Hallucination Gallery

The Lich

Well, the idea was that I’d turn myself into an immortal being, you know? If I reduced myself to bone, my puny human body would no longer be touched by the ravages of time and decay. Bone, after all, would only slowly wear down if left to the elements and I could just enchant any damage away.

What I didn’t foresee - and this was nowhere in any of the Grimoires I read, I suspect their authors left it unsaid out of spite - is that magic is inextricably linked to flesh. Now I’m not talking blood magic or any of that business, though at this point it’s a requirement for me, I mean I can’t even cast a simple illumination cantrip or a silence hex or even light a god damn candle without committing ritual murder anymore.

I know what you’re thinking, “But what about that golem I heard was running amok through Wintersreach?”

It’s not the same. Yes the golem was animated and reasonably intelligent, although it lacked the required parts to speak or do much more than toss guards around, but it was limited to the magic that it was imbued with. It could walk and jump and smash, but could it cast spells? Nope, not even if it was capable of considering it.

From what I’ve gathered during these last few months of unlife, magic is the physical manifestation of the spirit of the flesh. Projecting that spirit outwardly (in other words, casting spells) is costly, and it seems the only thing that can regenerate the spirit that charges it is a flesh and blood creature. Believe me, I’ve been doing some experimentation on this one.

Now, necromancer’s apprentices are the perfect subjects. They’re a dime a dozen these days - Figuratively speaking only of course, magic sensitive slaves are actually quite costly and are never worth the trouble of keeping locked up. They always seem to find an escape route.

Anyway, they’re constantly digging around in graveyards looking for bodies to exhume. They come around so often that I’d honestly be surprised if there were any corpses left in this crypt that I didn’t drag down here myself, so a perfectly intact skeleton laying on the dais of a crypt is just too good for them to pass up.

It’s easy, really. They see me, creep on over and start poking around my ribs or shoulders to see if I crumble then bam! They have some razor sharp skeleton fingers in the eyes or an aerosolized sleeping potion if I’d had a chance to put one together.

I don’t kill them though. Not yet anyway. It’s best to keep them alive, all that valuable mojo seems to slowly seep out of their flesh once they’ve died. Within an hour or so the spirit has completely departed, so for it to work those pieces have to be fresh.

Really it’s best to have a live subject at the time of ritual but for minor spells I usually just lop off a limb and bring it to the altar. A hand is enough to set up some alarm wards, but you need at least the whole arm to attach a sleeping charm to it. The strongest force comes from the areas that bleed the worst when they’re removed.

I tried keeping a heart beating on a machine and harvesting the life force from it, but the blood is only part of the equation. It’s as if the flesh were a storage container… like a vault where spiritual forces can be stored. Is a fat wizard a better reserve than a thin wizard? I need to write this down. Now that I think about it I haven’t encountered many heavyset persons trained in the arcane. Why are mages always so frail?

Well, no matter. For now I need to focus on the task at hand. And that’s you.

---

The creature’s bony hand reached out to caress it’s captive. “Some would call me a lich. But you know, i’ve always thought of liches as evil creatures. Undead fiends, focused on power above all and creating suffering as a rule of thumb. I find the title rather uncomfortable. I’m no monster! I’m just a problem solver. “

“It’s rude, don’t you think?” The man had been magically bound, and could neither speak nor move in reply. “You’re a terrible conversationalist,” the lich continued, “I’m not a monster, I have dreams! One day I’ll figure out how to get the best of both worlds, immortality and innate magic, but for now this is just sadly unavoidable.

“I really do feel bad about it all.” The lich reached down and took hold of the man’s hand. “I need a couple of your fingers, I hope you don’t mind.” The lich paused, as if waiting for a response. The man was silent and unblinking.

“Good! I’d say I’ll be careful with them, but they’re getting ground up into a paste so I can draw a magic circle.” The lich pulled a nearby surgical table closer to him and grabbed a rather large cleaver. With one smooth motion he pushed the man’s hand against the arm of the stone chair he sat in and lopped the first three digits off his left hand. Blood spurted out of the three stumps like tiny erupting volcanoes. “So much blood! Here let me cauterize that. These fingers will be a font of power, I can feel it.” The lich said, somehow managing to grin without lips,

“Oh I didn’t even notice your ring! Sorry about that,” the lich said, reaching next to the bloody stumps to pick up two crescent slivers of gold, “it looks like I’ve cut it in half a little. It’s a good thing you don’t have a finger to put it back onto anyway.” the creature slipped the pieces of ring into the man’s breast pocket,” I’m sure your wife would understand.” it patted the man’s chest before turning away and walking through the small door leading out of the room.

For what amounted to an underground pit, the circular mausoleum was immaculately clean. It’s stone walls were dusty, but not a single cobweb could be found in the rows upon rows of burial shelves*** . No insects crawled the floor, neither could you find any rats within a mile of the cemetery. Hundreds of bones were arranged neatly into the shape of the humans they once belonged to on three stone sarcophagi positioned in a smaller circle radiating out from the centre of the room. They were equally clean, as if their flesh had been eaten by beetles and the bones bleached so they gleamed white and pure.

The Lich entered the room carrying a pot of red paste and a silver bowl containing three still beating hearts. He took one heart from the silver bowl and placed it in the first skeleton’s rib cage. Using the red paste as his paint and a bony finger as his paintbrush he inscribed an intricate latticework of magic runes on its forehead. When he was finished he draped a black cloth over top of it and moved on to the next, then the next.

After all three skeletons had been given their hearts, inscribed, and shrouded, he began a fourth design in the centre of the room. Three lines formed a triangle, with each point towards one set of remains. At each of the triangles points he drew a small circle with a cross inside it, and on each side he laid out a flowing arcane script. Words of magic.

He began to speak those words, one side to the next in a low, monotone voice. As he finished each he drew a single line across its text. When he finished he drew three concave arcs, their zeniths in the centre of the design and drew one final circle around the entirety. He stood up, grabbed a torch he’d lain nearby and thrust it out from his chest into the air above the circle, then he dropped to one bony knee, slamming the butt of the torch into the centre of the circle.

The torch in the lich’s hand, as well as every unlit one lining the walls of the room flared up, the black cloths covering the three skeletons burst into flames, and the smell of sulphur and burnt flesh filled the air. When all but the single torch still held in the circle flashed out as sudden as they came on, the burial shrouds were consumed and from their ashes the three skeletons slowly stood. Excepting the inscriptions on their skulls which glowed like embers, their pristine white bones were now black as soot, and in their chests the hearts were now swirling voids of red and black.

“Fuck yeah,” the Lich said.