The prisoners were crucified. I did not know who swung the blow but they were all responsible. I sat on the palisade and watched, hiding behind my numbness, it was better than the overwhelming grief.

 

Nimue’s zombies stood watch to make sure none escaped as they died painfully and slowly. Each breath required them to pull themselves up by their impaled wrists or stand on their feet with nails through their ankles. None of it made me feel better. I was sitting on the palisade now in the early night trying to puzzle out what I was supposed to do.

 

I had been inconsolable, Nimue had gone to fetch Jackal of her own volition. 

 

Death had been so eager for me to find balance and yet it was silent in the face of my grief. Tiss was who kept me balanced yet death had taken her away.

 

It was ironic really, I, a lich, had no power here. I could animate her body but I couldn't bring her back. I was powerless. I didn't want some puppet, some mindless embodiment of skills, I wanted her. The more I tried to remember the more I wished I had spent more time with her. I was always so focused on my stupid war. She had been beside me for most of it and I never appreciated that.

 

Of course, the people that could bring her back were my sworn enemies. The Order had access to resurrection magic and I didn't. Because that would be too kind of the universe.

 

“Morgan?” Jackal called. He was standing there with Ruba looking unsure of what to do. They were just fucking kids I had dragged along. Tiss was an illusionist, none of them were meant for war. Jackal was a lumberjack for Christ's sake, his entire class was about cutting trees. “I’m sorry I… people are asking if it's safe, eventually someone is going to come looking.”

 

I sighed, “I… I don’t care, Jackal.”

 

“W-we brought you some food,” Ruba said holding up a bowl.

 

“I don't even eat,” I growled, harsher than I intended but I was too tired to apologize.

 

“We need your help, I don’t know how to do any of this stuff,” Jackal said. He had clearly been affected by Tiss's death as well but he had a community now so he seemed… ok.

 

“I promised I’d keep you safe and I have, you’re out of the reach of Sloffanil and Usota will hold up her end of the bargain. Go fuck off a build yourself a new life,” I snapped.

 

“You're just giving up? What about the rest of us? What about what Tiss would have wanted?” he cried.

 

This was the question wasnt it? Was I only ever good because of Tiss? I had helped her and Jackal but he had just kinda… been there. Tiss had convinced me to try and build something. She had been the one to want to help the freed slaves find a new home after I attacked that village. I think the answer was pretty clear that I was. So much for fucking balance.

 

“I’m sorry, Jackal,” I sighed and hopped off the wall, heading for my tent. I knew everyone here had suffered greatly, maybe they were more numb to these sorts of things or maybe I cared about Tiss a lot more than I had realized. Nimue nodded to me and stepped aside to allow me to enter.

 

Tiss was on the bed roll. I had patched up her injuries using soul embers, she could have been sleeping. I had picked a skill I had dismissed long ago after my level up for defeating Birsk, he must have been quite high level.

 

[Gentle Repose] 

You may infuse a corpse with your magic, entirely stopping the process of decay. The corpse remains in stasis until this spell is broken.

 

It was not the logical choice but I couldn't be logical. I knew her body wasn't her, I knew that more than most but it was all I had. I had been puzzling over and over and over about how I could fix my mistake. My second mastery skill might have given me a loophole but nothing yet. Nothing concrete and I didn't even know what Tiss would want me to do.

 

[Mother of the Dead] 

Your Book of the Dead improves allowing you to create anything you set your mind to. All catalogued undead now have instructions for how to create them, this requires varying numbers of soul embers, resources, prerequisites and time depending on the individual creature. Additionally, you may now create your own custom undead horrors the likes of which the world has never seen before. This takes more effort as you must design the creature and then follow the instructions and gather the resources your tomb describes, however with enough persistence your imagination is the limit.

 

Now I could make more weights, a recipe was now listed in my tome. They were surprisingly simple in hindsight, they required a body that was martially adept and significantly more soul embers than a zombie. I could build a massive army now. And yet I couldn't bring myself to care. The undead weren't truly people, at least not the ones I could create.

 

We had taken heavy losses during that fight. I still had zombie Lord Kruller and that stupid blacksmith because I hadn't summoned them for the fight. Nimue had lost her owlbear and all but 14 of her zombies. All this tactical information still ran through my mind but I couldn't understand why I had cared before. It was like all the colour had been sucked out of it.

 

I knew I was being mopey but looking at Tiss’ body it didn't matter. This was somehow worse than Anne’s death. I had gotten some closure with her, I had known who to punish and I hadn't promised to protect her and then failed massively. What truly made it worse was that there was hope. It was possible to bring Tiss back but I was powerless to do so.

 

Tiss’ kiss haunted me, the panic and hurt on her face afterwards. I had the opposite of closure with her. All I could do was replay moments and wish I had been different. The only person I was really angry at was Death, and they weren't really a person.

 

Regardless they had stolen me away here, tricked me into the curse of immortality by using Tiss and then taken her away from me. The only possible rebellion I could even think of was to simply lie down somewhere and never move again which seemed stupid. Still, I might still do it if nothing else came to mind. Maybe I could dig a nice grave for me and Tiss and spend a few decades underground.

 

I couldn't do that obviously. Because waiting around doing nothing in a world where people did not necessarily stay dead was time with Tiss I was potentially missing. Hope was its own kind of torture.

 

My only idea was to research the kinds of undead. After all, an undead couldn't be an extension of my own will if it had its own. I was undead and not beholden to anyone else… except Death, I suppose in a way. But that had to mean that there were other undead creatures that were people onto themselves entirely. The problem was that vampires were the only kind of undead I could think of other than zombies. Those were the only undead that really made it into popular culture.

 

I was scared to try and bring her back that way though, the Order could resurrect her but I could only theoretically bring her back as a monster. I was making a decision for her that I wasn't sure she would like.

 

I groaned as I sat down on the bed. I couldn't function without her. Even her simple presence had been an anchor and now I was spiralling. My haphazard plan wouldn't even necessarily work. Powerful undead wouldn't be easy to make and I had little to no resources.

 

“Why couldn't you have just let me rest?” I said out loud. I was never religious on Earth but having a diety literally touch your consciousness changes a girl. It didn't seem so made up here. Granted Oysus seemed like a dick.

 

I had been at peace at the end and now I doubted I would ever be at peace again. I would exist forever regardless of if I wanted to or not. What was the point of doing anything if I would see it undone eventually? Dedicating my time to finding someone who could destroy souls seemed like a waste of effort if they were as rare as liches. It all just felt hopeless. I lay back and curled around Tiss’ body, it was a shell but it was something.

 

Even if I brought Tiss back I would outlive her, if she was undead and didn't age she could still be destroyed and I would still be here. I couldn't rely on Tiss but without something to keep me going, I had no reason to beyond boredom. But if I existed forever then what did being bored matter? I would be bored eventually anyway. No wonder none of the liches were able to find balance, it was literally impossible unless you stopped caring entirely.

 

I had imagined a future for myself as a general at the head of an army of undead, not a girl with four arms crying in a tent while wrapped around a corpse and lost in existentialist dread. I couldn't help it, it was just one rabbit hole after another. It all felt like too much.

 

“I just want her back,” I sobbed. I would do anything. I just didn't want to be left alone in the end.

 

[You have unlocked a new title, Communal Wanderer]

 

My sobs partially became laughs. Death was such an asshole. Considering what the last title it gave me was I was scared to look.

 

[Communal Wanderer] 

You have realized the lonely and heartbreaking fate of the lich yet through depraved desperation have come up with the solution, to bring others with you into this torturous fate by taking the path of the soul collector. When a creature dies you may capture its soul before it moves on to the afterlife using a significant amount of soul embers, how quickly a soul moves on depends on the individual. The soul becomes bound to you just as you are to existence. Bound souls may be summoned as ghosts visible to you regardless of your normal ability to see ethereal beings.

 

I never moved so fast as I sat bolt upright, overwhelmed by my need to try before it was too late. I didn't take time to consider its judgemental tone or the ethicality of dragging others into my nightmare, I just acted. Death was offering me a hand and I would take it regardless of what was on the other side.

 

While on the wall I had absorbed the soul embers as the bodies of the dead were piled up, it had been something to do. Now it was salvation. I focused the soul embers into the air around me looking for her soul. I reached out with my magic surging forward. I didn't know how souls behaved but if Tiss wasn't gone I had to find her. I reached out farther far beyond the tent, more and more until my head spun. And then I found her. I couldn't explain how I knew it was her soul but it was, it was what I was looking for after all.

 

Soul embers swirled around me in a dazzling light show as her soul descended into the tent. An orb of orange light, larger brighter and bigger than the embers it left behind. I held out my hand as it drifted towards me, a mockery of divinity. It looked too angelic for the dark necromancy I was wielding.

 

I wrapped my hand around it gently. Orange light seemed to glow through my veins as warmth overtook me until finally it was gone and the lights faded. If it were not for the blip of warmth in my cold being then I wouldn't have known it had succeeded.

 

Tears ran down my cheeks as I called to her. The guilt of what I had done already weighing on me. I had done something impossibly selfish but I couldn't let her go, I needed her and I would live with the consequences. I just didn't want to be alone.

 

“Morgan?” she asked.

 

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

 

[Undead Discovered Ghost]