A Bored Lich

"Aye, and I hope this is the last I see of you," Kilot said. "No offense."

"Yes offense," Elero scoffed. "The goddess and her men burnt down your freaking forge, destroyed your other one, nearly killed you, and now you're just going to walk away just like that?"

Kilot raised an eyebrow. "Who said anything about walking away? We'll get to that in a minute."

Elero was about to ask why when Doevm asked, "How does the arm feel?"

The fingers on Kilot's left hand twitched a few times before slowly closing into a fist and a smile spread on Kilot's face. While continuing to wiggle his fingers, he looked back to Doevm. "That's it?" he asked. "That's all it took? One measly spell?"

Doevm chuckled. "Elero said the same thing. That's it - your new arm."

Kilot continued to experiment with his arm, pinching it, snapping his fingers, rolling his wrists, and so on and so forth. For someone who had just survived an assassination attempt, he smiled like a child, and teared up just as easily. After a few moments, he wiped his face with his beard and nodded. "It's perfect! I'll get right to work."

"But how will you-" Elero's voice trailed off as she spotted some movement out of the corner of her eye. She scanned the surroundings while Doevm and Kilot conversed unawares. She could have sworn it came from near the forge, however there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone had long since cleared out. Besides, Frey kept a tight watch.

Suddenly, ripples spread throughout the calm floodwater, quickly turning into waves as an enormous mass began to rise from the street, thousands of other, smaller masses rising with it. They were cold. They were metallic. They were the broken pieces of Kilot's forge.

Elero looked on in awe as stones, bricks, wooden support beams, floorboards, and furniture floated into the air. Light blossomed from their runic engravings, on every last nail, the floodwater reflecting their combined star-like image.

"What the…" Elero gasped at the sight of it all.

Kilot chuckled. "I told you that I made my forge like Doevm's library. Did you think something could knock it down so easily? Then again, you've never seen his library so I wouldn't expect anything less."

Brick after brick drifted together, reforming the foundation. Pieces of a broken anvil clanged against each other, back into one solid mass. Splintered floorboards snapped back into whole planks of woods, then lined themselves next to each other. Like a phoenix, Kilot's forge rose from the ashes.

"Holy crap!" Elero exclaimed. "It's a self-building forge!"

Kilot crossed his arms and smirked. "This workshop was specifically modeled after the Undead, so it's only fitting isn't it? The Undead will always rise again. Think twice next time you look down at an old Dwarf, though I do appreciate your concern, kid."

Doevm nodded: "If only your weapons could be like that."

Kilot's smile faded. "You can barely afford what I'm giving you now. Take it or leave it," Kilot grumbled.

"I'll take anything at this point," Doevm said. "Most important, however, is that list."

"I hear you," Kilot said. "I have to start from scratch, but I'll get it done."

Elero furrowed her brow and said, "Wait, you said this was the last we see of you?"

Kilot nodded. "And I meant it," he said. "I can't even take a stroll down the street with the goddess hunting me, so I'm sorry sweetie, you just got to deal with it. I'm in too deep, but I ain't running if that's what you're thinking."

"So then what are you going to do?" Doevm asked.

Kilot puffed his chest out. "I'm going to hide myself in the mines like any other stubborn Dwarf would do. I'll seal myself in the forge so that nothing can get in and nothing can get out. Maybe then I can finally get some peace and god damned quiet, ay?"

"What good is it to be locked in there?" Elero asked. "How are you going to eat or deliver our order?"

Kilot responded by pulling a simple-looking patchwork bag out of his spatial ring and handing it to Doevm. "I assume you know how to work that?"

Doevm reached his arm into the bag, yet it seemed as if he couldn't touch the bottom no matter how far he reached. When the top of the bag reached his shoulder, he finally pulled back. "This wormhole should be part of a pair, right? Where is the exit?"

Kilot nodded. "I have the other one. I'll give you the list of supplies later, since I have to start pretty much from scratch. If you dare slack off on anything I ask for, you won't see so much as a dagger from my workshop."

Doevm nodded and put the bag away. "Good luck," he said.

Kilot outstretched his newly-restored hand. "It was a pleasure doing business with the lot of you," he said.

Doevm shook his hand. "Surprisingly, it was," he said.

Kilot then looked over to Elero. "You just gonna stand there or are you going to give me a-"

Elero took the initiative to wrap her arms around the old Dwarf for a few seconds before pulling away and saying, "You geezer, you really had me going there."

Kilot weirily laughed. "I could tell," he said. "I couldn't resist, seeing how shaken you were."

Elero shook her head. "I'm not shaking at all," she said, holding her hands behind her back; they were trembling. She smiled and said her goodbye.

Kilot trudged up to the front of his forge. "Make sure you tell that big fellow Frey not to treat my stuff like toys, you understand?" he said. "And that Virility kid and the Elf, where are they?"

"They're on their way, hopefully," Doevm said. "We'll try to decide our next move soon."

"Tell them to be careful," Kilot said. "Doevm, you might be experienced with the goddess's style of fighting, but it's clear that the others aren't." He stole a glance at Elero.

Doevm suppressed a sigh as he nodded indiscernibly.

"They're tricky and they have the public on their side," Kilot continued. "They'll do anything to please that goddess. It's like they've all been brainwashed, like how Arthur was when he first met you."

Doevm nodded.

Kilot played with the door. "And…" he hesitated. "Ah fuck it. You'll figure it out." He finally shut the door. Arcane streaks of light enveloped the forge. Barrier after barrier formed around the old building, quickly vanishing as if they never existed in the first place.

There was Kilot's forge and then there was the rest of the world; they were right next to one another however they were now separate planes of existence. In the untrained eye, however, the forge appeared as any other building.

Doevm's lips twitched upwards as he recognized the inspiration Kilot had drawn from his handiwork. 'He really did model it after my library,' he thought. It was a strange feeling, like greeting a dead friend before watching him fade away, back into the afterlife.

Doevm closed his eyes. He could so clearly picture his library despite the decade and a half he had spent without it. The neatly-arranged books sitting on the shelves around his throne, the quiet forest behind his stained glass window swaying with the gentle, spring breeze which brought seeds on the wind that he'd tirelessly clean away from his still-wet-with-ink research papers, the comfort he had grown unappreciative of passing by as he thought and thought and thought, and the flames that had ended it all.

Doevm opened his eyes and let out a sigh, still staring at Kilot's shut door with a mix of jealousy and longing.

"Doevm?" Elero asked. "Are you coming?"

Doevm turned around, nodded, and trudged through the filthy floodwater. "We have a week before they come for us, by my estimates," he said. "Let us make the most of it."

"Who's they?" Elero asked. "Is the goddess really sending an army after the six of us?"

"Of course," Doevm said. "The gods know I'm playing their game, and they won't show any mercy."

"Can we win?" Elero asked.

Doevm took one last glance at Kilot's workshop and said, "It's time we fight back. Frey! Get down here. We need to have a meeting before we move forward."

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