something rather beastly. Another contained a lover, returned from a violent death yet still rotted away. A great many held crowns which became chains and reflected the many bones of the victims of tyranny. The ebonstone appeared just as disappointed as Mithlas then. Had an adventurer or archeologist stumbled upon this place they would have understood the mysterious beauty of the preserved remains of the Temple of Pithelel. Unfortunately, it had instead been Mithlas that stumbled upon this sacred place. He tossed the useless stone aside with a humph.

“Useless rocks. This god better not be a fraud like these statues are suggesting.”

It hadn't been long before he found a few of the monks that once tended to the temple. He found them all in a grand room shaped like a pentagon. Worn, dulled rags that had once been a brilliant blue hung upon the desiccated elves. The monks lay peacefully ever-sleeping in varying positions of comfort.

“Now this is an odd way to go out. Sleeping themselves to death on the job? Serves these lazy monks right.”

Since they knew this place better than he did, he had the idea to wake at least one of them back up again.

“Diy Tuthn’e.”

The spell stirred the monk. Their eyes crumbled open and a groan escaped their dried lips. It croaked something that almost sounded like an insult before falling back to sleep again. Mithlas began to fume.

“Useless!” his shout echoed out.

He kicked the monks’ head and it unexpectedly bounced off of his foot, filling the air with dust like a Sporepuff mushroom. He cried out in shock but honestly, what did he expect? After dusting off the corpse dust from his robes, he turned his attention to the doors surrounding him, each had been uniquely patterned and coloured (though the colour had faded over the years and one could scarcely tell apart the colours that remained in this dark place). He chose the door on the furthest end then ventured deeper into the temple, letting his little starlights illuminate each room on his side. As such, he followed the ones that grew brighter, for his lights had a good eye for seeking out points of interest. It had been a neat little trick he had learned from one Dwine performer magician. Aside from a few old coins and Waterskin Mushrooms, he hadn't found much of value in this untouched temple.

“For a cult that worshipped a god of wishes, one would think the temple would be filled with riches! This place is emptier and duller than a Dwine peasant’s purse!”

Yet, he still pressed on. The true prize lay further into the temple - or at least, that is what his usual logic led him to believe. All elven temples had their dedicated shrines at the furthest end where a beautiful sanctum housed the ethereal idols of the Tuthadain, the gods of the elves. Of course, the old race did things quite differently and Mithlas came to learn this after reaching a dead end in a rather dull looking storeroom.

“Where on Dana is this blasted shrine? This place is a damned maze!”

Mithlas kicked over one of the cracked pots with such force that it caused the pot to immediately shatter and turn into a puff of dust. He hacked and coughed up the dust, feeling the heat of frustration rising inside him. Amidst his tantrums, he tripped upon a loose tile and fell upon a wall. His body smeared across it, wiping away the cave dust and moss that covered its faded mosaic. It was with great convenience that he revealed a map of the temple; it had been shaped like a star with five points. Each point was tiled to show what each section had been used for. He had travelled from one leg of the star to the other end. Where he was, there were pictures of monks carrying tribute and storing them. Where that tribute was now played in Mithlas’ mind, but there were no clues to their whereabouts. Each of the other arms contained places of worship, living quarters and lastly, the sanctum that housed the god. On that arm, there were pictures of different peoples - some long gone and others that appeared familiar - all moving toward a wondrous sanctum that defied logic. It appeared as a garden, ever changing with the sky in its ceiling. Housed inside it was a beautiful figure - yet not as pretty as Mithlas, or so he’d like to think. Pithelel appeared androgynous and kindly, adorned with many butterfly wings upon their back and the backs of their hands and feet. Praying before him was a man with tears in his eyes as the pale woman in his arms stirred from the sleep of death. The very thing Mithlas desired lay in that arm of the temple. Feeling giddy, he made hurried steps towards the sanctum.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The arm of the temple leading to the sanctum was decorated with more of those statues and writings in an ancient language that he didn’t care to comprehend. Had he stopped to consider them, he would have seen that they were written in the very tongue that all magic is spoken in. At the end of this arm were two large doors, partially opened. Sleeping before it was another monk, curled up peacefully in rest though part of his body was now wedged under a door. Mithlas was thankful that the door stopper had propped one of the doors open, for he gave the other door a push to make his opening wider and more dramatic but it would not budge under the minute force of his svelte frame. With a huff, he slipped through the thin opening and with a slight wiggle he found himself on the other side.

It was disappointing. Instead of a beautiful indoor field with an ever changing sky as depicted in the mural map, there was only a dull, crumbling stone room that was just as dull as the mountain interior that the temple was housed in. It was utterly abysmal that the sanctum, the star of any temple, was worse off than the rest of the temple. The statue depicting Pithelel was just as pitiful. What stood in the centre of the room was a crude lump of rock.

Despite his disappointment, Mithlas had come too far already to give up and he wasn’t looking forward to finding an escape out of this mountain. He prostrated himself before the rock.

“O’ Pithelel! Hear me! I have come to make my wish. If you shall grant it, I shall serve you for all my days!”

There was a change in the room. There was a slight breeze, noticeably blowing against Mithlas’ hair. The air began to smell less musty and almost sweet. There was a slight rumbling quake and Mithlas almost thought that the room was beginning to collapse from an unexpected earthquake. Instinctively he shot up and saw something peculiar. A face had appeared from the lump of stone. Around it were many eyes or things that at least resembled eyes. The stone spoke, sounding like someone who had stirred too early after a night of heavy drink.

“What?” Mithlas was bewildered by the sight before him that he hadn’t really heard what it said.

“I said,” the stone groaned as it continued to take shape, “how long has it been?”

“Since someone came here? Gods know.”

“Yet I don’t,” The stone said, sounding annoyed. It looked around with its head, now a crudely carved humanoid face. “Too long, clearly,” it said, now sounding grim.

The stone looked at its own form and did its best to reshape itself to its former glory, but only a crude carving of a winged being emerged. Pithelel sighed. It was not a resigned sigh but an annoyed one.

“Look at what my own followers did to me. Disgraceful! After everything I did for them, they made me disappear into obscurity. If I could make wishes of my own then I would have punished them.”

The crude god turned his attention to Mithlas. It managed a hideous looking excuse for a smile.

“It seems they’ve failed to completely get rid of me,” Pithelel laughed, “Who do I owe the pleasure of awakening me from oblivion?”

“Mithlas,” the Beolhil stammered pathetically for a moment before coming to his senses. He straightened himself up and flicked his hair back, “I am Mithlas of house Arbethion. Scholar of the Great College of Ban’Morthen, …”

These titles of course were meaningless to the god of wishes but Pithelel seemed genuinely pleased to hear them. So Mithlas continued describing himself and his accolades.

“... And so on and so forth. I was a rising star in the academic world. A true talent like none other!”

“You seem to have everything going for you,” Pithelel smirked, “So tell me, what would someone of your talents need my services for?”

“I was disgraced,” Mithlas said with an edge of bitterness, “The college refused to see my brilliance. They thought my ideas were dangerous and stupid. Pah! I’ll show them. And I’ll show that backward necromancer cult that said I wasn’t cut out for their little club.”

“Oooh. An unacknowledged genius. I do enjoy one of those. So, what is it you desire? Glory? Power?”

There was a manic look about Mithas’ smirk, “Something much greater than that.”

“Do tell.”

Mithlas beamed, “I’m glad you asked, ” Mithlas cleared his throat. He threw back his cloak, letting it flutter along the breeze inside the room. His desires began to materialise, getting stronger. The room began to shift. The old cragged stone turned to soil. The sky shifted to a starlit night, “I want the power to defeat Death itself.”

The corners of Pithelel’s crumbling mouth lifted into a smile.

“Power over Death? Hmm, not the first time I’ve granted such a wish. Let me guess. You’ve lost someone dear to you.”

“No no no. Nothing juvenile like that, pfft. I simply want to do what no one else has. Not even the greatest necromancers of our time have been able to do that.”

“Not even the Great Lich?” Pithelel looked at the silly little man before them, though they appeared even more interested.

“Not even he achieved that kind of greatness. All he did was become a living sack of bones and even he was thwarted by a bunch of do-gooders. No, I want to eliminate Death entirely.”

“Because?”

“What’s it to you?” Mithlas’s raised his voice, “Are you going to grant my wish or not?”

Pithelel chuckled, “Fine. I’ll give you what you desire.”

“Well, hurry it up already. I want to get out of this awful place as soon as possible.”

“As you wish.”

The atmosphere began to shift once more. Mithlas felt the very ground shift underfoot. A strange feeling overwhelmed him, somewhat pleasant and uncomfortable but nonetheless painful all at once. His sight began to stretch and blur and the room span quickly around him at a dizzying rate. He could feel the whole world warp around him. Desperately, he wanted to scream and throw up but he felt all contents bounce around in his throat and boomerang back into his stomach, sending him through a sickening loop.

Then, he was back, standing right in front of Pithelel. But now, Pithelel’s face had become smoothed out; an androgynous face with exaggerated eyes, but still nonetheless beautiful - though Mithlas still thought that was nothing compared to his own looks.

“Your wish has been granted. Now, go and fulfil your end of the bargain. I do not ask for much in return but that you simply spread word about me.”

“Hmm. I don’t feel powerful, or any different for that matter,” Mithlas said, sounding like his throat was still recovering from all the sick and bile that jostled around inside him.

“Trust me, you will,” Pithelel snickered.

“Gods… Come to think of it, I do feel different. I feel… rather ill. Truly awful…” Mithlas began to groan.

He was about to test one of his spells on the door stopper monk behind him. When he took his first step, he felt an odd sensation. It was as if his legs were weighed down by sacks of fertiliser. Even the smell around him -he refused to believe that stench was wafting off from him- brought back some awful memories of running humiliating errands during his time within the Sect of the Lich King. His head spun and it took a lot out of him just to turn around. He rubbed off the beads of slime that ran down his brow.

“Gah! What is this disgusting sticky stuff on my hand?!”

He froze in place. His hand was completely slick in that same goo but that wasn't the worst thing about it. His hands should have been soft, clean and well manicured. They should have been the same glowing and healthy colour of the rest of his skin. No. These graspers that he was looking at now couldn't have possibly been his. They were green, swollen, clumsy things. Mottled and bumpy in texture with rubbery fingers that stuck a little when they pressed together. They were even missing a finger each!

Mithlas was lost for words. Only an awful mix of a gurgle and a high pitched whine escaped his thin lips. The sound only got worse as his eyes traced the rest of his body. His clothes that were once-loose and flowing had fit snugly over his bloated torso. The buttons of his undershirt and coat had popped off, exposing the dead moss coloured flesh underneath. His clothes were discoloured by the wetness of the slime, now being secreted by the bucket loads. He was standing in clear, glowing water which now filled the previously bone-dry pool surrounding Pithelel’s idol. Thin clouds of noxious brown-green goop floated off from him but he was starting to see his reflection in the clearer parts of the water.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Maybe you should try out your powers instead.”

But Mithlas did not listen. In the water, there was a sagging head peering out from a bloated neck that expanded with every word he spoke and every noise he made with his voice. From the sides of his wide, lipless mouth, there were two appendages that reached around his face frantically. Now acutely aware of them, he could feel them sticking and prodding at his face. They looked like two sickly earthworms. His fat cheeks sagged into several layers. Inside his maw were rows upon rows of small teeth and a rasping tongue. His eyes were evil, beady things, darkened till the gold of his eyes were dulled into piss-coloured orbs. His flowing locks had completely vanished, leaving his slime-covered head bereft of hair.

It would be an understatement to call the sound that came after a scream. What Mithlas had produced was more than that. It was a wail that made the mountain quake. His agony had caused landslides and avalanches on all sides of the mountain.