Topher stepped out into the blue-tinted chamber, looking around tiredly; you see one stone room, you've seen them all, he thought to himself bleakly. "Looks clear," he called back to the others; Kelfir and Varissian emerged from behind him, golden motes still swirling above their heads. "What is this, the fifth level?"

"Thus far," responded Kelfir, looking around with interest, "though I suspect we have bypassed several other floors; we are very deep beneath the earth." He bent down, examining the stone, and nodded before standing up again. "The signs are still clear; a singular set of footsteps, likely elven in nature, passed this way long ago, but nothing has disturbed the dust since."

"How far did the Archmagus delve on his own?" Varissian pondered, looking around at the sharp-edged dwarven stonework undulled by two millennia. "It seems implausible."

Topher chuckled. "Kelfir, if me and Elfy Junior weren't with you, exactly how dangerous would this be for you?"

"Negligibly," the older elf responded placidly, "and it is furthermore worth remembering that Archmagus Venvaris was my superior in every possible way. The most deadly peril for him here -- and, I suspect, the one which eventually felled him -- was old age." He sent golden motes in every direction -- Topher noticed that he was slowly replenishing his complement, and cringed at the violence it must be doing to his spirit -- and nodded for a moment towards a right-hand tunnel. "Let us proceed. Be cautious; the footprints become erratic during the next few tunnels."

Topher sighed and stepped forward, mumbling the runes for Find Traps and Secret Doors again; surely enough, the corridors ahead glowed with hidden blades and crushing blocks. "Watch your steps; I'm not cleaning up the mess if you get squished."

Carefully, they made their way further inward and downward; past great waterfalls, over treacherous crumbling bridges, and through great mausoleums that stank of old rot and moulder. Only twice did they encounter monsters -- once a swarm of strange, glowing rats that Varissian felled with a Missile Swarm entirely on his own, and once a trio of slow, creaking stone-clad mummies when a particular tomb was not entirely quiescent. Topher had obliterated all three with a wand-spun Banish Undead, but he'd always have the memory of Varissian's bloodcurdling, girlish scream as a memento.

Throughout it all, Kelfir was patient and unflappable; his Wyrds stabilized falling bridges, protected them from rains of poisoned darts, and illuminated cryptic carvings which he decoded as though it were an ordinary workday for him. Topher, once again, felt small and inexperienced besides the elf's expertise, and it wasn't until he caught a massive scythe blade through the chest from a trap the elf missed that he was reminded of his own talents. Kelfir and Varissian had stared in horror, but he'd simply shrugged and pulled it out; the impressive part was that it had gotten through his Arch Shielding. Probably enchanted. Who enchants a trap in a tomb? he grumbled to himself.

Dwarves, apparently, supplied the distant part of his mind. He chuckled, then continued on.

They were about to make camp for the third time when it happened; Kelfir was securing the perimeter, sending his Wyrds out to ensure no monsters were nearby, when one of them quite unexpectedly did not return. Topher, turning around in alarm at the Archmage's gasp, was barely in time to catch him as he fainted; instantly, Topher's heart began to pound. "Shit. Varissian, watch out; something happened."

The younger elf blanched, but nodded; it took him a few fumbling tries, but he managed to summon a Mage Light after only a few moments, and send it winging around the room in search of foes. "What transpires?" he stammered, bringing forth a dancing swan of lightning upon his fingertips. "Monsters?"

Pretty sure that's not normal Shocking Grasp behavior, observed the distant part of Topher's mind, but he ignored it. "I don't know," he managed, trying not to drop Kelfir. "He sent a Wyrd out, then gasped and fainted. I don't know if --"

Suddenly, the older elf started awake with a loud, moaning indrawn breath; Topher flinched, and this time he really did drop Kelfir (though he managed to catch him with Attract Object before he actually hit the ground). He shook him gently. "Kelfir! You okay?"

"I live yet," the Archmage managed, groaning; he pried Topher's hands off him and sat down heavily, coughing furiously. "My Wyrd... destroyed," he managed after a few moments, pointing to one of the three tunnels which led off from the room. "There."

Against his better judgment, Topher cautiously crept towards the doorway; to him, it looked exactly like every other doorway, but the room beyond was shrouded in deep darkness, although he could just make out enough of its edges to see that it was a relatively small, blocky alcove or vestibule. He summoned up a Mage Light and sent it forward to scout, but it winked out almost immediately; Topher abruptly wished he'd brought an actual torch. "Uh, I don't suppose you guys have any non-magical means to make light or fire?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"A moment." Slowly and painfully, Kelfir dragged himself to his feet; after a long breath, he spread his hands and muttered a long chain of runes. A squat pile of two-by-fours appeared at his feet -- the spell he used to make more building materials for Orvale, Topher recalled abruptly -- and he picked one up to hand to Topher. Halfway there, however, he staggered and sat down again; when Topher rushed back to him, alarm plain on his face, he held up a hand to keep him back. "I am fine. Merely... fatigued."

"Well, if you're sure. But seriously, rest; don't make me knock you out again." They shared a brief, twisted pair of smiles at the memory; then Topher lit the end of the board with a Flame Jet and held it up to illuminate the room. The light picked out a dark shape near the back, but revealed no other exits; Topher sighed, steeled himself, and stepped across the threshold.

Instantly, he was in a fight for his life.

The feeling was similar to what he'd experienced when hit by Kalphegor's Arcane Nullification, but a thousand times worse -- it felt like a titanic, impossible force was tearing him apart, atom by atom, all at once. For a bare instant, he flailed, agonized and aghast with terror; helpless before a chaotic and enveloping dissolution he could barely comprehend.

Then, like a devouring maw biting down on an unexpected shard of metal, the consuming force fetched up with a gut-wrenching impact against the Lex Animus in his mind; the clash sent a shockwave through Topher, and he clung to it with the strength of a drowning man. This I know. This is me, and that is other. From that clarion call of awareness, he anchored all the scattering pieces of himself and pulled -- his Wyrd, which had been stretched to the point of near-breaking, snapped back into place, and for an instant, Topher was whole again.

Long enough to get his bearings.

Grimly, he fell into a Metaphrasty trance; instantly, he could perceive the storm around him, like a million universes of pure mastication. But it was no longer an all-consuming, invisible doom; merely a saw blade he had to stop pressing his face against. Carefully, cautiously, he realigned himself and his Wyrd to be orthogonal to the voracious force; there was a brief pause, followed by a pulse of wild frustration. Then, slowly, whatever it was seemed to ease back; a sense of confusion and wariness tingled on the edges of his perception. He frowned. Something's alive here. "Hello?" he called uncertainly into the void, tensing in case the reply was another attack. "Is someone there?"

There was a moment of strange, dim confusion, as he sensed something he could only just barely perceive battering at conceptual spaces near, but not at, his ontological locale; then, reluctantly, the presence receded, and everything went still. Topher cast about for another being or force, but could sense nothing; with a shrug, he relaxed, returning his consciousness to the physical world.

He was still where he'd been -- a few steps into the dark room -- but now he could see the contents a little more clearly. The floor was scattered with small, widely-distributed bones and pieces of bones -- some whole, some crushed, and some torn apart -- and the rear wall was covered with several shelves, upon which books and curios rested. He was about to step closer and examine them when a chill wind seemed to sweep around him, like a coiling snake; he stepped back, startled, and then noticed that he wasn't the only thing that had moved.

As he watched, the bones and shards began to swirl, like debris caught in a dust devil; from within the heart of the mass, a pair of piercing blue motes of light formed in the chaos and glared outwards at him. The wind hissed, fluttered, and resolved into words that seemed to slide gratingly through Topher's skull: Eist nessam va eil cuarn.

"Uh, yeah, whatever that means." Topher summoned his Stylus, spinning it in his free hand as the other raised the torch high, then leveled it at the twin stars within the vortex. "Well, I've got some silly words for you too -- Poreg Orv Teijuc Vil Danx!"

He expected a lightning bolt to leap forth, but nothing happened; as he gaped, the hissing wind resolved into a dry, sinister cackle. Shit. More antimagic. He cursed, banishing his Stylus, and instead gripped the torch in both hands. "I can do this the hard way if you want, fucker."

There was a brief lull in the wind, like an indrawn breath; then the laugh came again. Eimat ni aum siun. Quiac va eliss Wanbourne...

Topher blinked. Wanbourne? Wait a minute... "Hey, Kelfir!" he shouted behind him, not daring to look back. "I don't suppose you know what 'Eimat ni aum siun' means?"

"Approximately," the elf yelled back, trying to be heard over the wind and some other noises Topher couldn't quite distinguish, "it means 'Feeble and foolish manling'!"

"There is also some cultural context implying your mother was of loose morals!" chimed in Varissian helpfully; Topher winced and grinned.

"Great," he yelled back, "so what language is this thing even speaking?"

"Old Elvish," Kelfir returned -- there was the sound of an explosion behind him, which he hoped wasn't too bad of a sign. Topher frowned. What's something doing speaking Old Elvish in a dwarven tomb?

He brandished the makeshift torch again, but moved no nearer; as he watched, the spiraling osseous cloud coalesced into a solid shape. The blue-white, staring points of light settled into deep sockets within a long, polished skull; regal, grasping bony arms and hands, shot through with more bluish-white energy, extended downwards from cloaked shoulders. There were no legs or feet; the ribcage rested upon a swirling, seething column of more energy, and a small status window appeared above it:

Undead: Arch-Lich Keryth Venvaris

Topher gulped. "Kelfir," he shouted over his shoulder, "I've got good news and bad news!"