The second contract was exchanged for the essence as swiftly as the first dissolving as the soul drifted toward the Demon’s hands. The world dribbled like paint, oozing out the frame, pooling at the base all around the adventurer. There was no sign of the demon, only the land of twisted wax, and broken branches. In the distance of the strange land, the adventurer saw a single tower, a sepulchral finger defying the dead sky.

This land was dead.

What good was eternal life, if there was no life here? In the hideous vacuous space, he felt something, or the lack of something. He had no Heartbeat.

Had the demon killed him? Feathers from his body turned black and fell from his body, his clothing changing to a black burial shroud, he was joining the dead now, wasn’t he? Alone in the deadlands, he hovered little more than a specter of bone and shadow.

As the wretched magic ate away at flesh and feather, his skin and bone knit together and strange crystals bound up his soul - place of his silenced heart and withered organs. His body was a projection of necromantic magic and blasphemy, from a living being, to an unliving eternal lich.

He hovered over the burial fields, a monstrosity with a sleeping army ready to recruit, and kingdom to claim.

*****

The lich was an experiment. He hadn’t expected anyone else to fall for the immortality scheme… eternity was long, and painful, as he knew from his own long existence. However, he had need of an army, and while he wasn’t the first demon to experiment with a lich, he wasn’t the type to micromanage.

The lands had been obliterated years ago in fruitless war, and before it could be resettled, perhaps those immune to the hostile magics could work the land - and when called for, an army could be useful - unless of course they rebelled.

Drinking from his goblet, he dismissed the scrying mirror, and slouched back for the next intruder.

---

Commission: Zorana-The-Eagle
Theme: Demonic Contracts

2024

~Age