Chapter LXXXII: Lasciate Ogni Speranza Voi Ch'entrate -Lich

It was the third day of Lich's, or now D'krim's, new and forced into life. He was going well with the transition, with only receiving twenty-seven beatings in the past seventy-two hours: most of them administered by Theutes, about five by his wife Sacho; even the young Fauako had chipped in one or two. He was managing with the workload which included mopping the floor everyday, dusting, cleaning dishes after the three meals, serving the meals, and even cooking them occasionally. He shared the responsibilities of Theutes' household with his newly found Koopan ex-BKT friend, Telg B'ralku, called Tob.
Theutes had gone out for one reason or another, and now Lich was mopping the floor in the main hallway of the house. Tob was making the family's beds. He came down the wooden stairs, waved at Lich as he went by, and went down another hallway of the house to Fauako's room. They were surprised by the size of the house: it went back some way and had a bend in it, making up one side and a corner of the central courtyard and garden shared with the other two houses. One of their tasks was to manage the family's third of the courtyard. The house had two levels and the basement, which had the slaves' quarters, cellar and the heating furnace. The furnace was stoked daily, another task, and it heated the house every night; the desert's nightly extreme the reason.
Suddenly, the front door opened, and Theutes entered. But with him, he had another Yoshi: blue with blond hair and shoes, which looked like they had come from a time yet to come.
"Lich?" he asked.
"Vector! What by Undine are you doing here?" he exclaimed.
Theutes issued a command for both of them to be quiet. He then introduced Lich as "D'krim" and Vector as "Lex", then said something that Lich decided was to the effect of "I see you two already know each other", before he beckoned Vector into another room, and called Tob, Sacho and Fauako. Tob returned in a hurry, towed by Fauako, and Theutes introduced Vector to them. He was then taken back out into the hall and down into the basement, Lich observing as he mopped. Soon, he came back out with Theutes, who whacked him with the stick of a feather duster before giving it to him. He then left and went down the side hallway, towing Tob from the other room. He heard a crack as Tob's shell was hit with some implement, before Theutes walked in his usual stomping manner back to his wife.
"Well, some family they've got here huh, Lich?" Vector said quietly in Yoshian with a smirk.
"Work, and you won't get punished," Lich said quickly, still mopping while watching Vector start dusting off a sideboard. "So, perhaps you could tell me what you're doing here anyway?"
"I was out for a run, as I don't like staying in one place for more than a day, and also looking for you. Now that I've found you, I just got to get you back to Markior's base."
"Teleportation is out of the question, unless you want me to be sick. But if it's the only option, I'll take it. Just make sure you mop up the vomit at the other end."
"Okay…" Vector said with an air of uneasiness. "Anyway, I've said why I'm here, why are you here?"
"Dark Lich sent me into the desert, Tullabanarigans found me and enslaved me."
"Dark Lich?"
"What Havering appears to have made my nemesis. An ancient, powerful, undead sorcerer from the Manaworld, banished to the depths of it by the Mana Knight Randi. It appears though that Havering has lifted Dark's chains."
"I see. Who's the Koopa?"
"Telg B'ralku. They call him Tob. Ex-BKT agent, knows more about the Tullabanarigans than I do."
"Lex! Blarkum!" Theutes called.
"Kum rega!" Vector replied.
"What, you understand Tullabanarigan?" Lich gasped.
"Identical to Togorian," Vector replied, smirking, before hurrying off.

That night, after the family had gone to sleep, the three slaves were still up, seated on the hard, stone floor, chatting quietly to the light of three candles positioned at intervals around the room. Tob was able to speak in Yoshian, obviously BKT-taught, as they discovered.
"So, Vector, you can speak and understand this language?" the Koopa asked.
"Yes, I can," Vector replied. "But I don't think Theutes has entirely got his tongue around it, yet."
"Oh?" Lich asked, surprised.
"He gets his word order wrong, every now and again. He puts the verb at the end of the sentence."
"That's like Pandoran…" Lich mused. "And Theutes sounds like a name I've heard before. I don't know where, though."
"Perhaps he's not a local like we first thought," Tob said.
"Hm. Anyway, can we get out of this dump of a city?" Vector asked.
"Not unless you want to be recaptured and punished heavily," Lich replied, and pointed to Tob. "Ask him."
Tob repositioned himself, and said, "I have escaped before. But I was found again, and resold at the same time as Lich was. If we escape again, you two will be recaptured. As for me, I will be executed."
"Weren't you an agent for the BKT?" Vector asked.
"Yes, I was. But the Tullabanarigans outrank me in the skill of stealth, much to my surprise. I had made it about fifty kilometres out before the slave traders caught up with me."
"They have sorcerers here," Lich stated. "I guess they detected your presence on the Mana Field."
"Probably. So, if you escape, expect company soon."
"What if I was to run?" Vector asked, indicating his shoes.
"If you travel at a speed above sound, you will create a ripple on the Mana Field like a boat has a wake through water, and anyone for miles could detect you," Lich replied. "I'm taking this as a calculated guess, but they'd probably set a spell up ahead of you to ensnare you. Besides, only you can go that fast, and I don't think you can carry both of us."
"Both of you?" Vector asked.
"I'm sick of this dump more than you two are," Tob quipped. "I've been here for about nine months, and I think it's about time I got some out and was able to stay out."
"How did you get out anyway?"
"Through the sewers. They take all of the city's crap a kilometre clear into the desert. I was not a pretty sight at the other end, and nor was the large pool. They just let it flow onto the sand."
"They've probably got it tracked now, huh?" Lich asked.
"Yeah. One of the slave traders told me, to affect, that."
"So, let me think this out here," Lich said. "The city has sentries on the wall tracking movements both in and out. Sorcerers detect presences on the Mana Field. The sewers are guarded. The best way out, I feel, is if the city was attacked, and we escape in the resulting confusion. But, the city is constantly Walled on the Mana Field, and you have those plasma and ion cannons, protected by a Lucid Barrier each. Ethereal attacks can't get through the Wall, and physical attacks just plain don't reach the cannons. However..."
"I sense something," Tob said.
Lich smirked, then continued, "If there was an attack, I could help out."
"How?"
"I trust that they wouldn't be expecting an inside attack. So, if they've Lucided the cannons, they probably haven't Walled them. Besides, I should know a spell that should get rid of the Barriers, though I haven't cast it before."
"How do you know a spell if you haven't cast it before?" Tob asked.
"My secret, Tob. I'm not going to share it with you, because you'll probably go back to the BKT and tell them all about it, sorry."
Tob muttered something unrecognisable, before he said, "What spell?"
"Dispel Magic."
"Oh. But you said that the sorcerers most likely constantly redo Lucid Barrier," Tob said.
"Then I Wall all of the cannons to stop them from doing that."
"Can't they use this Dispel Magic thing on them, then?" Vector asked.
"A Wall reflects all spells. So, I do that, they attack the cannons, blow them up, city is reasonably defenseless. They'll be too worried about getting rid of the force to worry about the slaves. I blow a hole in the wall, we walk out, hey presto, we're free. Problem is, we have to wait until that happens. And if that happens, I'd be detected by the sorcerers for casting the spells. So, I would have to teleport somewhere else in the city," Lich winced, remembering his ailment, then stood up and stretched. "And I don't know any Left Path techniques either, so I can’t teleport to get out of the way. Anyway, they'll be overworking us tomorrow, so we'd better get some shuteye."

Lich blew out the candles while the other two clambered into their beds. Lich then felt his way to his bed, the only light now coming into the room from the moon and through the grille near the top of the wall, which looked out into the courtyard. He lay down on the straw, and concentrated.
"One hundred and twenty-three degrees, forty kilometres." The Boomerang stated its position, changed by ninety degrees since he last recalled it, as he was now facing the length of the bed, and not sitting on the side of it. It was still there in the sand dune, along with his thongs, PLT and belt with the Pokéballs.
He remembered that his Pokémon were out of them, back at Markior's base. He wondered how they were getting on, and decided that Markior was probably taking good care of them. Hoped, he corrected himself, knowing their personalities and the vendetta between Shape-ta, his Flareon, and Leviathan, his Gyarados.
His bare feet presented themselves to the world: dirty, and the claws having a ring of grime where they protruded from his skin. He pulled a foot closer to his face with his hands, and cleaned it to the best of his ability, before putting it back and repeating the performance with the other foot. He longed for a shower or a bath of some sort, the last time he was fully immersed in water being back in the watery, ghostly depths of Dinokan.
He remembered what he had said to his friends, YoshiDude and Drakonis, before he went into the graveyard city: "I don't know how long I shall be. I may only be here for a few hours, or I may have disappeared. Give me until sunrise, then leave. I will try to return in three months if I have. On this day, in three months, wait for me at the Aurorium. If I do not show up, expect me to be unable to return. Alert the other Yoshies, then travel to the Mushroom Kingdom. The warppipe to the Manaworld is there. When you arrive on the Manaworld, it will be in Matango, the Manaworld Mushroom Kingdom. Seek a Cannon Travel Agent, and tell him that you want to go to Kippo. He will send you there by a cannon, and after you have landed, go to the inn. My parents own it. Tell them what has happened, they speak Yoshian."
He then remembered that he did not know how long he was petrified for, and that the deadline could well have passed, or the planet he was now on could have a different orbit size or rotation. He sighed, and a tear trickled down his cheek. He also thought about what he had said that evening. Someone would have to attack the city. He could not get in touch with Markior at his base to launch a Protoss fleet, mainly because telepathy was on the Left Path, and also the Wall surrounding the city on the Mana Field blocked long distance ethereal communication. Another tear trickled down his cheek before he fell asleep.

"D'krim, blarkum!" Theutes called.
Lich put down the shovel in the garden, and decided to test the little theory he had developed the night before. He called "Re gaparoga!" Pandoran for "I'm coming." As he entered the dining room where Theutes was seated, Lich said in Pandoran, "I am here, awaiting your orders."
Theutes dropped his mouth in shock and said, in crystal clear Pandoran, "You speak Pandoran like a native. Where do you come from, D'krim?"
"I was born in the town of Kippo."
"Oh, that little place, eh? I am from Kakkara."
Lich recognised the name to be the desert kingdom at the other end of the continent from Pandora. Of course the man was able to speak Pandoran: Tasnica and Pandora had won the War of the Resurrection, and the language was now taught across Fa'Diel. Then, Lich's mind clicked.
"You're not the same Theutes, guardian of the Fire Palace, are you?" he asked.
"I was."
Lich was now the one whose mouth dropped in shock. "How did you find your way here?"
"I was travelling from the Fire Palace to Kakkara Town to speak with King Mamsto, when there was a sudden flash of light. Nothing appeared to change, but as I walked, I suddenly came across Tullabanariga where Kakkara should have been. That was three or so years ago, before the slave trade started." Theutes sucked in a breath through his teeth. "A lizard from Kippo. Hmm. Do you know someone who goes by the name of Dyluck Thanatos?"
"I am that Yoshi."
Theutes literally jumped out of his chair and pressed himself against the wall. "Dyluck Thanatos Yoshi von Kippo, Guardian of the Cyan Arc?"
"I am him."
Theutes was looking as if he wanted the wall behind him to open so he could run through it. "Salamando! Save me!"
Salamando was unable to act upon his wishes, mainly because he was in the Fire Palace, which Theutes should have been guarding. Then Lich's eyes narrowed.
"Be thankful I do not have it with me, Theutes. I am forgiving, but after what you did to me at your own hands in Kakkara, I still have yet to do so for you."
Theutes cried, "I'm going to be killed!"
"I am not going to kill you, because if I do that, the others here will kill me. Now, I don't think eating a meal spiked with some sleep agent, then waking up finding myself in a raft far out at sea with my only company a note saying 'Ha ha!' is my idea of fun, Theutes. I found myself at Sea Mare Island after some time, and I know every tree and flower and stone on that tiny rock by name, since I was on there for that long. I think three months, maybe four, five, or was it six? May have been seven. No, eight. Nine sounds like a good number."
"Stop! D'krim!"
"It seems that yet again I am in your hands, Theutes. And, I can't do anything about it, and nor can you. So, I shall have to continue to serve you. Anyway, you'd better punish me for rising up against my master."
"Go…leave me…" Theutes said.
Lich turned on his heel and left the room, leaving the cowering Theutes. Their positions of power had been reversed, and now Theutes was fearful of the slave.