A Bored Lich

The guard opened the door for Doevm, who stepped past him and down the stairs leading to the Underground. As he descended into the darkness, he consumed one of the three fear pills he had made earlier. As a looming dread overtook his psyche, his strength, his senses, his mana, were all restored.

He unsealed his mana and changed his appearance to that of an average middle-aged man with a magic circle. 'Jackal, that organization, the general that protected him; I don't know if they are all my enemies, but one thing is for sure: if their attention is on the surface, they won't notice what's right below their feet. I've had enough this crap. It's my turn now; time for my assault.' He opened his right, and a magic circle formed above it. 'I have my magic.' A thick blue fog emanated from his other hand. 'I have my strength. This might just be the most stupid thing I have done in centuries but, right now, after working so hard to get here, I will not allow let anything stop me, especially not some filthy humans. I have already found their supplier, and there is no reason not to strike while I have the upper hand.'

He was almost ready for what was to come, but first, he needed more weapons, things stronger than simple metal blades. He emerged from the darkness like a thief in the night, or in his case, as a gravedigger, about to go to work. The Underground was still recovering from the trail of destruction, but as long as there was no immediate danger, the people didn't care. They walked over pieces of people's homes like it was the same old road.

Doevm did not head for the black market, but rather ran for the ruins via the some of the Underground's many alleyways. 'If I take too long, the resistance members will come down here and corner me, especially since this is going to be loud. Since I don't know how many resources they have, I can't take that risk. In addition, I don't know how long these fear pills will last me. I can always make more if I need to, but I doubt I'll keep my sanity if I take four tonight. I only get one shot at this. It has to be while they are distracted. It has to be while they are at their most confident. It has to be successful, because I cannot do this again.'

An hour later, he had reached the ruins, still covered in ash. The pathway had been blown away and covered in bits of ruins, but Doevm could find his way back by following the creature's large footsteps back towards where his Undead left the bodies.

Even though the Resistance was distracted, they wouldn't have left this place completely unguarded. This time he could sense them, all fifteen of them. Just as expected, bits of destruction moved as the Resistance's men rose up from the ashes. What he didn't expect, was the sound of something shattering and pieces of that clear material falling to the ground. All fifteen guards expanded in size. Their armor flattened and burst off. Hair and nails hardened, stretched out, and flailed around as if they were alive. Fifteen bursts of soulmana hit Doevm at once, and it was as if their souls went from a calm heartbeat to a roaring fire, a hungry fire, ready to eat the fuel in the reflected in their enlarged eyes.

"Kneel!" Doevm ordered with an expanding wave of soulmana, but they didn't react other than charging in. He quite literally flew above all of them with the assistance of air-elemental magic circles around his limbs. Their hair stretched out taller than the buildings and wrapped around him. Strands of light from dozens of magic circles filtered through even the mass of hair. 'They can regenerate, even if they are decapitated, but what if something ate at them faster than they could grow it back?'

Doevm faded into a mist, materializing quite a distance away. The creatures went up in a blue blaze. The air soured with burning flesh. Doevm smirked as he backed away. 'Jackal's match reminded me how to deal with regenerating targets. But with my library and Daniel, there always needs to be a finishing blow.' He raised his hands and yard-long icicles formed over his head. 'And when hot things turn cold,' The icicles flew forward, piercing through their hearts. Parts of the icicle melted, but the cold spread through its tip, chilling the body. All fifteen popped like blood blisters.

Doevm looked down at his clothes, which were now slick with that oily substance. 'Messy, but effective.' He pulled some of it into his spatial ring for later and kept walking into the ruins, where he found his dead drop, right where his Undead had left it.

Two dead men, their weapons, flattened armor, and pieces of paper detailing their orders; all were pulled into his spatial ring, which was nearing its limits. Out of the loot, he had left out three bodies and the shards of the glass-like material. When he picked up a fragment, he found that it was no longer clear, but gradually turning into Ploly. 'It's just like the necklace Draken had handed to me, yet why do so many people have it? Are some different from others?' His suppressed his curiosity and the thousands of questions ripping his mind apart, for above all of them, was his single goal: raid the Black Market.

He stood up and waved his hands over the three bodies. Black mana poured out of him, condensing into roots which surrounded the corpses, which stood up and twitched. Groans escaped their mouths just like the bugs which were feasting on their flesh.

To one, their fat evaporated, leaving them nothing but muscle clinging to their skeleton, which nearly poked their paling flesh. Its eyes went from a neutral brown to shrunken and red. Its nails stretched out into claws. A Ghoul had been born. It looked around before noticing Doevm and said, "Master, what do you want?"

'Bite people. That's all you disobedient Ghouls are good for, infecting others and raising them as fellow Ghouls. You will be a distraction for when I need to escape after I get that book on advanced healing magic.'

The second corpse rose up and almost immediately after, fell back down, revealing the transparent figure behind it, a Ghost. Its head looked at the floor as if it could look at nothing else. Its mouth hung open like the black pits that served as its eyes. It took the form of the dead man before immediately disappearing. "I will obey you even if I have to die a thousand times, master."

The third corpse grew to be even taller than the creatures. Each arm was bigger than Frey, and each leg, as big as a carriage. It was not made of flesh, but of ash around it. It was a creature of Doevm's own making, a creation born from an attempt at making an earth elemental from a human body: a Guriant. "Master," it said, and that was all it could say, for it had little to no intelligence. Doevm hopped onto its back and ordered it to walk forward.

"Where are we going?" The Ghoul's voice echoed in Doevm's head.

'To the black market,' Doevm said to all of his new servants using mental commands. 'I have found our enemy, a potential piece of Maximus Draken's inheritance, and most importantly for today, my enemy's weakness. The black market was once a resource for all, equal and giving and at the same time cruel.

'Now, the resistance is using it to gain funds, so the solution is obvious: pillage. I know that, with my current strength, I can't hope to win against their mages and knights, but I can do some damage and take what I deserve.' Doevm donned the skull mask, feeling it fuse to his face, only easily removed by his hand. 'We're going all out.'

"Yes master!" All three responded as the Guriant increased its pace, bounding towards the black market.

…

The clerk drummed on his desk with his face resting in his hands. 'It's so boring here,' he thought as he looked over to the resistance's black coated men. 'They won't even talk to each other so I can eavesdrop. I know a lot of them left for some reason, but they just talked through notes.' He looked at the artifact on his desk which told him the time of day, a common item in Draken Capital. 'I have four more hours on my shift. How long is this going to last? I bet I missed the noble tournament by now. Why do I have to be stuck h-'

He nearly fell out of his chair as a bang echoed just outside of the waiting area. The door that lead to the back area, where the Black Market kept all its supplies flew open. He slammed it shut and walked around his desk to the front. 'There better not be another one of those things,' he thought, thinking back to his verbal and almost physical interrogation by the leader of the Resistance after the creature's rampage. 'I really hate those guys.'

He sighed as he walked to the front window, an action he immediately regretted upon seeing a large eye pressed against the outside of it. 'Oh the goddess, protect me with your divine light!' He prayed as the eye shrunk back, and a fist hurled straight through the window.

The resistance members all stood up and drew their blades. A giant Undead creature the clerk had never seen before beat its chest like an ape while three figures emerged from behind it, a Ghoul, a Wraith, and Mr. Lich.

"Mr. Lich, what are you doing!?" The clerk cried from the hole in his desk, barely clinging to consciousness. "Do you know how many people you just pissed off? Hundreds of mages and knights will be after your head! They're all behind me, guarding the storage rooms. You might as well declare war on the nobles and these men right here!" The black cloaked men surrounded Mr. Lich and his summons.

Mr. Lich waved his hands and the men fell dead from a wave of black magic. The Ghoul went around and sunk its fangs and claws into them until their flesh paled and they rose up. Mr. Lich walked over the bodies to the clerk. "It's nothing I haven't done before," Mr. Lich said as he stepped on the clerk's chest. "Where are the advanced healing magic books?"

"I can't say anything," the clerk begged. "they'll kill me and my family."

"You don't have a family," Mr. Lich applied more pressure. The clerk coughed up air as his ribs slightly cracked and pain flared up. "And what do you think will happen to you if you don't tell me?" He pointed back at the black cloaked men, who were standing to their feet with their flesh rotting at visible speed.

 "Level five of the underground," The clerk yelped. "Now let me go."

 "Nope," Was the last thing the clerk ever heard.