The living lich is created by taking an elemental lich who has a connection to all four elemental planes, the plane of shadows and the negative energy plane and shifting the connections within the physical phylactery into the soul of the lich. After this the soul must create another connection, this time to the positive energy plane and reestablish the original connection to the original body of the spellcaster.
The original body of the would be living lich must be restored to the state before the conversion to lichdom. This is most easily done through blood magic, an art that liches often lack. After the restoration of the body, the body itself will act as a phylactery for the soul of the lich and even the tiniest piece of the body is enough of an anchor for the lich to revive himself.
The living lich while no longer healed from elemental forces remains immune to them, and is healed by both positive and negative energy. Freely utilizing them as if they were interchangeable, within the ‘racial’ powers of lichdom and sometimes within spells.
It is of note that a demilich while not a necessary stage for this transformation can do so if it has the connections to the elemental planes within itself. If the lich gained the shadow phylactery during the stage of being a shade lich, it also remains intact. This is also not the end of the path, as there is one more step to take. – The Path of Self Resurrection by Damû Rámaêri.
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Adrian
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My pistol is empty and the orc necromancer falls to the ground. I let out a breath of relief as I begin to burn the undead with strange fire. I need to get to K, she is injured. The undead will not reanimate again now the necromancer is dead.
My hair stands up and I shiver from the chill of what I assume is necromancy. I turn to see blood red light pouring out of the now dead necromancer, who now stands up. His flesh withered and body deformed by his reanimation.
A contingent self-reanimation. Rise from the Ashes? The exact spell does not matter, but I need to deal with this thing before it can act. I release another burst of the strange purple fire and rush back at the necromancer. K will have to hold a bit longer on her own.
I see a burst of bright blue light around K and several of the undead collapse. She figured something out that can harm them quickly. I hope that it doesn’t cost her too much. There are too many undead between us for me to just throw this fire directly at the necromancer.
By the time, I burn my way to him the necromancer has finished rising from death. I can hear him screaming in agony as his spell finishes binding him to his own corpse. A lieutenant made from either a ghoul or wight blocks my way now the other undead have fallen or are about to fall.
It charges me and attempts to bite. I manage to dodge it; my path is clear. I accelerate time around me and run. I am faster than the undead behind me now.
Once I am in melee with the necromancer I drop the manipulation of time. The withered hand of the orc strikes my chest and my body stops. Paralytic touch, shit. It does not stop my mind though. So, I start flooding the immediate area with the purple fire, driving back the undead that were chasing me.
The newly formed undead before me also takes a step back, the fire is hurting him though he did not catch fire as the other undead. I take the moment to twist my body into being able to move again. I still feel stiff from the paralysis, but I am mobile again.
The purple fire will not be enough. What else can I do? I pull a box of .22 ammo and toss it at the feet of the necromancer. Then I ignite the powder within the bullets. An explosion of undirected bullets, many pass through the necromancer and tear up the corpse.
Unlike the last time I did this, a few of the bullets struck me. Nothing lethal but I don’t think that I will be using these as makeshift grenades again. The necromancer points at me and a black ram’s head flies at me.
I am knocked to the ground, the wind likewise knocked out of my lungs. It hurt and I can see a bruise forming on my chest. Another burst of blueish light happens behind me, probably form K. I can hear her shouting something, but my ears are ringing for some reason. Was there also a sonic effect in whatever the necromancer just did?
I can feel dragon-me getting angry, but his whispers are not offering helpful insight in the situation. I think the connection he has to my conscious mind is growing stronger. I ignore him, and continue thinking of what to do.
I throw some regular fire at the necromancer, which he counter spells only to have me abandon before it is deflected. I draw a spear and attempt to skewer the necromancer in a charge. I interrupt whatever spell he was casting and abandon the spear once it breaks off inside of the corpse. He is resistant to non-magical weapons.
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Only a few things I can do then. All of them are melee or running away. I won’t leave K here, I hope I don't end up in the void again. I move into grapple the undead mage and we end up in each other’s grasp. I am paralyzed but he is coated in a torrent of purple fire.
Another scream of agony can be heard, and the mage collapses. Then my head feels as if something were stabbed into it. Something foreign tried to enter my mind. Whatever it is will have to just fight with the other current residents, I am too busy here in the physical realm.
I start searching through the pockets of the orc’s robes. There are too many undead here for K and me to handle alone but there is something that we can use against them. The skull that was used as a focus to animate them. I find it and pull it out.
Death is swirling around it, wafting off and spreading out. I assume this is how the undead are being maintained. While this is a poor idea, I throw the skull with all my strength at my feet. It bounces of the ground without a crack.
Damn, physical force won’t work then. When I pick it up a second time, I begin to turn to K. Then I notice something, all the undead have stopped moving. They are looking at me, no they are looking at my hand which is holding the skull.
K runs to me and says something; I cannot hear her. Something deafened me during the fight. I focus on healing it and then I hear her voice. I assume that she was repeating the question.
“Can you command them?”
I do not know.
“Undead, fight each other.”
They just continue to stare at my hand which holds the skull. K speaks up again.
“Can I try?”
I pass her the skull and she speak something in a language I do not understand. I can tell one thing though it was the same language that the zombie lieutenant spoke earlier. A tongue that chills the blood of those that hear it. The undead respond and begin to strike each other down.
“Have them stop.”
K frowns but does command them for me.
“We should not keep them in the world.”
“You are right, but why don’t we send them to cause problems for the Althaen before they are destroyed by them?”
Her frown disappears but does not turn into a smile.
“It is wrong to make the dead do this. We are better than this.”
I sigh, “you are the one who can command them, it is your decision. While it is wrong I personally would send them to attack the Althaen, they would be destroyed there and cause the Althaen to suffer. The choice is yours, I won’t complain if it is different than the one I would have made.”
K waits and thinks for a few seconds. Then she asks me a question.
“Do you think that they are trying to track us?”
They would be the Althaen, I nod. There is no way that the Sunchaser family would leave me alone. I seem to have upset the Vithrã quite a bit as well. Trían is a decent person but the rest I think would enslave me if they could, and try to kill me if they could not.
K speaks in that blood chilling tongue once more and the undead begin to march off in the direction of the Althaen camp. Between this undead army and the gangs, I think that the Althaen will be more focused on survival than tracking me down for a while. Hopefully long enough for us all to get out of town.
After the undead have left our sight K speaks in the same tongue again and the skull shatters. One last but significantly larger wave of death spreads outwards. I look at K with questioning eyes.
“I broke this nexus skull and gave the undead a week to attack the Althaen before they would perish.”
“I know you would have rather just destroyed the undead. The dead deserve their rest, but I think your choice was right.”
I give K a hug and then we begin to search through the now empty camp. I of course heal her injuries as we go through the necromancer’s possessions. There was no sign of another living being working with this orc and he kept everything surprisingly organized.
A summary of what we found: several highly detailed spellbooks by someone who calls himself a dusk elf, a few books meant to be reference books when translating between orcish, elvish, and some tongue called necrol, several objects that K recognized as tools for preparing corpses for reanimation, quite a bit of food, which I assume the necromancer had his minions gather, some potions that I can’t read the labels on, and some orcish weapons and armor.
While crude the equipment will be useful to us, heavy and off balanced but an orc sword is more useful to me than the damaged spears I have been using. Dawn is still an hour or two away, once we are done packing up everything of use or value in the necromancer’s camp. The tents took a while and I learned that Void Cache can only take in something that I can pick up and carry in its present state. No instant tent for me.
We arrive back in front of Bryan’s house at dawn.
When I walk in Bryan is sitting in a chair reading a piece of paper. The same piece of paper, he has cried while I was gone. I pass by him and walk up to Abagail in the other room. She is watching him, and the windows.
I yawn, and then start speaking to her.
“Has he been like that since I left?”
“Yes” she answers with sadness.
“You should go comfort him.”
“How?”
“Go sit next to him. Hugs, kisses, whatever helps him feel better and distracts from what he is doing now.”
“Why don’t you help?”
“I am a guy. Me sitting next and hugging him would be gay. I am doing what I can, keeping us safe and giving you time to help him.”
“I still think you should be the one to comfort him.”
“I was up all night and just fought off the undead. We are safe for now and I am taking a nap before anything else.”
“Fine, but do something when you wake up.”
I nod and walk to the back of the house. There is a pile of blankets with the elven twins who will probably wake up soon. It will be warm and nice.