"Stop right there, in the name of Great Master Kruxiblotax!" Tomas looked behind his back and could see a small red-skinned creature with sharp claws skittering towards him. any contact with that creature was out of the question.

"Where the hell are we? What are those red rats chasing us?" One of the people from Tomas' group shouted in panic. None of them had any clue about what was going on anymore. One morning he simply woke up, went to a bus stop and after getting on, he had appeared in this insane place after the door of the bus closed.

The place was a barren plateau of red rock, riddled with deep gorges and massive rocky spikes towering into considerable height, with a cave seen from time to time here and there. It was not a place that could be supporting much life and at first, he had been glad to see some life appearing.

But not anymore.

Their group of random bus passengers had found out the hard way that the creatures here were predatory and dangerous, even a seemingly tiny creature presenting some danger to their lives.

"Fuck, no signal! Useless trash!" A big guy with black shirt threw his mobile phone at the creature while they ran for their lives, but the creature dodged it with ease.

"Submit to Great Master or die, trespassers!" The small clawed creature shouted and Tomas wondered why he could understand it, it was weird. All of it. However, there was no time to contemplate about their situation, as the intention of the many creatures was clearly not good and the distance between them kept shrinking.

"I am out of breath!" One of the tall, slim girls who had decided to throw away her impractical shoes was out of breath, running with much difficulty with her feet bare, her skin exposed to occasional sharp stones on the ground. Unfortunately for her, the claws of the creatures behind them were too sharp and the only hero that had been in their group was already missing. She lagged behind more and more until the nasty little creatures managed to swarm around her, her fate onward unknown, as no one had time to care about anything else, but keeping their own lives.

"Look!" Tomas heard one of the leading guys shout and gazed at a peculiar mountain ahead. After a closer look, he realized it was not a mountain, but an enormous fortress. All instincts told him to turn around and avoid it, but there was no other way, the creatures behind them were gaining on them too fast and the imposing structure that emerged in front of them was the only place they would be able to arrive in time.

As the chase continued, they were able to see more details of the multi-layered fortress that boasted numerous towers, walls and all kinds of nifty fortifications, but drawing near to it meant that the upper levels were slowly being covered by the huge outer wall. In the wall, Tomas saw a huge gate that was oddly not made of steel, but of a monolithic block of stone that began slowly sliding to the side.

"They are opening the gate for us! We are saved!" Tomas shouted, when he saw the panic in the eyes of their pursuers, whoever was behind that wall was not an ally of these pestering creatures.

"Great Master Kruxiblotax must know about this! Chase them!" One of the creatures chirped and ran away, probably to inform its leader and the others sped up, it was clear the group of humans would not be able to reach the gate in time. They looked at the open gate longingly, understanding they were doomed to be the victims of the little devils.

"Move faster! There is someone standing on the wall!" A man next to Tomas shouted, making him look at the person. It was a rather short girl in revealing black dress that was in contrast with her pale-white skin and dazzling white hair that were flowing in the wind behind her back. She looked at them with her eerie blue eyes and. .. jumped.

She accelerated along the wall, falling to her death, but several meters before she hit the ground, her fall began to slow down, like she was submerging into a transparent liquid. After a few seconds, she remained levitating a few meters above the ground.

"My servants, the Lich Queen commands you to rise!" The person said in an imperative mysterious voice and spread her arms, the earth instantly breaking all around the panicking group of humans, countless undead emerging out of the ground, launching savage attacks at the small red creatures that began to squeal and attempted to retreat the moment their blood was spilled.

* * * *

"Please Toby, pretty please!" Irwen was begging and making puppy eyes at Toby, the moment she had called him by name, he had known that something was up.

"So, you want to dig a tunnel there and make your summons jump out of the ground. .. eh . . . ."

". .. with impact . .. kaboom! A true queen has to have impact!" Irwen kept nodding and Toby did not know what had gotten into her.

"Alright, but we have to hurry, those people are not far." Toby said, while looking at the group of humans from one of the three central towers. They would not have made it in time, unless Irwen knew how to levitate, it was her new trick that was apparently a racial trait of all liches.

Still, it was a slight disappointment for Toby, he had expected a potential employer to arrive, not a bunch of refugees. Irwen stepped out of the window and floated in the direction of the outer wall with him hanging on her neck. The more they neared the running group, the greater Toby's surprise as he began to recognize details that were not supposed to be there!

Was one of them holding a bus ticket? And what about that mobile phone? What was this group about?!

"Be careful not to kill them all, we definitely need to talk about their circumstances." Toby whispered, but Irwen ignored him, too thrilled about the coming stunt.

It took them only a few minutes to ready the show.

After watching her grand entrance, Toby had to admit that the stunt was really impactful, when Irwen presented herself as a queen, many of the people were close to shitting their pants, he was really curious about what her next course of action would be.

Irwen licked her lips.

She licked her lips again, slowly.

And for the third time she licked her lips, the movement of her tongue extremely slow, while she landed on the ground among the arriving people that were exhausted and breathed heavily.

"Life, sweet life." Irwen whispered with a wide smile and a drool hung from the corner of her mouth.

"Irwen? Irwen?! Irwen!! What the fuck are you doing? Get a hold of yourself, you parched husk of a human!" Toby whispered urgently, but Irwen kept ignoring him.

"Ah, sweet boy, tell me the reason thou come to meee!" She snuggled up to one of the boys and Toby knew he should execute his emergency plan.

* * * *

Tomas watched as the terrifying blue-eyed woman made a step to him and hugged him.

"Ah, sweet boy, tell me the reason thou come to meee!" She said and he felt a chill running up his spine, but before he could react to the terrible queen's behaviour, she simply vanished and along with her all her undead troops turned to dust like they had never even been there.

"What!?"

"A Ghost!"

"The fortress in haunted!"

The people around him panicked. Tomas noticed a purple necklace was all that was left after the queen disappeared, but he knew better than to pick it up. He kicked it away with the tip of his shoe into one of the pits that were left behind by the scary undead warriors.

"Quickly, we must hide in the fortress!"

"No way, it is haunted!"

Immediately, people separated into two groups and Tomas decided to go along with the one venturing into the fortress.

* * * *

"He just kicked me away!" Toby grumbled, but was glad that he was out of sight and could summon his acolytes to move himself around. He would resummon Irwen at his soulforge, but he had to make sure that she was in control before letting her talk with those people again . He did not like the look in her eyes when she watched the guests.

Purple light of the summoning had finally vanished and an acolyte appeared, taking Toby into his hand.

"Finally, let's go!" He ordered and the acolyte moved in the direction of one of the central towers, creating a way under the ground for them. The whole fortification seemed silly anyway in the face of this world's earth magic. Toby had a hunch that his fortress was a monument of ignorance more than might, but it should still serve its purpose.

"Should I even summon her?" Toby thought about talking to the guests without Irwen present, but she was his strongest military force and he was too paranoid to take unnecessary risks. Besides, she had a brain right? He should be able to explain it to her, he was reluctant to order her around like a golem, using their master-servant relationship.

Arriving at the soulforge, Toby began to summon Irwen back to unlife, preparing himself for her complaints.

. . .a lot of complaints.

". . . how can you simply discard me like a piece of trash? I had everything under control, they were just a lot of fun and I wanted to mingle!" Irwen was in the middle of her speech only after a minute of her continued existence.

"I had the impression that you would eat them alive in a matter of seconds." Toby countered.

"Nah, I just felt invigorated after all the boring construction work." Irwen pouted and folded her arms.

"Boring construction work??" Toby wanted to strangle her, but lacked any hands to do it.

"Fine, go mingle with the guests, I will be there in a minute." Toby gave up on his scolding. "But before you go, look into my eyes and say that they will be alright."

Irwen looked at the purple stone that was still hanging around the neck of one of the acolytes and nodded.

"They will be alright, I swear." She said and left the underground lair that was situated under the fortress.

Toby returned to the gate and did some damage control. He wanted to present the fortress in a good shape, not looking like after a bloodbath. He took care of all bodies and other residues of battle, including uneven terrain and left through the main gate when he was satisfied. It was time to go back and entertain the guests.

Going through several gates, Toby inspected the fortress briefly as he went.

Everything was perfect, he could not wait for some people interested in his work to show up! At the very center of the fortress, where the three towers stood proudly, Toby entered the one that was housing the guests, sliding the last door to the side using earth magic.

"How are the .. . guests." Toby was carried into the room by his acolyte and was stunned, breathless.

"Oh, they were alright, kind of sweet." Irwen's voice answered immediately.

"What have you done?!"

* * * *

It was hard to believe that he was dead. For how long they had been adventuring together and he ended up being slain in a split of a second.

He still could not believe it.

Artorias kicked with all his might and an elaborately crafted throne in front of him shattered into thousand pieces with a loud crashing noise. There was no need for his throne anymore, the only throne in this territory would be a frozen throne of Artorias, for Archibald Cygnus was dead.

It had been his idea to suddenly teleport into some very unusual place, to surprise that amateur Djinn. They ignored all ordinary recommendations and taboos that existed about space manipulation and ended up in a place out of this world. In fact, Artorias was still not sure what was that place and where exactly it was, but there was someone that was not accepting guests without invitation, the bitch ended up killing Archibald with the remaining two of them fleeing from the chaotic battle.

Artorias sat and as he was sitting down, a massive throne of ice quickly formed under him, it had been completely finished the exact moment his back leaned against it. This territory was now his, he would need every ounce of strength and resources he could get, he felt threatened. He had felt that way when he saw Archibald die and the feeling had not left him ever since.

Whoever it was, that enemy was strong, there was no time for more games.

"Supreme Master! We have spotted a . . " An imp entered the throne room and was shocked when he saw a completely different lord sitting there.

"What have you spotted?" To the imp's great horror, the new lord focused his attention on him, the little creature felt like it had been thrown into a freezing cold water.

"A-A Fortress! There is a Lich defending it!" The imp immediately bowed and awaited the terrifying demon's commands.

"A lich? Interesting." Artorias' voice rumbled, making the throne of ice vibrate in resonance with his voice.