A Bored Lich

Doevm crouched next to the door handle and inspected the various magic circles etched on its surface. With a wave of his hand, the magic circles vanished. 'While many things have changed, it looks like some things have remained the same. This was easier than the building blocks I was forced to play with as a toddler.'

He had the Guriant and the Banshee wait at the sides of the door. Clerk still wasn't done with the fourth floor but said he would be down in a few minutes. 'I don't like this,' Doevm thought. 'It was too easy to break into this place. There should have been more guards, more mages, more noise.'

He checked his mental connection with Ghoul, who was upstairs with an army of the Black Market's former guards, hungry and waiting. 'I can understand a delay, but the Resistance's men have not come at all.'

'I don't see anything,' Ghoul said through the mental connection. 'I have heard some people gathering outside, but there hasn't been so much as a knock, just whispering.'

'Keep me informed in case anything happens,' Doevm said as he turned the doorknob and flung the door open. Inside the library were hundreds of tall wooden shelves stuffed to the brim with magic books. Despite the constant shaking, none had fallen, like the room was unaffected by the happenings outside of it. Each and every book was labeled, cleaned, and organized into one of the hundreds of types of magic, its level of complexity, and name.

The metallic walls, floor, and ceiling reflected the light from the dozens of light crystals scattered throughout the room. Doevm walked down the widest path of the library which went from the front door, where he had entered, ending at a large back door. He stopped at many shelves and ran his hands down the spines. When he retracted them, there wasn't a speck of dust.

 Doevm smiled as a tear fell from his eye. "Look at it all," he said to himself as he strolled down the tall shelves. "It isn't much compared to what I had in the library, but it's euphoric. I never thought I'd see anything like this again."

'Clerk, where should I go for the advanced healing magic book?' Doevm asked as he passed the monster summoning-type and monster control-type magic sections.

'It is near the back of the library,' Clerk responded. 'Look on the right side of the large door which leads down to the sixth floor. Since the War Monks usually buy out our stock, we don't have much, but I do promise you master, you will find your prize there. We have books on almost half of all the types magic in the world after all.'

Doevm reached the back, turned right, and scanned the covers. He passed hew magic section, heretic magic section, hell magic section, until finally reaching the healing magic section. His gaze raced down the sections until landing at the book at the bottom corner: advanced healing magic.

He skimmed a few pages before putting it into his spatial ring. 'Finally,' he thought. 'I can find out what is happening to me and fix it. At the same time, I can fill my gap in knowledge. Copying Oliver's healing spells and making my own from it did help, but it didn't teach me everything. Now,' he turned to the exit. 'Should I get more?' He looked at the other books. 'I already know everything, but a hundred years have passed. Surely there's something new, something I haven't learned before.'

As Doevm stroked his chin, some light footsteps approached him. He pulled his spear out of his spatial ring just as a dark shadow emerged from behind one of the shelves. Clerk held his bladed arms into the air. 'Master, it's me! I finished the fourth floor.'

'You scared the crap out of me,' Doevm said as he put his spear away.

'I apologize master,' Clerk said before turning to a shelf and rearing an arm back. 'I will get back to work immediately.'

'Wait!' Doevm raised a hand and Clerk froze. He alternated his gaze between the books and the arm. 'I don't have time to read through them. I can't take them with me because my spatial ring is too small, but if I leave them behind, the Resistance has access to them.' He hit himself. 'But I-I can't let this happen, not again. As both a Lich and a human, I can't allow it.'

Doevm pictured his library, which had turned from its glorious state to nothing but rubble. All of his work, all of his centuries of effort, nothing but ash. 'My books were dangerous. In the wrong hands, one could destroy the world, but these,' he glanced around. 'These are just the basics compared to my collection. All of these books might be misused or stolen someday, but each one has a chance to be passed on to a good mage, one who is genuinely curious about magic. Maybe they could come up with something I never did. It took me a while, but I realized that, I never got bored of magic. I just wanted to learn more, but there was nothing more to learn. Even if the chance is less than one in a million that these books can help do that, I won't destroy them.'

'How merciful my master is,' Clerk said as he bowed. 'Now, are we leaving?'

'Of course,' Doevm said as he turned from the collection. Immediately after, however, he halted. A pair of footsteps approached them, not from the front of the library, but from behind the large backdoor.

Heavy clacks against the stone stairway grew louder as the beings that made them grew closer, the guards from the sixth floor. Doevm and Clerk jumped away as the backdoor burst open.

A big thick hoof clacked against the metal floor as a boar's head ducked through the doorframe, followed by the rest of his ginormous hairy body. More Minotaurs trailed behind the first, steam coming from their nostrils and fogging up their large axes. Doevm dove behind one of the bookshelves, outside of their line of sight.

Doevm had been too focused on escaping, he had forgotten to order Clerk to do the same. The Undead ran forth. A Minotaur glanced down at the tiny Undead and swung its weapon, breaking Clerk down to a crumpled mess on the ground. The bloody floor dented under the force. Books fell from their shelves, which also fell in a chain reaction. Doevm had to run to avoid getting crushed and dive under a pile of fallen books.

'I can't survive an encounter with them right now,' Doevm thought. 'I just need to get out of here.' He peeked around the shelf and counted five Minotaurs. 'They can even sense mana with their enchanted nose rings. If I use even a single spell, they would find me. Doevm's mental connection with his Undead broke as he sealed his mana.

'Damn. Why them, of all creatures, did they have to be the guardians of the sixth floor. With their impatient nature, they just didn't stay put! Maker, I swear she's laughing at me.' He crept through the fallen shelves and piles of books. The Minotaurs seemed to realize there was another intruder because they sniffed the air and drew closer to him. Doevm couldn't outrun them, even if he condensed life essence around his legs. In the distance from the back to the front of the library, he wouldn't be able to make it. He couldn't teleport away either, as the walls restricted spatial magic.

Despite crawling on his hands and knees, he smirked. With their massive frames and their noisy steps, he knew where they were. He, on the other hand, was quiet. He kept his body close to the ground and worked his way down the line of fallen shelves with painstakingly slow movements.

Eventually, he made it to the front of the library. A Minotaur was standing right in front of his exit, waiting with its axe raised. Doevm cursed under his breath and grabbed a book. He got as close as he could to the front door while remaining hidden, then launched the book across the room. As the Minotaur chased the source of the noise, Doevm bolted to the door, flung it open and slammed it behind him.

The library became a storm noise. Hooves clacked against metal and clubs slamming against the library's wall. While parts of the wall dented outwards, it didn't budge. 'Now, Guriant, Banshee' Doevm said through his mental connection as he unsealed his mana. 'Let's get out of here.' He glanced at its cracked arms and legs, which had somewhat reformed while Doevm had been in the library. 'We just barely made it.' He looked at the teleportation artifact under a pile of rubble.

The artifact flashed, but Doevm hadn't done anything to it yet. In the space between Doevm and his Undead and the artifact, a large group of black coated individuals appeared. The front line, who were shoulder to shoulder, pointed their guns at Doevm. Behind the line were six figures, all with different types of black clothing. Each of the six had their faces covered with a scarf with the picture of a broken lock on it. Two had hoods who Doevm assumed to be mages, one had a bow, one a hammer, one held twin daggers, and in the middle, was a man with his sword still sheathed. He wore clothing Doevm had never seen before. He said one word: "Fire."