The lich is a sentient undead who store their souls in an object outside of their body. The body is no more than a corpse that temporarily houses their mind. All liches are competent mages that have been converted into undead to 'live' forever. Many have been alive for centuries and have mastered multiple schools of magic. They are in all but a few cases irredeemably evil, and allied with the demons. To truly destroy a lich forever its phylactery or the container for its soul must be destroyed. Like the ritual to become a lich, the lich has various types. - Common Monsters

Adrian

I have found what I was looking for, these undead are the cause of my discomfort last night. I try to sense the death within them and find it strong, whirling around their physical forms. They are in the way for the journey of moving towards my home. We will likely have to fight with these creatures.

I make a couple of more passes over these undead before I find one that is not covered in the energy of death. An orc dressed similar to the shaman. What did Lysan call it? A deathspeaker? He seems to be in control of them. I found all the information I need and fly back to Bryan’s house.

I find myself circling the house a bit as the trio watches after arriving. I like the attention; no, my dragon self likes to be seen. I land, return to human form and clothe myself in the front yard.

The trio comes down from the roof as I enter the house. Bryan and Abagail are sitting on the couch. How long was I gone? A few hours, it still is not noon. The trio walk in and there are not enough seats for everyone at the same time. Exactly one seat too few, I guess I will tell the others while standing then.

After telling of my flight around the area the others look worried. Bryan is only half paying attention, he is reading or rereading a piece of paper. Probably a letter one of his parents wrote in their last few days. Abagail is the one who comments first.

“We can’t fight an army.”

That would be the worst way to handle this. But we won’t need to if these undead are the type that I think they are.

“I don’t think that we will have to. We might be able to sneak around or maybe killing the necromancer will deal with them.”

“The deathspeaker’s death could undo the animation if he tied them to himself.”

K’s bit of information is helpful. He was controlling all of them so there has to be a focus for control, or undead lieutenants. Either way his death would break the others into factions.

“Is it possible to sneak by” asks Lysan.

“I don’t think it will be sister. Patrols of undead are probably going to cover everything. Do we have to move through this group?” Responds Talia.

We probably could move around them but that would easily triple our travel time to my house. I am not sure how much longer my brothers and mom would be safe with the cellar and guns.

“We could go around but that does not guarantee a better path or that we won’t be found.”

The group frowns. I know that there is no way I could keep everyone safe while cutting through these undead. And that is not even accounting for how Bryan does not seem combat ready right now.

“We need to just go through the undead then” comments Talia.

“We don’t have the manpower to make sure everyone is safe while moving” I counter.

“Then don’t bring everyone to the fight” adds K.

“We also need to make sure to leave enough people to have a defense.”

K’s idea of just bring some of our group to open up a path for the rest is possible. The group that goes to fight is more dangerous than staying so I would leave to fight and at least Abagail would stay here.

“I would need to stay here, who would go” asks Abagail.

The trio look at me, they want me to decide. Bryan is still reading that piece of paper. He wants to morn longer. I will give him as long as I can to morn, so he will be on the defense group. The smaller my group the easier it will be to get to the orc animating this small army.

“Out of the three of you Kythia is the most skilled in necromancy right” I ask.

“Yes” responds K.

“Alright, do you know how undead are animated?”

“Manipulating negative energy, but I do not know the exact details.”

“You will come with me to deal with what we can. Lysan, Talia can you help make sure everyone here stays safe?”

“But I want to stay with you” responds Lysan, albeit quietly.

“More people would make us easier to get caught.”

“But Kythia gets to go.”

“She is a necromancer, that means she should be able to figure out how to control or deanimate undead.”

Everyone but Bryan is giving me a look of confusion. Looks like I will have to give an explanation.

“Necromancy is the study of the forces of life and death. Specifically the manipulation of those forces, that does not just mean the creation of undead or conjuring negative energy to blast an enemy.

Kythia already knows how to create and alter negative energy through mana. An undead is controlled through the manipulation of their animating forces. If you alter the flow of negative energy in an already created undead you can steal control of it; break the connection from its current controller and replace it with your own.

It would also be easier to destabilize the negative energy matrix that holds the undead together in the first place, weakening or destroying it.”

I pause for a second at the end of my short explanation before K speaks up.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“That is why we are not leaving now. . .”

“So, you are going to teach me more magic?”

“Theory you will have to figure out how to apply it yourself, but unlike last time I do have something that can help.”

I pull a few of the books on necromancy out of Void Cache. They do not seem to have any higher leveled spells in them but there are explanations on the basics of controlling and animating your creations. Or at least I hope that there will be.

I stand up and leave the room, followed by K. Now to read these spellbooks and try to get her to understand the basics and the extensions to them that I described. Perhaps I can figure out something about Death as well. I think that negative energy is a force that the Sphere manipulates.

It is now dusk and while K certainly understands negative energy better than before. She has not however figured out how to make the jump from my theory to practice. I am in comparison just confused by these books, none of them give a decent explanation of anything.

The best description of how a spell works was for Negative Energy Burst. “Convert mana into a ball of negative energy and let it explode.” Everything else was cryptic nonsense and the language of the spells invocations is one that I do not speak. What the hell is Thanatonian Convalescence and there was never an explanation for how a negative energy matrix is supposed to be different from its continuous version.

No wonder wizards have to spend so much time and effort to learn each other’s spells. Nothing is properly explained in their spellbooks.

The twins walk over to me once they notice K and me have finished with learning what we can. Talia asks me a question.

“Is there a way for us to be able to tell you are still alive while away?”

“There are plenty of ways, most of which you would need a piece of me . . . wait a moment.”

There are a lot of ways to track someone or determine the location or status of an individual the most common focus for it being something with a symbolic connection to the life force of the target. My mind might be going into the gutter here but some of the ‘life force’ I left inside the twins could still be there.

I try to sense the life forces around me and while distance and direction seem strange I locate the twins and examine them. There is a bit of my life force still inside them. Not a child, none of their life has mixed into it. They already have a piece of me, that will make this easy.

“Pass me your hand Talia.”

She holds her hand out for me. I am not sure if this will work but it should. I grab her hand and start focusing on how I want reality to be warped. They have a piece of me so a sympathetic bond between us two is easy. Then move the bond to her hand and let it cause a discoloration until either reality reverts to normal or I die.

After a minute, I look at her hand, there is a slight discoloration in the palm. Enough to be noticeable, alright that will work. Now to make sure it lasts longer than my concentration.

“What did you do?”

“The mark on your hand should last until I die or a bit over a day.”

The mark is not particularly appealing, it looks almost like a bruise. Even so the twins smile they will be able to tell I am still alive. I am also not entirely sure how long what I did will last but it should hold for a while. I look over to the house the see Abagail watching, I think I said something while studying with K about leaving at dusk.

I turn to her, “help Bryan while I’m gone ok.”

She nods and I give some goodbyes to the twins before leaving in the direction of the cemetery with K. She seems really happy to be running off into a fight with me. Is this something she would considers a hunt? Or is this a date in her mind?

I don’t ask, she is happy and I like the smile on her face. Unfortunately, we were not paying enough attention and the patrols of the undead I saw earlier expanded their territory.

A few zombies that are already rather damaged. One of them managed to strike me pushing me back a few steps. I can feel a bruise forming, how the hell did I get snuck up on?

The only redeeming thing about this situation is that undead don’t count against me if they disagree with the reality I make around them. I think, at least that is what I would assume. Mindless undead can’t realize something is wrong.

I release a torrent of fire from my hand as I shove the corpse away. It collapses and the fire continues to burn away the flesh leaving only bones. K cuts one of the other zombies, but slashing up the body won’t do much to a corpse.

I would draw a gun but I do not see a .22 or 9mm bullet doing much. I only have 10 shells for the shotgun, and most of my 5.56 rounds were spent on the harpies. I need more ammunition. Gun-less, I pull a spear from the Void Cache, at least I still have dozens of these.

One of the other six zombies comes at me and I do not hold back with my now flaming spear. There is a corpse that has some armor on it and a sword, but it seems to be standing back and watching.

Is it commanding the others? Maybe it is intelligent. That would be bad news, as that opens up the possibility of communication with its master. I burn another two zombies by the time K cuts the zombie near her enough for it to collapse.

The last zombie next to what I suspect could be an undead lieutenant shambles at K while the intelligent undead speaks up. I do not understand the language but K seemed to as she shouts at me to kill it quickly.