The OP Lich is a Returnee, Prologue (Patreon)

I said I would do a new story, and you guys wanted a 'Hero returns with all their powers'. Took me a bit to figure out how to start it off, but here we go! This one will be worked on as I have time, but I'll try and do at least twice a month with it.

Prologue – Victory at Last

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Rorzomon the Terrible, Archdemon of the Ninth Circle, Lord of Flames, Slaughterer of Hador, Consumer of Souls, Ravager of the Histacine Sisterhood, Violator of the Holy Maiden, Demon King of Haerth shuddered as he heard the banging at the doors to his throne room. He was once the terror of the entire world, and now he was preparing to make his final stand. Already, the Soulforged Adamantine doors were beginning to buckle under the relentless assault. The Enemy was almost upon him.

“How did it come to this?”

He remembered the last time there had been a major challenge to his rule. The human kingdom of Athelia had performed a Grand Summoning, sacrificing the souls of one hundred peasants to bring forth twenty Heroes, blessed by the Soul of the World itself with great power and greater potential. He had known then that, if they were allowed to grow, then they would eventually become too strong, too mighty for him.

So, he had sent his best assassins. Skilled in the arts of stealth and poison, they had infiltrated the castle only a month after the Summoning. One by one, they found the heroes as they slept, and ended them, along with the King who had ordered the summoning. Athelia burned in civil war not long after.

That had been forty years ago, and, for a time, there had been no force that could stand against his inevitable march across the continent, across the globe. For years, he had been content in the surety that there were no threats to his immortal reign. But sometime, when he wasn’t even looking, that had changed.

Twenty years ago, the Dark Kingdom had risen in the west. Ironically enough, it was in the ashes of Athelia that the Lord of the Dead, as his new rival was called, stepped into the light. And the ‘Free Kingdoms’ knew despair.

For a moment, Rorzomon had thought to offer the Deathlord a place in his service. It was only right, after all, that creatures of darkness such as the undead joined him in his conquests. Together, they could easily crush the kingdoms that stood in his way, shortening the length of his projected campaign to conquer the continent by fifty years or more. And he would have given the Deathlord a place of honor at his side, as was proper for such a powerful lieutenant.

But the Deathlord spurned his advances, slaying his messengers and reanimating them, so that they could carry their own heads in boxes to give to him. If it weren’t directed at him, he would have clapped in appreciation of the perfectly executed insult. As it was, he grew enraged, and changed his plans, focusing the front on Scaula, the nation directly between their lands, so that he could reach the Deathlord by the quickest road, and teach them the error of their ways.

But the Dark Kingdom had not stayed idle. They, too, marched on Scaula, their black banners raised high and openly. This was fine, as far as he was concerned. Let them fight against Scaula and pull off defenders that would otherwise be arrayed against him. It would make his conquest all the easier.

Except, that is not what happened. Scaula did not pull away any defenders from their borders. Indeed, they fought on, harder than before, not giving any ground that was not won in blood. Soon, he knew the reason.

It was at the siege of Vacete that the truth became known. As the sun began setting on the western hills, the sound of horns blared. All eyes turned to see rank upon rank of black-clad soldiers marching, their eyes glowing with the icy-blue flames of the undead. Their black banners, barely visible in the dying light, glowed brilliantly to those with the ability, whether by blood or by spell, to see through the darkness, and upon them shone in ghostly flames the symbol of the Dark Kingdom.

Athelia’s heraldry of old had been the Crossed Sword and Scepter, with a Rose upright across both, and all of it beneath a crown. The spectral heraldry upon the black banners was not that of Athelia, but one could easily see their Athelian heritage. After all, the Crossed Sword and Scepter were the same, but now they sat beneath a Skull topped with the Crown, and a Rose in its teeth. The Dark Kingdom was clearly proclaiming that it was Athelia, risen in Undeath.

The city’s defenders answered the horns with their own, and even from his command post, and great cries went up from the people. But, to his dismay, he could hear that those cries were not ones of shock, dismay, or even despair, but of courage and renewed hope! Like a thunderbolt, it hit him. The Dead had allied with the Living against him!

Unprepared for an onslaught of the undead in the dimming twilight, his forces were pushed back from the city. For the first time in one hundred years, his armies had been defeated, but he was no incompetent warlord who could not see the truth beyond the scope of his own power. He had managed to pull his forces back without losing too many, once the tide of battle became clear.

And it was good he had done so, for every orc, troll, or demonic beast that fell before the Undead soon rose up and joined their slayers. Even the dead of Vacete rose to fight again. Catacombs and graveyards stirred as the Dark Kingdom’s army passed by them, and their longtime residents took up blades once more.

That had been the beginning of the end, he saw that now. The Free Kingdoms united behind the Dark Kingdom of Risen Athelia, and offered up their dead to the Lord of the Dead. The tide of the war was slow in changing, but it was relentless. Supply lines became trivial when all the undead army needed was a fresh supply of corpses, and whatever materials might be needed to maintain and replace their arms and armor. The Free Kingdoms were starting to recover, even as they supported Risen Athelia in war.

Since then, he had spent the last twenty years fighting a losing battle. Any schemes to divide the alliance were foiled, the Free Kingdoms putting their spymasters to work in common cause. Any attempts to negotiate peace ended the same as that first entreaty did, with his messengers sent back, bearing their own heads. It was clear that Risen Athelia had no interest in peace so long as he lived.

After ten years of fighting, he had attempted to conduct a Grand Summoning, to bring heroes of his own to fight against the Dark Army. But the Summoning failed. How could it fail? There was only one answer to that: there were already heroes in this world, and no more could be summoned until they had been dealt with.

After five years of searching through the Free Kingdoms, without his spies ever finding trace of newly summoned heroes, he began to lose hope. Somehow, the heroes had been summoned, and were hidden away from him, so he could not eliminate them as he had done before, and could not summon his own heroes to combat the Dark Army. The only place they could be hiding was in Risen Athelia, for that was the one place in all the continent that his spies could not reach.

Not that it mattered. Without summoned heroes to turn the tide, he only had his own power, his own forces, to fight with. And powerful though he was, he was constantly driven back, as the Living and the Dead marched on his lands, slowly pushing him back. Until now, when they were fighting through the streets of his final stronghold, and breaking the doors of his final citadel.

CRASH!

With the sound of thunder upon steel, the great doors of his throne room were thrown open with such violence that they were ripped from the stone walls, crashing upon the floor of his throne room. Resolutely, Rorzomon stood from his throne, perhaps for the final time, and readied his two-handed sword, Soulrender, the fabled Mageblade of Forlorn Hopes. The blade was a priceless artifact of great power, forged in the blood of his enemies, and empowered by the souls of those who had died by his hand. He did not know if it would be enough.

The dust cleared, and he saw his foe, and what hope he had failed. There stood the thrice-bedamned Lord of the Dead, the Lich Queen of Risen Athelia, and, behind her, her honor guard, the nineteen Death Knights of the Black Company. There would be no escape for him this day.

Accepting his fate, Rorzomon the Terrible, Last King of Haerth, called out to the dark powers for strength, in one final battle. But the fates would not be so kind, not to him. He did not even get to finish his battlecry before a bolt of necrotic power blasted him in the chest in an explosion of smoke and shadow, uncaring of the enchanted armor he wore. The Demon King was dead before he even hit the ground.

And then, the Archlich, the Lord of the Dead, Lich Queen of Risen Athelia, Hopebringer, Demon’s Bane, the Dark Hero raised her eyes upwards, gazing not at the stone ceiling, but past it, at something or someone only she could see. “I did it. It took me forty years, but I finally did it!”