“Hmmm…” I hummed to myself, my voice echoed in the dry, stale room. My fingers tapped onto the arms of my throne. I looked over my bony hand. Literally, bony. With no flesh within sight on my hand, it was a wonder how one could even move it. I moved my sight onto my palm, there lay upon a slightly luminescent metal. My body, though long decayed, had parts of it plated with an ancient metal of which its name was even forgotten in the annals of history.

The room which I sat in was dark and decaying. The walls which were once smooth and decorated now lay scratched and falling. Cobwebs were a common sight among the furniture as tables and chairs laid around disorganized.

Even with the apparent lack of nose, I still had a sort of sense of smell just as I could perceive sight without eyes. The room smelled an unmistakable stench of decay. I was probably used to the smell or I didn’t even notice it until now. Either way, the lack of ventilation in the general area was part of the blame.

Amidst my thought, I could hear light stomping, metal clashing with the stone floor, the sound echoed throughout the throne hall. A familiar sound, I turned to its owner.

A body clad in heavy armor, with its head partially covered by a large neck-guard approached me. Instead of a head of a man, all that could see was a skull. Like me, his body was a skeleton, but had been plated. The difference was that, unlike me, who had an look of an iron-mask which extends to two twin fangs on my teeth, his was odd.

His head had a metal skull which surrounded his temple, the structure of the metal stops upon where his nose had once laid upon. What an odd design. Other than that, he had a menacing look, whose mere presence would scare the living.

His dark gray metal armor showed careful maintenance, yet even with such conditioning, marks from a hundred battles could be clearly shown - A scratch on the side, an unmistakable dent from a mace on the other side, and more. Below his waist, his tabard protruded, then separated down along his leg piece. Along with his noble, yet menacingly strong armor, he boasted a large two-handed sword on his back. Its hilt of simple design and its sheathe hide a dark blade.

Contrary to how he looked, the voice he projected was one that was care-free.

“Something wrong, Boss?” The skeleton asked me. He stood by my throne, laying his shoulder upon the back of the throne. This man is one of my closest advisor and friend, Sarjay. If anything, I suspect that he was a brother that got kidnapped by a bunch of dull people, because that's what he is - A boring person.

“You seem restless, you detected some invaders?” Sarjay asked me. The moment he mentioned the words ‘invaders’, it triggered a domino effect. The other skeletal beings that slowly moved about started to spring up to action, picking up weapons, staves, bows, and what not.

“No...it’s not that. I’ve just been thinking, that’s all,” I answered back, not minding the band of skeletons gearing up. Dejected to find out that it wasn’t invaders, the skeletons went back to their businesses. Unlike what most would think that the undead would return to their tombs or lie down in a corner, the skeletons went back to gambling, telling jokes to each other, one was even sculpting a statue, while another was busy carrying ingredients to the kitchen.

“Thinking? Boss? That’s a bit harsh on you, boss. Wouldn’t thinking kill you a bit?” Sarjay snickered.

“Eh...That’s a bit harsh, Sarjay,” I muttered.

“I would love to say that I was joking, but I really can't. Anyway, what are you thinking?” Sarjay moved about my throne until finally standing in front of me. He crossed his arms waiting for my answer as I sat on my throne.

“It’s just that...we’ve been stuck here for so long. How long has it been?” I replied with a question as I stroked what was used to be my chin but now just a skeletal jaw plated with metal.

“Heh. A thousand years already, boss. That’s a long time,” Sarjay nonchalantly said. He stretched about before sitting at the steps going to my throne. “So, in all your thinking, what have you concluded?”

That’s right. It had been a thousand years since we arrived here and holed up here. To be frank, I did not do something extravagant to obtain what was my status, an Archlich. Most would be expecting that I slayed a hundred dragons and sacrificed their souls to grant immortality, that I killed a thousand virgin women, or something gruesome. Life was always unexpectedly boring. That fact wouldn't change even after a thousand years.

I'll be blunt. I accidentally stumbled upon the grand secrets of necromancy, after-life and the powers of the life and death, and of light and dark. I slowly lost my flesh, but gained wisdom in return. It’s not that I wished for this, but as Sarjay would say, ‘Ah well, you win some, you lose some.’

Most of the companions that are with me as of now were also my companions that were with me a thousand years ago. I did not want to curse them or burden them with knowing that their family will grow old as they stayed...unliving.

And yet, they all agreed to stick with me until the end. Damn these guys for giving me a tear jerker even though I didn’t have eyes. When my companions get slain, they could choose between moving on to the next life, or continue serving me, to return as a spirit and to repossess what remains of their bodies or anything that would resemble a body which I would make for them. And they had always returned. Loyalty, even after death.

Sniff.

Not knowing the consequences of having the power to escape death, my companions and I agreed to simply retire in a nice mountain and never come out. We would forget our mortal desires and find the meaning of life, try to achieve Nirvana, that sort of thing.

Though, for a period of time, we had peace. We made a large underground stronghold inside a mountain, and kept it a sort of social clubhouse. We rarely made contact with the outside world, except when we sent some minions to bring news of the outside world. Those days were rather enjoyable.

Eventually, peace was disturbed slightly. Adventurers would come knocking down our doors, trying to loot everything. We would always repair our home and tried not to kill the adventurers. After all, misunderstanding was the root of conflict, was what I thought. But due to the frequency of raids upon our hall, my companions got tired of fixing our abode.

My former pot master stopped making pots as he complained at the top of his imaginary lungs, “Why does every single one of those muscles-for-brains smash EVERY SINGLE ONE of my pots?! What have my clay pots ever do to them?!” He quit making pots and started making statues afterwards.

Soon, our home came under disrepair. Maintenance was reserved only for essentials such as support platforms, or rooms that my companions use the most, such as the lounging hall. Although we were good angels that choose not to kill those people who have a phobia of pots, we still agreed that the adventurers needed to compensate for the damages. So we would take some items here and there every time we knocked them out before tossing them back to the forest.

The raids eventually became less and less dangerous, perhaps because of hundreds of years of experience of combat, my men and I became hardened elites. Our treasury became greater, and our skills hardened. Then peace returned for a few more centuries, reaching until now.

Of course, there were still some raids, but not as big as the previous raids. Previously, the raids could reach up from fifty men to a full two-hundred subjugation army. Recently, the raids only consisted of small adventuring parties numbering within two digits.

“I was just wondering, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the outside world...I wonder what changed after a thousand years? Do you think they’ve invented technologies that I had seen in a vision a thousand years ago? Do you think the places I used to live in still exist? Maybe the people I used to dance with are still around?” I asked Sarjay, I started tapping my feet, anxious for an answer.

“Who knows, Boss? If you really want to know, you should go and see for yourself. Heh. I even impress myself with my jokes sometimes.” Sarjay gave me another one of his old snarky comments. Unfortunately for him, that just gave me an idea.

“Yes. You are correct,” I replied. I started snickering like a madman.

“Eh? Boss...you don’t mean..” Sarjay stopped laughing and started getting frightened by his stupidity, and perhaps by my stupidity, too.

“That’s right, Sarjay, my friend. We should all…go out and tour the world!”