Chapter 1: Prologue
Circa 3000 years ago:
The planet was named Zhed, word of an old language that meant 'Earth'. It was an uncommon planet. Most of Zhed was covered in blue sea surrounding several continents that could be seen even far away from the planet. A single moon orbiting it was littered with different shades of gray that would have made any old monochrome movie feel right at home... Most of you have made a connection with our Earth and indeed it did look much alike.
And in that landscape on the currently dark side of the planet, a single tower stood. It was by no means an ordinary tower, though it made every effort to look ordinary in order to fit in, only couple of hundred yards high without decorations. A plain ordinary tower of bricks with a few windows that made it look like it was frowning constantly. But unfortunately there weren't any other towers to fit in with. The only thing surrounding the tower was The Wall, a massive thing 100 yards high and several thick, made from solid stone that had been pulled out from the very base of the continents rock bed. And unlike the tower, it made no effort in looking ordinary. Not only was The Wall made from a single slab of stone, it also had a rather tasteless skull and bones motif. Littered with bones and even full skeletons that seemed like someone had begun making artificial fossils of regular and mythical animals alike and had forgotten to finish the job, leaving random bits and pieces scattered across it creating a rather funny look as the skeletons were sprawled in most humorous positions. The Wall also had spikes which also were apparently made from bone, and were looming on the outer edge of The Wall like desperate office workers on top of a skyscraper, trying to find courage to jump.
Yes, the tower didn't like The Wall much, though there was little it could do about it, but then again there was little to see outside The Wall. The landscape couldn't be called bare, it was beyond bare, there was nothing besides cracked earth for miles in every direction around the tower. For all purposes the landscape was dead. Making the tower and The Wall stand out rather spectaculously. And since the tower didn't have anything else to do, it kept on frowning at The Wall.
And then the tower felt something, a silent ”Clack, tap tap”, then another, followed by an awfully many, as the master of the tower rose from his workdesk at the top and began his rounds at the bottom, making sure everything was as it was supposed to. He was no ordinary master even though the tower had never had another master to compare to, but it felt that this particular master was somehow special. The way his black robe flowed as he walked, the way his staff had a curious bent in blade. Mayhap it was the glowing blue dots that resided in the sockets where eyes normally were and how you could see his bare skull within his black hood... Or perhaps it was the fact that the towers master wasn't, in a strict sense, alive.
The master walked down the long stairway that led to the base of the tower. His bone feet making silent tapping noises, followed by his staff making a louder Clack as it hit the steps. He had been like this for the last couple of centuries, having given up life in order to better understand it. It still intrigued him rather much, but now he had other worries as he absentmindedly inspected the dungeon below his tower. He was making sure that all the creatures and animals were still where they should be. Animals in small patches of grass that he grew inside the dungeon and other, more sinister, creatures in their own respective cages.
He had been a most powerful wizard in life. He had even helped to build a great city on a continent far from this place, he recalled that it had flourished in the few years he had governed it, before leaving to build this place, he thought he remembered that they had named the place after him...
Or had he been named after the city? He could not recall...
He had snuffed out the little life that had been around his tower about 300 years ago in order to create an isolated area around his tower. There he could experiment with life, understand it without having other life interfere. But life has a way of getting under your skin, metaphorically speaking of course for as he had no skin, or muscles for that matter.
This time life had come to him some months ago, in the form of travelling monks from some holy order or the other. He didn't mingle with the gods so he couldn't remember the exact name. Never the less, those monks had been horrified of him, and his experiments even though he had been properly polite with them. They had even gone as far as to try and sabotage his research, which was unforgivable of course. And ever since, they have been constantly attacking the tower, being enough a nuisance that he had been forced to create a wall around it, with suitably intimidating and tasteful skull and bones motif. But even that didn't deter the humans.
Now being undead as he was, he had no 'glands' to feel with. Hence emotions took time to manifest as they didn't have any real focus. That's how he explained it anyway. So it took time for him to really get angry, but these humans had been pestering him for months, and he was starting to feel anger for the first time in centuries. And he wasn't sure as to what to do with them either. He had dispatched the first group with ease, letting some go in order to tell the others not to come looking. This had apparently failed, for some reason, as they returned with an even bigger group. And it had continued for some time, and while he was glad that he now had more living tissue to work with, he simply couldn't allow the problem to grow any... Ah, here they are again, scaling the wall surrounding the tower. He gave a single single mental command which activated the new defenses in the wall. All sorts of skeletal beings pulled themselves free of the wall, and as the attackers stared in horror at this new addition to the wall, the creatures began their macabre dance among the humans.
The humans responded with magical attacks of their own, with this new invention that they had developed over the last few decades, he thought one of the monks had called it a 'device'... which was merely a wizards staff with a bit more intelligence than usual, and a voice too. He hadn't had the time to truly investigate the extent of these devices, but he knew that they amplified magic in a peculiar way and... an explosion cut off his train of thought, and he flew up his tower in a very unwizardlike fashion. He disliked doing things in a hurried manner, the stairs where there for a reason, and it would be inproper to not use them. But life rarely cared for proper wizarding, it seemed.
As he reached the top of the tower, he peered out into the human masses. And for the first time noted how many there were, atleast several hundred of these device wielding 'mages', as the monks called themselves. And they were quickly tearing down his wall with siege weapons, which was completely unacceptable. The wall was a magnificent piece that had taken great pains to draw up from the earth. He would apparently have to get involved in the matter personally.
He sighed in frustration, a sound like an arctic wind blowing through ancient caverns. And he lifted his staff, firmly gripping it in his bone fingers, and called upon his magic to do his bidding. As the deep purple runes of magic manifested around him and his staff, similar runes blossomed into being on the outside of the top of the tower. And a single icy blue beam shot from the top into the sky, and seemed to break like water hitting a wall... The clouds dispersed above his castle, illuminating the grounds with moonlight, siphoned from pale white into cold blue as it shone through the new roof above the tower grounds. A roof made of crystal clear icicles, each the size of a man and sharper than a razor.
He finished his casting and lowered his staff in a swift motion. And there was a Sound.
The sound that you hear when a glacier falls from 300 yards and hits the ground with enough force to make the earth itself tremble for several seconds. Then there was the roaring kind of silence that can only be heard when something very, very loud suddenly decides to stop.
The Lich noted that atleast a hundred humans had survived, though only about 20 were left uninjured, the rest having anything from a single gash to an icicle shard stabbed through their gut. He had also made a slight misjudgement, as he had thought that the Glacier fall -spell would be enough to handle all of the attackers, so he had targeted it around the wall, so tightly that even the skeletal creatures that had been defending were struck down with it... It would seem that he had to go down and finish these 'mages' himself. But he thought that it would be much more practical to allow the humans to coalescent inside his tower, where he could dispatch them all without having to hunt them one person at a time. He cast a small spell and faded out of visibility...
A man down in the now icy field lowered his device and the shield that had protected him and couple of others faded out. He looked disturbed, but still somewhat an authority figure in his pure white clothing which spotted a bit of gold on the edges. He looked around him, into the aghast faces of his troop. This monster, this, this Lich had cast a truly horrid spell, for if the icicles themselves didn't kill you, then the many shards flying around after the impact would. He had been lucky to avoid any ricochetting shards, but the slowly increasing voices of agony from the survivors was horrible to listen to. One of his men was about to leave for the wounded, but was stopped by him.
”Don't, there's very little you can do, and we still have to seal this undead horror from the face of Zhed.” He said, shaking his head.
”But captain, we should...” said the other mage, clearly wanting to save what could be saved.
”No, we should first take care of the Lich before he does something like that again and kills the rest of us. Round up everyone you can find and let's move in. It has to be tired after casting a spell of that magnitude.” Said the captain, already going through the required spells for this plan in his mind.
The plan was in two parts: First part was to have atleast one of the captains of the Fist of Light to infiltrate the defenses of the tower and the second part was for the captain to cast the sealing spell with the help of the magical artifact, called Life Logia, supposedly meant to seal a very powerful undead such as this. Of course powerful Logias such as this were exceedingly rare, so every captain merely had a connector, a small device which looked like a piece of rope with a small white crystal attached to the other end... It connected him to the real Logia, should they reach the tower and find it's undead master.
There were also pre-requisites for the spell to work. There had to be abundant life nearby that would be used in the sealing. Luckily, the pilgrimage that had run into this place in the first place had reported that the undead kept a rather large amount of flora and fauna in the dungeons below, providing that part of the requirements. Second was a bit harder, the caster had to give his life as well. Meaning he would die sealing the Lich, he didn't mind giving his life for such a cause. His wife and daughter would live on in the city, supported by the Order of Light for his sacrifice. And they would be safe from this undead curse that occupies the tower ahead of him.
A small tap on his shoulder pulled him back to reality, and he turned around to what was about 40 men, looking ready to go to their doom, and he was the only captain present.
Meaning the entire operation now hung on his shoulders. He sighed deeply and straightened himself .
”There's a gap in the wall not far form here where the cannons did their work. We can sneak through it and hopefully catch the horror by surprise. Once inside I will rely on you guys to hold up defenses while I cast the spell to seal him. Let's move out.”
With that, he turned around and and started to run towards the crack in the wall, while listening to the feet stomping behind him. As they reached the crack, nothing jumped out of the shadows at them, no lightning bolts flying from the tower, just silence and agonized voices from the wounded and dying. He peered inside the courtyard, and saw nothing. Ahead of him was the tower door, which looked rather plain from the captains position. He waved at his men to move up and ran to the tower, device ready. He signaled his men to get ready and blasted the door in, allowing his men to run inside first before following suit. Into what clearly was just a tower, with one circling stairway going up the wall of the tower, and one stairway going down from the other side of the tower from the entryway.
He felt a bit cheated, all that combat and fighting and dying, and now nothing had lurched at him, attacked him or casted a spell at him for atleast ten minutes. His men were looking around, already expecting an ambush. He didn't sense anything besides the ambient magic from the tower walls, and didn't see anything. He walked to the men and opened his mouth to give orders.
Then he heard a voice, like tombstones rolling in a catacomb. It wasn't his ears that heard the sound, it somehow reverbrated inside of his head.
MAY I HELP YOU? The voice asked politely as the captain and his troop swirled to face the master of the tower. Whose glowing blue 'eyes' gazed at them from the dark recesses of his skull. He had a staff, though you could call it a scythe if the blade wasn't curiously bend against the shaft. He was also very tall, towering above the captain by atleast a heads length.
”De-Defensive positions!” He yelled after recovering from the sight of this horror incarnate. His troop seemed to recover from their own shocks when they heard the command, and quickly grouped together into a boxed formation infront, forming a living wall with their bodies, and a magical one with their devices.
”Your existance ends here, monster!” He yelled, before sending his conciousness into the connector, reaching through the dimensions, grasping for the one thing that could stop this.
BEING A MONSTER WOULD INDICATE THAT I'M ALIVE, WHICH I'M CLEARLY NOT. Said the Lich, slowly feeling the anger returning, as he began to walk towards the group of men. Watching the captain grab what seemed to be a piece of ornamental rope and fall into a trance. He recognized the item as a dimensional anchor, but didn't seem to have a means to reach the captain, as many of his subordinates were very determined to keep him away. Strange spells flashed into being around him, and he shrugged them off as the inconsequential rubbish they were.
And through this, he was becoming more and more certain that stopping the captain was very important. He looked at the mages, the ones at the front awaiting his move while the back row was already casting spells of varying schools.
I SEE, SO YOU WILL STAND IN MY WAY IN YOUR FOOLISH ATTEMPT TO PROTECT YOUR CAPTAIN? THE ONLY THING WAITING FOR YOU AT THE END OF THAT LINE IS DEATH. And with that, the staffs blade shot up, forming a proper scythe, and the blade began to glow a bright blue, with several runes visible inside the blade.
”For the holy Al Hazred and the Order of Light!” The mages up front responded, with the kind of courage you only find when your back's against the wall, and Death himself is walking towards you.
The scythe flashed down at the first men in the formation, slashing through their shields like sciccors against paper, and to their and their comrades utter horror, continued through their devices and their bodies with equal ease.
I CANNOT BE STOPPED. He said as he waved his hand, releasing a magical pulse, sending five men crashing to the wall as their shields and binds failed.
I CANNOT BE KILLED. He said as he cut through another three men with his scythe as they fired magical bolts and beams at him, his robes absorbing the attacks with ease.
Magical flames burst into being around him, halting his stride for a moment, and he locked his eyes on the mage channeling the spell in the centre of the formation.
AND I WILL NOT SUBMIT TO FORCES HAILING FROM THE CITY I BUILT! He roared as he threw a crackling ball of ice straight through the curtain of fire, at the center of what was left of the formation, causing several of the mages to freeze to death instantaneously. And his words froze the rest of the still living troop in shock. The fires twindled out of existence around him.
MY NAME IS DAVRAM HAZRED, AND KNOW THAT YOU WILL BE KILLED BY THE VERY PERSON WHO SET THE FIRST STONES OF YOUR 'HOLY' CITY! He rumbled. Then he said something, in a language even the al hazredians thought of as ancient, and the nearest bricks in the wall began to glow with deep purple runes, responding to their masters call.
Then the fallen troops suddenly sprang to life...
The captain finally got through to the Life Logia, and felt it connect to him through the rope. He knew that it now only required a single command to activate. He opened his eyes and the command died at his lips.
His troop was fighting amongst themselves, in what looked like a macabre play: A frozen mage was trying to suffocate a living one with it's bare hands while a cut-in-half mage was trying to bite it's way through the mans ankle. There was one of the mages, with his head hanging behind his back as if the top of his spine had gone on vacation, and was busily trying to claw a living member of the troop into the afterlife, while the feet of the cut-in-half mage was kicking the poor guy in the head, with relative success, considering that it had no eyes to aim with.
It might have been funny, in a teathrical play, or in a B-grade horror movie, but when it was happening all around him, to his troop, all the fun seemed to drain away and be replaced with disgust and horror... And then there was the Lich, it was calmly walking through the fighting mages and zombies, and it was looking at him. And he couldn't move a muscle under the stare of those cold blue eyes that seemed intent to bore his eyes to the back of his skull.
Some might say it was fate, some might say it was the gods, but nevertheless, one of the fighting groups hit him at his side and snapped him out of it. And he yelled the command word in a panic...
...and nothing happened. Even the Lich looked slightly put off by this lack of reaction from the Logia. Then it shrugged, and continued towards the captain. The captain was lifted from his feet by the Lich with a grip that could crush stone, and the closeness of the glowing eyes was enough to freeze him in terror.
WHAT DID YOU DO? It asked in an angry voice. The captain, being frozen in terror, couldn't answer.
WHAT-DID-YOU-DO? It asked again, carefully pronouncing each word. Before the captain could answer, he heard a strange sound, like someone cracking a knuckle and opening a beer can at the same time... or so the captain would have depicted it, had he ever heard the sound of a beer can being opened. A bright ray of light shot through the floor, enveloping everything inside the tower. The Lich dropped him to the floor as it looked around.
A SEALING LOGIA? NO! And he took flight, back to the top of the tower where his power would be at it's peak to stop this mockery.
The Lich didn't bother with doors, he just flew straight through the floor of his chambers, throwing rocks all around, and looked up at his phylatectary embedded on the roof, the very thing that held his soul and bound him to this world. And he began casting like never before, words of power rumbled from within him and the towers ambient magic responded. The usually dark purple runes flashed into searingly bright blue as the founder of Al Hazred poured every single ounce of magic into what was perhaps the most powerful spell he had ever cast.
And as he finished his spell, the light shot up from the hole he had just made, and reached the phylatectary...
Down at the bottom, the captain slumped down as the light began draining him of life, he could feel himself age rapidly as if the very time he was supposed to live was being sucked out of him in order to power the logia and it's sealing attempt.
Outside, the few surviving mages watched in awe-mixed fear as the tower first lit up with white, then blue, then there was a most undignified ”POP!” and the entire tower vanished. And for a moment the entire universe seemed silent, as if wondering what just happened... Then it hit the universe, like a kick to the nuts, a dimensional tear 200 yards high and 50 wide that sent wave after wave of destructive magics into the world of Zhed. Those waves ripped the planet apart and the tremors of the collision of the two great spells was felt several dimensions away.
This continued for days causing massive damage across the dimensions, then the tower suddenly decided to come back to the world, on an uninhabited planet, deep underground. And the tower was alive, but it could wait, for the sealing had been a success, even though no one was left to remember it...
And so the eons passed...
Authors notes: Newbie author reporting! Anyway, i felt that i should explain a few things i couldn't figure out how to explain in the story. First of all, Al Hazred was a civilization, but in here, it was also the capitals name. It prospered wonderously and for that, became known throughout the dimensions. Davram had been there, building the city as well as ruling it as a wizard, before he left on his quest for knowledge, and became a lich. He was what you'd call an old school wizard, his staff was merely an amplifier for his own magics which he manipulated through his extreme knowledge of the arcane. He modified the scythe on it after his transformation to the lich, as he saw the scythe as a proper tool for an undead such as he.
Some might wonder why the al hazredians seemed weak. Well, they weren't weak, Davram merely was immensely powerful, and his tower acted as one giant amplificator for his spells, further enhancing the already immense powers at his command.
And these were the religious fanatics of al hazred, which is why they call themselfs the Fist of Light, an armed sect of the Order of Light and that's exactly why there wasn't that many of them in the first place.