It had been a long time coming. Rowan had travelled long and far, trained relentlessly, slain scores of monsters, all for this moment. His moment of revenge against the Lich, the terrible being that ravaged the lands with plagues of undeath and hordes of zombies, the reason his entire family had died. Now he stood in front of the throne room of the Lich’s dark palace, the room said to house the phylactery, the very heart of the being he meant to slay. He steadied himself, saying a prayer to the god of light and letting his faith flow into his sword which began to glow with a holy light, translucent but undeniably bright. Then, he pulled his lg up and kicked the door of the throne room, attempting to make a dramatic entrance.

 The door didn’t budge, even the sound of his foot hitting what appeared to be a wooden door wasn’t satisfactory. Rowan scowled briefly, took a couple steps back and then tried again with a little bit of a run up. The sound he made this time was a bit louder, but almost sounded like a wet thud instead of that hard slap of his boots against wood. The scowl deepened, and rowan nodded to himself while walking back up the hallway away from the door. Once he decided he was far enough away, he sprinted towards the door, then jumped into a dropkick.

 Rowan slammed into the door full force, scuffing it slightly, and making a bit of a louder noise than he had before. Then, he fell onto the stone floor beneath him. To his great frustration, the clanging of his armour when he hit the ground was much closer to the cacophony he’d wanted to cause when he decided to kick the door down. Then he heard laughter coming from the other side of the door.

 “If youre done, the doors open the other way,” said a voice that was reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard, but worse. It made Rowan’s teeth hurt.

 Rowan grumbled to himself in frustration and jumped back to his feet. This time, he simply grabbed the large skull shaped handle and pulled. The door swung open smoothly to reveal the throne room. It wasn’t what he’d expected in all honesty. Everything was a pristine white, with marble pillars running the length of the room and a sharp black carpet leading straight up to the throne itself, only slightly raised above floor level. The room was well lit, but Rowan couldn’t tell where any of the light was coming from. Much like his sword, the room just seemed to be bright. The throne also wasn’t what rowan had expected, being nothing more than a tall backed chair made of marble. The lack of skulls and general horror themes was throwing Rowan off, considering the rest of the palace seemed to be steeped in the motif.

 On the throne sat the Lich, a skeleton wearing a three-piece suit and a crown, with a glass of wine in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. They took a deep draw off of the cigar before raising their glass and exhaling a cloud of heavy grey smoke that seemed to swirl around them without dissipating.

 “Welcome, young hero,” they said in the grating voice, “to what do I owe the pleasure this evening? Surely there was a better way to spend a Friday night then chopping down countless of my servants?”

 “You killed my family!” Rowan roared back, pointing his sword forward, “And I’m here to avenge them and put your reign of terror to an end!”

 “Ugh, this one again?” the skeleton seemed to slump back a bit, taking another drink, “can’t one of you come up with something creative for once? Its always you killed my insert loved one here, im here to stop you! Or this has gone on long enough, I wont let you hurt my people any more!”

 Rowan opened his mouth to shout something, then paused. “Wait, what?”

 “Your reasons are boring and trivial. Your family would’ve died eventually anyway, just go make a new one. You didn’t even get marks for the passion, like a one out of five. I’ve seen people come in here bleeding from their eyes they were so angry, you tried and failed to kick down my door, then just yelled at me.”

 “But my mother, my father! My little brother! I’ll never see any of them again you heartless bastard!”

 “There was this guy who came after my because I accidentally killed his dog, you should’ve seen him. He was like a tornado, he destroyed half of my palace and when he finally found me he came so close to killing me that I almost shit myself. I cant even shit, I no longer have the body parts required, and he had me clenching an asshole that hasn’t existed in millennia. That was passion.”

 Rowan’s face contorted between anger and confusion as he thought about the things the lich was saying, “I can’t even… what the fuck is wrong with you?”

 The skeleton shrugged and ashed the cigar into its drink before downing it, “I don’t know, I’m just bored I guess.”

 Rowan shook his head, and readied his sword again, “then let me put you out of your misery.”

 He charged the lich, who casually took another puff from the cigar. When Rowan was almost close enough to strike, the lich blew the smoke at him. Rowan’s whole body was blown away, slamming into one of the pillars.

 “Laughably weak,” the lich sighed, “but I’m not laughing. It’s a shame, a real travesty. What were you ever supposed to accomplish like this? You know I’ve been around for millennia, right? You know what those are? Thousands of years.”

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 Rowan pushed himself up quickly and got ready to charge again, saying a silent prayer to the god of light. He could feel his faith flowing through him, he wouldn’t be caught off guard again. He levelled his sword at the lich and started his charge again. The lich sighed deeply, then reached behind his thrown and pulled out a marble urn with intricate gold inlay.

 “Try to hit this, it’s my phylactery.” The lich said encouragingly, “If you can break it, you’ll kill me for good, mission accomplished right?”

 Rowan lunged as soon as he was close enough, using all his power and faith to stab his sword into the phylactery. His sword shattered. The lich reached out and placed a skeletal hand on Rowans shoulder while shaking its head. “Should’ve just lived your life.”

 The lich pushed gently and rowan was launched back through the doors into the hallway. Then it stood up and casually strode out to where rowan was laying on the ground, completely winded, shoulder dislocated and probably concussed. Then it started to caress it’s chin, as if deep in thought. Then it opened its mouth with a small “aha”, finger pointing straight up into the air.

 “I know what I’ll do with you, I’ll put you in the book! Maybe all those dead heroes can teach you a thing or two and you can come back and try again before you die!” The lich tossed the rest of its cigar away and pulled a book seemingly out of nowhere. Rowan stared up at the lich, still struggling to breath with a look of fear on his face. He tried to shake his head, but couldn’t move. The lich flipped the book open about midway then swung it around and put it in front of Rowan’s face. The text made his eyes hurt and his headache suddenly grew to tremendous proportions. Rowan blacked out.

 The lich tucked the book away to wherever it pulled it from, then glanced down at the spot where Rowan had been a moment prior. “I hope the next one’s more fun than that,” it shrugged nonchalantly and started to wander off, “I hope I don’t forget this one too, ha ha ha.”

 “Then I says to him ‘Donny it’s a Lich, of course it knows necromancy.’ And Donny just shrugs at me and says ‘well weirder shit’s happened, what if they were just a victim of circumstance?’” Rowan heard a gruff voice say from somewhere above and beside him. “I just shook my head, cuz what else were I to do? Explain to the man that the circumstance was a powerful necromancer bound their soul to a phylactery? That was the whole damn reason we were there!”

 “Hold on, I think our guest is waking up,” a monotone voice said from beside the first.

 “How can you tell?” asked a singsong high pitched voice.

 “He’s holding his breath,” replied the monotone voice.

 Rowan let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d started holding and cautiously opened his eyes. the first thing he saw was an ornate ceiling painted dark tones of red, with a gold chandelier dangling from it. A quick look to his left showed the back cushion a velvety purple and gold sofa. A quick look to his right showed him who the speakers were and it caused him to bolt upright and launch himself behind the sofa, grasping for a sword that wasn’t there.

 Sitting on large, cushioned loveseats were three dead people. Or undead, Rowan wasn’t sure, he didn’t think to ask before he dove behind the couch. Two of them were skeletons, one dressed in a nobles finery, the other in something much more like lounge wear. The third was someone that appeared to be somewhere in the late stages of decay but not quite a skeleton, with large chunks of hair seeming to sag and peel off, dressed in officers gear with a fancy jacket and hat.

 “Shit, ya think we scared ‘im?” asked the gruff voice, which Rowan now identified as coming from the zombie-like person.

 “I don’t know,” the singsong voice said, “usually I don’t scare them unless they find me taking a nap before one of us finds them.”

 “I think its safe to say that we may have startled him a bit,” said the monotone voice, “given that he was most likely fighting the Lich just before arriving, only to wake up with three more undead right beside him.”

 Rowan heard them making various noises of agreement, he found himself nodding along, because yes, it was very startling to say in the least. He looked around from his crouched position for an escape route. H seemed to be in a large dark room with various plsuh seating arrangements with small drink tables. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see an exit. He hesitantly poked his head out to see what the three undead were doing and get a better look at the room they were in.

 The three of them were just relaxing in their chairs, looking in his direction with their eyeless sockets. The room appeared to be a massive parlour of a sorts, with bookshelves lining some walls, decorations lining others, and fireplaces sprinkled about. The layout was confusing to say in the least, with no apparent pattern to the seating or decoration, just the theme of nobleman’s parlour for smoking cigars and drinking with the old boys. There was no visible exit.

 “Hi there,” said the singsong voice, wearing the loungewear, “I’m Tiffany and I died fighting the Lich probably a few thousand years ago now. Who’s the emperor now?”

 Rowan turned his head for a moment, trying to understand his situation, then answered, “there hasn’t been an emperor in the past three-thousand years at least, history gets a little foggier before that because we’ve lost so many records. High King Jan Devinne has ruled for the past thirty years and his son, King Jarl Devinne is the favourite for inheriting the crown.”

 “oooh, I love a good history lesson,” said the nobly dressed monotone skeleton, “let me go grab a blank notebook, I need to record this.”

 “That’s Pat,” Tiffany gestured to the skeleton bustling away, “He likes to record things and take notes. He’s trying to put together as comprehensive a history as he can while he can, even if we’re the only ones who can read it.”

 “And I’m Captain Dell,” the gruff zombie said, “I died fighting the lich after defeating the zombie kraken in the sea of spires, probably couple a hundred years before now. Time works weird here, ya’know?”

 Rowan’s eyes went wide, “You’re Captain Dell? Really?”

 The captain chuckled and stood up, showing his full outfit, a naval uniform with the badge of the high king, “Captain Dell Devirosa of the High King’s Leviathan Slayer, Slayer of the Kraken of the Spires, at yer service.”

 “I’ve heard of you, we used to pretend to be you when we were kids,” Rowan said excitedly forgetting the anxiety he felt moments before, “learning about the past heroes was one of my favourite parts of history lessons.”

      “Well how bout I tell ya the story as I know it,” Dell said with grin, “betcha I got details they wouldn dream of puttin in history books.”