“Athos” A sweet, honey filled voice tickles his ears lightly, causing him to turn away from the majestically calm view of the plains.

He sees her skipping in the sunlight, skin glistening and the scent of her sweat permeates the air. It smells just a little bit like honey, sweet to his senses.

Her golden brown hair dances with the wind and the grass as she skips towards him, grinning with fervent happiness along with a mischievous glint in her eyes which is reflected by the sun.

Before he can react to the alluring sight or maybe he just cannot, she reaches him and tackles him with a force he did not expect.

Crashing into the ground, he feels a jolt of pain that is soon washed away by the fragrant smell of her hair and the soft lips that touch his, lightly at first.

His hands move around her thighs, resting at the small of her back, embracing her tightly as her soft lips part his; tongue lightly exploring his sensitive lips.

She stops almost suddenly, drawing away to a seated position, straddling him and pinning him down with her arms.

He knows he can break free but feels no need to do so, as her great grin and love entranced look tells him enough.

Her face draws close once more; noses softly bumping against one another, eliciting a small giggle, before she gives him a deep long kiss.

Eyes closed, he feels her tongue dripping in to his mouth, stroking lightly, almost teasing him.

As their tongues entwine, he strokes his hands up her arms, ending at her face; lightly grabbing each side to pull her deeper into the kiss.

Thunder rolls violently in the sky, ever so slightly registering in his otherwise occupied mind but that small thought throws him out of his trance.

Ripping his eyes open, he sees the skies flash white and feels the sweet, honey-like taste in his mouth turn to ash.

It takes him barely a second, but once that second passes a most inhumane scream of terror, anguish and anger bursts out from him.

Sitting up while continuing this unearthly wail, the scenery immediately changes to the dark, dank room in which he resides.

The soft sound of water dripping and alchemical equipment buzzing and fizzing fills the room and slowly, he regains his senses.

“Kari…” He clacks painfully as the memory, still fresh, burns into his mind.

Standing up, his bony hand encounters the shattered vial he had just consumed from and with a fervent anger; he rushes to the rest of that concoction, destroying it wrathfully.

After doing so, he heaves himself onto a chair, feeling exhausted, even though such a thing is truly not possible for an undead like him.

Looking at his bony hands, he slowly recounts the time his body had been that way, for his flesh had left him a few dozen years ago when the experimentation began.

A loud boiling sound brings him back to attention and he briskly makes his way over to a large contraption with a multitude of clear liquids transferring around; mixing and reacting with one another.

Taking the boiling flask from the fire, a group of overworld beings burst into the room, bloodsoaked and slightly haggard.

“YOU DAMNED LICH, I, SIR BRAKWALL SHALL DECAPITATE YOU IN NAME OF-”

His sentence is interrupted by the flask smashing into his face, firstly causing him to scream from the burns and secondly, making his flesh to quickly rot; until it literally oozed off of him in parts.

The other members who ran in; a Dwarven warrior, two elven maidens with bows and a human with white robes, all look in horror at the quick rotting of the man.

But their experience takes over causing them to begin dispersing around the room, beginning their attack.

Athos takes arrows into his robes, slicing through the patched material. An axe slices a few ribs while holy light descends, burning him painfully.

Moving swiftly, his robes flutter as he appears next to the priest, bony finger placed on the forehead. The priest stops moving altogether, only fearful eyes flickering.

Swiftly turning around, he jumps to the dwarf’s position paralyzing him with a touch and then runs after the elves; who at this point have decided to run away.

Elves may be naturally fast, but he too was once an elf so his speed was no less than theirs.

Running after them for the better part of half an hour, their speed drops just slightly, just enough for him to catch up and paralyze them with his touch.

Dragging them back to his laboratory, he moves to a hidden wall, opening it and revealing a large group of various humanoids, all lying down, paralyzed, except for the eyes.

Dropping everyone into the room, he closes it back up and goes over to the melted body of the warrior.

Inspecting it, he notices that the mass of oozing flesh is still living; as it pulsates slightly with a low, pained moan.

Killing the creature due to its inability to help him in his research while alive, he then took notes on the experiment and began changing liquids and contraptions around.

Creating a liquid with a light pink hue, he pours the flask onto the dead mass of flesh, watching it absorb the liquid silently, before pulsating once more.

Stepping on the flesh to kill it once more, he quickly disassembles every experiment but the one that created the pink liquid.

Recreating the experiment dozens of times, he lets them run and gleefully hurries to the hidden room.

Propping the wall open, he hurries over to the other side of the room and opens up another secret doorway, leading into a pitch black cavernous room.

However the dark does not impair his vision, so the etched pattern on the floor is easily visible to him.

Briskly, he transfers all the paralyzed beings to the cavernous room, and places them ceremoniously in a circle around the pattern, heads facing the center.

Once that was completed, he headed over to a small stone table with three items placed upon it; A large coil of thin razor wire, an urn and a thick red tome with black pulsating lines.

Grabbing the wire, he wraps it around the necks of each person, numbering two hundred and forty three.

Next, he lightly takes the urn and almost lovingly hugs it as he takes it to the center of the pattern, placing it down.

Slotting it in the center; open end into the ground, he finally goes back to the table and opens the large tome onto the first page.

Pulling hard on the wire, the sound of blood gushing out fills the silent room.

“Keeper of the decrepit, the dead and the deceased, this humble soul beckons upon your undying phallus to release its being upon this earth, bringing life to the one who’s ashes are in that jar. Please Lord Norac use this soiled stone as a platform for you bene-”

“PLEASE STOP” A booming voice fills the room drowning out Athos’ words.

He closes the book, quite surprised he had no need to read the entire four hundred and eighty six pages.

Turning round, he sees a Scythe floating in mid-air/

“I’m Norac and yes I am a scythe” The voice, almost dejected appears from the Scythe.

“Give her to me” Athos does not waste time with trivial things such as the appearance of the keeper of the dead.

“Not going to?…huuu” The dejected tone becomes more apparent in his voice “Give me a moment”

Norac floats over to the blood-filled pattern; a zombie, a skeleton and a ghost all eating each-other in a circle, with a scythe slicing each one up.

Tutting lightly “You only needed two…” He leans the sharp head of his towards the urn, slicing it in two.

Rising up to his normal floating position, a decrepit hand crawls out from the urn, quickly followed by the rest of its decrepit body.

“I’ll be going now, since it doesn’t seem like you want to talk…huuu” Norac spins around in the air, disappearing into black smoke.

The zombie rises up and looks around with an intelligent glint in its otherwise dead eyes.

Upon seeing Athos, it immediately charges towards him.

Athos, stunned as to what the zombie is doing and fearing that he might hurt her if he does something, lets himself get tackled.

Hitting the floor, he feels the meaty hands trying to break his skull.

“haha” He cackles as a fist mashes into his skull “It’s just like that time in the fields”

The punching stops, for about half a second. Then the fists come with renewed fervor causing finger bones to break as the zombie seems extremely angry.

Athos, much stronger than the zombie and worrying for its wellbeing, grabs its shoulders and rolls around forcing it to be straddled by him.

Jumping up, he sprints to the laboratory, grabbing as many flasks of pink liquid as possible before the zombie catches up to him.

Tripping the zombie onto its face, he winces as it falls down and then he pours the many litres of liquid over the body.

The flesh, hardens, regrows and gains its old glistening luster. Long golden brown hair flows out of her shapely head and her small round buttocks shapes beautifully once more.

“Kari…” The words seep out of his mouth unwittingly as he sees her body becoming the young, fleshy luster that it used to be.

She turns around revealing a half-covered bosom and her flat soft stomach. Her small, smooth hands cover her thighs.

“Who are you” Her soft, honey-like voice permeates the air, stinging sharply

He should be happy, seeing her alive and well. But those words, they wracked him with unimaginable pain.

“It’s me, Athos” He falls to his knees bringing his face closer to her.

“Athos…” She peers at him deeply “You’re not him” Her words bite towards him bitterly.

His world crumbles as the one he loves does not recognize him. Even though his body may have changed, he still thought she would be able to recognize him as love looks further than the eye.

“B..bu..but-”

“The Athos I know is a sweet elven man who I frolicked on the plains of Duyeer for many summers. You are just a monster” As she says this, she stares at the single glistening gem in his eye socket.

“I’m not a monster!” He grabs her shoulder violently, more out of shock and fear than anger. But the result is the same.

Due to the violent force, the thin shoulder rips causing him to yelp in horror at what he just did.

Kari kicks him in the jaw, pushing him back before trying to run away.

Athos, desperate to show her that it is him, grabs her ankle.

She trips and falls to the floor a lot more violently than she should have.

He hears a crack and immediately scrambles towards her, only to see her head forced into her chest, causing her spine to crack, as well as part of the skull, in the fall.

“Let me go” The words seep out of her mouth with the last of her air.

“No, NO! I can’t let you go, I WON’T”

Pulling her off the floor, her head bobs, hanging on the thin flesh around the neck.

Placing her head in the right position, he quickly bites her soft lips almost wailing out painfully as he bites through them.

Closing his eyes, trying to lower the frantic activity in his mind, he starts chanting in a foreign tongue, causing a white mist to flow from her mouth to his.

Monster

He hears her voice inside his head and upon the word, his body shatters, leaving just his skull, floating in the air.

“Athos” A sweet, honey filled voice tickles his ears lightly, causing him to turn away from the majestically calm view of the plains.

I’M SORRY MISTRESS, PLEASE HAVE MERCY!!

He blares out in his mind, knowing that she can hear.

The plains fade and he sees Mistress, tentacles leaving his skull momentarily to bring him out from his memories.

“Mercy? MERCY? WRETCHES LIKE YOU DESERVE NO MERCY!”

Her tentacles latch onto his skull, flinging him back into the plains, watching from his body, unable to do anything as he watches Kari turn into dust from a lightning bolt before reviving her, killing her and trapping her soul within his phylactery.

Repeating once again, she does not go back in for the deep kiss; rather her eyes gain a sudden sadness and she leans over to give a deep pain filled hug.

I’m sorry Athos, not even you should be put through this

The hug lasts but for a second before the lightning hits and he is taken through the nightmarish memory once more.

Although he keeps looping through the nightmare, he still has a small sense of happiness; because she had finally called him by his name…

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Author's Corner: VALENTINES DAY...The time of the year when you blare out your singleness in hopes that someone else is too.

ANYWAYS, hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek and i guess romanticish story?(im not sure how romantic reviving and then forcible keeping their soul within you is, buut i guess that counts?)

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD