Nathaniel Sand-In-His-Shoes had no time at all to react before his friend turned to ash before his eyes.

“Sam!” He staggered back, panic shrieking through his mind. That was a lich! That was a gods-be-damned lich, standing right in front of him, and it had just killed his friend! Oh gods, Sam!

“Damn!” The lich shrieked in a nasally voice. “I wanted him to watch as I turned everything he loved into cinders! Now that plan is utterly ruined.”

Nat tripped over a cobblestone and fell flat on his ass, still scrabbling backwards. Oh gods, Sam’s boots were still on the ground. And they were smoking!

“I shall have that gnomish hussy flayed alive,” the lich was grumbling to itself, looking this way and that. “I told her, I wanted to be on the edge of town, not dead center. I wanted to make an entrance, not a side-show magic act! Devil take it all, my big moment is utterly ruined!”

Something rumbled next to Nat, and he turned to see that he had backed right up against the giant freaking dragon. The rumbl was its breath going in and out. He was so close he was almost touching the creature.

Oh gods I’m going to die. Please, whoever’s listening, keep Zed and and Emmy safe! Please!

“Thou art Lich King Araxesendenak,” A deep voice said from somewhere above Nat’s head. The dragon. The dragon was talking.

The lich whirled back and tipped its head back to peer upwards. “Ah. And you are a great western Wyrm, unless I miss my guess. Of the Lingolethiarian line, if I am any judge of scale patterns.”

“I am,” Quentin said.

“Hah, knew it. Never forget a pattern. Ah,” the lich paused and cocked its head to the side, as if only now realizing something was amiss, what with the whole ‘there’s a dragon in front of me’ thing.

“I appear to have interrupted something,” the lich continued slowly, both hands gripping its scythe and turning it horizontal, blade toward the ground. “Have I given insult to you?”

More rumbling, deeper this time, as the dragon inhaled and exhaled thoughtfully.

“No,” it said finally. “I have no quarrel with thee.”

“Capital!” the lich chirped. “In that case, I—“

“However,” Quentin continued in that same placid tone. He raised a forearm thick as an ox and pointed a long claw towards something behind the lich.“I believe she might.”

“What?” Araxesendenak turned.

Mrs. Tolliver erupted from the front of the Keg and Kauldron, shining like a supernova. A corona of white-hot flame surrounded her. Her hair whirled and writhed, dancing on updrafts and heat currents. Her eyes glowed blue-white, she clutched a double-headed axe made of pure golden fire in one hand, and the other was a closed fist, cocked back and surounded by flames so hot they were almost invisible.

She hurtled across the dozen yards between herself and Araxesendenak in an eyeblink. And with her closed fist, she punched the lich right in the jaw.

The explosion shattered windows in every building for blocks and blew Nat back into the scaled chest of Quentin. A huge scaled forearm came down in front of him, protecting him from heat and flame that washed out from the impact. He saw Araxesendenak go flying backwards—

And there was Mr. Tolliver. The big man had a sword in one hand that he drove straight through the lich’s back and out through its breastbone. He kicked the lich’s feet out from under it, grasped the sword’s hilt in both hands, and roared out an arcane phrase. Lightning flashed, exploding out from the undead monarch’s form and blasting chunks of bone in every direction.

Then Mr. Tolliver tore the blade through Araxesendenak’s body, cleaving up and out, splitting the upper half of the undead’s body in half. The pieces wobbled and tried to fall apart, but Jack Tolliver slammed his boot into the creature’s back, pitching it face-forward.

Then Mrs. Tolliver was there, axe raised high and coming down like the wrath of all the gods. It struck the lich in the back, and left a crater, blowing Nat’s hair back with the overpressure.

“Holy shit,” Nat breathed, peeking over the dragon’s forearm. “They got him! I don’t believe—“

“They did not,” Quentin rumbled. “But it was a worthy attempt.”

Black energy erupted. Sam’s dad flew up and away, trailing smoke and blood. His mom shrieked something and thrust her hands forward, and a pillar of fire wide as six men standing side by side slammed down from the heavens into the crater, melting rock and turning sand to glass.

Then twin blasts of violet energy snapped out of the conflagration and crashed into Mrs. Tolliver with brutal force. The first one hit her in the face and snapped her head back viciously. The second blew into and through her shoulder, blood and bone and viscera exploding outwards in a sickening spray.

A tendril of something blue and viscous whipped out of the flames and wrapped around her neck. She gave a strangled cry and struggled as it lifted her bodily off her feet, seeming to ignore the flames surrounding her.

And Lich King Araxesendenak rose from the crater. Smoke billowed from his eye sockets and flames wreathed his bone armor. His black spiked crown glowed red-hot, casting a hellish glow over his rictus grin. Nat stared in horror as the pieces of his body grew back, glowing with a sickly green energy as they knit his broken form back together.

“Not bad, fleshbags,” he hissed. His scythe dripped darkness onto the ground as he slowly climbed back up to the street. The tentacle sprouted from his black-and-blue robes, and jeweled rings on his bony fingers glowed like searchlights as they channeled mana.

“Oh, I just remembered,” the lich said, and oh god he sounded cheerful. “Your son can see you from that other place he goes when he dies, can’t he? Hah! Wonderful! All is not lost after all. A-hey, young Tolliver! If you can hear me, I’m going to peel your mother’s flesh from her skull while she still lives. Won’t that be fun?”

I have to do something. The voice in his head sounded like his own, but it was clearly crazy. Nat whimpered and fought the urge to curl into a ball until it was done.

I have to do something, the voice came again… Oh damn, it was his voice.

And more damn, it was right.

Fighting for every inch, he brought his head up and stared at the lich. It was reeling Sam’s mom in slowly, clearly enjoying watching her thrash and gasp for air against the magical appendage holding her aloft. Jackson Tolliver was… Somewhere. He saw an impact site on a house across the way, and heard something scrabbling around inside. Maybe Mister Tolliver was coming to help!

He wouldn’t get there in time, though. Not for his wife.

When the revenant had come for him, he’d been terrified. When that little three-foot tall abomination had grabbed him by his hair and yanked him down to its level, and demanded that Nat use his own mana to power a ritual spell, he’d been even more terrified. And when Sam had showed up, and they’d gotten surrounded by all those undead… Well. He’d known he was going to die.

But Sam had saved him.

Sam had saved his family.

Time to repay a debt.

Nathaniel Sand-In-His-Shoes, son of Elwood Sand-In-His-Shoes, one of the most prominent seismages on the northern conteinent, screamed at the top of his lungs as he reached out for the mana and cast Terraform.

The ground underneath the lich’s feet suddenly heaved and split. Araxesendenak squawked in surprise, stumbled, and then fell from sight in the new fissure that had just opened.

And then Nat closed his fist, and the fissure snapped close with a sound like mountains grinding together.

Sam’s mom dropped to the ground, the tendril dissolving into ectoplasm. And quiet descended.

“Holy shit,” Nat gasped, panting like he’d just run a marathon. “I got him!”

“No,” the dragon above him said sadly. “But it was a worthy attempt.”

* * *

I’ve just about had enough of this.

Lich King Araxesendenak sighed as the earth pressed in, trying to crush the unlife from him. It couldn’t of course, even without his combat armor and his battlecrown and robes of evisceration, he still would have been able to fend off this feeble attack.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised by the magical attack. He’d not realized the elf boy cuddling up to the wyrm had been a seismage. He had missed that particular bit of information while riding around in his double’s skull.

Ordinarily, he would not have expended more than a drop of power on such a flea. But now… Well. He’d gone and made it personal, hadn’t he?

So.

Lich King Araxesendenak called upon the power of his crown, and let the resulting explosion buoy him upwards and into the light once more.

* * *

It was as if a volcano had erupted right in the center of Melloram. Flame and earth rocketed skyward on a column a thousand feet high. The blast wave actually pushed the dragon backwards, and it bowled Nat off his feet.

And Lich King Araxesendenak shot up in the center of it, radiating hate and wreathed in violet flame.

“Enough,” he howled, the nasal quality utterly gone from his voice. No longer the fop, he sounded every inch the undead monarch he was.

“Enough,” he said again in a bladed hiss. Tendrils of pure mana shot out, encircling Mrs. Tolliver’s waist, reaching into the debris to haul Mr. Tolliver out by his legs, and wrapping around Nat’s chest to haul him out as well.

“I am going to end you here,” the lich snarled as it drew its three captives close. “I am going to flay your souls from your bodies, eviscerate them as they struggle to flee to the afterlife, and only after I have rent them to tatters, bleeding memories and weeping pain, will I allow you to expire. And then I shall raise your feeble forms again and do it all over again! For I am King Araxesendenak, and you all have trodden upon my very last nerve!”

Nat struggled feebly, tears leaking from his eyes. No, not like this!

“And then,” the lich said in a razor’s whisper, “I shall hunt down all who are precious to you, and I shall do the same to them. While. You. Watch.”

The scythe appeared back in Araxesendenak’s hands. He swept the black blade up, caught Nat’s eyes with its own crimson eyeflames, and let loose a shrieking laugh through a corpse’s grin.

And the blade fell.

* * *

- - Ten Minutes Ago - -

“Hey guys, the dragon’s back!”

The one called Diana looked up. The one called Clarke was on lookout duty today atop the ridge. The one called Isaac was off foraging for food—which in this case meant ‘robbing the Widow Berkley’s house of as many pies as he could get away with,’ and the others were off on various duties. The one called Frank, being himself, was asleep against a boulder.

“Strange,” Diana said, moving to the ridge line beside her compatriot. “Dragons don’t make pleasure trips. It’s here for a reason. Wonder what it’s doing—“

“Hey, look, your boyfriend’s coming out of the dungeon. Think they’re having a meet-up?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Diana grunted, pulling her own spyglass from her pocket.

“Whatever. Looks like they’re having a meeting.”

Diana extended the telescope and trained it on the figures moving towards the town, then up on the circling dragon. She watched as it landed in the town square, then swung her scope back to Sam and…

Jack and Annie. What were they doing here?

“Apollyon said that the dragon’s part of the forces arrayed against the dungeon by who or whatever just woke up. Why’s he meeting with your boyfriend and not just killing him?”

“Good question. Not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever. Dragons don’t turn traitor. It’s not in their ruleset. So he must have offered your boyfriend an ultimatum of some kind.”

“If whoever’s pulling the strings wants Dungeon Man dead, then that dragon’s part of the deal. Not my boyfriend.” She lowered the spyglass and closed her eyes in thought, letting the warm feeling of her connection to the essence wash over her.

“Oh,” she said, opening her eyes. “It’s an ultimatum.”

“You think?”

“Has to be. Dragons. Gotta do everything the ‘honorable’ way.”

“Oh yeah. Okay, that makes sense. So your boyfriend’s going out there to either let it eat him or tell it to pound sand.”

“The former, has to be” Diana said, frowning. “Dungeon Man’s got access to the White Room. He’s probably planning on tricking the dragon to buy more time.”

“Not smart. Tricking a dragon never ends well.”

“But he doesn’t know that. He hasn’t been a person long enough to have access to the rulesets.”

“Point.”

“Also. Not my boyfriend.”

Diana’s frown deepened. Something didn’t feel right. She couldn’t put it into words, but she’d learned to trust her instincts.

I need you all back at the ridge, she sent to the rest of the Crew. Something’s going down.

A chorus of acknowledgments flowed back along the link she shared with the rest of them. Technically Isaac was the leader for this mission, but when one of the Crew needed something, the rest responded.

It took a bare minute for them to assemble. Twenty men and women, Apollyon’s children. Backed by ten of Stray’s meat puppets. Truth be told, Diana had almost forgotten they were there.

She felt the pressure of Apollyon’s awareness against her mind. Daddy was watching, too, it seemed. She smirked.

Nosy.

Yes, her master said back. Do not mind me.

Never do.

The Crew watched silently as the transaction between the Guardian and the Dragon took place. They cast spells to allow them to hear the exchange, and others to cover up their tracks. It would not do to reveal their presence yet.

“Something’s happening,” The one called Frank said from next to Diana. “Feel that?”

She concentrated. Yes, she did. It was like the entire world had just taken a deep deep breath, and…

“Lich.” They all said it at the same instant. Lich King Araxesendenak appeared without fanfare right in the center of the town, bare paces away from Dungeon Man, the dragon, and the others.

“Oh shit,” half of them said, Diana included, when the lich blew Dungeon Man into atoms.

“He’s going to kill everything,” she said, knowing instantly that it was true.

“Pity,” Frank said, watching the fight. “Never liked liches. Always felt like a cheat.”

“We should stop him,” Diana said.

“Not our problem,” Isaac said.

Yes, Apollyon’s voice rang like iron bells in. It is.

“He’ll destroy the Last,” Clarke said, eyes going wide. “To kill the shadow-copy. He’ll have to.”

“Shit,” Diana said again.

Stop him. No witnesses.

Diana blinked and looked up. “We can’t kill Sam. And he won’t stand by if you kill everyone around him.

You know we don’t have a choice. Apollyon’s voice was flat and commanding. Witnesses draw attention. Attention draws the system. The plan cannot withstand the system’s scrutiny. Not yet.

“Can the plan stand up to the Last getting wiped out by a lich and maybe destroyed for all time?”

One beat. Two beats. Three beats. Something exploded in town. Then something else did too.

Go. Only you. The rest stay and observe.

The one who was called, but had not always been Diana nodded once.

Then she moved.