A being villagers are calling a lich is stalking the deserts where the weave between worlds wears thin. Yet it is more like a living ceramic doll, the bones baked inside the clay. It withers crops, summons alien horrors, and steals the souls of the old, the sick, and children during the long nights leaving them comatose. Wraithvine finds hirself frustrated trying to deal with this bizarre threat, but a gruff mercenary wielding a cursed sword who was tracking the lich may be the only way to kill it for good. -- Deathsead419
You could call this place a desert in the middle of nowhere. Certainly, nothing grew there. Nothing rotted either. It was both lifeless and deathless. A lingering scar from one of the most intense phases of the Xenophobia wars. Its existence was one of the many reasons that the gods retreated to the Plane of Boons.
You could also call this place a blasted moor in the middle of everywhere. This was what happened when superior powers opened a rift in realities. Once in a great while, a hero emerges who can do something to at least tone it down a bit.
Once in a greater while, something comes through from something else.
The village at this particular pass stood as a bulwark between the rift and everywhere else in Alfarell. One of many dotted around the harried land. Some of the best heroes become part of the long stand.
Wraithvine had been called because of the thing that had recently come through. It wasn't alive. It wasn't dead. It wasn't exactly undead either. If there was one word for it, it would be 'construct'. A pottery doll, made of clay mixed with bone dust. Holding the soul of an unliving terror.
Whatever it was, it was stealing souls. Those already on the cusp of death would lose... something... and remain in a state between life and death. With no soul to move beyond, the body remained half alive. Unable to die, unable to be killed, and unable to heal. Not only was it torment for the families, but it pissed off the fearsome goddess.
She who had the power over all life wanted something done to end the threat.
Wraithvine was still trying to think of what that could possibly be. Normal weaponry was little use to it. Arrows deflected off the ceramic skin. Swords might break it, but no hero wielding one was able to get close enough before the horror stole their vitality and their soul,too.
Lobbing flammable oil at it with a lit wick on the outside of the pot did nothing. It could shrug off heat with a laugh. And it simply absorbed magic thrown at it, too. It could detect heavy missiles and just... get out of their way.
Then another came through the rift. He looked, walked, and ate like a mortal man, but there was a timelessness behind his eyes. He was older than he appeared to be.
Wraithvine knew the look of someone who had spent too much time alive.
Still, the stranger was grateful for hospitality and the chance to rest. It was the sword that gave a chance for concern. It radiated magic like a lava flow radiated heat, but not the benevolent kind.
Wraithvine sat with him and told him of the strange ceramic threat to life and the cycle of death and rebirth.
He nodded as he chewed, keeping an eye out for anyone attempting to put their hands on his sword.
"What we need is something that will defeat that thing," said Wraithvine. "It's feeding strategy is..."
"Heartbreaking," said the stranger. He downed his light ale like he never expected to get more. "I know that thing. I've been hunting it for hundreds of years."
"But... you're human," said Wraithvine.
"Yeah. I got a cursed sword."
"A real sword? That's cursed?" Wraithvine made an agonised noise. "I trust you know what you're doing with that thing."
"I can't die, and it can't take me," said the stranger. He rose from his feast. "And my quest is to end that nightmare out there." He left behind some coins that had never been struck on Alfarell, and went out into the mist.
He must have succeeded somehow, as the victims sighed their last breaths. And, further to the point, Mistress Dark had settled her feathers.
The stranger and the horror were never seen again.
[Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash]
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