Chapter 16 Silver Linings

 

 

A perilous time awaited the lich as he stood on the ledge of his mountain. Too many times has his peace been threatened, only for it to be undone by his own hands. Now a new horror sits in his home. Sin thinks of jumping off to save him the trouble of a headache. "Ash please save me from this nightmare. Wait, what am I thinking?! He put me here!"

With a sway of his robes, the oversized skeleton clears his mind: "This is not the time to be fooling around!"

Sin marches to the mansion steps only to freeze in place, hand unable to twist the doorknob. "Why am I scared, I never had a fear of anything before."

A slight rumble came from inside, Sin put his skull to the door to hear: "WHERE IS HE!"

Sin dives out of the way: "AH Shit!"

Silence for all but two seconds, the doors blast off the hinges, off the mountain hurling into the forest below. Turning onto his back the prime suspect of the missing doors is a Ven and her red hot skin. Sin can see all his servants staring from a distance. "They know it's a lost cause to help me, but it doesn't hurt any less."

Sin lifts himself off the floor: "Look Ven, I didn't ask for this, it was pushed on me."

Ven stomps her way down the steps: "And whose fault is it then!"

Sin stands his ground: "For someone who is barely here, you sure like to take control of things."

Ven grips his cloak's collar: "You talk a lot of shit for a dead man."

Sin's fire in his eyes burns brighter: "Listen demon, I didn't ask you if you wanted to join our merry band, you tagged along on the condition of seeing me become a great warrior. It's done, that part of my life is over now!"

Ven lets go, walking away into the mansion, she says her last words before entering: "I wonder what Vie would say."

She struck a nerve, Sin let out a wave of blue fire out of his cheeks, and the partly sunny sky gets overtaken by moody clouds brimming with lightning ready to be released. The servants rush away, frighten by their master's anger. His pain only lingered as rain beated down on his white skull. The anger subsided in him, the only thing left in his magic heart is heartache and evergrowing greed to sleep away from his now tedious life. The fire in his eye has burnt out, sulking in the rain a small whisper of a voice tries to break through the wall of rain pouring around him.

A squeak: "Mr.-Mr. Skeleton sir!"

Sin snaps out of the trance he put himself in: "Huh?"

Seeing the light-complected woman stand at the doorsteps holding a towel, "She reminds me of someone long ago, a human who didn't see me as a monster."

Sin moved his big body over to her under the cover of the roof, lifting up the towels Sin catches the size difference between them, "Uh, I forgot how tall I am, her raising the towel above her head is just high enough to put it at chest level."

Sin takes the towels slowly trying not to scare her in any way: "Thank you, Marilyn."

She looks up: "Thank you, Sir."

Sin intrigued: "Why do you thank me?"

The two walk deeper inside the lair: "It's for taking me in, no one would take me in, you were the first person or I guess lord that didn't push me down because I was a woman."

Sin directed her to the fireplace: "Is that the reason you joined that fight."

The front doors repaired themselves, materializing out of thin air.

Nodding deeply: "It was the only way to survive, I have no skills other than fighting."

Drying his bones off next to the fireplace: "This world can be so cruel."

Marilyn sits on a nearby chair a few feet away from Sin: "If I may?"

Sin bats his hand like trying to knock those words down: "We don't do that here, just speak your mind."

Marilyn crosses her legs and tucks them in: "Who were you before becoming a lich?"

Sin closes his figurative eyes: "I was a boy, a warrior for a great city, a hero in everyone's eyes. A middle child who loved both siblings equally. Proud son of the two most wonderful parents."

Marilyn watches Sin for any changes: "How did it happen."

Sin lowers his head slightly, feeling his hand: "I was betrayed, killed by a friend. Then I woke up in darkness a boy once more, scared, alone, disfigured."

Marilyn stops him from saying more: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, it just sounds like you needed to let something out."

Sin clenches his hand: "It is all in the past now, no need to dig up buried things."

Picking himself off the chair, and stretching for a few seconds before checking for a book on the bookshelf next to the fireplace, after a minute of wordless murmuring, *Ah hah* pulled a book out by its spine flipping through some pages. He shuts it and saunters over to her holding the book he grabbed.

Sin: "This will help if you want to make friends in this mansion."

It was a bestiary: "Thank you, sir."

Sin leaves in the same way: "Please, call me Sin."

His heavy steps fade away, and the crackling of the fireplace and thunder can only be heard. Feeling the material of the book, she props it open, the first words are "Author, Sin Aphelion."

Marilyn flipped the page: "Is that his last name."

The first page read, "To those who I trust or want to trust, this book is for you, it will guide you about the ways us monsters like to live and what we love and hate."

A picture of the first monster is of a living tree, as she slowly flips by the pages of the various creatures, she comes upon a demon. "I have only a few run-ins with a demon but by far the most violent of these monsters, they take pleasure in making every other species' life hard. The only close encounter is a demon named Ven and her very passionate emotions toward all things cute. Like little boys and puppies."

The lists of details go on, some things to avoid and others to encourage, Marilyn flips through some more, looking for a specific page. Flipping to the very end thinking she will never find it, the page read, "The lich, elder lich, and King lich."

Marilyn slowly reads thoroughly making sure not to miss anything, "A lich is a sad sight to see, an undead born out of spite or a spell from beyond the grave. Lich who was brought back forgets their past life, only looking for knowledge or in special cases revenge." 

The pages are detailed, even the weaknesses are marked in great description, Marilyn ignores all the info on how to kill the said lich. Concentrating on Sin's words, "The only way liches recover their memories is through certain actions or familiar senses. Taking the liberty of studying myself, I noticed my greed grows, controlling me to hoard rare valuables. It has become such a problem that my robes needed runes etched into them to repel the thoughts."

Flipping the next page outlines his tendencies, "I grow fond of potions and discovering the unknown. It compels me to hide the knowledge from everyone, being as that may, simple mood swings will not sway my devotion to my friends and allies. I WILL NOT, BECOME THE LICH KING AGAIN."

The last stories of the ink held anger behind them. Upon flipping to the last page, a frightening picture stared her down. The height measurement labeled the monster as a whopping eight feet of soul-eating, body-shredding, behemoth. A small but highly important description layered under the picture, "Lich King, Sole defender of Tartarus and rightful ruler of the underworld."

A deep eerie feeling seeped into her the longer she stared at the cursed picture, a laugh whispered into her ears. A deep gravelly chuckle echoed sending her jolting, craning her neck to look over her shoulder, but no one is there. Turning back to the fireplace Ven is face to face with Marilyn.

Marilyn hops back: "Oh shit! You scared the shit out of me!"

Ven backs up: "Heh, that would be a sight."

The book catches her eye, nabbing it from her she flips through it.

Ven raises a brow: "Where did  you get this?"

Marilyn stutters: "I-I got it from Sin, did I do something wrong?"

Ven slams shut the book: "Nope! Why is it you want to stay here?"

Marilyn minds her words, choosing carefully hoping she doesn't land in a pitfall: "I never had a home, here. It feels like home. I want to make this work."

Ven kneels next to the fire holding her hand in it, no pain shows on her features: "Are you certain you want to live here?"

Marilyn builds the courage to nod prompting Ven to sigh holding her face: "Fine~. But know this human! There was no human that lived here ever, the only one we all got along with is long gone."

Clenching her courage tightly she speaks her mind: "What happened to the other human?"

Ven stands, tapping the side of the fireplace in anxiousness: "I.....I got to go!"

Ven storms out of the living room down the hall. The book flies, hitting the couch. Marilyn let her courage die, she knew something awful happened but that just solidified her suspicions.

Marilyn sinks into the couch: "What a life."