A Skeleton and a Lich
Death Knight, Volume 3
Michael Chatfield
Published by Michael Chatfield, 2019.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter: A History Between a Lich and a Death Knight
Chapter: Tuckered ’Lil Guy
Chapter: Memory Lane
Chapter: Striking Out
Chapter: On the Graves of the Faithful
Chapter: Resurgence
Chapter: War Front
Chapter: New Haven Harbor
Chapter: Moving Pieces
Chapter: Ascen
Chapter: On Dawn’s Break
Chapter: Ignite the Fire of Change
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Chapter: A History Between a Lich and a Death Knight
Damien pulled on an apron, humming as he worked in the kitchen, taking care to just use his forefinger and thumb as he injected some mana into the magical stove. A flame appeared underneath the pot.
“You sure you don’t want my help?” Tamarra said in a voice tinged with fear. Damien paused as she kept on going, as if fearing he would continue. “Might be better to tell them about Guardian things you know!”
“Well, surely you know about the Guardians?” Damien turned in his massive armor, his hands on his hips. He wore his flower apron with Kiss the Chef on it.
“Why does this keep happening to us?” Tommie asked Aila.
“I—uhh...” Aila simply shrugged and sighed and took a seat.
Tommie nodded in an understanding way as he took a seat as well.
Tamarra got between Damien and the stove.
Damien sat down on a metal chair that supported his weight. “Okay, so there’s a lot to go through, really.” Damien pulled off his helmet.
A shining and scarred bone head with green flames looked at them.
“Dammit!” Tommie yelled, half jumping and leaping before his mind and body took everything in and he sat back in his seat. “Some preamble or warning about being undead! Please!”
“Got a bad memory with an undead?” Damien looked at Tommie in confusion.
The image of Tommie being cradled by Anthony flashed through Aila’s mind as she closed her eyes and shook her head. Ugh, ugh, uhhh—get out of my head! Mental soap!
“Bit skittish? Forget about being dead and all of that now and then, kind of like tattoos, I guess. Forget they’re there—just like, hmm, that’s different.”
“Focus.” Tamarra moved around the kitchen.
Isn’t she like the highest power in Ilsal and she’s relegated to being a cook?
“Stay still!” Claire yelled from the other room as a wave of heat passed the room.
“Oh, got any cookies!” Anthony, who had ducked into the room, now shot out of it as he kept running. “You know how much I hate cardio!”
“Bag of bones!”
“Armored bag of bones!”
Their fighting returned to background noise as Damien cleared his throat.
“Don’t worry, it’s really hard for them to hurt the other. So, I guess from the beginning then.” Damien held his head with his hand.
“Hmm.” He pulled off his head accidentally and didn’t seem to notice as he held his skull in his hand.
“Well, they first met each other when they were adventurers. He was a kid without a background but he had been able to contract a familiar at a young age. He kind of attracted familiars—they wanted to join him. She was a mage, wasn’t that strong, but stubborn. He fell for her like rock falls for gravity. He went after her; she ignored him—kept him around to adventure. They went and fought stuff, traveled, grew stronger. She got a teacher; he got familiars. They left tales wherever they went—the traveling bard and the princess, they were called.”
“I think I’ve heard those stories. I thought that they were just something to be spoken around the campfire and sing with drinking?” Tommie said.
“Nope, those two.” Damien gestured to the doorway with his head. “The war was picking up—things weren’t going that well. They had become pretty close. She went to the Guardians and he followed. He was much stronger. She vowed to beat him in strength. She became stronger and then found he still followed her around, still wanted to be with her. Seemed like she gave in and they started dating officially. Like, I don’t get that—when are you officially going out, or seeing each other, or dating each other, or just testing the waters? Damn, that is confusing.”
“Think too much and that skull will explode,” Tamarra said as she poured the hot water into cups.
Damien’s flame eyes rolled around in his skull.
“Anyway, the Guardians were created to deal with the lawlessness of Dena. Guardians started appearing all over the place, calming things down when the doors opened. The Agents of Chaos were trying to mess up our rear lines and they did a real good job. The Guardians calmed things down to a certain extent but the doorways led to their world. It allowed them to cross into Dena with impunity. So over they came—corrupting the land, killing people, and trying to take Dena as their own.”
“Watch out. It’s hot.” Tamarra put down the cups. She had added pastries to them as well.
Aila and Tommie muttered their thanks as Tamarra started to clean up.
Their focus returned to Damien.
“Gates to the chaos lands,” Tamarra said, kick-starting him.
“Right! Okay, so they had all of these chaotic beasts come through. The races had to fight them off. Though the races are stronger together rather than apart, the Guardians were used to secure our rear and stop the infighting, used to make sure that there weren’t tensions in the units that were fighting beside one another and then ’cause they got powerful, then they had to fight on the front lines. Of course, Anthony and Claire fought beside each other on the front lines as they were kind of inseparable. They closed down three of the gates by themselves and helped with tens of others.
“They were war heroes. When the last gate was shut, we thought that it was all over. We started to relax. We let our guard down. We didn’t know that the Agents of Chaos had more power than ever and were lying in wait. They infiltrated the different governments, corrupted and changed them from the inside.
“Dena slowly but surely turned on the Guardians, turned from heroes into people who were a police force that was there to suppress the people. Being their own masters with too much power.
“There was fighting and battles. The Guardians seemed to have been killed off. Claire collected them all, including Anthony, and did what she had to. We both did. We hid here. We had to wait. We couldn’t make the Guardians again; they were cursed now. Through Ilsal and Epan, we cleared out the Agents of Chaos slowly and had judges, law and order step up and take over ruling the system. We had to move slowly, in the shadows, making it look as if it were Ilsal and Epan doing it naturally. In the background, we were supporting and guiding them. Now, well, you’re all here—there are signs of the doors opening and it looks like another war will be upon us again.”
“Why do these chaos people attack us?” Aila asked.
“Well, they’re called the Drafeng. They have a large population and their power corrupts and kills them from inside. They need more land to expand into and different power to consume to grow stronger. We call them Agents of Chaos because they cause chaos. Plus, propaganda is a powerful tool!” Damien waved his own skull around without care.
“So they just seek to destroy and kill?” Tommie asked.
“They seek mana and our sources of energy, want to use it to sustain themselves or find a way to survive longer.
Maybe? Never really had a lot of contact with them. They see Dena as some backwater. They’re all like, ‘Wow, those people are totally not using that resource properly. So what if we kill them and use it properly? We can use it better. We could just push them to the side. So what if they live in bad conditions as long as we can get access to their mana resources?’ Not all that different to what people in the south of Radal go through all the time in the jewel mines but we look the other way. We just hate the Drafeng because they’re killing our friends and family and attacking our homes. People are messed up.”
After hearing Damien’s words, Aila could only shrug. She was no different. There were only so many causes she could spend her time on.
“Okay, so, these Guardians just disappeared then?”
“Faded into oblivion. Now there is only Anthony.”
“Aren’t you a Guardian?”
“Me? No, I’m just an acolyte. I was supposed to become a Guardian, but I was never sworn in, didn’t take my oath. Claire found me hiding from the force of chaos. I died and she brought me back. And that was years ago.”
“Sounds...complicated,” Aila said.
“The world is never black and white, just a lot of grays thrown together. Hard to separate out the real from the fake. It’s why the Guardians were so powerful and feared—everything that you have ever done revealed to the entire world.” Damien put his skull back on his spine. “That is a lot of power for just a few people to wield.”
“Hey! Hey! DAVE, help me here!” Anthony yelled. “Come on, aren’t you my familiars!”
“Moisturizer!” Claire screeched again as lightning shot past the door.
“Hmm, looks like they’re making up for missed time.” Damien let out a happy sigh, as if he were watching the greatest love story possible.
Tommie, Aila, and Tamarra all looked at one another and then took a drink from their cups.
“Good tea. What kind is it?” Aila asked, feeling that it might be some time until they could leave the little side kitchen.
Chapter: Tuckered ’Lil Guy
They were talking for some ten or twenty more minutes when there was a strange noise from the other room and the curses and elemental magic stopped creating a light display through the doorway.
Damien got up and went to the doorway, looking out.
Aila and Tommie followed afterward, looking out to see Claire standing over Anthony.
“Oh, come on.” She sighed and kicked the armor.
There was nothing as she grabbed his leg and started to drag him across the floor, scraping up the stones. Sparks came off his armor. Aila stuffed her fingers in her ears as Anthony bumped over rocks and Claire dragged him farther into her lair.
She seemed to feel the eyes on her. She looked back, seeing all four staring at her. “He, uhh, well, he’s just taking a short nap. Got all excited, uhh, well...”
Aila swore she saw a lich blush as Claire left quickly. Her increased speed and the uneven floor made Anthony bounce around, hitting the hallway and the floor as she disappeared from sight.
“Well, guess that we should leave them to it,” Tamarra said awkwardly and then cleared her throat. “I’ll get rooms ready for you both to stay in. We need to make plans and coordinate our efforts.”
“You’re just saying that to make it sound like you have a plan, instead of waiting for Claire to let us know what the plan is,” Damien said.
“You!” Tamarra said, her authoritative edge falling apart.
“What?” Damien shrugged. “I do it all the time!”
***
Tamarra was true to her word: she got Tommie and Aila rooms to rest in.
Aila took a bath, getting rid of the grime from the road.
She studied the room and the bed laying down, ready for sleep to take over. But she was unable to get any rest. With a frustrated sigh, she got back up and looked out at the moon hanging above.
She stepped into a fighting stance and took out her daggers, moving through fighting stances, stretching and waking up her body.
She focused on her movements, her muscles working together to deliver the strongest blow, how she flowed from one move to the next, stopping and restarting until it was fluid.
For the Guardians to be so strong in their prime—just what happened for them to be wiped out? Anthony is supposed to be the only one, kind of alive? What about those other tombs in Radal? Why is Claire no longer seen as a Guardian? What must one go through to become a Guardian? What would it like to be one? Would I want to be one? Could I be one?
She came to a rest with a confused look on her face.
“Do I want to be a Guardian?” she asked herself.
“Yes,” she replied, feeling the answer was right.
“Why?” She pondered on the question. “Anthony is many things, but he is a good person, someone who looks to help all of Dena. Without him, the people in Laisa might have had a civil war. The people of Skalafell might have all died. The people of the caravan, those on the boat—he has touched and saved many lives or made them better. A few people here and there, but even the little things are powerful. Everyone needs help at some point. I want to be there for them like Anthony was.”
She felt a new purpose. She felt nervous. She wanted to be a Guardian but it didn’t mean she would run in without looking at the terms. She was a princess, after all.
Always read the fine print—that’s how people get you!
***
Aila wasn’t the only one still awake.
Tommie was still awake too, working by lamplight on his Gnome-inator again to make corrections from when he worked on it on the boat. He inserted the final piece and slowly slid it into place. He pulled on two levers; hooks grabbed onto the last piece and hooked it into place.
There was a sound of moving gears. Tommie checked his testing equipment. As steam was released, the entire Gnome-inator moved.
Tommie ran around. “Damn, damn, damn!”
He winced as the contraption rose up and hit the chandelier above. The glass crystals rained down and hit the ground below as Tommie dodged the crystals and tried to stop the Gnome-inator from rising.
Finally he hit the right control on the Gnome-inator and its gears slowed to a halt. Steam shot out from its structure.
“Okay, maybe power it up in an open space next time.” Tommie let out a nervous laugh as he looked up at his masterpiece.
A wide smile split his face as he looked at the final project.
His smile faltered as he continued to look at it.
He found peace in working, but something was missing. He wasn’t working out of joy but to try to divert his attention.
It has been my goal for years to complete the Gnome-inator, but now—now why do I feel more anxious than excited?
He stepped backward and sat down on a chair. He didn’t look at the Gnome-inator, his life’s work. He looked at the ground covered in plaster and crystals, the wood scuffed up in places.
“I just wanted to go and see the elven capital, to get the last parts I needed to finish the Gnome-inator. I wanted to show them what I could do, how I’m more than just a gnome tagging along. I—I wanted them to be impressed.” He looked up at the Gnome-inator. “In the last war, there had to be all kinds of machines, the best of the best working together. What will my Gnome-inator have on them?”
Tommie looked at the ground and shook his head. “I’m no great inventor. I’m just a gnome looking to impress some of his friends. They have this epic quest to save the world, to push back the forces of chaos. I’m just a gnome from Laisa—what can I do? Aila is an elven princess. Anthony is a Guardian—Claire, too. Damien is a powerful undead.” Maybe it is time to go home, to get out of their way. I can tell people about my adventure, use my Gnome-inator to help out.
He looked up at the Gnome-inator. It was a grand and powerful machine.
“Well, I finally did it.” His smile was bittersweet as his doubts filled his head.
Chapter: Memory Lane
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Anthony saw deserts, mountains, wandered jungles and got stuck in bogs. He traveled with humans, with gnomes, dwarves, beast kin, and elves. He watched the birth of elementals, and made friends with many. It was a good time, a carefree time.
Anthony blinked and yawned, looking around at the wall all around him. The bodies had been cleared away, but the smell of death—of blood—remained, staining those walls.
Scavengers appeared on the battlefield in front of the wall, picking at the dead that lay there. Overhead, birds circled, looking to get their prizes.
Bodies and armor covered the ground. The Drafeng laid bare. They were a tall race that looked similar to horses.
“All their light has gone out,” Tairlyn said. The small dwarf walked over with Troga Kagan. The massive ox warrior was four or five times her size but neither of them lost out in presence. Tairlyn’s armor was scratched and stained. The famed smith hadn’t had the time to repair or care for her armor since the beginning of the siege that started three weeks ago. On her hip, there was her famed stone hammer while across her body she had used every spare space to place pistols.
Troga Kagan’s armor was in worse shape and there was a bandage on his left arm. His eyes were sunken and tired as he sat down on some rubble. Using his bloodline gave him explosive fighting power on the battlefield, but it was hard to sustain over long periods of time. He started drinking a potion as Anthony looked at the Drafeng.
“Kind of feel for them,” he said in a low voice.
When they were alive, they were lit up with all different colors. They consumed the power around them to create magical limbs, to imbue their bodies with greater power. Though there was a cost to using this power: their bodies and their very lives. When the lights died and their bodies lay there, one was able to see their true form instead of being blinded by the light of their power.
Their bodies looked to be formed from clay. They looked like farmers’ fields with different patchwork additions to their body. Their power caused them to fall apart, so they tried to put themselves back together to use more. So the cycle continued again and again.
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