The First Lich Lord

Chapter 95

Maxwell was still logged off. His character was sitting in a room while he attended to his things back on Earth. From the time compression he would likely be like that for a week from my perspective, though it would only be a couple days for him. Raven walked into the cafeteria where I was working on my subject.

Id pulled the body infected with the disease onto a table when I had woken after meeting with Damien. I was probing it with different tendrils of magic trying to figure out exactly what the interaction was.

What are you doing? Raven asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

I explained what was special about this particular body and what I was trying to do.

Okay, that makes it a bit better She still avoided the table. Ive been out exploring the marsh. Theres a lot of really strong creatures out there, but theyre not very observant.

Good, well have to take some time and hunt them, I said absentmindedly. They should provide good material for minions.

Sure. So, when are you going to get around to teaching me more magic?

I focused on her. Ill start helping you with it more now that we have some time here. For now, I really need to focus on thisits a bit more time sensitive. You can help. Im using dark magic, so maybe you can learn something.

Raven let out an annoyed huff, and came over to help. It took us the rest of the day to unravel what was going on that allowed the disease to spread. I did not want to know how long it wouldve taken if I had not grabbed the body.

The results surprised me quite a bit. The spell, or disease, depending on how you looked at it, was a combination of death magic, dark magic, eldritch magic, and blood magic. Damien had warned me that there would be something different about what comprised the magical aspects of the disease. After all, it had to take on a life of its own that would work with living creatures. He said to expect something like water, earth, growth, or even life magic. The presence of blood magic was what surprised me, I had no idea where it couldve come from, it was not something I thought could have been present in that fight.

For the magic to have been created that allowed the disease to work, my spell had to have picked up trace amounts of the magic someplace. I had no idea where it couldve gotten blood magic from. That was not something used by either myself or any of the people I was around at the time.

The problem was how to work the blood magic to use the disease. It wouldnt take very much, but in order for me to weaponize it, I would need a small amount of blood magic. Working the others could have been handled through a magical device where I could store the magic, having it charged by some other means. I knew very little about blood magic, few people did, so I didnt even know where to start.

However, once we figured it out, it would be something truly powerful. Damien had explained that the strength could vary widely, but generally speaking, the more potent the magics involved, the stronger it was. The example he gave was that some of the greatest diseases in history have been fueled by either life magic or higher tier healing magic of some kind. From what I understood about blood magic, in the magical hierarchy, it was quite a bit higher up the tier list.

Why dont we just use the fountain thing at the top of the hill? Raven asked when I explained why I was worried.

Because Im an idiot, thats why, I nodded and shook my head at the same time. That will work just fine, good thought.

You are an idiot. Now you get to teach me some magic, I learned shit-all helping you do that, Raven demanded.

***

I hissed in pain and grumbled as Raven helped me to pull my phylactery out from inside my rib cage. Losing all of the stat boosts it gave me sucked. There was a flash of etheric blue soul energy. I lost the fifty percent bump to my health pool, health regeneration, death energy, death energy regeneration, and carrying capacity. That equated to about 400 health and 700 death energy reserves. It was also about 700 carrying capacity but being able to carry nearly 1500 pounds was just fine by me, especially with the bag of holding.

Raven handed the phylactery to me, and I looked it over. The black jar was sealed tight and covered in runes that glowed with the eldritch purple light that matched my eyes.

Ezekiel the Lichs Phylactery

Current status: Uncharged. It will take time for the phylactery to rebuild the energy it takes to resurrect the Lich. If the Lich is killed again before the phylactery has rebuilt its charge, their soul will be stored inside the phylactery until the charge has been rebuilt. This process will be slowed by the presence of soul inside the phylactery since it will require energy to maintain itself.

Current time for complete recharge: N/A.

Time for resurrection if Lich is slain again: Unknown.

Dammit, I hissed. I had been worried I might lose the charge that the phylactery had when I removed it, but Id hoped it wouldnt happen. Worse yet, it wasnt recharging on its own anymore. Daimen had warned me that might happen as I grew past level fifty.

The phylactery being uncharged was problematic, and meant that if I died, I would be stuck in there for a really long time, assuming no one helped me. Powering up the phylactery required certain rituals and a lot of death. I hadnt had the time nor area to do it myself since I used up the charge back in Omark.

I had no doubt that if I died, and Maxwell and Raven made it back to my phylactery, they would do whatever it took to try and bring me back, but I questioned their ability to do so. It wasnt for a lack of will, it was for a lack of feasibility. It took a lot to charge a phylactery, something I planned on setting up in the undead civilization wed been creating, but since I wasnt there anymore, there wasnt a lot I could do.

While integrating the phylactery had a lot of benefits, it also had a number of downsides. I ran a wisp of soul energy through my fingers. Id never been talented at the use of soul energy, but it was nice to have ease of access to it back. It also hindered the use of my eldritch and dark magic. Eldritch had been easier since it was integral to what I was, but dark magic had been very difficult to work. When I tested it, I could feel the mana responding much better than before, as first a globe of dark appeared in my hand followed by a purple eldritch flame.

Death magic was great and all, but it lacked some of the utilities that came with the other types of magic. I was also getting to the point where using eldritch magic was more attainable, the cost not so unbearably high. Higher order magic often required larger sections of your mana pool to use. The unseen, or even unlisted, caveat to that was how well attuned your body was to magic. Death magic is of the same tier, if not higher than life magic, since without life you cant really have death, and even though it was expensive, if my body had not been so attuned to death magic, I wouldve struggled to cast it.

We set the phylactery inside the room with Maxwell. Protect this, no matter what, I said, and his body nodded. When a player logged off, their avatar continued to exist in the world. Meaning it actually lived, and sometimes people would set up tasks for the avatar to accomplish while they were gone. Maxwell had just simply told his to listen to whatever I told it.

Well, lets see whats below then. I joined Raven at the stairs leading deeper into the ziggurat. Down the dark stairwell was a sconce sitting in the wall. Remembering what Raven had said about light, I released a small flare of eldritch fire that flew across the distance and lit the sconce near the bottom of the stairs.

The purple fire flickered to life and settled in the sconce. Whoever had designed the sconces made it so when lit by magic, they would temporarily power the flame with their own internal magic reserves. It was a simple enchantment, and made exploring the ziggurat far easier.

The two zombie snakes that I had guarding the stairs followed us down, and when I reached the bottom I could feel I was exiting the influence of my lair. We found ourselves in another small room that reflected all of the other landing rooms wed come across. This one had three doors leading out and was likely more housing type arrangements, but I didnt know what would be occupying it.

We found out soon enough. Pushing open the first door led into a hallway, and from the end of that hallway we could hear flapping. I pushed Mercy out and prepared. They were bats, not very big, but there were lots of them.

An explosion of dark magic erupted in the middle of them as Raven attacked first. I was already building a spell, and sent the snakes surging forward. The flickering purple light from the other room along with my ability to pierce the darkness gave me a brief look at one of the small bats before the swarm reached us.

Its body was about the size of my hand, and was covered in dark red fur with bloodshot eyes. Bright red veins showed through the black skin of its wings, but the eyes were all I saw as they were suddenly upon us. There was no sound except for the beating of their wings.

Raven snarled beside me, but as the first bat landed a blow against my force barrier, I noticed something. The bats attacking my zombie snakes were accomplishing basically nothing. I paused, even as I heard Raven cursing as she fell back. I swatted one of the bats out of the air and grabbed it before it could recover, peering closely, I studied it and got a description.

Lesser Blood Bat

Level: 30

The creatures attack in swarms and their claws leave behind necrotic poison and damage. Their fangs drip with a powerful paralytic they can use to incapacitate large foes while the swarm feeds off of them.

Just fall back, Raven, I shouted. I got this.

These creatures could do literally nothing to neither me nor my snakes, and though it took time, one by one, I batted the annoying little bats out of the air with Mercy.

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