NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 67: Witness Me!
“We did it!” Odi shouted, only to then wither slightly under the glares of eight tired and injured people. “You did it?”
“Better,” Seena said.
“Is that really it?” Hiral asked, the last of the flames from Seena’s fireballs finally dying above the Urn. The cone of glyphed light was definitely gone, but Hiral’s eyes narrowed and then widened as he spotted something else floating above the Urn.
“WITNESS ME!” the Remnant of Ur’Thul… squeaked? As its voice left its mouth, every head turned from Odi to it, and even the lich looked down at itself.
Its six-inch-tall self.
“Uh, did the Boss lose weight?” Yanily asked, but the nametag finally appeared above the lich’s head from Hiral’s View ability.
(Undead – Lich – Pet – Seena) Remnant of Ur’Thul
“It’s… it’s from Seena’s From the Ashes ability,” Hiral said.
“What? That’s mine?” Seena asked, pointing at the miniature lich. “It is kind of cute since it’s that small.”
“Aw, you okay there, little guy?” Yanily asked, coming over and crouching in front of the lich. “Need a hand?”
“You should be bowing before me! Groveling!” the lich hissed, throwing out a hand. A cone of frosty energy exploded out and traveled… about three inches.
“Here, try again,” Yanily said, stretching out his hand and holding it right next to the lich. “Go on. Go ahead, you can do it!”
“You’ll regret taunting me,” the lich seethed, though it did indeed hurl out another cone of frigid energy.
“Oh, that’ll be great if we need to cool our drinks,” Yanily said, not even flinching as the cold struck his hand. “Maybe on a hot day?”
“Yan, stop tormenting poor Li’l Ur,” Seena said, coming over and crouching next to the lich. “My status window doesn’t have a duration for this guy.”
“Li’l Ur?” Hiral asked.
“Figured he needed a name if he’s coming with us,” Seena said.
“Coming with us?” Nivian asked. “We’re taking it?”
“Of course,” Seena said. “Look at him! He’s adorable.”
“For an undead that tried to kill us,” Seeyela chimed in, “I actually agree with my sister. Favela would love him.”
“You speak as if you have a choice about my fate,” Li’l Ur said, rising higher into the air in front of Seena, tiny tomes appearing beside his hands.
“Oh?” Seena said, standing up straight, and suddenly Li’l Ur was looking at her knees.
Scowling, the lich concentrated and floated even higher, his lizard-skull face beaming in triumph as he reached face-height. “See, my power returns! You’d do well to…” He cut off as Seena took a couple of quick steps back, causing him to plummet towards the ground. Once again, whatever kept him aloft reactivated just a few inches above the ground, but the tomes vanished.
“Actually,” Seena said, stepping in and crouching again so she was at Li’l Ur’s height, “according to my status window, if you don’t stay close to me, you’ll fade away. That’s why you can’t float properly unless I’m near you.
“You need me, little guy.”
“I need nobody!” Li’l Ur shouted, so Seena shrugged, got up, and walked away.
When she got about thirty feet away, Li’l Ur began to droop in the air, his arms hanging listlessly at his side, his hooded head nodding.
“Oh, he’s not looking so good,” Wule said.
“I… I confess… I may be… bound to you…” Li’l Ur said, forcing his voice out. “An unwilling prisoner…”
“I can cancel the ability if you’d like,” Seena said, and Li’l Ur’s head snapped up. “That would also cancel you. Your choice. You can follow and help us out, or…” She crouched down to pick up some of the loose dirt, then let it stream slowly from her hand.
The lich looked at her and scowled. “I shall… follow you… until such a time I can free myself…”
“And you’ll be useful,” Seena said, taking on her party-leader voice. “No free rides in this group.”
Li’l Ur stared down Seena, but she didn’t budge. “So be it. I shall allow you to act as my vassal… for now.”
Seena quirked an eyebrow at how the lich pitched the situation—to itself—but nodded and walked closer to it. “Good enough.”
“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Nivian said.
“It’s fine,” Seena said. “If anything happens to me, Li’l Ur here becomes a small cloud of solar energy. He can’t exist without me.” That caused the lich’s head to spin in her direction again.
“Just trust her,” Wule said, gently punching his twin in the arm.
“Stay close,” Seena said to Li’l Ur, and the lich hovered up to float by her shoulder.
“He is kind of cute,” Hiral said quietly to Right.
“Don’t even think about trying to Foundational Split one of us like that,” Right replied.
“I can do that?” Hiral asked.
“You should’ve kept your mouth shut,” Left said.
“Little liches aside, did we do it?” Yanily asked. “I haven’t gotten a dungeon completion achievement yet.”
“He’s right,” Hiral agreed. “Maybe we need to do something with the Urn. Odi? You saw everything that happened. Do you really think it will save your people?”
“Now that it’s been purified,” Odi said, already nodding, “yes, it has the power. I’m sure of it. Well, at least as sure as I can be, based on the research we pieced together… Sixty percent sure. Fifty-eight? Yes, yes, fifty-eight, exactly.”
“I feel like this thing is a problem waiting to happen,” Hiral said to Seena. “Can it really reverse whatever made the Lizardmen into undead?”
“Odi seems to think it can,” Seena said.
“I don’t buy it. If that’s the case, why was it buried in a necropolis?” Hiral looked at the lich. “Hey, Li’l Ur, why was the Urn here?”
“Fool! You don’t know?” The lich grunted when Seena gave him a little finger-flick in the shoulder.
“Be nice,” Seena scolded.
Li’l Ur scowled at her again, then let out a tiny—adorable—sigh.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
“You don’t know why your Urn was here?” Hiral asked.
“Being reduced to this… this state…” Li’l Ur said, pointing down at himself, “has left holes in my memory. Even things I thought I knew a few minutes ago fade like a dream I haven’t had in centuries.”
“How old are you?” Seena asked.
“My age makes the mountains look young. My power dwarfs the tides. My intellect… my intellect… How did that go?” Li’l Ur mumbled, but then seemed to get distracted by something, and floated off to inspect a rock.
“He’s going to be fun to travel with,” Hiral said.
“Like having a second Yanily,” Seena agreed. “Back to the Urn. I feel like this is the same choice we had back at the first dungeon.”
“Well done, Geckodiana,” a sudden voice boomed from above, and the clouds parted to reveal some kind of ship flying above. Wide, bat-like wings stretched out to the sides of a metallic hull, and a visage much like that of the King of the Swamp decorated the front. “I knew you were the right man for the job.”
“Your majesty!” Odi keened, dropping to his knees in a bow.
“The emperor?” Hiral asked, looking up at the massive flying device. It had to be hundreds of feet long to look that big and be that high up. What’s keeping it aloft? Runes? Or something else?
“Yes! Why aren’t you on your knees in worship?” Odi asked, sneaking glances at the party members.
“Not my emperor,” Yanily said, his spear back in his hand, though dried blood still covered him from head to toe.
“Not… not your…?” Odi stammered.
“Oh, yeah—he sees us as Lizardmen, doesn’t he?” Seeyela asked quietly into party chat.
“Now that you’ve secured and cleansed the Urn, I shall take it to save our people,” the booming voice said from above, and the great lizard head at the front of the ship twisted to look straight down. The mouth widened, and a beam of yellow light poured out to bathe the Urn in a column stretching from ground to sky.
“Whoa, what’s he doing?” Seena asked, starting to step forward, but the Urn lifted off the pedestal.
“Odi, I really think you should reconsider using this thing,” Hiral said.
“I’ll get it,” Nivian said, moving towards the Urn, but he stopped at the edge of the column of light. “What the…? I can’t get through.”
“Geckodiana,” the emperor continued as the Urn rose towards the airship, “for your hard work and dedication, you may attend me when you return.”
“When I return?” Odi asked, actually sitting up and looking at the airship. “You’re not taking me with you? The capital is…”
But the Urn had already vanished within the maw of the lizard on the ship, and the light winked out like it’d never been there.
“Your majesty!” Odi pleaded. “Please! It’s… it’s so far back to the capital. You need me for the rituals!”
No response.
“Well, he seemed nice,” Yanily said. “How much of a walk is it, Odi? Odi?”
Hiral looked back from the clouds at Yanily’s tone, finding the Lizardman surrounded in another pillar of light.
“You made a valid argument, Geckodiana,” the booming voice said. “As an additional reward for your service, we shall bring you up to the ship so you may return with us.”
“Uh…” Odi said, looking at the light around him, “can’t you come down and pick me up instead of lifting meeeeeeeeeeeee…?” Odi’s shouted question faded as he shot up into the sky.
A few seconds later, the light vanished, and so did the strange, flying ship.
When Hiral finally lowered his head from looking at the clouds, even most of the undead corpses were gone, though the Death Knight remained—along with the sword and shield it had wielded.
“Dungeon is over,” Seena said, and just like that, a notification popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes.
Wild Dungeon – The Lost Necropolis of Ur’Thul: Complete
New Record
Time: 24:13
Congratulations. Achievement unlocked – Not Quite Dead Yet
You have completed the ritual to cleanse the Urn of Ur’Thul. But… did it work?
Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.
Time until Wild Dungeon – The Lost Necropolis of Ur’Thul instance closure: 59:56
“Oh, that’s not ominous at all,” Hiral said, and by the looks on the others’ faces, he wasn’t the only one thinking it.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Seena said. “It’ll either save the Lizardmen or it won’t. We’ll be out of their territory in one more dungeon anyway.”
“Assuming this one counts towards the Asylum,” Wule said.
“I’m sure it will; the last one did,” Seeyela said. “Looks like the Urn pedestal is now the dungeon interface. Shall we?”
“Before that,” Nivian spoke up, “anybody mind if I take this?” He held up the skull-shield the Death Knight had carried.
“No objection here,” Seena said. “Is it going to interfere with your abilities or anything?”
“I think I can make them work together, and that last fight taught me I really need something that doesn’t get chopped to kindling against a boss.”
“Take it,” Seena said. “The stronger your shield is, the safer we are.”
“Thanks,” Nivian said, hefting the shield and then narrowing his eyes like he was reading.
Shield must come with a notification window.
“And this?” Yanily said, poking the Death Knight’s sword with his toe. “Hiral?”
“I can toss it in the Ring of Amin Thett if nobody else wants it,” Hiral said.
“None of us are really swordy,” Yanily said.
“Swordy?” Seeyela asked.
“Those who use swords. Swordy,” Yanily explained, like he was talking to a child.
“Hiral, go ahead and take it,” Seena said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Why was I not offered the treasure?” Li’l Ur asked.
“Can you pick it up?” Hiral asked, holding the sword hilt-first to the tiny lich.
“Why would I need to dirty myself by touching it?” Li’l Ur asked, holding up his hands, and Hiral felt the smallest tug on the weapon. “One… second…” Li’l Ur strained, and Hiral brought the weapon closer. “Almost… have… it…”
Hiral let go of the weapon, which dropped straight to the ground—and Li’l Ur followed with a strangled yelp.
“You… you…!” The lich looked at Hiral and shook his tiny fist.
“There, there,” Seena said, patting Li’l Ur on the top of the head. “Hiral didn’t mean anything by it, did he?”
“No, you had it,” Hiral said. “The devilish sword must have a counter-enchantment on it. You know, that’s why the Death Knight was using it.”
Li’l Ur looked at Hiral thoughtfully, then nodded. “Yes… yes, that must be it. You, bald one, would make an adequate assistant. I shall consider your application… after you die, of course.”
“Uh… thanks?” Hiral said before looking at Seena. “Was that a threat?”
“Just a job opportunity,” Seena said with a wave of her hand. “You’ll take the sword?”
“Yeah,” Hiral said, picking the weapon back up, then looking at it until View activated.
(Lost) Death Knell – A-Rank
Effects: Grants user access to Ability – Cutting Field and Ability – Sever Life
Ability – Cutting Field: Drive the sword into the ground to summon a weak barrier and a field of small, invisible blades. Blades will bounce within the barrier and inflict damage based on user’s Atn.
Note: Blades will do increased damage if Death Knell is left in the ground for the duration.
Note (2): Barrier can be passed through by those of equal or higher rank than the user.
Ability – Sever Life: Coat the edge of Death Knell in supernatural sharpness. Sever Life inflicts additional high damage to the living, moderate damage to the undead, and no additional damage to objects or animated constructs.
Note: Additional damage is based on user’s End.
There’s that mention of constructs again. What are those? Ah, whatever, the rest of that is pretty crazy. Too bad it’s based on endurance.
“Anything special?” Seena asked.
“I can see some uses for it,” Hiral said, feeding a thread of solar energy into the Ring of Amin Thett, then letting the weapon get sucked in. That made three swords in there now—oh, and an arrow. How many weapons can it hold? Another thing to test.
“Well, then, shall we?” Seena asked, walking over to the dungeon interface.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Wule said.