Death, the tomb was rank with the stench. Of course, crypts were always
filled with the mingled scent of decaying flesh and whatever other smells
produced by the denizens of this dark catacomb. I have little experience
with this side of things, being a noble, but I had ventured into the family
crypt on several occasions.
I am Nevarenn Tau'rei, of the noble Tau'rei family. If my father had been more careful in his dealings within the city, I wouldn't be here. He had been involved in a scandal several weeks ago, and to restore our name, he signed me up for this dreadfully menial task. I was one of the few competent wizards in the city, so my father felt it would make our family look good if I did a service for our city.
Three days privy to this day, a tomb guard had entered the crypt to investigate magical disturbances detected by one of the cities divining wizards, and had disappeared. Consequently, myself and a common fighter, a lithe man named K'tevv, had been put in charge of a group of twenty-six fighters, two healers, myself and one other mage, a witch named Avi.
I fast found myself wishing that Avi had not joined our group, for I was quite utterly love struck. I couldn't concentrate on anything but her, and the worst part was that she was wed, to K'tevv. That was one instance in which I did envy the moron. With her golden hair and vibrant green eyes, she made every other woman I had ever met pale in comparison.
"What ails you, friend?" Avi inquired from behind me, speeding her pace to keep speed with my long legs. I noticed her predicament and slowed a little.
"Naught but the smell," I lied, "are we nearly to the point where they disappeared"
"We are nearing the point where we lost magical contact, yes." Came her reply.
As she spoke, the narrow corridor gave way to a large room, the walls lined with caskets. I could hardly see for the darkness of the place, so I set to rectify that. I drew from a pouch in my cloak a pinch of sand and cast it forth, uttering the correct incantation to conjure a magical light. A faint glow began to emanate from the tomb's walls, slowly growing brighter as the spell took effect. I instantly regretted it.
A grisly scene lay before us: we had found the patrol, at least what was left of them. Bodies were strewn about, most charred beyond recognition, others were torn apart, electrocuted, and three even appeared to have drowned!
"What in the name of... who could have done this?" stuttered Avi, her voice filled with fear. No reply was forthcoming.
"Let us move on, we must find whatever did this and repay it for its atrocious crime," I ordered, my voice grim.
On we went, searching for whatever horrible thing or things that were responsible for this massacre. We did not need to look far. Our first warning that we had found the cause of the patrol's untimely demise was the cold. I was not a natural cold, but one that seemed to chill me from the inside out. I paused for a moment, reaching with my right hand to my left index finger, upon which I wore a black onyx ring. I twisted the ring to activate the magic, now all I had to do was aim and make a fist with my left hand, and I would cast forth a large pillar of white-hot flames.
K'tevv heard it first, slow, deliberate footsteps in the dark before us. I was next to pick up on it, and acted fast. "Avi! Light!" I bellowed, while at the same time taking aim in the direction of the noise and curling my left hand into a tight ball. A billowing tier of flame leapt forth, brighter than the desert sun, striking down two of our assailants. As Avi's light spell took effect, I got a clear view at what I was fighting: corpses. Eleven animated cadavers marched toward us, or at least, there were eleven before I disintegrated the first two.
Although these beasts were quite frightening, they were nothing compared to the horror that brought up the rear of the undead group. It looked as though it were caught halfway between a rooting corpse and a clean skeleton. Composed mostly of bone, the cadaverous being still had rotten flesh attached to some of its body. The most horrifying feature, though, was its head. A clean bone skull, the creatures eyes had been replaced with twin glowing red orbs of light.
I recalled hearing from an instructor during my arcane training that the best way to eliminate the undead was to burn them, so I called to mind my most devastating fire spell.
Waving my arms and curling my fingers through the appropriate gestures and passes all the while relaying the verbal incantation, I completed the spell quickly. Quite abruptly, a glass orb appeared amongst the writhing mass of zombies, few stopped for a moment to look at it, but their lack of concentration cost them their lives as the more elite fighters hacked them apart. The glass orb then was limned with a magical blue flame, then the globe exploded, shards of glass buried themselves in the monster, and then ignited, consuming the beasts entirely with blue flame.
Once all the minions were killed off, the red-eyed monster in back showed his power to us. Raising a skeletal hand in our direction, the creature's eyes flared, and the room was filled with a searing red light, and when I looked up from the floor I did not remember hitting, I was struck with utmost horror.
The entire party had been decimated, aside from Avi and me, for our now destroyed spell shields had protected us from the blast. Thinking quickly, I rolled atop of Avi. Once there, I whispered a word, the magic word to invoke a permanent enchantment I had cast on me as a mageling, and upon invoking it, Avi and me were made ethereal, ghostlike. I willed us to drift down into the floor, and we quite unexpectedly emerged into a deeper tomb, one that existed unbeknownst to us, below the first.
Like a plume of smoke, we drifted lazily to the floor of the chamber, and made us corporeal again, standing up, me holding her against me. Once there, Avi looked up at me through those vibrant green eyes, and whispered one word, "K'tevv," and with that she gave an almighty shudder, and sank to the floor, quite dead. In my haste to escape, I had overlooked her grievous wounds. Her spell shield had been weaker than mine, and she had been murdered. I fell to my knees, great sobs shaking my shoulders. I know not how long I knelt there, but after a while, a new thought occurred to me, revenge. I would repay Avi's killer. Only now I noticed my surroundings, all over the walls were written ancient texts. I waved a hand over my eyes and whispered an incantation so I could read the texts.
They finally told me the name of my attacker, Talyyr; he was a lich, an undead mage. In order to kill him, I must pass through two trials. The end read, "When one has passed the trials and defeated the lich, the killer shall take..." The wall had crumbled and I could not finish my reading. I had to extrapolate the rest, I assumed I will get some treasure or power, but that did not matter, only my vengeance.
I raced down the corridors to reach the first trial. It was contained within two heavy stone slabs for doors. I laboriously forced these open enough to squeeze through. I then surveyed what awaited me, a spider. A fifty foot tall spider with eight legs as thick as the grand redwoods of the forest, and eight eyes, glinting like mirrors in the light provided by the torches in the wall sconces. Eyeing me, the great arachnid charged. I summoned to mind two spells that would hopefully destroy this creature quickly. First I drew out from my cloak a spell component, a small metal sheet the size of a coin. Mumbling an incantation, I tossed the metal at the beast. Dividing into six pieces and growing, the small coin-shaped component was soon six, horse-sized whirling blades! Without hope of avoiding the hail of blades, the spider stopped, realizing any forward movement would only help my spell to decimate it. razor edges tore at the creature's legs, removing for and disabling two others. Effectively immobilized, the spider waited for the killing blow. From my cloak I drew a black glass wand and aimed at the arachnid's head. Merely by willing it, I caused the wand to fire an arc of magical black lightning that attacked the creature, almost as though with a mind of it's own. Soon enough, the room was filled with the distinct odor of charred flesh. It was dead. I had passed the first trial. I crossed the large chamber and passed into the corridor through the next door.
Upon entering the hallway, I found the floor, ceiling and walls falling away from me! I was now suspended in midair, amongst a seemingly endless violet mist. I spotted a small white speck of light drifting toward me. Upon reaching me, the fist-sized orb spoke, "Congratulations, sir, you have passed to your second trial. I shall test you with two riddles, here is the first: I have a mouth, yet cannot speak, I am always running, but never move, I have a bed, yet cannot sleep, what am I?"
I hesitated, not because the riddle was difficult, but out of shock. After a few moments, I replied, "Simple, a river."
It went on in it's misty, female voice, "Very good, now the last riddle: 'Twas in the wood that I found it, you I then sat down to look for it, but alas, I could not find it, so instead, I took it home with me, what was it?"
I now realized that the being was actually speaking to me in my mind! I pondered the riddle for a few minutes, then I had it! "A splinter, it's a splinter in your finger!" I cried.
"Excellent! You may now pass to the lair of the lich, young on,." It spoke, then disappeared. Two walls, a floor, and a ceiling fell into place around me, and I was there.
Before me now stood two impressive great doors, these made from magically hardened obsidian. I lifted a magical amulet from my neck; this one had a golden ring with a glass lens inside of it. I brought the lens to my eye, and muttered the trigger word. Fading away like a morning mist, the two obsidian doors disappeared, at least to my vision, allowing me to look into the room beyond.
Talyyr's lair was huge, and entirely composed of obsidian. Descending from the door was an unsupported staircase, leading to a flat surface, from the middle of which rose a great pillar of steps, atop the small platform on the pillar, stood Talyyr himself. I removed the eyepiece from my face and placed it again upon my neck.
I decided to start my battle with Talyyr before even entering the room, and began casting. My spell, however, was not offensive in nature, but illusory. Before long, a magical replica of myself was standing before the door to the chamber. I whispered its instructions, "Count thirty seconds, and then enter the room ahead of you." Not wanting to waste my time, I quickly spoke the word to turn me ethereal again. I drifted into the wall to my left, and quickly circled so I was within the wall opposite the doors. Three, two, one, I counted in my head, then heard the slam signifying that the doors had been opened, then a crackling as Talyyr let loose whatever form of magical punishment it contained, obliterating my copy. That was my cue.
Already casting my first spell, I emerged from the wall, willing myself solid once more. My roiling blast of white-hot flame took the lich off guard, and it was blown from its pedestal. I knew the thing was far from dead, so took the opportunity to conjure the mightiest spell shield I could around me. Talyyr bolted around the left side of the pedestal, red eyes flaring. It raised a skeletal arm in my direction and let fly a great arc of blue-white lightning. Dodging to the side, I avoided the brunt of the blow, but caught a nasty shock. I twisted my onyx ring and thrust a fist in the direction of the lich. A familiar torrent of white flame tore forth from the ring, yet another projection of my hatred for the creature, and my need for its retribution. A little slower to recover this time the lich rose, and holding forth its rotting right arm. This time it was a purple-blue magical ray that lanced out from Talyyr's hand. Long before he had even stood up, though, I had cast a small cantrip that allowed me to jump far across the room, bound for the stairwell. In mid flight, I loosed a spray of golden magical bolts down at my foe. By the time my flurry of bolts had stuck Talyyr, I had alighted on the staircase, yet again sweeping my arms through mystic passes and raising my voice in incantation. This spell would do it, kill the undead sorcerer for good.
I focused all my hatred, pain, anger sadness, and grief into this one final spell. In front of me materialized retribution incarnate, in the form of eight spikes of ice as long as I was tall (which is very tall). At my will, the spikes shot forward, each one burying itself deep within its target. Talyyr stood there for a moment, almost in disbelief, but it was not over. Each spike was soon coated in icy barbs as long as my middle finger, which where then limned with the same blue flame the lich's comrades had fallen to. I had won. Talyyr was reduced to cinders. My vision starting to blur, I realized how much of a toll the battle had taken, I was exhausted. I attempted to shake it off, but then I noticed a red mist had risen from the lich's cremated body. Faster than anything I had even seen, the red mist shot forward and struck me, knocking me unconscious. I fell to the floor... hard.
I am still unsure how long I lay there, but I did finally awake. I rolled, using my left arm to push myself into a standing position, but when my left hand touched the floor touched the floor, I heard a click. I brought my hand in front of my hand to inspect it, and screamed. Hard and white, my arm had turned to bone. I ran to a pier glass across the hall and looked in, seeing a skull with twin red glowing eyes staring back at me. " But how? What made me... oh God! That red mist did this... the inscription!" I spoke this because it had just dawned upon me what the writing on the walls had said, "When one has passed the trial and defeated the lich, the killer shall take... his place." Killing the lich was a quest for an evil man, one who would wish the power of the undead. My rotten face contorted with horror, and my motionless heart filled with dread, this could only be undone by my death.
I am Nevarenn Tau'rei, of the noble Tau'rei family. If my father had been more careful in his dealings within the city, I wouldn't be here. He had been involved in a scandal several weeks ago, and to restore our name, he signed me up for this dreadfully menial task. I was one of the few competent wizards in the city, so my father felt it would make our family look good if I did a service for our city.
Three days privy to this day, a tomb guard had entered the crypt to investigate magical disturbances detected by one of the cities divining wizards, and had disappeared. Consequently, myself and a common fighter, a lithe man named K'tevv, had been put in charge of a group of twenty-six fighters, two healers, myself and one other mage, a witch named Avi.
I fast found myself wishing that Avi had not joined our group, for I was quite utterly love struck. I couldn't concentrate on anything but her, and the worst part was that she was wed, to K'tevv. That was one instance in which I did envy the moron. With her golden hair and vibrant green eyes, she made every other woman I had ever met pale in comparison.
"What ails you, friend?" Avi inquired from behind me, speeding her pace to keep speed with my long legs. I noticed her predicament and slowed a little.
"Naught but the smell," I lied, "are we nearly to the point where they disappeared"
"We are nearing the point where we lost magical contact, yes." Came her reply.
As she spoke, the narrow corridor gave way to a large room, the walls lined with caskets. I could hardly see for the darkness of the place, so I set to rectify that. I drew from a pouch in my cloak a pinch of sand and cast it forth, uttering the correct incantation to conjure a magical light. A faint glow began to emanate from the tomb's walls, slowly growing brighter as the spell took effect. I instantly regretted it.
A grisly scene lay before us: we had found the patrol, at least what was left of them. Bodies were strewn about, most charred beyond recognition, others were torn apart, electrocuted, and three even appeared to have drowned!
"What in the name of... who could have done this?" stuttered Avi, her voice filled with fear. No reply was forthcoming.
"Let us move on, we must find whatever did this and repay it for its atrocious crime," I ordered, my voice grim.
On we went, searching for whatever horrible thing or things that were responsible for this massacre. We did not need to look far. Our first warning that we had found the cause of the patrol's untimely demise was the cold. I was not a natural cold, but one that seemed to chill me from the inside out. I paused for a moment, reaching with my right hand to my left index finger, upon which I wore a black onyx ring. I twisted the ring to activate the magic, now all I had to do was aim and make a fist with my left hand, and I would cast forth a large pillar of white-hot flames.
K'tevv heard it first, slow, deliberate footsteps in the dark before us. I was next to pick up on it, and acted fast. "Avi! Light!" I bellowed, while at the same time taking aim in the direction of the noise and curling my left hand into a tight ball. A billowing tier of flame leapt forth, brighter than the desert sun, striking down two of our assailants. As Avi's light spell took effect, I got a clear view at what I was fighting: corpses. Eleven animated cadavers marched toward us, or at least, there were eleven before I disintegrated the first two.
Although these beasts were quite frightening, they were nothing compared to the horror that brought up the rear of the undead group. It looked as though it were caught halfway between a rooting corpse and a clean skeleton. Composed mostly of bone, the cadaverous being still had rotten flesh attached to some of its body. The most horrifying feature, though, was its head. A clean bone skull, the creatures eyes had been replaced with twin glowing red orbs of light.
I recalled hearing from an instructor during my arcane training that the best way to eliminate the undead was to burn them, so I called to mind my most devastating fire spell.
Waving my arms and curling my fingers through the appropriate gestures and passes all the while relaying the verbal incantation, I completed the spell quickly. Quite abruptly, a glass orb appeared amongst the writhing mass of zombies, few stopped for a moment to look at it, but their lack of concentration cost them their lives as the more elite fighters hacked them apart. The glass orb then was limned with a magical blue flame, then the globe exploded, shards of glass buried themselves in the monster, and then ignited, consuming the beasts entirely with blue flame.
Once all the minions were killed off, the red-eyed monster in back showed his power to us. Raising a skeletal hand in our direction, the creature's eyes flared, and the room was filled with a searing red light, and when I looked up from the floor I did not remember hitting, I was struck with utmost horror.
The entire party had been decimated, aside from Avi and me, for our now destroyed spell shields had protected us from the blast. Thinking quickly, I rolled atop of Avi. Once there, I whispered a word, the magic word to invoke a permanent enchantment I had cast on me as a mageling, and upon invoking it, Avi and me were made ethereal, ghostlike. I willed us to drift down into the floor, and we quite unexpectedly emerged into a deeper tomb, one that existed unbeknownst to us, below the first.
Like a plume of smoke, we drifted lazily to the floor of the chamber, and made us corporeal again, standing up, me holding her against me. Once there, Avi looked up at me through those vibrant green eyes, and whispered one word, "K'tevv," and with that she gave an almighty shudder, and sank to the floor, quite dead. In my haste to escape, I had overlooked her grievous wounds. Her spell shield had been weaker than mine, and she had been murdered. I fell to my knees, great sobs shaking my shoulders. I know not how long I knelt there, but after a while, a new thought occurred to me, revenge. I would repay Avi's killer. Only now I noticed my surroundings, all over the walls were written ancient texts. I waved a hand over my eyes and whispered an incantation so I could read the texts.
They finally told me the name of my attacker, Talyyr; he was a lich, an undead mage. In order to kill him, I must pass through two trials. The end read, "When one has passed the trials and defeated the lich, the killer shall take..." The wall had crumbled and I could not finish my reading. I had to extrapolate the rest, I assumed I will get some treasure or power, but that did not matter, only my vengeance.
I raced down the corridors to reach the first trial. It was contained within two heavy stone slabs for doors. I laboriously forced these open enough to squeeze through. I then surveyed what awaited me, a spider. A fifty foot tall spider with eight legs as thick as the grand redwoods of the forest, and eight eyes, glinting like mirrors in the light provided by the torches in the wall sconces. Eyeing me, the great arachnid charged. I summoned to mind two spells that would hopefully destroy this creature quickly. First I drew out from my cloak a spell component, a small metal sheet the size of a coin. Mumbling an incantation, I tossed the metal at the beast. Dividing into six pieces and growing, the small coin-shaped component was soon six, horse-sized whirling blades! Without hope of avoiding the hail of blades, the spider stopped, realizing any forward movement would only help my spell to decimate it. razor edges tore at the creature's legs, removing for and disabling two others. Effectively immobilized, the spider waited for the killing blow. From my cloak I drew a black glass wand and aimed at the arachnid's head. Merely by willing it, I caused the wand to fire an arc of magical black lightning that attacked the creature, almost as though with a mind of it's own. Soon enough, the room was filled with the distinct odor of charred flesh. It was dead. I had passed the first trial. I crossed the large chamber and passed into the corridor through the next door.
Upon entering the hallway, I found the floor, ceiling and walls falling away from me! I was now suspended in midair, amongst a seemingly endless violet mist. I spotted a small white speck of light drifting toward me. Upon reaching me, the fist-sized orb spoke, "Congratulations, sir, you have passed to your second trial. I shall test you with two riddles, here is the first: I have a mouth, yet cannot speak, I am always running, but never move, I have a bed, yet cannot sleep, what am I?"
I hesitated, not because the riddle was difficult, but out of shock. After a few moments, I replied, "Simple, a river."
It went on in it's misty, female voice, "Very good, now the last riddle: 'Twas in the wood that I found it, you I then sat down to look for it, but alas, I could not find it, so instead, I took it home with me, what was it?"
I now realized that the being was actually speaking to me in my mind! I pondered the riddle for a few minutes, then I had it! "A splinter, it's a splinter in your finger!" I cried.
"Excellent! You may now pass to the lair of the lich, young on,." It spoke, then disappeared. Two walls, a floor, and a ceiling fell into place around me, and I was there.
Before me now stood two impressive great doors, these made from magically hardened obsidian. I lifted a magical amulet from my neck; this one had a golden ring with a glass lens inside of it. I brought the lens to my eye, and muttered the trigger word. Fading away like a morning mist, the two obsidian doors disappeared, at least to my vision, allowing me to look into the room beyond.
Talyyr's lair was huge, and entirely composed of obsidian. Descending from the door was an unsupported staircase, leading to a flat surface, from the middle of which rose a great pillar of steps, atop the small platform on the pillar, stood Talyyr himself. I removed the eyepiece from my face and placed it again upon my neck.
I decided to start my battle with Talyyr before even entering the room, and began casting. My spell, however, was not offensive in nature, but illusory. Before long, a magical replica of myself was standing before the door to the chamber. I whispered its instructions, "Count thirty seconds, and then enter the room ahead of you." Not wanting to waste my time, I quickly spoke the word to turn me ethereal again. I drifted into the wall to my left, and quickly circled so I was within the wall opposite the doors. Three, two, one, I counted in my head, then heard the slam signifying that the doors had been opened, then a crackling as Talyyr let loose whatever form of magical punishment it contained, obliterating my copy. That was my cue.
Already casting my first spell, I emerged from the wall, willing myself solid once more. My roiling blast of white-hot flame took the lich off guard, and it was blown from its pedestal. I knew the thing was far from dead, so took the opportunity to conjure the mightiest spell shield I could around me. Talyyr bolted around the left side of the pedestal, red eyes flaring. It raised a skeletal arm in my direction and let fly a great arc of blue-white lightning. Dodging to the side, I avoided the brunt of the blow, but caught a nasty shock. I twisted my onyx ring and thrust a fist in the direction of the lich. A familiar torrent of white flame tore forth from the ring, yet another projection of my hatred for the creature, and my need for its retribution. A little slower to recover this time the lich rose, and holding forth its rotting right arm. This time it was a purple-blue magical ray that lanced out from Talyyr's hand. Long before he had even stood up, though, I had cast a small cantrip that allowed me to jump far across the room, bound for the stairwell. In mid flight, I loosed a spray of golden magical bolts down at my foe. By the time my flurry of bolts had stuck Talyyr, I had alighted on the staircase, yet again sweeping my arms through mystic passes and raising my voice in incantation. This spell would do it, kill the undead sorcerer for good.
I focused all my hatred, pain, anger sadness, and grief into this one final spell. In front of me materialized retribution incarnate, in the form of eight spikes of ice as long as I was tall (which is very tall). At my will, the spikes shot forward, each one burying itself deep within its target. Talyyr stood there for a moment, almost in disbelief, but it was not over. Each spike was soon coated in icy barbs as long as my middle finger, which where then limned with the same blue flame the lich's comrades had fallen to. I had won. Talyyr was reduced to cinders. My vision starting to blur, I realized how much of a toll the battle had taken, I was exhausted. I attempted to shake it off, but then I noticed a red mist had risen from the lich's cremated body. Faster than anything I had even seen, the red mist shot forward and struck me, knocking me unconscious. I fell to the floor... hard.
I am still unsure how long I lay there, but I did finally awake. I rolled, using my left arm to push myself into a standing position, but when my left hand touched the floor touched the floor, I heard a click. I brought my hand in front of my hand to inspect it, and screamed. Hard and white, my arm had turned to bone. I ran to a pier glass across the hall and looked in, seeing a skull with twin red glowing eyes staring back at me. " But how? What made me... oh God! That red mist did this... the inscription!" I spoke this because it had just dawned upon me what the writing on the walls had said, "When one has passed the trial and defeated the lich, the killer shall take... his place." Killing the lich was a quest for an evil man, one who would wish the power of the undead. My rotten face contorted with horror, and my motionless heart filled with dread, this could only be undone by my death.