Watch This

Set this chronologically wherever you like.

Watch This

“Watch this.” Darken told Hel, his infuriatingly superior smile playing across his lips.
“What is it, Darken? I've been sitting in this damn pit of a catacomb for three hours and still nothing has happened!” Hel punctuated his sentence with a frustrated bash on the enchanted railings separating him from the chamber beneath.
“Sssh... don't do that. He'll hear.” Darken admonished, as he began to back away into the dark.
“Who'll hear?”
“Just watch.”

* * *

The necromancer's boots crunched on the gravel. Irritatedly, he cast a spell to mute them.
As he descended the ancient marble stairs into the Catacombs of the Dialusian Order, the light gradually faded away from his gaunt, grey face, leaving its ancient patchwork of scars and wrinkles bathed in shadow. The practically compulsory black necromancer's robes left eddying trails in the old dust of the catacombs, thoroughly concealing the galvanised, desiccated flesh beneath that was technically still just about alive.
But not for much longer, if Julian the Bloodless, the necromancer extraordinaire with magic for blood, self-proclaimed greatest magician in the world, and would-be lich had anything to do with it.
As the moonlight faded away completely, he cast his thoughts back to the conversation that had prompted this eccentric little trek of his. Who would have thought that the dirty little inn could have yielded such treasure? Though it hadn't been the inn, really, but chance, that Julian should have bumped into the stranger: the nobleman slumming it in the poor clothes. They had been forced to share a table in the packed inn.
“Good evening.” The adventurer had flashed Julian a white-toothed grin which never touched his mocking eyes. “Can I buy you a drink?”
And they had gotten talking, and the adventurer had let slip that the necromancer Tatula, the only person living (or not, as it were) who knew the secret to lichhood and – the adventurer had confided with an infuriating, knowing smile – that she had taken up residence in the Catacombs of the Dialusian Order, just up the road, and that he was personally going to eliminate her and the threat she posed.
Julian wondered idly which one of the corpses that littered the lightless hallway was his.
They were everywhere – old and young, rich and poor, old and new. But, Julian noticed, there were only incomplete or unhealthy bodies left – a sure sign of a necromancer's presence. Tatula had surely raised herself an undead army to protect against the likes of him.
That wouldn't be a problem, though... - unlike...
A morningstar on a chain, burning with magical flame, swung down out of nowhere and -

* * *

“That looked like it hurt.” Hel remarked, squinting into Darken's divinatory orb.
“You don't say.” Darken answered sarcastically. “I have to say, I was expecting a better show. Look at the way his skull caved in – no wards at a...” Darken stopped.
“What?” Hel, who had turned away, inquired.
“Well,” Darken replied, maintaining his composure admirably, “I have to say I wasn't expecting that.” Hel peered into the divinatory orb again.
“You said something about his head caving in, didn't you?”
“Yes...”
“So why's he walking away without a bother on him?”

* * *

The last tendrils of magic sucked their way back into Julian's veins, leaving his face exactly as it had been. So his previous experiments in phylactery had paid off to some extent.
He rounded a flesh-strewn corner and -
He couldn't believe it. It had been so easy – because, on the pedestal in the middle of the towering, circular chamber in front of him, there sat a slight, bone-white girl with a deadpan expression on her gaunt face.
Tatula.
Julian grinned savagely, walking forward. She might look like a woman, but he could smell the death off of her!
“My lady!” he began. “I have come as a supplica - ”
“Look.” she said. “A butterfly.”
Julian looked. Incredibly, so there was.

* * *

“Tatula won't be able to defeat him.” Darken stated confidently. Now that Julian was in the chamber below them, they could merely peer through the railings. “They're too alike and he's too powerful. She may weaken him, but without my aid – or yours – she will not defeat him. Still... no sense coming in too soon. Let's see how things play out. In fact, this can be part of your training.”

* * *

The lightning bolt slammed Julian into the wall, leaving a trail of popping sparks where blood should be. He slumped to the floor bonelessly, legs scrabbling to get up.
“You should not have come here.” Tatula told him, her big, sincere eyes drilling into his mournfully. “You know that there can only be one lich in the world. You know I hunted down all others. Why then, did you come to me seeking such forbidden wisdom?” She settled herself so as, arms crossed, she towered over him, all five foot of her, supported on the boots planted firmly either side of his outstretched legs.
Julian coughed. A stray blue spark flickered out of the corner of his mouth.
“I thought you would be wise enough to share your knowledge with posterity.”
“Wise?” A hint of disbelief coloured the edge of Tatula's speech, the first sign of emotion he had gotten from her. “I have hunted down and slain necromancers greater than you by far. Why should I fear you?”
“Because,” and Julian paused to grin evilly, “they didn't have one of these.”

* * *

“Did you see that coming?” Hel asked Darken sarcastically.
“In fairness,” Darken sighed, “no. I did not.”

* * *

“A Neromantic Nullification Matrix.” Julian explained to the helpless lich, indicating with a half-smile the white, plastic-like net he had cast over her. Her eyes, the only part of her with locomotive ability, glared at him accusingly. The rest of her lay sprawled on the floor. “Extremely rare, since they require co-operation between the Order and the Eaghlosh of Dia to create. They are, however, very useful against the likes of you and me. Now, Tatula, you are going to answer my questions.”
“Somehow,” a booming, dramatic voice announced from the shadows, “I think not.”
“Do you?” Julian asked disinterestedly as the adventurer from the tavern strode jauntily down through the air, kept afloat on a platform of magic.
“Because, you see,” the adventurer announced grandiosely, “you have had the misfortune to cross Darken, crusader against necromancy, scourge of the Order, vanquisher of the Goblin King. And now, you are going to release my companion and then, you are going to die.”
“I'd love to oblige you, but I'd rather die in a manner of my choosing. Otherise, it can be very detrimental to the health.”
“Well, if you shan't, then I shall. Be free, Tatula!” Darken gestured imperiously, and a wave of searing red arced towards the Matrix – and passed through it. Tatula's eyes widened in a soundless scream.
Julian held up a tiny, white key to the light between two taloned fingers.
“This, my obscure friend, is the only means of opening the Matrix. You will have to kill me to get it and, as I am sure you will find, that is a very difficult proposition.”
“Well, I am sure that will pose no problem for Darken, finest mage in the land! Have at ye!” Another flick of the fingers, and a wave of fire flashed at Julian, knocking him to the ground. Fire flashed up the necromancer's robes, carbonising his clothes and skin – but the magic flashed out, fixing it all up and allowing him to retaliate. A lance of crackling blackness stabbed out at Darken – but he caught and quenched it in a splash of blue in the palm of his hand.
“Oh dear.” Julian said to himself. Now, it was Darken's turn to grin evilly.
“Goodbye, necromancer.” said he. And he snapped his fingers.
A ring of fire popped into being around his fingers, burning with the brightness of a concentrated sun, and expanded drastically, slamming into the walls and dropping to the floor, covering Julian in a layer of sticky, napalm-like mana that burned through his just-fixed flesh like so much dry firewood, and he screamed, oh how he screamed -
And Darken slumped, visibly exhausted, but exhilarated.
“Did you see that?” he screamed up to Hel. “I won, against Julian the Bloodless, self-proclaimed greatest magician in the world. Not so great now, is he?”
“I think you may be forgetting something.” a rasping voice whispered into his ear.
“No way...” Darken squeezed his eyes closed, acutely sensing with dread the utter void of mana inside of him. Slowly, with small, halting footsteps like a dancer might use, he swiveled himself around until he he was facing the voice.
And opened his eyes.
Hel had to give Darken credit: in the face of the horrific abomination he had unwittingly created, he remained remarkably calm. He looked the scorched skeleton with the glowing phylactery gem for a heart up and down, and said.
“Aha. I have to smash the gem.”
“Much good it will do you now, now you have – finally – ascended me to lichhood.” A scorched-bone arm shot out and grabbed Darken around the throat, lifting him effortlessly, chokingly into the air. “I now know the secret. Even more embarrassingly, I had it all along. Silly me.
“Now, as a new lich, I have much to attend to. Not least the manner of your death. Now how would you - ”
“Oi!” The lich half-turned, fixing its blazing coal-eyes on the hugely muscled young man striding into the chamber. “You!”
“I prefer Julian. Stand back, imbecile, or I shall have to kill you first.” And the lich turned away, disregarding Hel.
Arrogance, Hel thought. Nearly killed Darken and now it's going to kill him. A quick thought summoned up a spell of strength. Hel drew back his fist -
- and Julian screamed, a reedy, whistling cry, as Hel drove his fist effortlessly through the lich's carbonised ribcage and wrenched out the glistening phylactery gem.
“Y – you're a mage too?” Julian gasped through what was left of his vocal chords.
“Well done, imbecile.” And Hel rammed the phylactery gem into Julian's head. This time, his skull stayed caved in. A flash of electric blue, a nearly-perceived scream, and Julian the Bloodless flashed into the void, bound for whatever served Dia's Realm as a hell.
Darken picked himself off the ground and brushed all the bits of Julian off of himself.
“Thank you, Hel, but there was really no need.” he coughed. “I had everything under control.”
“Don't talk shit.” Hel told him bluntly. “Watch this indeed.” A moment, then Darken slumped.
“Yes.” he said. “Yes, you saved me. I could have defeated him – but I underestimated him.”
“You forgot something.”
Darken sighed. “Thank you.”
“Good. Now, let's get this thing off of Tatula.”