Wails of the Baby Lich

Amun.

8th of Sextrand, 1492.

Arcanis Praesyris.

13:12

***

"Report."

My necrotic command rode the wave of my voice as it traveled across the Falls, nudging the dead, damned, and dying to rise from their slumber of suffering and set their sights on this ancient cavern.

Shadows, undead, and the undying alike set to work to realize my vision, reshaping stone, deconstructing buildings, and slaying those who acted against them with no protest. Moreover, its reverberations affected the darkness, infusing it with something foul enough to give a sense of foreboding to all who treaded within its embrace; a warning and a statement all the same.

"What was that?" Eban asked, making far more noise than his excessive jewelry and trinkets as he stumbled forth to peer through the magical darkness.

"What do you think Wilson's profession is, regarding our Troupe?" I pointed at the Baby Lich hopping on his otter before it swam off through the darkness.

"Wilson Koorb?" He looked at me incredulously. "I would assume the hedge wizard has become a wizard."

"Nope." I snorted. "You see, my Sorcerous path tasked me with gaining four wicked warlocks and having them evolve under my Divine Tree, dubbed the Horsemen by my path; Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Wilson is my Horsemen of Death; a Nox Lich, my first Undying Fiend. Not a wizard, but a sorcerer, and the artificer of our Troupe. The Eldritch Engineer, tasked with creating machinations for my devils and undead."

"I... I see." Eban nodded, turning to Iris. "And you?"

"I'm the Troupe's cleric." She beamed, then released a spurt of her warp mana to shroud herself in a reality-bending field of blue that made a distinct warble as it teleported her to her rendezvous point.

As for me, I turned to the drow wizard. "Our wizard shall be you, Eban Za'Darmondiel, should you agree. Like your brother, our deal will see you teach me and my Legions spellcraft and wizardry. In exchange, I will teach you everything I know about the natural world and how it's used to enhance one's spells. I will help you create a wizarding school, the likes of which the realms have never seen. You will become my pantheon's God of Spellcraft, and whatever else you choose.

"You don't have to decide now. For now, witness the fall of Zimysta."

I turned to clasp my hands before my chest and closed my eyes. Immediately, I connected to the darkness spread throughout Shujen's Darkworld and drew it into an orbit around me. Focusing inward, I latched onto the vibrant energy contained in the paths and ponds carved through my spirit, if only to find the darkly divine spark given to me by Nergal hidden within.

More of a feeling than energy, it was, and so I held onto that feeling while I inhaled, drawing the surrounding darkness tighter around my body, glowing with light.

As I meditated in ways Veil of Shadows would, I looked deeper into myself, into my pit- my Cursed Well- to connect to the brightest souls I claimed and bring them to the forefront of my mind, in turn splaying first-person perspectives of the Troupe across the darkness.

My divine mana flourished with the activation of Soul Surveillance and Soul Relay, sending a rush of energy down the integrated circuitry in my legs to sprout a silver mushroom which released spores that solidified into feeds of each member of the Troupe and more.

House Za'Darmondiel, once an imposing feature on the front face of the Falls, was still very much so. Only, its decrepit state told a different tale to those who gazed upon it from below. No traffic flowed from its gate, now missing the trademark Faerie Flames illuminating the other Eyes. Only a pestilential, acrid darkness poured from it, not even the gilded glow of twilight.

On the other hand, something far darker poured from the lesser House Nydorden a bit below and further away from the Eye, yet still connected to House Za'Darmondiel. With their Matron raised by my necrotic ki, her spiders hunted to extinction by Sovereign Galendra, and her children either turned coat or captured, all that was left of them were severed corpses and the eldritch smoke born from their usurper's draconic umbral fire; dissimilar to the Flames of Moil.

When coupled with the Disastrous Shadowfire Acid spell cast by Wilson, both houses were partially destroyed, set on a time delay before they blew.

The time was now.

The acid that corroded the house and dissolved into the stone began off-gassing, flooding the halls enough for the noxious fumes to pour from the House as a limnic eruption.

The black gas, indistinguishable amidst the darkness, poured down Zimysta faster than the falls did, enveloping the market and those scattered about it in a mist that indiscriminately corroded. Flesh became like tar, wood like moss, and stone eroded to dirt; dried and compacted as if by the sun.

Only my twilight- my station as the Nox's Judge saved the dying who were worthy. They watched the crimson-eyed drow, their gear, and their spiders being submerged in gas to sizzle, disintegrate, and effervesce into sickly black clouds before it was manipulated by the likes of the Baby Nox Lich, Wilson Koorb.

Tons and tons of gas condensed at a point beneath Zimysta's right radial eye, where it split into two streams that fed the Glyph of Fusion; or as I knew it, Vesica Piscis. Hells, it could have been a Venn Diagram for all I cared. It held the power to fuse more than two types of mana. In this case, the gas born from his Shadowfire was fused with a greenish-black lance made of his Decay Mana, Spear of Disintegration, and was thrust into the Zimysta's 3rd Eye, House Noqutyl.

The spear ate the Eye's surface like runaway nanites depicted in science fiction, which never worked that fast in reality. It impacted silently, turning the stone black and disappearing it before the spear could continue, unleashing a blue-black and white wave across the eye's surface that left the web of conical chambers and rod-like corridors fully exposed to the tainted environment.

Like blood, the open wound spewed the sounds of suffering into the caverns in an attempt to compete with the ancient falls, oblivious to the few germs riding the winds inside to infect the wound.

Like pathogens, they were comparatively small and yet great enough to wreak havoc on beings so grand in scale that they may as well have been from another dimension.

The first of them, Germ Zero, as it were, landed at the back of the pack with his closest companion landing close by. As his eyes scanned over the slaves and lesser members of the House collapsed and convulsing in pain, I looked through them, seeing the Shadows of Death hugging their heads and feet, oft illuminated in the gilded aura granted by my Divine Sight.

Those with auras who saw the Shadow of Death at their feet were judged worthy to live and thus ceased their writhing as twilight ebbed into their spirits. Those with auras who saw the Shadow of Death at their heads were given offers, deals, or pacts that some refused and others did not, allowing their bodies to be dragged Under while their souls inhabited new bodies made of foreign flesh and arcane technology.

Those with no auras released their dying breaths, exhausting a veritable mushroom cloud of divine energy that swam to me with the utmost haste, only to rebound and give rise to a battalion of banshees, revenants, ghouls, and more.

On Wilson's command, the undead collectively sank into the shadows, opening the grand foyer that looked more like a miniature cavern to Wilson's eyes. His eyes bounced between the eight doors or corridors connected to the space until the rumblings gave rise to an army of slaves covered from head to toe in arcane armor.

The noxious fumes roiled harmlessly around them as they threw themselves into the few invaders with reckless abandon, creating a veritable flesh avalanche of screaming souls and waving swords.

On Wilson's command, the undead sprang into action like a coiled spring. The many banshees inhaled as one and unleashed a collective wail that blew apart the ranks like a sonic shockwave. Goblins, humans, and even orcs went flying while many more slumped to the ground, having either fallen unconscious or been relegated to cradling their heads in agony, where they were open to being filleted and raised by the rising undead tide.

On their Goddess' command, the demon spiders poised overhead turned their hindquarters toward the ground and flexed, spewing viscous, almost waxy cobwebs over all involved. Simultaneously, the drow soldiers and wizards of House Noqutyl wove their arcana together to bathe the cavern in heat and light before sending a great fireball hurdling below.

The cobwebs combusted as if they were made of napalm, exploding into a balloon of simmering flesh amidst a trio of animated bones and their surviving undead.

Sneering in ways only a skeleton could, Wilson chicken-winged his arm and plunged it into the dark recess of his armpit, withdrawing a vial of Alchemical Shadowfire to crush in hand.

The black fire's gray core glowed white as the corruptive nature of Cononthoth's divine right took hold, turning the orange flames into a roiling blanket of black fire.

Unlike the Flames of Moil, the fire of a venerable red dragon corrupted with darkness burned hot. Flesh was charred and burned away as if it was never there, leaving a husk of blackened bone given animation by the draconic darkness imbued within.

Before the flames could rise, however, arcana poured from the wells of drow, who collectively reversed the energy's polarity in ways I'd never before seen. The blue ambiance of the energy brightened to white until it reversed, not to black but to red, and it attacked the spell readily, nullifying or countering the umbral flames into a silent stage set to be taken by the new wave of slaves entering the fray.

This time, however, Ilar, Ryldin, and Viconia launched themselves while Wilson sank into the shadows.

Creatures of the eternal night and the living dead alike engaged the drow, slave armies, and demonic spiders in the most basic form of warfare, clashing with swords and clubs amidst a mortal sprawl of anger and anguish. But above, things were different. The three Undying Fae chased after the low-ranked drow of House Noqutyl with extreme prejudice, uncaring of the spiders going after them, for they were hunted by an undead being of darkness wreathed in armor.

Night flew through the air on wings of shadow, disappearing in darkness to reappear beneath a barn-sized demon spider and raise his spear through its belly. The force lifted it from the wall and it sought to right itself with a web, yet Night funneled darkness into his blade, making it flow down the metal to grow into a cruel great sword that was brought down to bisect the beast in two.

Night bellowed as the spider dispersed into a puddle of sizzling goo, unable to be raised in undeath. Further ahead, Ryldin, who was chasing a low-ranked drow of the 3rd Leg, House Malice, was blitzed with four spells at point-blank range.

While most bounced off her mana veil or were deflected by our innate spell resistance, one spell, in particular, affected her greatly.

A thin dart of searing red arcana made her scream in rage as she pulled arcana from her spirit to be released as an explosive wave. Her assailants were blown meters away but remained unscathed, and, having completed their objective, darted off to a different target, leaving Ryldin to writhe in agony as her mithral-wreathed bones began glowing red hot.

I took the opportunity to share the moment with Eban while my divine mana reached out to her of its own volition, replacing the arcana she'd spent at no cost to me.

"As I told you, and in Telin's words," I said to Eban. "One's understanding of nature is the most important thing when it comes to spellcraft, and so, the wizards of my Legions have been creating a new school of wizardry, along with a new class of spells. Technical Wizardry, and War Spells."

This time, I sent out some divine mana with an idea and watched Eban as the seed of inspiration took root in his niece's mind. She reacted instantly, holding her palms out before her and sighing in relief once the yellow glow in her bones began dimming, cooling as the abundant heat energy she'd been gifted was redirected, concentrated, and transformed into something foul. And with a much more aggressive sneer, she returned the energy to its origin.

A beam of sickly green fire shot from her hands and swung across the cavern as she set those who harmed her in her sights. One of them didn't move fast enough and was caught in midair. A single pass saw her armor corrode and her flesh burn until all that remained was blackened bone, cracked with green embers.

They fell as lifeless figures and subsequently rose with orbitals fueled by necromancy, only to fall into the darkness and reappear from the shade of a stalactite next to their former comrades. The drow lashed out with swords and arcana in an attempt to distance themselves. Meanwhile, Ryldin kept dumping her heat.

The swinging green lance loosed stalactites and ancient stones from the cavernous ceiling, only to be caught in arcane webs by the drow to give them a 3-D field of places to hide from Ryldin's wrath and the others in pursuit.

Satisfied with my assist, I looked deeper into the House, where Viconia was on a mission to deal with the lesser House Malice, accompanied by a platoon of ghouls, banshees, revenants, and shades.

Beast, slave, and drow alike attacked them with the methods they normally would. Poisoned quarrels, bladed ambushes, and trap spells. However, they soon found neither poison nor the loss of blood affected her, and their spells were no more dangerous for her than it was for them. Thus their tactics changed.

Unfortunately for them, Viconia's had as well.

More than even her mother, Viconia fell into her new nature seamlessly. Seeming to innately understand the nigh-limitless arcane potential of Undying Fae, she constantly radiated a sickly domain at maximum concentration and unleashed every spell with everything she had.

The drow, much less the 3rd Leg, never stood a chance. When they used spells, she bolstered herself beyond what was formerly possible and crushed them with sheer might. When they used might, she casually cast spells more powerful than my Lightning Dragon. When they used both, she used the environment itself, reducing the lesser House Malice to a pile of rubble and suffering souls to be judged.

Viconia was maneuvering through the back tunnels en route to the 3rd Eye by the time I finished, and so I looked over to Wilson, reclining in Ilar's shadow while she raced to the House's depths.

Their final barrier stood behind a band of dense Shadowsmoke, held back by an arcane barrier. Lunging toward it, Ilar released something from her spirit that took root in her hand as crackling energy. Violet-blue in color, the arcana solidified as it sparked in her palm, cascading up to form a handle and onward to forge a drow scimitar just as her hand rose.

A venomous hiss erupted through the house as her sword fell, splitting the barrier in two before Ilar's momentum carried her inside; bolstered and primed to lash out at the closest enemy.

Those enemies were identified as the 5th and 6th daughters of House Noqutyl, Nedxae, and Qilaeanna Noqutyl, as well as the sons and daughters of House Malice. Being an Arcane Witch, Qilaeanna was Ilar's priority target.

Grasping the ambient arcana, Ilar formed a geyser and used it to launch toward Qilaeanna, standing on a ledge over a dozen meters above. Ilar seemed to be overtaken by bloodlust, such was her ferocity. Thus it came as no surprise when Nedxae used a countering spell to negate Ilar's propulsion.

The sisters snickered as the red arcana faded around a falling Ilar. Yet, Ilar snickered back as Night stepped from their shadows, holding his spear horizontally as he lunged. His blade dug into Qilaeanna's lower back while the handle cracked against Nedxae's vertebrae and he pushed off, hurdling the three over the ledge.

Ilar recast her propulsion spell at once and set to work double-teaming the largest problem on the playing field as common sense dictated. As for her sister, Nedxae's obvious reaction to protect their lifeline backfired, as her focus on remaining in midair made her unaware of the Eldritch Engineer, picking his skeletal arms apart.

As if he were making a floating piece of modern art, Wilson used umbral tentacles to position his detached fingers atop his palms, held together in a crude sphere. While his radius, humerus, and ulnae were arranged into a hexagon, Wilson openly snarled, giving the umbral tentacles access to his canines, around which they secured themselves and pulled, wrenching them from his mouth to form the final two vectors of equilibrium.

Arcana took hold upon the umbral tendrils' release of the glyph, suffusing its surface with green-black energy before it imploded, passing like a specter across the cavern and through the walls to encompass the entire house in a domain of negative arcana.

"Of course, I taught the Troupe all I know of arcane glyphs." I turned, snickering at Eban's reaction to the drow falling from their footholds, their levitations and spider-like graces ceasing much like the arcane armor and spells they were weaving. "Or, as they are known in my past life, sacred geometry. Wilson took that further and made the First Vector of Equilibrium; the Glyph of Negativity, the cornerstone of his fighting prowess. He became a Mage Slayer before his ritual. After, it merged with his Bio-Alchemy to become the Fighting Artificer; Mutable War Mage."

It seemed he was too shocked or intrigued to respond. He just continued staring at his sister, Ilar, cheekily cursing the loss of her magic as she caught a Potion of Green Dragon's Breath thrown by Wilson before he slank into the darkness to slyly switch places with his doppelganger.

Seeming to be unsure if to fight or flee, the drow watched anxiously while she drank and was subsequently staggered by the potion. The spiders were a different story, rushing to engage Ilar and Wilson's Doppelganger with dripping fangs, unseeing the baby lich dipping down a corridor. They were not entirely useless, however. The spiders' hisses and chattering broke them from their stupor and they withdrew magic items and mana-forged weapons in response.

Meanwhile, Ryldin had returned. Hidden in the shadows, she attempted to bolster her body with arcane lightning, only to find the negative mana acting like antimagic, nullifying her spell before it could fully cast. Yet, she also felt some synergy with it, and so connected to the similarly eldritch energy implanted in her spirit by the Deeyalber Extract and opted for the same effect.

The same sickly green lighting I spotted in Nergal's domain and used when I fused electricity and death bolstered Ryldin's body before she streaked across the cavern, impaling Nedxae through the kidney before releasing the pent-up bolt of necrotic lightning on Qilaeanna. However, in a display of drow reflexes, the arcane witch dodged out of the way and retreated without a care for her sister, giving way for the lesser drow and spiders to pounce on Ryldin.

All the while, Wilson's clone lazily threw necrotic bolts and clusters of umbral arms at them while the undead horde rushed in, for his eyes were waiting for Viconia to rush into the room.

He formed a pit of darkness beneath her the moment she appeared, swapping her with her sister. Viconia engaged from the shadows without delay, almost lusting after their souls while Ryldin, halted by the surprise, found the real Wilson Koorb rushing toward her with a sphere of black amethyst cradled between his gnarled and knotted hands.

He planned to use his foray through the house to clean them of their magical items and drink some mutating potions to boot. With both items on his checklist complete, his armless, skeletal body had mutated to grow chitinous, barrel-shaped arms, pocked and riddled with grenade-like growths up to the comically large shoulders, its pustules bulging and sloshing with viscous fluid produced by his mutated internals.

While she was not privy to this, Ryldin seemed to intuitively know the gist of Wilson's plan, given how she took the orb and immersed herself in darkness to allow Wilson to cover her.

Well, Night did most of the work. Similar but dissimilar to his clone, the Baby Lich sat half-submerged in his shadow as if he were standing waist-deep in a lake. Arms poised at a high angle, he launched the bulbous warts on his mutated arms overhead where they were largely unnoticed or uncared for until they puffed, popped, and pooted noxious clouds of acid fog, mustard gas, agent orange, Phosogene, Zyklon B, and various other agents.

Even with the drow convulsing, blistering, and suffocating amidst the cloud of war crimes, their spiders were unfazed- a problem Wilson seemed prepared for, as he pointed his arms skyward like artillery pieces and dispensed the pustules of white, cloudy, jelly-like fluid in his shoulders.

The demon spiders were uncaring of the viscous rain falling on them; they were unknowing of the similar fluid spread throughout their house; until the baby lich roared.

The initial spark of Wilson's red dragon's breath caught the lingering traces of napalm on his mutated limbs, sending an infernal wave of sparks sweeping down every hall to scorch the walls black and bleach the ceilings white. The house was robbed of its oxygen in an instant, replaced with smoke that reverberated the bang of a fire cone blowing the front edifice apart.

From my perspective in the Arcane Tower, I saw a spontaneous cloud of dust and stone give way to a fiery eye, opening among the rest to glare contemptuously at the roaring Falls, only to be corrupted into the violet flames I grew up with as it licked the darkness within.

As the Flames of Moil took root, Ryldin finished funneling darkness into her crystal and finally held it overhead, allowing the darkness within to pool around her until even I struggled to gaze within, for the crossing she opened to the Shadow Realm was occluded by the nightmarish creatures of my birthright pouring through.

Shadow Hounds and other beasts of the undying night became a horde among the undead that dragged the burning spiders into the depths. Nightmares and other colossal giants stepped over the fray, pushing aside the undead to grab hold of the drow as a child would pick up a doll, only to reel back their arms and throw them into the Realm of Darkness, never to be seen again. Shades and other humanoid types reveled in the Flames of Moil, dancing and celebrating the birth of their new crossing into the Mortal Plane; silent though it was.

As quickly as the chaotic roar began, it faded into a gurgling breath as the umbral smoke poured from the blistered 3rd Eye. Its winds flowed across the Falls, shifting the inhabitants' gaze to the forefront of the eyes above where they would remain; as demanded by the haunting whispers of the noxious night.