Lich Hunt

Yew decimated the chalice with extreme prejudice once it was finally untethered from the fallen king. It melted into a disgusting pile of black goo, which only brought up more questions about what the cursed thing had been made of. Yew decided that she didn’t want to know. She felt disgusting enough from the knowledge that she had been spending so much time with an object an arch-lich had made.

Speaking of which, she was pretty sure that lich was dead. How many could there be in existence? Surely just one of those awful things was enough, right? And if so, then mission accomplished, because the same light that vanished her sister had taken that arch-lich too, hadn’t it?

But the doubt that it was still out there somewhere stirred her into unrest. There was the unsettling fact that the brand on her own soul hadn’t disappeared, despite the suspected destruction of the creature. She had always hoped that its presence was just a side effect of the improper and interrupted exorcism of the thing. Just like she had interrupted the branding process, she hoped the un-branding process had also gone awry. Yew was beginning to suspect that she had just been deluding herself all this time.

She didn’t want to look for it, and yet, if she did not then she, too, might become a slave to her own past like the king. If it really was the same one, then she owed it a rematch. The first time she had been its victim, the second time she barely held herself together and lost her sister for it; this third time would be the last confrontation between them, and she swore she would be victorious once and for all. She would lay the creature to rest, like an unwieldy toddler, whether it wanted to go down or not.

***

Yew spent a long time thinking, in general, but especially about this. To defeat it, she would have to find it. Unfortunately, she hadn’t heard of any lich sightings in recent years. It was hiding. Perhaps almost being punched into dust by her sister had encouraged it to develop a stronger sense of caution. Too bad that made tracking it that much more complicated. She considered setting a trap, but she had no idea what would lure a lich. Even less so, what might lure that specific lich.

Yew had exactly one lead.

She remembered, somewhat unwillingly, what it had said to her all those years ago. The arch-lich had a longterm fascination with the foreign runes in the eastern sun tower of the vanishing ruins. Yew did not want to go back, but it was all she had. She wondered if the lich would be dissuaded by negative experiences, or if curiosity would win out. Yew suspected it would be curiosity, because in the more objective corners of her mind, she recognized that it behaved as any researcher would. An extremely unethical researcher, but still.

She spent the walk home wishing that she were half-zombie instead, so she would have a good excuse to drag her feet. On the bright side, she could visit her parents on the way to where the vanishing ruins might be.

***

The road home was also uneventful, but this time it rang alarms in her head. It should not be this quiet here. The intersection of major ruins was never this quiet at night. At least ghosts should be flying around, or some newly undead animal; even a stray skeleton, although less common away from old battlefields. In fact, she wasn’t all that far away from where this whole mess with the chalice had began. Another couple hours down the road and she would be standing in the rubble field of the collapsed temple. Yew decided to divert her path toward the nearest set of ruins instead.

She would swing by and make sure nothing was wrong, just to be safe. She definitely wasn’t trying to put off looking for the lich, or anything of the sort, despite the accusing jingle of her bells. By midnight, she arrived at the ruins that had been affectionately dubbed The Bane of Research. It was something of a morbid and ironic name all wrapped up in one. These runes had been the basis of much insight for those that study times past, but they were also responsible for quite a few deaths of various researchers over the years, given the nasty matrices within them and the sheer quantity of undead around them.

Even adventurers mostly avoid the place; going there guarantees at least one encounter, if not several. There’s also scant little in the way of rewards for risking your life to explore them. The only half decent reason to go anywhere near them is to study them. Or get paid to guard researchers while they study them. Except Yew, who went alone from time to time, unbothered. She was the one sent to survey them when the powers that be wanted an up to date risk assessment of the place. It had been normal last time; still deadly, and still full of undead.

But now, the shifting tiles of the ancient magic running the place were full to bursting with activity. Some sort of barrier walled off the perimeter, dozens of undead trapped inside. Worse, it attracting them in, somehow; she could feel a slight pull toward it herself, now that she was closer, but she could resist. Whatever this was, Yew was sure “trouble” would be an understatement. A flash of terrible insight struck her as she realized this was going to be her problem to solve. Even if she reported it to the guild, and she would for formality if nothing else, it would still end up back in her lap. She sighed. All these side quests were really cutting into her runic evolution research time.

Yew spent the time waiting for the guild response by inspecting the barrier more closely. It was like the magical equivalent of a giant crab trap for undead. They could easily get in, but getting out required higher intelligence than most of them possessed. She wasn’t sure what anyone would want with this many undead, no matter how weak they were, but there was a sinking suspicion taking root inside her. The barrier, constructed by runes from bygone eras, could have been made by exceedingly few living people. However, Yew knew of a certain undead that could probably do it. Yew was sick of how much of her life seemed to be impacted by that lich.

It seems that Yew’s message was very alarming, seeing as how it managed to summon Guild-Master Borage himself to the scene. The broad man had teleported to the site with a team of exorcist specialized mages. That was great for Yew, now she could foist magical grunt work off onto them. Of course, with that many undead inside, dismantling the barrier would be utter foolish. However, a mass purification spell should be possible with so many other mages present to act as her magical tokens instead of using her tiny little inscribed nails. They took some offense to the idea when she presented it, but with the guild-master there to smooth things over she was able to get them to play along.

She went around to each focal point and drew a rune matrix, leaving them unactivated for the time being. It took around an hour, in the early dawn light, to draw them all. Then she called different mages over and had them stand on each one, showing them where to add their own power to it. She stood on the last circle, and had the guild-master call for everyone to start. They had to be in synch, as much as possible, or the purification rings would destabilize at this scale. This particular spell functioned more like a ball of light passed quickly in a circle, rather than true rings, the centrifugal force necessary to produce the rings meant that one side being a little unbalanced turned a game of pass the light ball into a super cannon instead.

Guild-Master Borage bellowed out the signal. Yew and the other mages injected their magic into the runes and watched as seven balls of light rose up and began spinning faster and faster along their predetermined paths. The light was hard to look at, shining like the sun had risen early. It was extremely eye-catching and Yew distantly wondered how far away the spectacle could be seen from.

The answer, as it turned out, was far enough.

The rings descended, and where they fell all the undead within them were vaporized. Yew couldn’t say exactly how many were in there, all told, but it was definitely the largest scale purification she had ever been apart of.