I changed the title because the previous title didn't really fit in with the original intent of the story anymore. At first, my intent was how Lich was struggling with suicidal tendencies regarding his undead state, but with how the story is progressing, Lich is turning out to be a character who has given up with everything and is simply existing: "a skeleton" of his former self. So I decided to change the title to Pyrrha Meets a Lich. Is it creative? Hell no. Does it describe the story better? …. I think? Also, I managed to reach 10 chapter with this story! On my first attempt at fanfiction no less. At first, I thought it was going to be something of a one-shot, but it seemed there were quite a number of people who liked this story judging by the number of favorites and followers that I decided to continue with this story with even some reviews. Thank you to anyone who managed to reach this far!

"… Calling out your name…" Lich ended the "Call Your Name" song with a lingering note as Pyrrha was walking alongside listening to his singing. They have recently reached the desert room which was practically devoid of everything. No Grimm, no monsters, no plants, and only sand could be seen. Sand dunes after sand dunes and Pyrrha was getting quite sick of sand getting everywhere. Of course, Lich wouldn't mind since he has no flesh so no sense of touch, but it was an annoying sensation to Pyrrha.

"Hold on." Pyrrha came to a stop as she took off her shoe and began tapping out the sand that has gotten in through the numerous holes and tears that saturated her shoe. In response, Lich held up his skeleton foot and watched the sand trickle out of the cracks and crevices of his skeleton body. Pyrrha took a couple sips of water from her canteen before continuing on.

"Lich. I just realized. Aren't you kind of walking around completely nude right now?" Lich's cloak recently fell apart due to the battering and stress it has endured finally catching up. It was now no better than a piece of rag so Lich threw it away. As a result, he was walking around with nothing but his skeleton body which wasn't saying much since he had nothing to show off after all. Lich's response was to only shrug and gestured for Pyrrha to keep walking.

They continued with their trek over the numerous sand dunes in silence for Lich had run out of songs to sing. The magma continued to bare its heat down onto the two with Pyrrha taking the worst of it for she still had flesh. The heat made her dizzy and tired far quicker than it should have. She did not want to use her aura to increase her endurance just yet because the lack of any enemies in sight made her want to save her aura for when she really needed to use it.

Pyrrha soon grew sick of seeing simply sand. Surprisingly, she began wishing to see the trees from the previous rooms once more. Anything else to see other than simply yellow sand dunes would be perfect. She even wished that enemies would come to attack them just so it would combat a bit of her boredom. It was a weird feeling to be walking through a room in the DF that had no enemies.

While she was panting from the ridiculous heat, she saw an oasis in the distance. A pool of water that was awfully inviting for her poor overheated body. She pointed at the oasis before taking a step in the oasis' direction when she felt a hand stop her. Lich shook his head and stated that it was merely a mirage. Begrudgingly, Pyrrha obeyed.

As they continued on in the harsh desert room, the DF was not making the trip easy for them. Although the room was not throwing monster after monster at them, it was tormenting Pyrrha with heat and the possibility of an ambush hanging over their heads. It was for this reason that they were tied together for this room as well. If there were no enemies in sight, it only meant that there were enemies in ambush, waiting for them to let their guard down.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Pyrrha kept her eyes peeled for anything that wasn't sand. Or sand that was on the ground. She elbowed Lich and pointed at a massive cloud of sand coming at them.

"Is that a mirage or is something coming at us?" Lich looked at what Pyrrha was pointing at before saying the f-word.

"That looks like a sandstorm." Lich immediately began pouring his magic into the ground to harden the sand into a dome around them, but the sand was unyielding at first. It turned out that the sand had a high metallic content so it was harder for Lich to manipulate it like ordinary soil. As a result, it would take far more time for his magic to take effect. The best Lich could do before the sandstorm hit was to erect a wall in the direction of the sandstorm, and Pyrrha put up a dome of metal shaving around the open areas.

When the sandstorm blew over them, the sand began pouring in through the small gaps of the iron dome, and the wall shook from the high winds, but it thankfully held. The lighting in their makeshift shelter drastically fell simulating night time for them.

"How are you holding up?" Pyrrha grimaced before cautiously nodding her hands as she poured her aura into her semblance. Noticing Pyrrha's struggle, Lich doubled his efforts into finishing the dome. It took Lich 20 minutes to complete the shelter when it would have taken only five seconds if it was regular soil.

"Well, it seems we are stuck here for the time being." As soon as Lich said those words, Pyrrha let out a groan of relief as she released her semblance and collapsed on the sand floor. Trying to keep her shards from getting blown away was no easy task after all.

"Remind me how many more rooms do we have?" Lich took out his map to answer Pyrrha's question.

"Well, tomorrow will be the last day of the DF, and this room is the last normal room before we get into this mess of squiggles and holes that my scouts drew. I have no idea what it means, but probably something crazy for the last room. I think this room represents the calm before the storm so to speak."

"Great. What's my record for almost dying in one day again?" Lich scratched his lower jaw before answering, "40. It was that room."

Pyrrha shivered as she remembered that room. She used to look down on girls that screamed when cockroaches and other creepy crawly insects appeared. Now she was one of those girls that she used to look down on. Cockroaches were no laughing matter when they were five times bigger than you and retained their almost immortal traits.

"I pray to Monty that the final part of the floor isn't that room again." Pyrrha breathed a sigh of tiredness. "So, I'll probably break my record at the final stretch of the DF then."

"Most likely." Lich nodded in sympathy before the duo went into a state of depressing silence. Lich tried to quickly think of a different subject to wipe away the atmosphere.

"What type of boy do you like?" Pyrrha raised her eyebrow at the question.

"Really?"

"Sorry. I was just trying to blow away the atmosphere."

"I thought we already established that you suck at doing that."

"What? No…"

"You once asked me if I ate guinea pig before. A guinea pig. One of the cutest animals in existence."

"In my defense, in my world, there were countries that ate guinea pigs." Pyrrha only glared harder at Lich with Lich shrugging off the glare with the 'I don't care' expression that a dead body possesses. Eventually, she gave a shrug before answering with an "I don't know."

"Seriously? You don't know. You haven't thought about boys or talked about boys with your best friend before?"

"Well, we do, but I haven't thought about it myself. Also, one of my friends is into girls, not boys." Lich leaned back in surprise.

"Is the parents okay with that?" This time it was Pyrrha to raise her eyebrows in surprise.

"Why? Is there something wrong with a girl liking a girl? It's common in Remnant. Is it not the same for your world?"

"Ah… No. Straight out banned in many places in the world. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen in my world. There is growing support for it with some countries allowing it, but it has pretty stiff resistance depending on the population."

"Oh… that's sad. Not being able to love someone because of laws."

"Eh. That issue is a mess in my old world. Your world is quite progressive compared to mine regarding that area. Was your world always like that or was there some sort of movement to legalize it?"

"No. It was always like that as far as I know."

"Seriously? Like no murdering people because they were gay and stuff like that?"

"Uhm… None that I can think of. Were people seriously murdered for being gay in your world?"

"Yes… On the bright side, it is slowly changing in some part of the world."

"Did you live in a place that allowed it?"

"Er… It was legalized a couple years before I woke up in the cavern… I think. I'm not sure."

"Wow. That recently?"

"Apparently. It could be quite difficult to get reliable political information because "news" always developed into shit throwing contest between liberals and conservatives who are the two sides of the same coin in my opinion." Lich shook his head at the memories. Some people needed to grow a spine while others needed to be more tolerant. Being a moderate could be quite difficult in polarized environments.

"Did you support it?" Lich tilted his head as he contemplated how to answer it.

"Hmmm. How do I answer this? When I still had a flesh and blood body, I could probably rant about the hypocrisy that existed on both sides of the issue for some time, but now… The best way I can sum it up is I don't know. I have only talked about same-sex issues with other straight people so I had difficulty in getting the full picture. However, whether I like or dislike homosexuals, I was big on tolerance. Who am I to tell someone else who to marry? It might go against what I personally believe, but as long as no one is harmed, tolerance is important to me. That doesn't mean you'll find me reading stories with gay couples as the lead like yaoi. Those stories are weird, but hey, tolerance." As Lich said the final word, he lifted his hands in the air and made a rainbow gesture. Pyrrha laughed at Lich's gesture.

After that, the rest of the conversation flew from favorite food to pets. The atmosphere cleared up, and Lich was once more happy to engage in conversation with another talking person. It made him feel alive in a way. The sandstorm continued for the entire day until it was time for the magma to start receding. Lich peeked out his head and shook it at the sight.

"It seems that we'll have to stay in here for a bit longer. It's turning into night time." As there was no wood nearby, the duo had to make do with the dim lights that shone from the fungi that hung from the extremely high ceiling.

"Lich. It's getting cold." Pyrrha shivered as a cloud of water vapor escaped her mouth. Lich began heating up his bones with magic as Pyrrha sat on his pelvis and put her head in his rib cage.

"This again. Huh."

"It's not as comfortable as it looks." Pyrrha shifted her weight around as she tried to adjust herself to find a comfortable spot. Eventually, she finds the perfect spot as she leaned her head back and went to sleep. Lich stayed still. Very still. As he carefully watched over Pyrrha sleeping form, ready to protect her from any who dares attack her even if it meant overusing his dark magic.

At first light of the next day, after a quick breakfast for Pyrrha, they set off. In the morning, the temperatures were quite tolerable, but as the magma gradually filled up to full strength, the heat gradually rose to the unbearable temperatures yesterday. It also didn't help that Lich was seeing some sort of army marching song as 'encouragement' for Pyrrha. It felt like he was instead taunting her considering he doesn't feel tired.

When he switched to singing about some sort of fruitcake, Pyrrha's stomach groaned in protest. It's been too long since she had any sort of sweets. Pyrrha looked down at her body. It was officially pure muscle. She burned off much of her fat in her time in this 'land of the dead'. Or hellhole like Lich liked to call it. As soon as she got to the surface, she was going to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet first. Pile her plates full of nicely seasoned steak, fries, pizza, and all sorts of delicious food. Pyrrha's mouth began to water as she thought of all the food she was going to eat when she reached the surface.

Due to her being lost in thought, she accidentally slipped on an unstable part of the sand dune and began tumbling down into a pit that was in the shape of an upside-down cone. They were tied together so she ended up dragging Lich down as well. Lich took one look at where they were sliding down, and he began panicking desperately trying to punch his skeletal hands and feet into the sand to stop their descent. They were descending too fast for Lich to be able to activate his ground magic due to the peculiar sand.

"Pyrrha! We can't fall to the bottom of this pit!" Without question, Pyrrha used her metal shaving to create massive spikes and smashed them into the sides allowing them to grab on and stop their descent.

"Why? What's wrong?" Pyrrha pulled herself on top of the spike and looked at Lich as she waited for an answer.

"This pit reminds me of how this certain insect in my world got its prey. It made this conical pit with slippery sides so that its prey would fall all the way down to that point where the insect would eat it." Lich pointed at the very bottom point as he explained his concerns. Pyrrha looked down with worry in her face as well.

It was at that moment that the monster hiding under the sand burst into life spraying sand everywhere for it had felt vibrations when Pyrrha jabbed the spikes into the sand. Vibrations meant prey was nearby. It was a giant centipede-worm Grimm with massive mandibles and a mouth filled with jagged teeth. Due to the sudden explosion, the sand became unstable so the spikes lost their effectiveness, and the duo began sliding down closer to the Grimm.

Lich made the first attack as he fired off a stream of fire from one hand and a lightning bolt from the other. The fire and the lightning were ineffective for the Grimm was covered in this thick gooey slime which absorbed most of Lich's spell. Pyrrha was the next to move as she used her metal storm in an attempt to slice up the Grimm. The slime was also very acidic so it simply melted much of the shavings. The Grimm seemed to take its prey's attack in stride as it eagerly awaited them to fall all the way down into its open mouth.

"Finally!" With an annoyed shout, Lich thrust his hands into the sand, and a massive spike of hardened sand burst from underneath him and stabbed the worm straight in the mouth. It pulled back with a massive scream as Lich grabbed Pyrrha and jumped hard enough to leave a massive crater of sand as he rocketed into the air as far away from the Grimm as he could.

Their landing created another crater in the sand dunes as they crashed. Pyrrha's aura flared a deep red as it absorbed much of the energy from the fall while Lich landed awkwardly resulting in his leg separating at the kneecaps. Pyrrha handed one of the legs to Lich while shaking out the sand from her hair freezing when she felt a massive rumbling. She felt a strong shove from her side as the Grimm from before burst out of the sand right where they were standing. Lich began running, carrying Pyrrha over his shoulders like a pack of potatoes.

Trying to run on sand is not easy. Getting carried over the shoulder while the person is running over sand is painful. Once more Pyrrha found herself thankful that she had armor that cushioned Lich's clavicle grinding itself into her stomach. Pyrrha looked up to see an unwelcome sight.

"GOGOGOGOGO!" Pyrrha desperately screamed as the giant worm began chasing after the duo like a centipede.

Since Lich's spells were useless in this situation, it was up to Pyrrha to slow down the Grimm. She did so by using her shield like a boomerang, continuously throwing and bashing the Grimm in the face. It worked, but…

"Pyrrha! What are you doing? It sounds like it is getting angrier!" Lich grunted out as he tried to find footing on the shifting sand dunes.

"Slowing it… Oh, Monty! Dodge! Dodge!" Lich hurled himself to the side, slid down the sand dune, and continued running when he slid to the bottom. He risked a look back and saw a smoking crater behind him.

"What was that?"

"It's doing it again!" This time Lich zigged when he should have zagged, and Pyrrha put up her shield with all of her shards creating a bigger shield in front of them. The resulting explosion threw them forward and sent them tumbling forward. When Lich looked back up, Pyrrha's teary face met his line of sight.

"It can shoot some sort of explosive ball of shit from its ass!"

"Fuck this shit!" Lich quickly pulled up Pyrrha onto her feet, and they both took off running. Pyrrha began using her semblance to create footholds with her shards so she could run faster. It may reduce Pyrrha's amount of aura, but running away from the worm was of higher priority. Lich was light in the first place so he didn't sink into the sand as much, and with help from his wind spells, he was propelling himself forward with every jump blasting sand everywhere.

They kept this up until Pyrrha's aura fizzled out, and Lich's spells overloaded with the worm a concerning distance behind them. Pyrrha's lungs were on fire after running for so long, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep running. Lich wasn't faring much better because of the sand. The sand has gotten into his joints, and the continuous friction from running at high speeds with sand grinding away at his bones have caused his joints to wear out faster resulting in an increased risk of Lich falling apart. As a result, Lich was unable to pick up Pyrrha to pick up their speed.

"It's just a little further!" Lich pointed to the exit which was this small hole in the wall. It was only 30ish meters away. With a mighty roar, Pyrrha began using up the last dregs of her energy to propel herself forward. Just then, the DF had one last middle finger for the two.

It took a while, but Pyrrha noticed that her steps were getting slower and heavier. When she looked down, she noticed that her feet were sinking into the sand with every step. Lich was faring no better. In fact, his skeleton was actually on the verge of falling apart due to the increased burden on his body.

"Shit. Quicksand." Lich knew that Hollywood quicksand was very different from real-life quicksand. Quicksand in real life rarely went over the knees, but the danger lay in exhaustion for trying to escape it. It would be no problem for the two of them to escape if they had access to Lich's magic or Pyrrha's semblance; however, both of their abilities were on cooldown. It would take time for the two of them to escape the quicksand in their state, which was time they did not have.

"Lich. What do we do?" Pyrrha looked with desperation at Lich and back toward the Grimm who was getting closer with every passing second. Her aura has refilled a bit due to the power of the box, but it was not enough for a fight with the worm. He began grinding his teeth so hard that a couple of teeth fell out of place. After a few seconds of thought, he made his decision.

"Pyrrha. Get closer to me. I am going to do something stupid. Hold onto the pack. I need to make myself as light as possible." Lich lied to Pyrrha, but she did not find out. Pyrrha grabbed Lich's pack that had the map and food while she saw Lich slowly pulling his foot out from the quicksand and getting into some sort of stance.

"Uh. Lich. What are you going to do? I thought you were overloaded." Lich merely nodded in response and finished preparing his stance. Pyrrha nervously looked at the worm that was getting bigger with every passing second. It seemed to have picked up their predicament and was eagerly picking up speed.

"Now, I'm going to pick you up. Come here." Pyrrha grabbed onto Lich's shoulders as he hugged her and pulled upwards slowly. She soon became free from the quicksand with a pop and without her shoes.

"Now promise me that you are going to keep running after this. Alright? We might get separated, but you have to keep moving. Promise me that you won't look for me. If anything, I will come to you." Pyrrha looked incredulously at Lich before a shriek from the worm drew her attention.

"Lich! You're going to want to hurry up with what you are going to do!" The worm was very close now, and it was preparing to pounce on them for its body was all scrunched up like a spring.

"Promise me! Promise me that you will go on and that you will not wait for me!"

"Okay. Okay! But you have to promise that you will come to me, alright?!" Lich accepted her promise and nodded his head.

"Okay. Keep that box close to you since it will function as a tracking beacon, and I'm sorry." Pyrrha stared at Lich unsure if she heard him properly.

"You're going to probably finish this journey by yourself now. I don't know if I'll make it in time. No matter what, go on without me. Good luck and make it out alive."

"Wait. What?"

With those words, Lich pulled Pyrrha back and threw her like a lance. The sudden movement caused his hand to break off and get thrown while attached to Pyrrha. Pyrrha felt her body soar through the air, and her aura flared up and shattered as she crashed onto the floor right at the entrance of the small hole. Pyrrha looked back in disbelief and horror. Her last sight of Lich was a sad wave, and the sight of Lich being swallowed by the Grimm as it closed its mouth around him and dived into the ground sending up a massive plume of sand.

"Lich!" With a despairing cry, Pyrrha sank onto her knees and cradled what was left of Lich's body. His skeletal hand which separated when he threw her. Tears flew from her eyes as she held onto the hand as she repeatedly said his name in disbelief at what happened. It happened again. She had to be protected because she was not strong enough. First, it was a Huntsman who had to rescue her from her own foolishness, and this time it was a broken individual who dropped everything to help her go back home.

"Why? Damn it. Why?" She continued asking the question even though deep down she already knew the answer. It was an obvious decision since he had little else to live for. He said so himself numerous times. Even so, it hurt. It hurt that someone else especially someone she cared about had to be hurt at Pyrrha's expense. It was the whole reason why she wanted to be a huntress. It was the whole reason why she wanted to be stronger.

She knew that she would probably never be as strong as Lich, but even so, she trained, she worked out her semblance, and she grew stronger so she wouldn't be a burden to Lich. Even so, it wasn't enough. If Pyrrha wasn't there, she was positive that Lich would have used dark magic to escape that situation. Because of Pyrrha, he doesn't use an entire branch of his magic because of its nasty tendency to mess with Lich and Pyrrha's mental state.

Now, Lich was gone. He sacrificed himself to let her escape. The only thing left was his hand and his box. His box. It was still glowing a comforting black halo around it. Suddenly, she blinked away her tears and stood up grasping at the box. She remembered Lich talking about how he and the box were connected in some way. Maybe Lich was still alive. Maybe he killed the worm while he was inside of it. She considered waiting, but then she remembered Lich's promise. To go on without him. He probably predicted Pyrrha would want to wait for him which would only put her in more danger since the monsters seemed to passively converge on where she was. Their time together allowed each other to get a grasp of how they thought.

Wiping away her tears with her hands, she stood up and began picking up her things. She tied Lich's hand to her hip with her red sash, and she dusted away the sand that stuck to her clothes. With a final look at the desert room and cradling Lich's glowing box, Pyrrha whispered, "You better come back" before continuing onward with a dim hope. The box was still glowing which had to be a good thing.

The final room was an open molten pit of iron. The only way across was these thin pathways of cooled down iron. Cooled down relative to the liquid iron. Pyrrha screamed with tears running down her cheeks as her foot cooked on the metal as it conducted heat straight into her feet as she made her way across. This floor was more of a test of pain endurance than anything else. If it wasn't for Lich's box, she would have died from breathing in the toxic fumes and the first degree burns her bare feet were constantly undergoing. Funny how Lich was protecting her even though he wasn't beside her.

Pyrrha took another hesitant step forward, screaming and crying once more as her foot made contact with the scalding hot metal. The box was already working overtime in healing the wounds that Pyrrha was constantly suffering. Sweat was profusely running down Pyrrha's body, but she was not drenched in sweat because her sweat was evaporating from the heat that was radiating from the molten pit.

To make things worse, the monsters in the final room were persistent. So far, she encountered two types of enemies: a Grimm bat that constantly tried to push her into the pit and lava fish that constantly tried to take a bite out of her every time it jumped out of the molten iron. Because of those damn monsters, Pyrrha's near-death count was already reaching the hundreds on the final floor.

341. Pyrrha begrudgingly thought this as a bat slammed into her back while she was preoccupied with stabbing a bat Grimm that was charging at her from the front. Because of that attack, she almost fell into the molten iron. She managed to regain her balance and stabbed the attacker before it could fly off. She was keeping count of all the times she almost died in this room. It kept her mind off the constant burning sensation of her bare feet.

Due to the constant amount of pain that her feet were undergoing, Pyrrha's focus occasionally wavered. She did not notice a small dip in the iron pathway resulting in her falling. Her elbow made contact with the hot iron floor, and Pyrrha's already sore throat managed to tear out another bloodcurdling scream as her sides came into contact with the scalding floor. She wanted to give up, to simply throw herself into the lava to end the pain of her flesh being constantly cooked, but she could not do it. How could she when Lich had already done so much for her to get this far.

She stood up on shaky legs and tried to parch her dried throat, but her canteen was empty. It seems she unknowingly drank her last drop some time ago. In frustration, she continued on with her march of burning pain dodging the constant harassment of her enemies. After what seemed an eternity of being cooked alive, Pyrrha saw the exit. The exit to the DF. With the exit in sight, a surge of strength ran through Pyrrha as she willed herself forward.

Just then, the floor began rumbling as a massive snake made of lava rose from the molten depths. It flicked its tongue at her as Pyrrha groaned at the additional threat to her life. This room was truly the full wrath of the DF packaged into one room. It wasn't enough that she was in constant pain, it wasn't enough that she was constantly attacked by enemies at every turn, but it also had to add in a mega monster when she was near the end. 542. Pyrrha begrudgingly added another number onto her increasing near death count as she dodged the rain of molten iron that fell from the snake.

She tried to make a run for the exit, but the snake smashed open a massive gap in her pathway causing her to be blown back. Pyrrha screeched in pain as her back came into contact with the metal. She had to endure even further pain as she was forced to roll away as the snake buried its head at where she was a second before. Pyrrha immediately began thinking of a way to escape her situations. Her weapons were not enough to put a dent in that snake. It would probably absorb all of her shards. Fighting it was not an option. However, her path to escape was cut off.

Think? What would Lich do? Pyrrha berated herself as she racked her head for an idea to escape. Then, she thought of an idea that Lich would probably be proud of. With a running start, she threw herself onto the molten iron with her shield under her in the direction of the exit. With a splash, the shield managed to stay afloat as Pyrrha used her semblance to guide her shield towards the exit. The snake's movements to try and stop her with a massive wave of molten lava only aided her escape as she soon found herself surfing on a liquid that would kill her should she fall off her melting shield.

She threw herself toward the solid ground when her shield began losing its magnetic abilities due to it melting from the excess heat. Solid ground not scorching hot iron. If Pyrrha had the strength, she would have shouted in victory, but she was too tired to lift her head. Instead, she devoted her dwindling reserves of energy in dragging herself away from the DF towards a hallway that leads upwards. Pyrrha had made it. She was now free from the DF. She was now on the top floor. Seeing no enemies near her, Pyrrha allowed herself to sink into unconsciousness.