Book 9. Chapter 29: Stenos and Brock - Claiming the Future
For centuries, the necromancers of Morvalis believed they understood death. They treated it as a resource, dominating corpses and binding willing and… perhaps less willing souls to wage their wars. They used their claims of righteousness as justification for all their crimes against the spirits and buried them away.
Standing in the heart of the Prime Instance final boss, Stenos finally understood how blind they had all been.
The entity looming before them was an abomination to the very concept of the cycle. It was a Luminous Lich–a creature of false, stagnant stasis draped in blinding, burning white miasma. It represented a horrific extreme: a refusal to pass on, dressed up in the mocking visage of holy righteousness. The native undead armies would have shattered against it, their dark magics utterly failing to pierce the blinding light.
Perhaps it was what the bishops or cardinals might have become had they been successful in their betrayals. Stenos had lost his life but found a path to penitence for his sins. Thanks to the wisdom of Arawn, he was no longer just a necromancer. He was an arbiter of the Lord of Annwyn’s judgment.
Breathing out a cloud of freezing, necrotic mist, Stenos didn’t force the dead to rise; he invited them. He channeled the wisdom of the god he served, calling upon willing spirits from the Underworld.
Beside him, the armored form of Commander Legias, whom he envied, was empowered. The commander raised his greatsword, not as a puppet, but as a willing soldier following Stenos’s tactical guidance.
With a sharp whistle, Stenos summoned two massive, skeletal hounds wreathed in Underworld shadows. The spirits driving the twin beasts howled, so eager to join the hunt he could feel it in his very bones.
“Keep the guardians busy,” Stenos commanded, sending the commander and the hounds surging forward to tie up a few of the Lich's Radiant Guardians, who swarmed the massive mausoleum battlefield. They continued to wake up from their caskets, requiring them to be controlled before they attacked anyone unopposed.
The Luminous Lich was a true monster, and Stenos thanked his lucky stars that he didn't need to face the boss himself. He just needed to help clear the path for the true heavy hitters.