The man led The Lich down a maze of alleyways. Whether this was to confuse him so he couldn’t track down the hideout in the future or if this was genuinely the way to go was unclear, but it was most definitely something that was done intentionally.

“My name’s Derek by the way,” He said partway through to their destination.

After Derek introduced himself, silence followed for a while until he turned to look back at the hooded figure.

“So… Do you have a name?” He asked.

“Do I need one?” The Lich responded in an almost confused tone.

Derek was a little taken aback by the response, he hadn’t met someone who seemed so antisocial and almost inhuman in some ways. Amidst the mix of emotions he felt, there was a little bit of admiration as well, maybe this unknown character was similar to him.

“Well no, not really, just curious.”

Finally, after about an hour of walking, the two came across a fairly old and decrepit building close to the far edge of the heavily fortified walls of the village. It very much so appeared abandoned. The Lich was unsure of what the building was before, but if he had to guess, it was likely a small-time bakery which was evident by the barely hanging sign depicting a loaf of bread.

Without a word, the two went through the curtain that was draped over the entrance. The inside wasn’t much better than the outside, but it was harder to tell due to the dimness that the candle light created. In the middle of the small hideout sat a wooden table with three other people sitting at it. They all seemed lost in thought before the two came in since they were sitting in silence.

The young man in the middle who had similar looks to Derek and dressed in tattered clothing disregarded the two by shifting his view elsewhere. The other two–a man dressed in a well kept tunic with a bow propped up against the chair and a woman adorned with heavy silver armor–glanced at The Lich.

“Who’s this?” The woman asked.

“Well… He doesn’t really have a name, but he’s the one who’s gonna help us with the extermination.”

“Mhm, ok then, well I’m Christina. The poorly dressed one beside me is Drew, and the other guy…”

The man across from Christina immediately stood up at the mention of himself. He gave a slight bow before proclaiming:

“My name is Arthur! The one prophesied to rule the world!”

Nothing but absolute silence filled the room before Christina, Derek, and Drew cringed in embarrassment.

“I want to kill him already,” The Lich mumbled quietly enough to where nobody heard him.

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“Anyway,” Christina began, interrupting the awkward display, “So how much ya charging to do this?”

“A place to rest,” Derek spoke up.

“That’s it? Well, we can certainly provide that. However, let me make a few things clear. Number one, you cannot keep anything off the beasts you kill, two, you will do this alone, and three, we prefer you keep this pretty quiet.”

The conditions to this quest were most definitely suspicious, but The Lich cared very little, he wasn’t here to uphold any laws, but just to find a place to rest.

“Mhm,” The Lich said.

Taking the dry response as an agreement to the conditions, Christina continued, “You’ll find these pests around east of this village, they like to make burrows so you’ll know when you come across them. Once you’re finished, come back inside the town and we will meet you at the alchemy shop close to the gate. You got it?”

The Lich nodded.

“Good, Now Derek here will escort you back towards the main road. Good luck.”

As she said, Derek led The Lich back through the painfully long maze of alleyways until they reached the bustling main road closer to the gate. Bidding The Lich farewell, Derek left to allow him to start his hunt.

Leaving the village, he began east to where that lady, who he had already forgotten the name of, told him to go. As he crossed over a hill and approached the area, he could immediately tell that he was at the right place due to the multitude of large burrows that stretched hundreds of feet.

“What a pain.”

Ambling through the many burrows, he muttered to himself about how he was to go about exterminating them. He understood that this was likely an illegal operation given how suspicious the group acted, however he had trouble figuring out exactly what made killing these creatures illegal. As seen from the burrows, they dig up land that could be used and it wasn’t apparently obvious that they helped the environment in any way, so what was so illicit about this?

Shrugging the questions off, he was going to do what he did best and wing it.

“Maybe I’ll just torch it,” The Lich suggested to himself.

It wasn’t a horrible idea by any means, at least to him, although he had a slight problem with doing that. He was still too unstable from the few breakdowns he already had, which meant attempting to use his power could end badly. For some reason he could not pinpoint, using its magic caused his mental state to rapidly decline, leading to a severe breakdown.

“Hmm, maybe if I…”

The Lich lifted his leg before bashing it into the ground. The ground around him quaked, and he had hoped that these creatures would be hostile enough to begin an attack. Just as he had hoped, digging noises sounded from the burrows. Slowly, the mole-like creatures popped their heads up to see what all the commotion was about. At the sight of The Lich, they seemed to hesitate, but eventually began to come out.

As the beasts climbed out of their holes, the sun illuminated their mutated figure. It was quite obvious that they were affected by magic in some way. Their figures were enormous compared to other burrowing animals and were equipped with razor sharp claws.

Their beady red eyes stared at The Lich as many more joined the growing population. He had expected there to be quite a few, but the numbers that continued to show up passed his expectations.

He got into a fighting stance, completely ready to sacrifice his life to kill these beasts. Even if he faced a thousand more, he wouldn’t dare back down. After all, what was the point, it wasn’t like he could die anyway.