A Bored Lich

Doevm sat on his bed with his legs crossed and his baggy eyes closed. One had to listen closely to hear his soft, slow breathing. On the inside however, his heart raged like a war drum. 'The statue I can understand,' he thought. 'It was my wish that Arthur does not tell anyone about our training. While he is someone who hates lies, he is more so an honorable person. This outcome was expected. Even the townspeople making a profit from the false interaction does not anger me.' He breathed in, deep and slow.

'But that other man, Sir Marble, who stole my one of my books and was declared a fucking hero,' He moved for seemingly the first time in hours, his bones creaking as they shook. His breath shot out of his mouth as if they were flames from a dragon. 'But that is in the past, and I cannot change it. That might have been my failure or intervention from someone else. I do not know.' He put himself back into a comfortable position with his hands interlocked. His breathing cooled down. ’That book did not have a title inscribed, but no matter what it is, it will cause humans to rapidly gain power. I need to find out what it is in the future.' He added it on his little mental to-do list, right next to beating the current hero, whoever Arthur reincarnated as.

From this state of deep consciousness, he could feel something coming from the little black corner in the back of his mind. The Lich might have fused into the human soul, but remnants still remained. Of all the things it hated, it was mistreatment of its stuff and humans. Now both taboos were being transgressed with a single thief which shouldn't have been able to get the book anyway. When Doevm thought of the raiders just squatting in the remnants of his precious library, his breathing destabilized. He sat for ten minutes, all trying to calm down. Ten minutes after that, he found himself trapped in simulations where he gave them the most painful deaths imaginable. Still, he did not get up.

For the past few days, he found himself unusually tired. He even had several servings of food, even more than Frey. After, he immediately returned to his room. He breathed in and out. When he thought of the bandits and the things he would do to them, he received a burst of energy. His hands grew sweaty. He realized he had been squeezing them together. They opened and closed, the blood returning to them. 'I guess I can't do it.' He stood up. The window opened and he disappeared into the night.

'This will double as training,' he thought as he walked through the streets. No one could stop him as he exited the gates and headed into the forest. 'What else could have been saved from the flames? They should have eaten everything up. They were hot enough to even melt stone. A little water bucket should have been nothing.' His pace increased along with his heartrate.

'Arthur had no powers to summon water, and neither did anyone in his party. He understood that my library had to be burned down, so it couldn't have been him. Although, he would have helped the village after.' Doevm smiled, which returned to a frown seconds later.

'So who? Sir Marble, I didn't know anyone like that. Only extremely powerful water magic should have doused the flames, and that assumes they make it in time. I bet it's that goddess, Maker.' He crossed the farmer's fields, stepping on or across crops, he didn't care what he stepped on as long as he could get to his old library in the shortest path possible.

The faint smell of smoke entered his nose. He rounded unfamiliar trees that had regrown over the burnt lands. The farmer fields disappeared through the brush. In front of him, was his ruined library. The great stone walls were now black and in shambles. Through the many gaps in the stones was a large group of people.

They danced around the flames, eating meat that roasted over it. Crumbs fell on the dirt. In the back was the leader. His dirty, filthy, unintelligent ass sat on Doevm's old throne. Pieces of the old stained-glass background were hidden beneath the dirt. On some of the walls were bits and pieces of Doevm's old research, the many types of magic he had practiced. Most were damaged because of the line they set up for their laundry. The grease dripped over the place Doevm's velvet rug used to be.

Over where Doevm and Arthur used to spar on the flat stone ground he had spent days preparing, were animals. The burned bookshelves lay in the corners, their dark husks filled with pieces of excrement and piss. Doevm forgot about his spear. He forgot about why he was here. He forgot he was supposed to be hiding.

He walked out of the cover of trees and to his once impenetrable entrance, where even the strongest armies could not breach.

The first one to notice him was a fat man, a piece of meat still dangling from his neckbeard. "Look what we have here." He shambled forward, his fat gut swaying back and forth. The alcohol on his breath smelled worse than Hank's breath ever did. "Look at this kid."

He reached his hand forward to grab Doevm's new shirt only to find it was now gone. He glanced at his new nub, the pain not yet hitting his tiny brain.

Next was his fat gut. It slid off with some of his organs. The alcohol bottle slipped out of his other hand.

Next were his legs, which lit into a nice blue flame. It ignited the alcohol in his system, as his intestines were still inside of him. A magic circle engulfed him along with the flames. It was something he picked up from the Succubus race, enhanced feeling. This of course, did not only enhance pleasure, but also pain.

The man withered to the ground. The flash of light alerted the rest of the bandits. Doevm smiled, the tiredness washing off him, replaced with satisfaction and nostalgia. 'So this is what it feels like to have lost everything.'

Screams erupted from the ruins, only to be stopped by a soundproof barrier. Twenty minutes later, all threats were taken care of. Some were puddles, some were mangled balls of flesh, some were separated into little pieces. All were dead.

Black tendrils of magic made some of the most intact bodies stand up and bow to him. He ordered the resurrected bodies to clean everything up. 'I kind of wish I had a cleaning spell,' he thought as he wiped one man's tongue off his shoe.

After everything was done, he went around the place. Everything was gone. He had worked centuries for all of this which was now ash. He knelt down although he didn't know when. He grabbed his chest, which was still rapidly expanding and contracting. 'I asked what it felt like to lose everything. Now I know.' He stayed there for a long time. Mosquitoes sucked the still warm blood of the Undead bodies which stood around him, awaiting orders.

Before he knew it, the sun rose in the forest, and he left. 'What benefit did this action have?' he asked himself on the way back to Scrap City. 'I should have used my spear but I forgot about it.' He opened and closed his hands, the fatigue from the last few days washing away. He let his new minions rot in the sun, bugs crawling over and under their disfigured flesh. When he got back, even though he had been up the entire night, he wasn't sleepy. On the contrary, he was more awake than ever.