A Bored Lich

Frey sat against the wall, staring at the demon as it tortured itself. An army of rainbow-like sparkles invaded his vision and flew around even when he closed his eyes and let his body relax. With each breath, a portion of the sparkles vanished. His mind grasped reality again and the weight of everything crashed down upon him. "It's over." He sighed. "It's all over. Thank you and, I'm sorry for being a dick."

"No," Doevm said as he plopped down on the stone ground right next to Frey, his bones rattling against the stone. "I'm the one who should be sorry."

"About what?" Frey asked. The white, flaming aura around him vanished in a puff of smoke. "It's all my fault. If I had just trusted you more, none of this would have happened. You always have a reason. I knew that and yet I pushed that feeling to the corner of my mind."

"That was…we were both at fault," Doevm said. He paused for a moment. He spoke his next words with great care. "But even more so, I'm sorry about what I did to your family, to your grandmother Gwenivier." The demon screeched as it pulled off a chunk of its exoskeleton so Frey wasn't sure that he heard Doevm properly.

'My grandmother?' Frey thought. 'What does she have to do with any of this?'

As the Lich continued, Frey's eyes narrowed. "Your father tried to murder you, didn't he?"

And just like that Frey's grasp of reality, a grip which he had just reobtained, fell apart. "I never told you…"

"You didn't have to tell me." Doevm let out a long sigh and his flamed eyes dimmed. "I cursed your family starting with your grandmother. You, your sister, your mother, and your father all inherited it. When Arthur passed, your father's mind broke, and he tried to kill you, sending you to the Virility mansion as disowned and unwanted children. I should have told you that your sister inherited manipulative qualities from Gwenivier sooner. Maybe then you could have broken out of her grasp. Maybe if I had trusted Arthur to bring out the good in Gwenivier…"

"But how is that possible?" Frey asked, holding the sides of his head as if trying to force the pieces of the puzzle that Doevm had tossed at him together. "My grandfather told me thousands of stories about his youth and he has never even mentioned a Lich. How old are you? Why are you a human?"

"Frey," Doevm glanced over to the demon, who was covered in its own blood and trying to break its own leg. "Perhaps you didn't realize what I had just said. I cursed your family. You've been-"

"I'm stupid but I'm not that stupid," Frey snapped. "I get that you did something and somehow messed us up. Everything's hitting me all at once so I need a second…" He took a shaky breath.

The last bits of red in his eyes vanished: "I never knew my grandmother. It turns out that I never really knew a single member of my family besides my grandfather. What I do know however, is you. You always have reasons, even if you can't say them. In legends, Liches are evil beings that have armies of the Undead. You're not evil nor good. I can never see the true extent of your genius plans but it sounds as if you didn't plan for this to happen to me, did you?"

Doevm shook his head.

The two sat there for a few moments, letting their minds drift about and their weary bodies relax. Frey put more pieces together, and previous events slowly started to make sense. "What are you going to do?" He finally asked the question that had been on his mind for so long. "What's the plan you have for your human life?"

Then Doevm told him the rest of his story. He told him of the sparring sessions with Arthur, that he had been reborn with a spell of his own making, his goal of fighting the hero, and the ones who interfered: Maker and her children.

He pulled out the book he had taken from Maximus Draken's inheritance and showed it to Frey: "Now that you know the real me, you have a choice to make. If you follow me, you must push through more pain and suffering than you can even imagine, than even that demon's illusion. I want you to know the risks before you make your-"

"I'm already on board." Frey cut him off. "I don't care what it is as long as you are the same Doevm I know. You are the same Doevm I know, right?" Doevm nodded. "Good," he whispered. He rubbed his weary eyes. "I know that everything I saw was fake but that demon…" he turned to the demon and spat on its weak, crumpled form.

"It made everything look so real, even Arte and Gwen. I'm tired of fake things. I'm tired of fake people. I'm tired of faking a smile to you guys. I think I knew what Gwen was doing to me but I just didn't want to see it. It was just easier that way. Then you came along and, after everyone figured out that you were hiding something, I distanced myself and expected the worst."

The demon executed the final cut, slitting its own neck with broken shards of its own exoskeleton. Doevm was pushed out of Frey's mind.

When they both opened their eyes, they were still sitting against the wall. The only two differences were that Doevm was now human and the demon's corpse vaporized.

"What do you mean by everyone?" Doevm narrowed his eyes.

"Well…" Frey let out a hollow chuckle, which quickly turned into a coughing fit. After the pains in his sides stopped, he handed a piece of paper to Doevm.

With each line Doevm read, his frown deepened: "What are these numbers?"

Frey's chuckle turned into a laugh: "The numbers are the bet amounts. You really haven't seen it, have you; how irregular you really are? I heard that the first day you showed up, you came in crying about your mother's death and then the next day you were completely fine. You never talked or acted like a kid. You stayed in that library reading when no one had taught you how. You knew how to fight. That, and you always pulled off miracle after miracle. Every single person in both Petal Town and the Virility mansion thought along similar lines and made this."

"That's…" Doevm slid a hand down his face. "Somewhat expected, but I didn't think it would evolve to this extent." He crumpled the paper up. "But you're not allowed to tell anyone of my true identity, not even Thomas." They both turned to Thomas's corpse.

Frey swallowed his saliva: "I know this is probably a stupid question but since you're a Lich, you can resurrect people, right?"

Doevm sighed: "He's…complicated." He walked over to Thomas's corpse and put a hand on his cold chest: "Remember what I said about good and bad?"

"There are none."

"At times," Doevm said as he called upon his mana. "I was the worst evil in the world. At other times, I could have even counted as good. The same principle applies to magic, which is both good and evil depending on how it is used. Bringing a person back from death is not good, no matter who is brought back from death. This magic carries with it, consequences. I think it is best that you find out on your own what consequences Thomas will bear from defying death." Black tendrils of magic swirled around his body. They grabbed Thomas's limbs and snapped them back into place with a sickening crunch, the bones and muscles fusing back together.

Memories of Thomas bleeding out all-alone flooded in. "I do not care if I cross the boundary which humans have placed between evil and good. Now that you'll see the other side of me, I thought that I'd let you know in advance."

Thomas's body floated up as Doevm rose his hand. His eyes stretched open and a silent scream escaped his throat. His green eyes opened and darkened.

"I am a Lich, one who is supposedly above death. If I allow myself to rely on my magical knowledge, I can become the strongest being in this world. That, however, is not why I decided to become a fighter. I chose this path so I would not rely on magic." The black tendrils of mana faded away. Thomas was gently lain on the ground, his entire body twitching. "But I broke my promise," Doevm held out his hands, one with life essence and the other with mana. "And now I plan to use both to accomplish my goals."

"So when are we going after these people?" Frey asked, seeing Thomas's chest rise and fell. "I'll beat the crap out of a god or two. I mean seriously, what the hell else do I have to do?"

Doevm smirked. "We'll deal with them later, when we get much, much stronger. First is the academy, then we need to survive and find the hero. I'll fight him, then we'll hunt down those gods."

"Sounds good." Frey got to his feet and stretched out his sore limbs. "But aside from all that, please don't try any more of that memory crap. I know I can't stop you but I'd like to know about things rather than be ignorant."

"Deal," Doevm said. "But in exchange, if you ever lose your self-control again like how you threatened me because I wouldn't let you kill Trak's men, I'm going to take you aside and beat the sense into you. I...we can not afford to mess this up."

Frey threw up his hands: "I'm sorry ok. I'll be careful." He crossed his arms. "But that was everything you were hiding, right?"

"I doubt it." Doevm shrugged. "I just don't know what else to say at the moment." And then they both collapsed, exhausted from the day's events.