The Maker was a lich.
The undeniable fact repeated bitterly and remorselessly through Yasha's head as she scowled at the floating skull. Her hopes of bartering for the golems' freedom or getting The Maker's aid in resolving their differences were gone. The Maker's cold-hearted dismissal of their fate was proof enough of that.
Of course, there was also the fact that he had coolly declared that he would kill Yasha and her friends as well.
Yasha gritted her teeth, bracing herself against yet another icy wind the thing conjured, ducking behind her shield as the razor sharp shards of ice flew through the air all around. The Maker had forced her into a life or death struggle, and that was what she had to deal with now. Other thoughts could wait.
The magical shield she had scrambled to conjure about herself glowed with streaks of blue as it absorbed and redirected the worst of the biting cold, but she felt the ice impact on her more physical shield with bone jarring force. When the blast of ice finally stopped, she took a great gasp of the stingingly cold air and leapt forward. A disembodied skull was all that remained of the Maker after centuries of unlife, but he obviously still held incredible power at his command. The space around the skull shimmered and seethed with magical energy, shielding it from all harm.
But overcoming such things was what Duty was forged to do.
Yasha swung the frost-rimmed holy sword, and it rung with divine challenge as it crashed into and through another one of the Maker's magical shields. The sphere dissipated with an angry flash of light, but she couldn't push Duty through to the lich skull within. He laughed as her arm was thrown back once again, and she realized too late that it was summoning another spell.
But Valen launched himself at the thing then, taking advantage of the creature's focus on Yasha and its weakened magical shields. In truth, she saw his weapon thunder through the Maker's shields before she saw the tiefling. The magical barriers flickered and strained, but only managed to deflect part of the powerful blow.
The Maker flew back through the air, screeching in outraged pain. The lich wailed, a high, keening sound that tore into Yasha's ears, before gathering his magic about him again. Fire leapt from the stone floor and cascaded off of the ceiling in a searing rain. The frost on her armor turned to hissing steam in a painful instant. Around her, the elemental protection spell wavered, struggling to deflect the sudden heat. Then, with one last flicker, it buckled entirely, and the flames' full fury struck her. The protective enchantments of her armor and shield kept her from being roasted alive in those first few moments, but she knew she would not last long. She lunged forward again, throwing caution to the winds. The fight must end soon, one way or the other.
Heat induced tears blurred her vision, but she heard Duty's defiant clang and felt the last of The Maker's magics give. Deekin's hoarse shout rose above the roar of flames and the dying tones of Duty's ring as crossbow bolts whined through the air at the apparently defenseless skull. She watched blearily from behind her shield as the bolts crashed into the bone. They seemed to do little physical damage, but on impact their magics awakened, and lightning crackled and arched over the floating skull. The Maker cursed at the kobold, though the words held more surprise than magical force behind them. She saw his eyes glow fiercely, even through the tears in her eyes and the flickering flames that covered everything around her. Another swipe by Duty managed to do little more than scrape against the enchanted bone.
The Maker's jaws opened again, and Yasha felt the tingle of deadly necromancy start to form around her, coalescing with dark power that seemed to dim even the heat of the flames. She steeled her will against the foul death magics, drawing strength even from the panic that gripped her, as she felt the power rise to a numbing crescendo. Her lungs struggled to breath. Her heart struggled to beat. Her mind and soul struggled to retain its grip on these battles; to ignore the call of the darkness around her. Engrossed in a primal struggle of her will against raw death, Yasha was unable to focus on the physical battle she was sure was still going on behind the thickening veil of shadow.
Then Valen emerged from the shadow and flames, bringing his weapon down with crushing force on the Maker. The deadly spell around her wavered. Yasha gasped, welcoming even the baking air into her starved lungs. She barely saw the tiefling's follow up blow, but she clearly heard the sharp crack of the lich's skull as it crashed to the ground, crushed between the Valen's weapon and the unyielding stone of the floor.
Another screech rent the air. The skull erupted in raw energy which then then folded and collapsed into itself in a display of brilliant light and deafening sound. The death magic leaked from the fractured skull was sucked away into the vortex where the Maker once was, and the numbing power gave way once more to the flames and heat. But that too was being drawn into the dramatic death throws of the lich, draining away into a fiery tornado.
As the flames thinned and Yasha's vision returned, she saw Valen once more, grimly watching the dramatic demise of the lich. The dying flames highlighted the otherworldly cast to his face, and his eyes flickered in the light from icy blue to fierce red and back again as he scowled down at his fallen foe. His stance was still tense and ready, and his tail lashed in and out of the fire behind him. When he had spoken of his time fighting in the Abyss, Yasha had found it difficult to grasp, though she didn't doubt the truth of what he claimed. Seeing him then, wreathed in flame, she caught a glimpse of the fierce warrior among demons he once was. For a moment, she felt the hair on her neck rise, and her instincts for battle pull her sword arm ready.
The moment passed as unexpectedly as it came. Even as the last of the fiery magic died, Valen's shoulders sagged and, with a groan, he collapsed heavily to his knees. Yasha willed aside her disquiet, sheathed Duty, and pushed herself painfully forward, landing on her knees before the tiefling with only slightly more grace than he had just shown.
"Are you badly wounded?" she asked, stiffly pulling her gauntlets from her hands. His eyes were closed, and he gave little resistance when she put her hand under his chin and lifted it so she could see his face. His skin was very warm, and in patches it was angry red against his natural pallor. More than that, though, he kept his eyes closed, and his expression was exhausted and worn.
"Well," she said after a moment, "when you say you have some resistance to fire you surely mean it. You're only a little more burned than I, though I had Torm's magic to protect me from the worst of it." When he did not respond, she added. "Still, we both got a little crispy around the edges, I'm afraid."
He opened his eyes then, giving her a pained look as he pulled his head away from her hand. It could have been a reaction to her poor attempt at humor, or some thought of his that he didn't feel like sharing, but Yasha chose to take it that he felt worse than he looked.
"I don't have the power of spells a dedicated cleric might have," she began carefully, "but I can offer some healing if..."
He shook his head, wincing slightly. "That will not be necessary."
"It will take only a moment," she replied, frowning.
"You should save your healing ability for an emergency," he answered, straightening his shoulders. "For now, however, I am fine. With a little rest, I will be ready to continue."
"I suppose you're right," she agreed, trying to smother the strange disappointment she felt at his refusal. Her power to heal did take a lot of energy, just as he said, and it was unlikely that she could summon it up once more without resting. She stood quickly, determined to ignore the discomfort of her own aches and pains as well. Instead, she turned from Valen and towards the remains of the Maker. Planting her hands on her hips, she scowled down at them as Deekin approached. It was safer to scowl at the now inanimate skull, after all.
"How are you Deekin? You alright?" she asked as the kobold came to stand beside her.
"Deekin's just fine boss. Though, Deekin was wondering how you spell 'pyrotechnics'."
Yasha felt a grin tug at her lips and shook her head slightly. "I'm not sure at the moment, Deekin. Maybe the Maker has a dictionary somewhere you can take with you." Yasha snorted and frowned again. "Shouldn't he have a phylactery or something?"
"Boss?"
"Assuming he was a lich" she explained, waving at the ground where the Maker had fallen, "wouldn't he have had some sort of gem or valuable item where his soul was kept safe? I read somewhere that was the only way to truly destroy a lich, anyway."
Deekin tilted his head, making a low humming noise in the back of his throat as he considered her question. "Deekin's not sure, boss. Deekin always heard that lich's had bodies too. Maybe he hid it with his arms and legs maybe?"
"Or perhaps," Valen added from behind her, "he was not a true lich. Or was some other form of undead altogether?"
"Perhaps," she responded, sighing. "I don't know. I've never killed one before. Destroyed one," she corrected after a moment's thought. "I suppose he was dead already."
Shrugging, she scanned the room. It was packed with shelves, crates, chests and tables stuffed with various paraphernalia appropriate to a wizard's laboratory and living space. "It will take some time, but we should search the place carefully, just in case. Then we can get some rest and," she paused, sighing as her eyes came to rest one again on the broken skull. "And then we should go back upstairs and speak with the two golem leaders."
She poked the remains of The Maker with the toe of her boot. Frustration and anger welled up once again.
"You," she fumed, pointing her finger accusingly at the skull. "Why couldn't you have been more reasonable? Or at least alive? But no. You had to go and be a cold hearted, self-absorbed, undead twit. How am I going to explain this to the loyalist faction?"
"You realize you are berating a broken pile of bone shards, do you not?" Valen asked, looking at her oddly.
"Yes," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him.
"Deekin didn't get an answer the the question he had for the Maker either, Boss!"
Yasha furrowed her brows at Deekin. "What question was that?"
"You don't remember, boss? Deekin was wondering if he always floated around like that, or if he sometimes gets tired and rolls around too."
Yasha blinked at him, stunned for a few heartbeats. She looked from Deekin, to the skull, then back to Deekin again, struggling with the petty mischievousness that suddenly gripped her. That wasn't a battle she felt up to. She took a brief step back, then brought the inside of her boot against the skull, sending it skittering across the floor, to come to a grinning rest against one of the pillars across the room.
"There's your answer, Deekin. He rolls sometimes."
"Oh, NOW you need me again."
"Enserric, I'm really not in the mood for this right now," Yasha sighed, slipping Duty back up into the scabbard strapped to her back. "Besides, I thought you said the essence of undead tasted vile."
"It does, but that is beside the point. You just pack me away while you fight The Maker, but when you think you might be facing golems again, out I come." The sword fairly vibrated in agitation.
"That was the idea," Yasha admitted. Their rest on The Maker's laboratory floor was over, and Yasha could find no further excuses for putting off returning upstairs to face the golems.
"Though I hope it doesn't come to a fight with them," she added, more to herself than to Enserric. Deekin was stuffing the last of several sheaves of paper into a scroll case, mumbling to himself about liches and golems and the proper way to spell 'apprehensiveness'. Valen, meanwhile, tied shut his pack, and hoisted it over his shoulder. Then he turned to her.
"You still plan to try to talk to Aghaaz?"
Yasha stared down at Enserric's bare blade. Valen hadn't asked if she expected trouble, but he didn't need to. The very fact that she planned to carry Enserric at her hip instead of Duty said all that needed to be said on that account. Dread filled her at the confrontation to come. She looked up at Valen anyway, determined. "I think it is worth trying. I think they need to know the truth of their Maker, if nothing else."
He returned her look with an unreadable expression for a few heartbeats before nodding. "I agree."
For some reason, the tension in her stomach loosened just a little bit.
"So there's still a good chance that I'll spend the rest of the day stuck in that smelly scabbard?" Enserric demanded.
Yasha looked back down at the sword, and managed an actual smile. "If we're lucky. Yes."