The next stage after connecting to the shadows is to begin connecting to the elemental planes. Adding the powers of elemental lichdom to undeath. Gaining the ability to passively control elements as you add connections to your physical phylactery.

The elements drawn to reinforce your undeath will cease to harm you and while at first, they may heal you as negative energy does that will diminish as more connections are made. Once you have assimilated all four elements the next stage is that of the living lich. – The Path of Self Resurrection by Damû Rámaêri.

Adrian

I land next to K and put back on my tattered and burnt clothes. I am sure whatever I wear will end up damaged and do not want to end up running around naked. Dragon-me might be keeping me from being embarrassed but that does not make me want to.

“It’s hard to see you when you are flying around at night. Your scales are black and what light you give off seems to be the same as the stars.”

That is interesting, so I seem to be the same as the night sky? Maybe I should have scouted around then. Too late now. We start to walk in the direction I remember the camp was set up within the graveyard.

There is an unnatural chill to the air, and before we get to the camp I end up walking in front of a skull that was sitting on a tombstone. Once I do it releases a red purple light and explodes. Bone shrapnel flies into me and I get some nasty puncture wounds from it.

At least I was far enough away that it wasn’t enough to blow off a limb but I feel weaker than the blood loss should have made me. Fucking skull trap. I start to heal myself but find another skull nearby is glowing.

Specifically, its eyes are glowing, shit. It’s probably a sentry skull. The skull ignites in purple fire and crumbles. I heal myself as quickly as possible as K helps me up from the ground.

“They know we are here.”

She nods and we start to run in the direction of the camp. Soon the graves around us have been dug up and the holes make running more dangerous. Just as I was able to see the camp under the new moon, I also see several undead running towards us. Dozens of skeletons with zombies lagging behind. There are some corpses that are keeping up with the skeletons, they must be another undead. Ghouls? Maybe wights.

A hoard of undead is closing in, what can I do? Fire should be able to do a lot to most of them. Though the ones immune to the fire by being an infused undead can be killed easier than others. I will a fireball into being and throwing it at the advancing wave of undead.

It explodes and several of the skeletons caught in it collapse as their bones splinter and break in the magical flames. K moves to act as a vanguard, I assume to keep them off me so I can continue to rain down fire on them.

K is chanting something, not sure what spell but her sword is now glowing a light blue. Some sort of weapon enchantment. I think it is new because she had to chant the same thing twice before it worked.

A second fireball goes off before the undead have reached us. We are going to get swarmed, I don’t think K has a spell to deal with this. I need to do something to buy time. I wrap myself in a cloak of fire and expand it to cover a bit more than K and me.

She glances at me for half a second as the fire passes by her. This isn’t a long-term plan but I should have a few minutes to figure something else out. Something with Death, doing something to their negative energy life force would be the most effective.

As I am thinking a lieutenant charges through my small dome of fire, the flames near it were consumed by its presence. Fire subtype undead.

The dome of fire begins to dissipate as I change my focus to the undead that got past it. Others had as well but K was able to end them as they were already on fire, and actually taking damage.

I sidestep a lunge from the lieutenant and force its negative energy to ignite with the fire that flows within it. It releases a blood chilling scream, and I am going to try something with the black fire that he is letting out.

I pull some of it to me, I need to figure out what it is doing. This strange fire killed two undead. The fire goes out quickly once it was separated from the undead so I’ll have to try something else.

I pull more off of the burning corpse and move it to the undead who are charging me. They likewise ignite and start to release black flames. At least I think that they are black maybe a really dark purple is more accurate. True black light is not possible, as black is the absence of light.

Regardless the other undead are burning and the others that charge through their collapsing forms begin to feed the same flames. I try to sense what the fire is doing, what is it burning? Negative energy?

I am not sure how or why fire can burn negative energy, but I don’t need to know the why, just how to make it happen again. Actually, to make it happen again without using something as kindling.

Soon the undead cease to charge us. There are several of the undead that I assume are lieutenants as the other undead have stopped behind them. The dead are just staring at us, waiting. K looks at me.

The undead are waiting for something, I am not sure if it is for the fires to die down or if they are waiting for something to arrive. K moves close, we would have started running except for two things: we are still surrounded and that I am trying to figure out just how these fires are burning negative energy.

I try to create a few different fires but they do not seem the same as the fire I am looking at. I try manipulating the black fire around me but the undead are not bunching together. The fire is going out faster than I can spread it to new targets.

K is standing guard next to me, I don’t think she has many long-distance spells. A few minutes pass and I have a fire that looks like an ultraviolet light, but that doesn’t seem quite the same as the black fire. I haven’t tested it yet but it isn’t the same as whatever me botching the animating spells inside of the fire infused undead.

The black fires go out and I find that the one that we were looking to kill has come to the fight. An orc wearing leather robes, stitched and held together by pieces of bone. I do not speak the language he starts to address us in.

I grab K from behind and warp the light around us and whisper in her ear, “stay calm.”

She nods, and I can see that the orc necromancer is upset. I don’t speak orcish or whatever it is he is speaking but it sounds like swearing. The undead are fanning out, making sure that they do not miss an inch in their search.

“What is the plan” asks K.

“I’ll try to burn everything, you go after the necromancer.”

She nods and I let her go. I drop the invisibility and pull out the shot gun. I have four shells loaded and there are plenty of enemies for the scatter to hit. I don’t aim at any creature specifically as K rushes at the necromancer.

The shotgun blasts work well on the skeletons, though I quickly run out. Unfortunately, there were only four shots until I had to drop it back into Void Cache. I need to find a gun with full auto, that would make these waves of undead easier.

I only have smaller caliber weapons now, those won’t be enough since undead don’t have vital areas. K breaks apart a skeleton with her glowing blade as she moves to the necromancer.

I create a fireball out of the fire I had been experimenting with. It explodes but does not do any physical damage to the undead, shit. I pull out my now dented frying pan and strike an undead that is now burning in purplish fire.

My strike knocks the zombie back, and then it collapses. I did not do enough damage for that to have happened. I smile, that fire is doing what I was trying to get it to. Or at least something that is close. The other base undead caught in the fireball collapse a second latter. The ghouls have not been taken down by the fire, but I can create more of it.

I create more of the strange fire and release it as a stream to clear the way for K. She should be able to get to the necromancer soon. He does seem to be casting a spell of some sort. I feel a chill and the fallen undead have red runes etched into their bones form. I look back at the necromancer.

He is holding a skull covered in glowing runes, the runes shine brightly and I can feel an unnatural chill flood the area. The now glowing bones begin to float and assemble themselves. I guess I found the focus for animating all of these creatures.

I accelerate time around myself and charge at the necromancer. K is blocked by a lieutenant, one who is being repaired by the mass reanimation that the necromancer is doing. The skull’s glow dims and the necromancer points at me releasing a bolt of blackness at me.

I get hit and collapse to the ground. Pain is shooting down my left arm. Several undead are approaching me. I only have a few seconds, as the flow of time returns to normal. His spell stopped my heart.

I warp reality to restart it, and roll to dodge a rusted spear. I form and release a burst of the purplish fire, igniting the nearby undead. They will fall but the necromancer has a way to reanimate them more than once. He can even do it the middle of combat, destroying the minions is a temporary measure at best.

I try to do one of those prone to standing flips, but fail and get cut by a sword. The chill of my life being diminished spreads from the cut. The undead collapse around me from the purplish fire and then I just roll to a standing position.

I see K take a few cuts and release a stream of fire in response. I twist time again and move closer to the necromancer, I dodge the mindless undeads’ attempts to block me and am now closer to the necromancer.

A pistol my not do much to an undead but a bullet to the face will deal with you. I draw a loaded pistol from Void Cache, and take aim on the necromancer. Only to have a zombie get in my way, I put several bullets into it but as I expected undead reanimated by magic don’t care if they are missing their brain or lungs collapse.

There are a few undead that are blocking my line of fire to the necromancer. Running around will take too long. I drop my acceleration of time in favor of another burst of strange fire. Destroy the undead in my way and kill the necromancer.

I need to get this done quickly, K is being swarmed. I run into my own fire but the purple flames don’t harm me. Crashing through a skeleton I now have a line of fire on the necromancer. Not a head shot, but I can take a few shots at his chest.

He is an orc and they can take several hits before going down so I empty the magazine into his chest as I continue to push through the burning undead.