A Bored Lich

"We won, didn't we?" Olpi asked.

Elero put a hand on Olpi's shoulder: "Read the room."

"Oh."

Doevm scanned the melting corpses, their former enemies. If he were to sum all his victims' years together, before he brought them to their abrupt end, how many centuries would it be in total? In return, what did he gain? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He sighed, letting his mana fade. 'What a humiliating defeat,' he thought.

Thomas gestured to the growing flames: "Doevm, are we supposed to be moving away from that?"

Doevm pulled himself out of his thoughts: "Someone needs to carry Olpi. Frey, I need you to keep a watch on our surroundings in case there are any left. Stick close to one another. Kilot, are you coming?"

Kilot took one last, pain-filled look at his forge before joining the group in navigating out of the forest, all of them coughing up smoke and wiping their eyes along the way. Either no one chose spoke or they intentionally kept quiet, Doevm couldn't tell which it was. All he knew is that, whether out of fear or respect, they kept their distance.

Doevm signaled the group to halt at the forest's edge. 'We could try to go for the carriage,' he thought. 'but it's better to rest with some cover than out in the open.'

"How much time do we have to rest?" Frey asked as he plopped down. After fighting together so long, he knew the drill.

"Five to ten minutes. Dragon flames don't travel as fast," Doevm explained, staring at the distant glow, and tapping his foot. 'Maybe I should just heal them and get moving.'

Olpi finished off her waterskin with a few gulps. As color returned to her complexion, she lazily turned her head towards Doevm. "Excuse me, I still don't get it. Why was that a loss for us?"

"The condition for victory was to gain information, not to survive," Doevm explained. "In the future, other groups are going to come after us, now knowing full-well what we can do. Even worse, they know our location. If the people we fought report to a cardinal…get some rest."

Olpi lowered her head. "Got it."

'What's with these people?' Doevm thought. 'Don't they understand how dangerous of a situation we're in?'

Kilot chuckled: "Doevm, is this how you survived all those centuries?" He threw his waterskin at Doevm, who instinctively caught it.

Doevm didn't think much of it as he took a sip, quickly realizing his mistake as a horrid, burning sensation traveled down his throat. He spat it out and grimaced, much to everyone's amusement: "What the hell was that?"

"Thought you needed a drink," Kilot huffed as he took out another waterskin for himself, likely containing the same stuff. "Don't worry, it's good stuff, not that you'd know."

Elero stood up. "Doevm, I don't think they're going to report to a cardinal. I saw corpses of War Monks as we were running. Whoever they were, they seemed to have a grudge against the church."

"But we can't be sure," Doevm reasoned.

"Not unless we have more information?" Thomas asked.

"Of course. What of it?"

Thomas held out a spatial ring. "Would this qualify as information?"

Elero lifted her head up, having put two and two together. "Wait, is that what I think it is?"

Thoams could hardly contain his smile. "They were too focused on retreating to notice. Just as I planned! I'm so smart!"

Kilot smacked Thomas on the back. "Nice going, Virility! I had my doubts but you sure proved me wrong!"

Thomas's smile twitched. "Do I seem that incompetent?"

Weapons, artifacts, and outfits plopped in the center as Doevm emptied the contents of the spatial ring. On top of everything were five pieces of paper, each with a different, familiar face on it.

"That's…us," Frey gasped.

"What's with all of those zeroes?" Olpi asked.

"They're bounties," Doevm explained, turning towards Thomas. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"You didn't give me the chance to," Thomas grumbled.

"W-well, you're right," Doevm stuttered. 'No wonder they used so many artifacts. You can buy at least a dozen more barriers with the reward money. I panicked for nothing.' He shoved everything into his spatial ring, intending to give a more thorough search later. For now he had bigger problems, literally, as he felt an infernal heat creep nearer.

"Time to go," Frey said, rising to his feet.

The tension began to leave their shoulders as they hurried into the carriage, yet they refused to relax with a pillar of smog hanging above their heads, acting like a signal to the rest of the world. Watchful eyes accompanied the window, in shifts, for the rest of the day.

They made camp not far from the path, within a cluster of trees under the night sky. Having erased their tracks, they gathered around to talk and observe the birth of a fickle, smokeless flame.

"Ok fine," Frey lamented. "The shield was better than I thought it would be."

Kilot gestured to Frey's wounds. "As long as you don't rely on it too much."

"It's hard not to when I didn't expect it to do that much in the first place," Frey explained, holding out the shield in question.

Thomas nodded in agreement: "When we all get our enchanted equipment, I kind of want those guys to come after us again. I can almost picture their faces."

"When?" Kilot raised an eyebrow. "Kid, I doubt you had enough money to pay for the forge."

"That wasn't us, it was-"

"The people coming after you, which you lot dragged into my forest," Kilot cut him off. "Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you guys, but someone has to pay. Tell you what, I'll make you a deal. I'll make you your artifacts if you get me a place to stay and a forge."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"Not my problem!"

Doevm found himself wandering away from camp. It was strange. He felt the cold of the night, saw the stars in the sky, and smelled the fire, yet he seemed numb to it all. At times like this, when he felt more Lich than human, he would always find himself wondering why he began his new life in the first place. 'It would all be so easy if I used magic, so why don't I just use it?' he thought.

Like always, answers surfaced in his mind: "Because I don't want to rely on magic. Because I made a promise. Because I want to do cool flips and stuff…"

For the first time, however, he didn't feel like that explanation was enough. He wasn't scared of what was to come. On the contrary, he was shook with excitement, however things would change. He had to be ready. There was no going back. 'I know all too well what the powerful people in this world can do,' he thought. 'Maybe I just can't afford to hold back anymore. Maybe it's time to let loose.'

Maker watched it all from her chair above, sipping on a glass of the finest wine in the realm. "It is time you grew up, Doevm. I expect great things from you."