Tenebroum

Christmas Bonus Chapter: Chapter 192: Bigger Things

The first thing Tenebroum did when it was in full control of the dungeon was to add another name to the great ring that bound it. This was not something that it did lightly, and rather than inscribe the name of Malzekeen on the inner ring, in the primary circuit that cemented the Lich as the owner of this place, it would be carved on the outside wall. In theory, that would form a barrier that would bar that creature from ever re-entering this place.

It didn’t matter that the awful chimera no longer had a hold on Tenebroum’s soul. It would not risk a second encounter when the first had cost it so much. The Lich was just grateful that despite the temptation, it had devoured neither Groshian nor the Wolf. Such an experiment would have tainted it forever, and the Worm would have devoured it completely in those terrible minutes that it had used its bond to drain Tenebroum of power and knowledge.

Still, just because this was about a single name didn’t mean that this change was not a simple thing that involved only a few letters and could be done in a day. It would take drudges, chisels, and hammers weeks to complete, given the number of symbols involved and how that would affect other existing enchantments. It would be worth it, though, and so it was prioritized over all the other carving that would need to be done afterward.

Such a measure was not foolproof, and the Lich was under no illusions that it was. Should that misbegotten chimera break back into its component parts, then they would be able to bypass the wards. Likewise, this measure was not likely to bar any constructs or servants the God might create, but Tenebroum wasn’t too concerned about that. This was something it had considered in the case of Siddrim and even Lunaris. However, in the former case, doing so would have disabled the very trap it meant to lay, and in the latter case, it decided that she was unlikely to ever pay him a personal visit.

Malzekeen, though. It would return. It would wait for the Lich to grow strong, and then it would come back and feast on his strength. It had to, given the desolate state of the region.

Tenebroum did not believe that the beast had a secret key into its soul any longer, but it was unwilling to take the risk, so barring it completely was the first order of business. While its drudges slaved away, once again perfectly in synch with their master, it could continue to plan more complex workings.

For lack of living mages to torture and kill, it decided to continue and, indeed, increase the production of inferior phylacteries. However, instead of doing that another dozen or two times, it planned to do so with every mage that yet remained in its library. It would have liked to create one for every ten feet along the main channel of its inner ring, but it lacked the heads for that. The great wheel that defined it was more than half a mile wide, and it only had just under a hundred mage heads, so it would make do with something closer to fifty feet.

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The precise measurements didn’t matter, only the scale of the thing. It could alter the locations with the nature of the spell to achieve any desired result.

For so long, the Lich had been bound to a single point, swelling with power. It had never noticed just how constricting that vessel had become or how confined it had felt. It had been a serpent in desperate need to molt, but it had never questioned its circumstances. These events showed it a fact that it had never questioned. It had simply accepted that its heart was an inviolate thing and that it could never be touched. It knew differently now. Albrecht had been a powerful part of its hoard for so long, and even now, it was missed, but growth was always painful.

Looking back, Tenebroum realized how little it had grown since it struck down Siddrim. It had stopped growing, and instead, it had grown everything but its own soul. Its lands, armies, and servants had grown in power, but it had remained stagnant. It had accepted its chains and spent its time working on toys and trifles. It seemed like the right move at the moment, but in retrospect, it was a colossal waste. It didn’t need a better, more well-designed body to beat the next God or the one after that; it needed to become a being of unlimited power, and it had a plan for exactly that.

That will change, the Lich promised itself. I only wish that filth’s presence had not required me to think bigger.

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The plan was simple. The Lich had already claimed this place. It owned this bedrock and the land above it as much as anything could be owned. It owned the dark heart of Blackwater more than Oroza had ever owned her river, and now it was going to turn the entire thing into a phylactery.

It was such an audacious plan. If some other God had spoken of such a thing, the Lich would have laughed. Siddrim certainly could have done such a thing if he hadn’t lived a life in constant pursuit of vanity, which consisted of building ever more meaningless temples instead of works of arcane might. Even the All-Father could have built something like this if dwarves hadn’t eschewed magic.

In fact, as the plans blossomed like a dark flower, the Lich thought that more and more that it might be the shattered remnants of the dwarven God’s soul might be to blame in part. The All-Father had certainly inspired it to think bigger every bit as much as the sundering of its phylactery had. It was obvious in so many things. Not only were fundamental parts of its architecture changing as a result. Now, its lines were more precise, and its artifice was more careful.

The forgewights were very slowly repairing the existing soul web, but more than that, they were replacing it one piece at a time with something that could handle more energy. The gilded baroque spiderweb would extend ever further from the center of its lair to the outer ring, where it would be fused with yet more arcane talismans when it reached that distant place, and everywhere its minions went, they cleaned up the mess that had been made.

Truthfully, the mess was worse than it had feared. For a long time, Tenebroum had kept this place at a minimum of staffing with undead drudges as the majority of its armies were created in Constantinal. That was coming back to haunt it now.

It was more than just the constructs that Tenebroum had designed for its own use that were damaged or destroyed. Half of the drudges that it normally used to carry out the menial functions of the lair, such as gathering fuel or cleaning, had been destroyed in the havoc, and many of those that existed in pieces would not be rebuilt because they bore marks that indicated the Worm’s touch.

There were parts to construct a few more, of course, but the majority of the replacements would come from the bodies of the dead priests and acolytes that had served Tenebroum faithfully for so long. For now, they would not be embalmed because time was of the essence, but that could be done another time once the stone carving was complete and the wreckage of battle was cleaned up.

Once the dead acolytes were put to work, walls were quickly replaced with brick where necessary, and new paths were created. Even its labyrinth was to be part of the Lich’s giant phylactery now. The twisted passages would no longer simply function as a hideously complex defense. Instead, the whole thing would become a singular multi-layered rune of such complexity that Tenebroum needed dozens of minds and thousands of souls to hold it in its mind’s eye.

To what end? Well, it had some thoughts there, but now was not the time to focus on the future. Tenebroum was hyper-focused on the now. It sent off all of its remaining black birds to search for The Queen of Thorns and the Voice of Reason. Krulm’venor was in the depths and well out of reach, and its Dark Paragons were hopefully continuing its war in the far north. Only so much was within its new, more limited reach, but the Lich would find its servants and make certain they understood that they had not been let off their leashes.

Once that was done, it focused on the largest unexploited resource that yet remained: the bones of Siddrim himself. For a very long time, they had sat there in the dark as the main decoration of a hideous crater where he’d crashed from the heavens.

The remains were dozens of feet long, marking the Lord of Light as a true giant. There was a time When Tenebroum had planned to armor the upper torso, fill it with troops, and turn the skull into a terrible sort of fortress before sending it against Rahkin or whatever other city dared to resist it. It could only imagine the thing’s giant arms pulling the monstrosity across open ground, traveling dozens of miles every day.

With everything else that had happened, Tenebroum was glad those plans had never happened because now the remains would be used for something else. The massive amount of essence in those bones would be used to catalyze the great new spell it was planning to complete this transformation. The last time it had attempted this, there had been thousands of peasants in and around Blackwater who had fueled its dark transformation with their lifeblood. Now, this was a lifeless place, but some kind of lifelessness was still quite powerful. This was not the first grave the Lich had robbed, but it would be the most powerful, and the Lich would grind those bones until they were nothing and fill the blood channels around the rim so that when the time came, it would have enough fuel to start this terrifying engine.

That such an undertaking would take months, or perhaps even years, did not concern it. Such a task could be completed even while it fought the wars it had already started. All it needed was to reconnect with its distant lieutenants and warn them about the new threat of Malkezeen, and all would be right with the world once more.