A quasi D&D story!
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With a raspy sigh, I open my eyes. A disturbance... somewhere. Even now, the smell of elsewhere pervades my chamber. I did not bring it here, of course. How could I? I have not left this place since.... since how long? My name? What is my NAME? What am I DOING HERE? Everything is forgotten as ponder that question, whose answer I have forgotten. I sit up, my gaze wandering my room.
Books, all around. My eyes rest on the strange, beautiful symbols around me. Ah! Of course! Of course. I feel the warm glow, so familiar. It's all I've ever needed, or wanted. Not the symbols, but for what they carry: knowledge. Power. Mine and others, thoughts refined and purified by countless hours of toil, of joy. All returns to me, clear and pure. I need not open any of them, their bindings are my bindings, their words are my words; even if I did not imagine all of them, and their ideas are so wonderful... so good. I would like to add to them!
"I could do this forever..." My voice is strange. Much is strange. What is my name? Where is that... smell... of new coming from? It's actually a vibration, clear notes traveling the stones of my room, of my bed. I don't need to hold my breath to hear them. Actually... I don't need to breathe at all! "How peculiar! My voice works without air!"
Well this is interesting indeed. I need to write this down! My hands move without thought, closing around a small book attached to chain around my neck. Well of course I have my own book! I laugh! Of course! Of course, now I need ink and quill.
I quickly move to my desk, finding my ink pot and quill under all the dust. "Of course... Of course." The ink is dry! My quill is rusted! WHAT IS THIS! I am still, quiet. More peculiar things, now interfering with my work. Interesting things... but not ideal. I remember... worried faces, always rushing and blathering silly questions... my students? Didn't I have... apprentices? Annoying, of course, but useful for ink pot filling and quill finding. "I will surely by unhappy with them!" The vibrations are clearer now.
Voices, excited whispers I hear easily. My apprentices! Concocting another irksome prank no doubt. I walk to the door of my room, dust trailing me, when was the last time they swept the floor! Lazy clods! I pause before the door and listen. "I'm telling you Olgar, thar is a treasure trove here! This Wizard was a big hat! Get the door open!"
Hat? I've always been a shadowy cloak and cane guy. These apprentices had a lot of nerve! I push the door to my sanctum open and scream: "WHERE IS MY INK?"
The silly fellows freezes. "Gods above." whispers the fellow I'm nose to nose with. Actually, where is my nose? He's carrying a torch, and in the reflectiveness of his eyes I can see my face.
Oh my!
"Lichdom? I... seen... seem to have... gotten off course." Liches were some of the worst things around, undead wizards kept alive by magic, obsession and a spritz of insanity. About a gallon of spritz, actually.
The apprentice behind bellows: "It's the Collector! Outta my way Olgar!" as he shoves his smaller friend aside, sending him and his many bags across the floor. I can't remember ever having such a large apprentice. Perhaps a bodyguard? My body! A Lich! This explained the... disembodied feeling I had been having.
It occurs to me that the large axe the fellow is swinging could, in fact, be trouble. I whisper a word, one of the many I know, but the first I can think of. The large fellow freeze in place, face frozen in a nasty rictus... similar to my own actually. Didn't he have a friend? I turn to the side, to find the Olgar guy scrambling inside his many bags, looking for some magic something, no doubt.
"Unless you have some Ink, you're in some quite spectacular trouble my good doorknocker!" I speak sternly. The fellow seems a bit quicker than his friend, because his hand darts into one of his bag and lifts a small dark cylinder to me. He gasps. "Always have some... for me maps!" I smile at him benevolently. He looks away. "Quill?" He offers a small nub up, just as quickly.
What had the large fellow shouted? "Collector." It sounded familiar, it sounded good. But Collector of what? What had I been about to do with this ink? Collect some thoughts. "Thought collector? Not much of a name..." I turn to my Bodyguard "Collector of what?" He doesn't speak... or move. Oh right, the spell!
Wait... hadn't he been reverse bodyguarding or something? Axes weren't usually well received, especially on the neck. He must be incorrectly trained. I pluck it out of his hands. The brown skin of his hand turned white very quickly. Some sort of negative energy spell? Oh right... Lich! Oops.
"Sorry... sorry! New to this business. So... you were about to say my name?" I'm being quite helpful, actually. This fellow was more confused than me, clearly!
Without the spell, the incompetent bodyguard clutched his hand and swore a very interesting combination. Mostly involving goats and mothers doing... something not anatomically possible. I open my small book and jot down a few of the nicer ones. I'll diagram it later. I stop when he does. I look up. He's looking at me!
- You don't know... your name?
- Well... I got called Master a lot, but I've forgotten the bit that comes after it.
- Your name is...
The small fellow pipes up. "We'll tell you your name if you spare us, mighty one!" Mighty one? That's better than Master by one full crony-joule! "Of course! I'm well known for being sparring!" He smiles in relief. "This is said to be the Tomb of Feynman, the bloated eater of knowledge!" Bloated?! BLOATED?
"Bloated?! I'm big boned!" The fellow cowers... even more than before, clutching his fallen bags to his chest. "IT'S A METAPHORE! IT'S A METAPHORE!" I give him The Stare, which always worked on the janitor, at least. Olgar opens one his bag, and sticks it over his head. Huh? "Relax! Gosh! Oh, right... Lich." Now I feel bad!
I would have to update my portrait on the local mage guild wall and even worse; this could be a problem for me with the ladies. "How the heck did this happen to me?"
"Olgar, you moron", grunted the reverse Bodyguard, who was looking somewhat irritated. "This is why you'll never meet my mother!" Olgar glared at his large... friend? "Well, Krongus! At least I didn't come up with the genius idea to have a honeymoon raid in the Tomb of the deadliest shade in the land!"
Honey? Woah! What the hell! "So... the two of you... are... damn! What year is it?" The two seemed suddenly a bit self-conscious.
- It's 1479, Dalereckoning.
- And... what you do... is legal?
- Well...
- Not an affront to the gods?
- Err...
- Not a disgusting, unholy blight of the mind?
- Hey! Who's calling who unholy here?
Well now! Things had changed in the Realms, it seemed. I quickly open my book and jot down this... development. I hesitate... and decide not to do diagrams of possible... no... where does... IT go?
Actually... as a matter of fact.... did I even still have an IT? My current predicament could be a very BIG problem for the ladies.
I'm getting close to irritated. "Alright! Enough! Fine! Just don't... urg... not in my house anyway! Now! Possible causes of Lichcantropy and cures; go!"
My quill is poised above my book. I wait. I wait some more. "I don't pay you to lollygag around! If I did, you'd be a), women; and b); naked." I decide to glare at the wall in between both. Krongus scratches his head.
- Well... could be a curse.
- Made by?
- ... a wizard?
- Called?
- Err... Feynman?
- Shut up.
"You with...", actually they looked like purses, "... the bags! GO"
- It's Olgar... could be Gods. The eval ones maybe.
- Right! The evil God of the dead!
- Kelemvor? Naw, he's an ok chap! Got a discount on me Grannie's funeral.
- Alright.
- Maybe you had... like a job wot needed doing?
- Yeah... job. Right.
- Could be a 'orrible task what you have to do, and you heroically became a bony guy to do it. For all time.
- Yeah. Work for all eternity. Sure. But... let's say that isn't it.
- Could be an ex-girlfriend?
I suddenly have an uncomfortable feeling settle onto me... like a shadowy cape worn by a hot, bony white babe walking over my tomb. "What kinda girl... does something like this!" A job that needed doing... for all eternity?
Crap!
"Maybe you gots its name wrote down in your little black book?"
Both I and the thief speak together: "Shut up Krongus."
I decided I needed to lie down. I close the doors on my apprentices and walk back to my stone bed. I actually had three problems now. Once settled down, I idly started flipping the pages to and fro of my book. First: I had died. Second, I was out of time and place. Third, someone had done stuff that just shouldn't be done to an honest fellow. I mean, sure, I liked to have a good time! Who didn't? So what if I liked hang around the occasional temple to the goddess Sune with my sketchpad? I was busy cracking the secrets of the Multiverse, for Gods sakes! Those diagrams had profound significance! And the portraits of girls in the margins were just sympathetic young things, receptacles eager to receive my profound knowledge!
Speaking of receptacles... where was my magic soul jar? Every Lich had his magic jar for his soul, the cork in the proverbial wine bottle of life, so where was mine? Was it filled with cookies I couldn't eat?
I thumb through my small book. It felt warm in my hands. Hands which shouldn't feel anything. I understood suddenly. "This is my Phylactery. This is what keeps me going." How many wizards and sorcerers tried and succeeded full Lichdom? 1 out of 10? Less? And who would do this to me? If I had died... of natural causes... and someone had been ready... but... where were they?
A job that needed doing... for all eternity.
There was one name... that would never be in my books. That I would never forget. "Arlene Greenbaum", I whispered it, but it felt like a shout. Even to my own ears, my voice had sounded inhuman up to now. But it hadn't just then. Some girls where so pretty you didn't even notice how nice they were. Arlene had been the opposite.
An Elf, but it barely showed. The kind of Elf that made you realize why so many damn half-elves where running around. The kind of girl that made you think: "I'll never need another." But of course, things had a way of going south unexpectedly. And elves weren't immortal beings. And they hated resurrection.
Some diseases just went too fast... others were too slow. They had met in Waterdeep, she had been a thief... and he had been... a collector. It had been a good match professionally.
He had been much less back then. Just another spellthrower eager to go up against anything that looked interesting. He had been trying to get a particular spell, a microscopic time stop. A large Timestop spell needed a full fledged archmage to handle it. So... what about a small one?
If a small portion of matter could be frozen in time... it could also be sped up... or down... say... a piece of coal... under pressure for a few million years... that could give you a diamond. All you needed to get rich.
Or get a diamond for a reincarnation spell if you were too poor to buy one. And some diseases you couldn't stop were curses... once caught, they couldn't be undone easily... or in time.
"They were dead and gone already, they didn't need anything! It's all wasted on them. Besides! I'm an elf; it's an elf temple, sooooo the stuff is practically mine already!" She was laughing. Always. And her eyes twinkled when she did.
So they barged into the old temple; an old Elven god... of mushrooms, fairly silly even by elf standards. He was forgotten and gone, but his treasures remained. So did his curses.
Of course, there was an unfortunate encounter with a crypt guardian. No problem for him, the human. Not so for Arlene the elf. And suddenly, Arlene had a curse. Not the kind that made you grow hair, or spout gibberish. The kind that killed you dead. Slowly. And since they had stolen from an Elven temple... the Elven high priests Arlene knew had refused to lift the curse, under any circumstance. She had to "redeem" herself. And even if she did, it still meant she would die. "Redeem" only meant she could get into elf heaven.
Other cults wanted ridiculous amounts of gold to go against the curse of the Elven pantheon. It would cost them less if she died and was brought back to life.
"Gods, Arlene.... you managed to sneak right outta elf heaven, didn't you? It must be you!"
I was sure of it. It HAD to be her! He had finally figured it out, a way to redeem her. His mini-super-haste spell could be applied to more than coal... it could work on arrows. Elven arrows. Arrows that could survive incredible speeds. And suddenly, the elves had one of the deadliest spell and weapon combos in the Realms. A decent Elven Griffin rider could wipe out a town with nothing more than a quiver of cheap hyper arrows, which the Elves were more than happy to demonstrate on some vile evildoers. A good cause, it had seemed at the time. Suddenly, the world became a very scary place. It was only a matter of time 'till some other wizard repeated what he had done. But the Elven nation had an edge, at least for a while; one they were sure not to waste. Suddenly, magical weapons and defences were being retooled everywhere.
The stress on her... what he had done FOR her... she became sicker...
After her... departure... he had gone to everyone he knew, and everyone she knew, trying to get that magic gold together, spending his free time plucking away at his mini-super-haste spell. Eventually, they teetered out an old high priest muckity muck. "She's gone, and doesn't want to come back." Everyone had said it, her family, her friends... and he had believed.
Damn him. Damn me. I had BELIEVED their lies! Was it because he was human? No... It was because she didn't consider herself redeemed. More war? Better arrows? What had he been thinking?!
"If you're around Arlene, I'm awake now. Really awake."
The shadows around his room began to merge together and a white face bloomed within. A face he knew. She was... different. She looked stronger. And much much hungrier than he remembered.
"Shucks Arlene! Did you go full Banshee on me?" She gave him a toothy smile, one that sent his heart hammering in his chest. "Forget that! I've been reading that your little notebook while you lazed about! Will you explain to me who ALL THOSE BITCHES IN THERE ARE!?"
My mouth felt dry. Really dry. Comeon! Come up with something. You're the smartest damn guy ever. You could schmooze any girl, explain any magic. Blast any demon. Reinvent war. I had to say something!
"They... were... were.... PRACTICE until we could meet up again."
Oh gods.
OH GODS.
DID I JUST SAY THAT!
She laughs and spins in the air... She always did like to dance... "Practice? You lout! You clod! You could of planewalked to me! Cursed the Gods! Busted some heads in until they brought me back! Sent me a letter!" I was shaking so bad I could hear my bones rattle. "I tried! I tried all of that! I just didn't know where your new address was, but I wrote a letter! Lots of letters!"
Her spinning slowed and stopped.
"Show me."
I point a bony digit to a small shelf in the corner. It wasn't full, it wasn't much, but it held quite a nice collection nevertheless. She drifts by them, her hands brushing the shelf. She suddenly seemed to gain mass and something like weariness seemed to come over here. She leaned against the shelf. "You were looking in Heavens, but I was in the Hells." Her voice was tired.
So. They had lied. All of them.
This was the first time I had ever seen her tired, even when the curse had robbed her of so much, of movement, of freedom, of speech... of pleasure.
I walk up to her and place my hands on her shoulders. She leaned into my arms. "Miss Greenbaum.... would you care to dance?" She shuddered a bit, and whispered something that sounded like yes. I take a step back, and again, and step to the side. I lead, and she drifts with me.
At last, she looks into my eyes, and I can't look anywhere else. "All those years of practice? And this is your verrrryyyy best? I think I'll lead, thank you very much!
I laugh! She spins around and dips me. "At least you lost some weight!" Oh no, she did not! "I told you, I'm big boned!" I return indignantly.
Oh right! That reminds me. "One sec, dear!" I march over to the doors of my tomb and wrench them open. Both Olgar and Krongus tumble into the room. "Okay apprentices, you're taking the day off! Come back with a broom and a mop! So, get outta here right now.... this Lady is a real screamer!"
Behind me, she laughs, a baum on my soul, and spins and spins, faster and faster... and I know a spell that can make me just as fast as her now.
-Fin-