Chapter XXXIX: Close to Home ~Multehx/Lich

Since the encounter with the Zerg, Lich had slept. He had woken up a few times to empty his bladder and to fill his stomach, but after doing so, had returned to bed. He had spoken to Prism on his way back once, giving her a few words of support concerning Markior and Multehx.

Ark, in the meantime, had been spending his time practicing with the Ebony Lance, in an empty car far down the end of the Spectrum, or tinkering with robotic parts. Being surrounded by sentient robotic beings, his already large passion for robotics had grown.

He wanted to know how to create an AI unit, so he had asked Ratch about it.

Ratch said that he didn't know.

Ark then asked if he could inspect Ratch's AI system.

He told him, in far more crude words, to "go away".

Dissatisfied, Ark then continued working on a pair of robotic legs, no longer than his shin.

Now, though, Lich was wide-awake. His eyes would no longer shut, as much as he tried. He was adamant about sleeping - he believed it was a way to counter-effect Heratu's Syndrome, and distrusted those controlling the Spectrum to not suddenly teleport. He groaned as he put his feet on the floor, after spending ten minutes trying to lull himself back into sleep again. Staring into the distance momentarily, a stick of pink zinc cream appeared in his hand, smearing its contents in the region behind his nostrils soon afterwards before returning it again. Opening the door to his room, he gazed at the stars sailing past the window, as if they were shooting through an atmosphere. He turned and walked along the passageway to the main lounge, where there was a cry of "We're playing poker" from Kyanosa, a sense of pride evident.

He was mystified by the young man with his marbles and his sword. He seemed to be over-confident - very much over-confident - in his abilities. He gave Lich the impression of being inept; yet somehow, he always seemed to survive any situation. Maybe he annoyed his enemies to death.

Lich's mind shifted its attention to the imminent game of poker. He waited to find out what sort of game it would be, and sat down at the table, unannounced, Kaye on his right and Kyanosa on his left. Sapphire offered chocolates around, but he refused - he wasn't particularly hungry. Kaye dealt, and soon Lich had a stockpile of five cards in front of him, face down. He picked up the first one on the pile and laid it down, face up, in the middle of the table - the Nine of Diamonds.

"Er, Lich…that's not how you play," Sapphire pointed out.

"What rules you playing by?" he asked, his finger still on the card.

"Earth, orange dinosaur person," Kyanosa replied.

"Ohh…why didn't you say?"

He smiled sheepishly as he slipped the card at the bottom of the pile and picked up the first one from the top - the King of Spades. He then picked up the other cards dealt to him and tried to get the best arrangement. He sacrificed his Jack of Hearts to a Two of Spades, and winced as he realised he still had no winning combinations.

He then lay them down on the table and said, "Nothing here."

Eventually, everyone else lay down their cards - Kaye winning with a pair and a three-of-a-kind. She then gathered the cards together and passed them to Lich, who was surprised by the gesture.

"Your deal," she said.

Lich began to shuffle the cards, firstly slipping them into each other, rather incompetently and slowly, before flicking their corners and forcing the two halves together.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," Kyanosa said, "it weakens the cards."

"Best way I know to do it, it's the easiest way for me."

He then dealt the round before Sapphire said, "You know, Lich, I don't really know much about your homeworld."

"Fa'diel?" Lich said, as he looked at his cards, and organised them into what he thought would make a winning combination, then frowned with his selection. "Well, it's a world of magic, and there's these…well, I guess you could call them spirits, called Elementals. There's eight of them," he sacrificed a Three of Hearts and picked a Six of Clubs, joy evident on his face for a moment, "and they each represent, surprisingly, an element of nature: light, darkness, water and ice, fire, earth, air and lightning, moon and space, and life and Mana."

He lay down his cards to reveal four Sixes. Kaye smiled as she produced a Royal Flush. Lich sighed.

"Well, Mana is the force that binds the universe together, though there's this whole Nova thing that I'm learning…anyway, Mana tends to clump together in gravitational fields, such as planets, so right now, there's not a great accumulation of Mana around here, so my spells would be about half-strength. But Fa'diel is different - we believe it is where Mana enters the universe. Thus, all the Mana there is stronger, because of the Mana Tree. It's in a region called the Pure Land."

"Tree?" Mazzic asked as he took the cards and began to shuffle them.

"Well, the legend goes something like this: Long ago, the world was without form or shape, and was trapped in darkness. The goddess of Mana forged a mighty sword - it's had many names, but its basic name is the Mana Sword. With that sword, she fought eight what we call…let me translate…" Lich thought a moment before he said, "'Incarnations of Disaster'. She sealed them in eight Stones. The darkness left, and Fa'diel was made. She then turned herself into the Mana Tree, and fell asleep, the Sword of Mana at her feet, but not before bearing her eight children, the Elementals."

Lich realised he had his five cards and looked at them, immediately changing a Two of Spades to a Ten of Diamonds.

"The Mana Stones were left around Fa'diel, and naturally they tempted people. Eventually, the War of the Stones broke out when countries invaded others in search of the power that the Stones could bring them. If you know of my nemesis, the Dark Lich, it was at this time that he died and sold his soul to the underworld. A hero took the Mana Sword and defeated the powers that caused the War, and it ended."

He showed his cards, having an Eight, Nine and a Ten of Diamonds, upstaged by Kaye's Jack, Queen, King and Ace of the same suit.

"History from this point onwards is vague - what happened to the Stones, I don't know. The Third Age is what you could call a Dark Age, because of what happened at the end of it - the Mana Fortress. It was created, and as the Elementals were angered. So, they sent their beasts…I guess from the Stones, to destroy the Fortress. In the great fight, the world was re-arranged: continents moved, changed form, rose and fell…mountains shot from the sea while others tumbled. Most of the Third Age's history was lost. Eventually, a hero smashed the Fortress with the Sword, placing it in a rock in a stream near what became the town of Potos - 'place of the sword'."

Kyanosa handed him his cards. Lich smiled at his deal.

"The Fourth Age began, and it was all peaceful. The Mana Tree produced eight Seeds, and Palaces were built to house them in…eventually, they became the home of the Elementals. However, in preparation for another titanic struggle, powerful weapons were formed…or found and re-forged."

He showed them the Cyan Arc, before putting it back in his belt. "Ark's Spear is also like it. Of course, over time, their power dwindled from inactivity…the Mana Sword becoming nothing but a rusty shard of metal in a rock, covered in algae from floods. Until Thanatos started pulling strings in the Empire, though."

He showed them a pair and a three-of-a-kind. Kaye had a Royal Flush - again.

"Mana weakened, and as plans were underway to resurrect the Fortress, the boy Randi pulled the Sword from its stone…just because he fell off a bridge over the stream and needed something to cut the undergrowth in the forest with to get home."

Sapphire slid five cards across to him, Lich picking them up.

"This was all about two hundred years ago. We call the time period the 'Resurrection'. Needless to say, Randi smashed the Fortress with the Sword and returned it to its stone. We're now in the Fifth Age. So, the Sword and the Tree are basically what keeps Fa'diel in check…the Sword of Fa'diel's Creation…"

Suddenly, Lich dropped his cards on the table, revealing he would have had a Full House.

"That's why we're heading there right now," a voice behind Lich said.

CR stepped from the shadows.

"The Mana Sword is bound to be one of the weapons they're after. We'll be there in twenty minutes…you can see your sun and the planetary system from up the front."

Lich suddenly shot out of his seat.

"I want to see this."

He ran down the corridor to where Ark was practicing, knocked on the door to the carriage and called out excitedly, "You have to come and see this. No kidding."

With a fizzling noise, footsteps approached the door. Ark opened it to find Lich running back down the passageway. Shirtless and glistening with sweat, he swung the Spear back and forth as he followed him at a walking pace.

When they reached the front, their mouths dropped with awe.

Taking up most of the left of the "windscreen" was the sun, a fiery yellow ball refracted by the screen and its brightness bearable due to some tinting. Dotted on a plane extending outwards from it were the planets - balls of rock deprived of a true atmosphere. But second from the sun, and in the centre of the screen, was a blue, green and white jewel - Fa'diel. Around it were pearl-like spheres, five visible at the time - the moons. All was approaching quickly.

"Hmm…looks like rain over the Empire," Lich said.

"I was wondering if the phrase Thevos Nich Revach Tae Tolongo Twut means anything to you," CR interrupted his viewing.

"It's Pandoran and Koopan," he muttered.

"So what does it mean?"

"Thevos - Pandoran for 'sage'. Nich - Koopan, 'water'. Revach - Koopan, 'palace'. Tae - Koopan 'the'. Tolongo - Pandoran for 'world', and Twut - Koopan, 'Magic'. So, I think it means, in total, 'Water Sage, Palace, the Magic World.' Heh, probably involves my friend Nase in the Water Palace, dead ahead. Why did you want to know?"

"Because I tuned in to the people we're against - powerful demons. They knew I was listening, so they spoke in those languages on purpose. Not too long ago, a few days."

"A few days?!"

He turned to Ark who returned his worried look.

"Speed this thing up," he commanded. "Now."

Nase was pleased that he had achieved a few days break from Guarding the Water Palace to view Ark's Ordination. However, it was now back to the drudgery of being the honorary reporter for about eight Fa'diel newspapers, six radio stations and four television news services. The people of Fa'diel had known for many centuries that the person always in the know was the Guardian of the Water Palace - the ebb and flow of the waters of Fa'diel brought him, her or kogo news from every part of the world. It was no wonder that the Pandoran news services were held in the regard of being the best.

He sighed as he walked through the foyer of the Water Palace, coming across one of his assistant priests.

"Welcome home," she said, thumbing through pieces of paper in her hands. "All the television news wants to know what happened to the von Kippo brothers after the ordination."

"Tell them I'll get back to them on that," Nase replied. "What else?"

"102.9 are interested in your views on who will win the election."

"Undecided."

"And Manafartogo Rethoso want to know more about your friendship with Dyluck von Kippo."

"Tell them it's in his biography."

"I think they want your view."

Nase sighed.

"And over-inflate it and exaggerate it, and say something about a homosexual relationship, as usual. They can come in tomorrow…wait, make it Gnomesday. Gives them only a few hours to write it, less distortion. Or they'll scrap it, even better."

He then opened the door to the large stage room. It took up most of the Palace, consisting mainly of platforms rising up from the darkness below, connected by flights of stairs that contracted and retracted with the press of a button on the floor nearby. As he approached the last one, a double set the area where the stage actually lay, a strange noise filled the chamber, a metallic thunking noise.

"Wonder what that was."

The Spectrum landed as the late afternoon sun disappeared behind some cloud cover. They were parked across the road to the palace from Potos and Pandora, CR waving his hands around a little.

"Anyone approaches this way, and they realise that they have more pressing issues back home," he smirked.

Lich and Ark opened the door of the train and ran from it towards the Palace.

Nase paced to the platform that the box holding the Mana Seed rested on. He snapped about-face at a second sound. Now, a large, skull-headed robot, wearing a midnight blue cloak, and a red cloak wearing, red skinned, gold-eyed demon, with a silver pipe in his mouth, and gold trimmed boots stood. Several undead, fetid remains of creatures stood, surrounded by a green glow, behind them. Nase widened his eyes.

"Repos Drepatos beto...Manadrido to temin gaparo!" he half yelled.

The skull-headed one smirked, stepping forward.

"Luckily, I know Pandoran," he said, "and no, we're not here to harm yer precious walnut."

He grabbed Nase by the throat, causing him to struggle for breath, and lifting him a bit off the ground, then sneered, "What we're here for, is something very powerful nearby, that's not giving off any readable signature. A weapon."

Nase croaked, in Pandoran, "I'll not be telling you!"

The robot snickered. He tightened his grip.

"Look kid, I could just kill ya, and command your body to tell me. I win either way."

Nase seemed to think this over for a bit before gasping out, "You'll never get me to co-operate with your kind!"

He snickered and tossed him to the skeletal beasts. They promptly started to beat on him, making him double over in pain, and giving him a bloody nose. He fell to all fours, panting, in Pandoran still, "Who…are...you?"

The demon grinned, puffed on his pipe, then replied, "Why, dear boy, I don't know much Pandoran, but I knew you asked something about who, and it was directed up, so I assume I can answer that. This rather morbid gent, would be Necronimus II. You see, he was a soldier for Sir Havering, but he had an untimely demise, but hid a copy of his memory in a data stick before dying. I found it, and with my fellow members of the Twilighter Council, we rebuilt him, stronger than ever."
He snickered, closing his eyes as he blew smoke out the corner of his mouth. "I am the head scribe for the demon race of our planet. They call me Nictem."

By this time, the young Water Guardian was on the ground in the fetal position. In the strange language, he panted, "But...why…are…you…here?"

"Elementary," Necronimus began, "we're looking for some powerful things: the 'Creation's Weapons'. When we get them all, we should either be able to revive the master, or conquer plenty by the time he returns."

Necronimus walked over and hurled the boy onto the steps of the platform.

"Useless boy, you are of no use to us now!" he snorted.

Voices from the far off entrance made the two worriedly glance to one another.

"@#%$! They're here already!" the robot cursed.

Nictem nodded, and walked hurriedly from the walkway, turned, turned again, and proceeded down a flight of stairs to the side of the stage area. Necronimus followed with his undead creatures.

"Hegeratu…" Ark swore as he opened the door to the Palace.

Lich barged past him and continued his stride through the foyer, purposely ignoring the blood in the pools of water on either side of him.

Upon reaching a prison cell at the bottom, Nictem stepped on a switch, turning it from red to green and opening it.
He walked in and to the back wall, turning his head to loudly say back to the robot, "Necro, be a pal and close that behind us."

He walked into the room, then turned, and ordered the undead to stand around the switch. His eyes glowed brightly for a moment, and the glow left the creatures. They fell over, motionless. A few bones landed on the switch in a pile, de-activating it. The gate fell and shut tight, as the bones were heavy and prevented anyone from easily getting at the switch. Nictem grinned, then turned, and held a palm out at the wall. A yellow sphere formed in his palm, then shot off and blew a gaping hole in the wall. As the debris settled, he nodded to his partner, and they made tracks through the opening.
The two ran out from behind the palace, entering a cave system and proceeding through it before leaving. They were making their way for the exit to the south, but Necronimus stopped Nictem. The red skinned Twilighter watched as his partner walked up to the cave entrance, and punched the side. This caused a cave-in that covered the entry in fallen rock, and the robot rejoined his partner, grinning.

"That way, no dumb Elemental botches the plan," he said before the two ran towards the south.

"Nase?!" Lich shouted from the end of the stage room, his echo bouncing from wall to wall, back and forth along it.

Had the walls not been so conductive to sound, he would not have heard the groan.

There was a rumble as the stone walls downstairs mourned the loss of one of their brethren.

"What was that?" Ark asked.

"I don't want to know…"

Lich started running up the flights of stairs towards the stage. On its own steps a figure moved.

"It's alright, Nase, it's me, I'm coming…"

Lich ascended the last flight of stairs, panted a moment, before stepping up to Nase. He placed his arms under his neck and legs, before picking him up.

"Gulto, you're beaten up bad…don't talk just yet…"

They came to a stop as they neared entering the countryside between them and Potos. The Spectrum was parked in the way, and it had the energy signatures of Omega and CR in it. With an abrupt change of directions, they headed to the west, towards some odd rock sculptures. Necronimus went first in stepping on the invisible teleporter and vanishing. Nictem quickly followed.

They ended up on a pentagram in the Haunted Woods. Shrugging, the two proceeded on until they reached a ravine dividing them from the other side.

Concentrating their strength on their legs, they both leapt it, landing on the other side. They laughed, then it was a walk through the dark woods, and a bit of hacking aside shrubbery before they ended up back at a teleporter. A warp later, they were north of Gaia's Navel. Tromping south, beating the tar out of a few wild monsters on the way, they stopped outside the gates to a little village. Necro was raring to go, but Nictem panted, and suggested they rest up at the little village. Begrudgingly, Necronimus agreed.

Cure Water, the healing spell of Undine, will heal the wounds of the body. But it won't heal the wounds of the mind. So, Lich had helped Nase to the nearest chair, which looked into a pool of water flashing many images from around the world. Ark looked on at the two from a few steps away, remaining silent.

"So, who were they?" Lich asked, an arm around Nase's shoulder.

"One of them was called Nictem - some sort of demon, said something about being a scribe. Didn't have a nose."

"Ohhh…that's a…that's a…damn, can't remember its name. Eveninger? No, that's not it…Twilighter. That's it. Anybody else?"

"There was a robot. Skull head, commanded these undead creatures, called Necronimus…"

"That name rings a bell," Lich said.

There was silence in the chamber for a moment, before a feminine voice wafted up the stairway to the basement, "Nase? What's going on? I can't get out of my cave…"

Ark looked alarmed until Nase told them, "It's Undine, I've got to see…"

"No, I'll do it," Lich said. "Take care of him, Ark."

Lich hurried down the stairs to find the room filled with the smell of decay. Turning along the walkway that led to the cell, he was surprised to find Undine, the Water Elemental, behind the metal bars, and the way to it littered by corpses and skeletons.

"You are Dyluck von Kippo, Guardian of the Cyan Arc, true?" she said.

"Yes, I am, Your…"

"Stop with the titles and get me out, please."

Lich noted the pile of bones resting on the switch, keeping the door closed. Firstly, he tried to kick them aside. Finding that impossible, he pushed them with his hands. No luck again, he looked at Undine.

"Your strength," he requested.

He closed his eyes and summoned her powers…there was no circle of blue light as would have normally happened, however, with the throw of his arm to cast the Tsunami spell, the spell was multiplied innumerable times in strength. The bones were washed away by a wave that had pressed itself into the ceiling. It crashed into the wall nearby, before rebounding.
Lich could not run before the water had picked him up and threw him from wall to wall along the passageway. As it subsided, he sat on the walkway, rubbing his head.

"A bit too strong," Undine said.

Lich nodded as the iron bars retracted into the ceiling, and the Water Elemental passed him to climb the stairs. He followed her to find Nase looking extremely worried.

"There's trouble afoot in Kippo," he said.

"Gul-" he stopped as he remembered who he was in the presence of, before continuing, "Let's go, Ark."

"I'll take care of Nase, you go," the Water Elemental said.

The two brothers ran out of the Palace towards the town of their name.