The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2 – The Forgotten Name

Rufus Trent was not a brave man. He knew this. He was no coward, but if he was truly brave, he would have joined the military, or perhaps the Adventurer’s Guild, instead of becoming a glorified night security guard for the Memorial Museum. After all, those were the jobs with ‘honor’ and ‘glory’ attached to them, that made all the women drop their panties at the mention, at least in the movies.

No, he wasn’t brave (or perhaps foolish) enough to go that route. Instead, he chose an honest, safe, stable job. Being the overnight security guard at the Awakening Memorial was a respectable job, and an easy one.

Mostly, his nights consisted of making his rounds, or sitting in the guard shack watching the TV. He didn’t have a problem with the local homeless population. The Gym that used to be part of the Memorial site was still there, and ostensibly used for ‘classes’. With his boss’s permission, Rufus put the word out about it, the first few times he caught one of the homeless trying to bunk down on a bench in front of the Memorial.

The rules of the Gym were simple. No drugs, no alcohol. People cleaned up after themselves, and didn’t go breaking shit, and the door would ‘accidentally’ be left unlocked, giving them access to a place to sleep that was out of the weather, and had working restrooms, including showers. The locals policed themselves for the most part, since no one wanted to ruin a good deal.

No, the homeless weren’t usually a problem. Most of his problems usually came in the form of young magelings and occultists who had ideas of conducting rituals at the site of the Awakening. They were all types: some wanting power, others wanting to conduct a séance to contact the souls of the Lost Sleepers. Mostly just young brats on dares, but some of them were legit kooks.

By chance, Rufus was watching the monitors as a flash of light went off in the middle of the memorial. At the same time, the mana detectors started screaming at him. Grumbling, he got to his feet and grabbed his magelight and radio. “Goddess damned kids. What did they do now?”

As he stepped out of the security building, he could see the fading light of what had to be some kind of ritual. It was too fast for a successful ritual, so it was probably kids on a dare. Shaking his head, he turned towards the ring of black stones that marked the Memorial. Best to roust the kids out quickly and put a bit of a scare into them, before they got in trouble doing something really bad.

The Awakening had happened forty years ago, right here. No one really knew what caused it, but the main building of the International School just got wiped off the map one morning. Whole building, just gone.

Crazy part was that, despite the school being full of students and teachers at the time, most of them were completely unharmed. Not even bruised. They said that it was like they had all been just shoved aside, just before the building went away.

The only ones who weren’t fine were the Lost Sleepers. That’s what they were called in the history books, anyways. That event kickstarted the Awakening, spreading magic all around the world. So, the twenty students that disappeared in the event were called Sleepers, since they never woke up.

The site was now an unstable power site, making working any magics there dangerous, and the International School was already looking for a new campus, since their building had been wrecked. So, no one fought eminent domain, and the place was turned into a national heritage site and a memorial to the Lost Sleepers was built, along with a museum, providing jobs to Rufus and those like him in the process. A perfect solution, as far as he was concerned.

The Memorial itself was tasteful enough, and fitting, considering the fact that Magic was real. Three rings of Stonehenge-style arches made of black quartz, with nine arches in the outer ring, six in the middle, four in the inner ring, and a final, twentieth arch in the center, upon which the names of all twenty students were carved. Before that last arch was a stone altar, to offer prayers to the fallen.

Rufus frowned, as his portable magic scanner started going nuts as soon as he passed the outer ring of the memorial. That wasn’t good. He wasn’t a mage, but he knew enough about magic that whatever ritual the kids had done shouldn’t be putting off this kind of energy if it failed.

Bringing up his radio, he decided to call this one in to the dispatch center. The security company he worked for had people at several sites in the city, so, instead of having dedicated dispatch teams at each site, they had a central site to facilitate management. The Memorial Museum was quiet enough that Rufus barely ever had to deal with it. But this? He was kicking it up the chain.

“Control, this is Trent, call number 442. Reporting from the Memorial Museum. Suspicious magical activity detected on security and personal scanners. Am investigating. Over.”

A moment later, Control came back with the reply. “Control to Trent-442, copy suspicious magical activity. Suspected hazard level? Over.”

“Unknown. Probably kids trying to talk to the Sleepers, like last time. But the readings aren’t going down like they should after a failed ritual. Over.”

“Understood. Observe and report. SPD backup is on its way. ETA one five minutes. Over.”

“Copy, control. One five minutes until SPD backup. Will try and get a better view of what is going on. Trent-442 out.”

Putting away the radio, he switched his magelight to his off hand, leaving his dominant hand free in case he had to go for his weapon. Not that it was much of a weapon. Just had a preloaded Paralysis spell, good for locking up anything living it hit, at least momentarily. Anything that needed more than that, and he’d leave it to the people who got paid to be stupid.

As he passed through the second of the circles (always careful to move widdershins around the henges, rather than passing under them, like he was taught to in Magic Safety class in school), the scene in the center came into better view. A skeletal figure, dressed in black robes and wearing a mithral crown upon their head stood by the center henge, hand outstretched to touch the names carved upon the stone. Rufus stopped dead in his tracks just outside the first circle, as the creature turned to face him with its glowing eyes of blue flame.

This was not a ‘skeletal figure’, but an actual Undead! And it had clearly spotted him! Frantically, Rufus tried to calm himself. He didn’t have anything that would harm a powerful undead, and running wouldn’t do any good at this point. He was not a brave man, but he was no coward, either.

Moving his hand away from his paralyzer, he instead grabbed his radio. “Control, this is Trent-442. Advise backup that there is an Undead in the ritual site. Does not appear mindless. Over.”

“Copy, Trent-442. SPD expediting. Magic Containment Unit on route. Backup in four minutes. Keep transmitting. We’ll record everything for evidence. Over.”

Sirens could be heard in the distance, as the cops, who had been just responding to a suspected break in at the Memorial site changed their response. Thankfully, they were already close by, so they would not be much longer. With luck, he’d still be alive in two minutes when the officers got here.

That in mind, he did not respond to Control, but held down the transmit button all the same. As he did so, he played the magelight over the Undead, trying to get as much detail about the creature as he could, for when the MCU got here. Any details could affect their endgame, turning a difficult fight into a snap, if the stories were to believed.

“That device, it is magical, is it not?”

The undead spoke! It actually spoke! And it was pointing at his magelight. He’d guessed that it wasn’t mindless, since it was not shambling towards him, trying to kill him like mindless undead did, but to be able to speak? That put it a good few rungs higher up the scale than the typical skeletal undead.

“Y-you mean my magelight? Yeah, of course it is. You never seen one before?”

The Undead looked upset at his words. “Has magic always been part of this world?”

Rufus was beginning to forget his fear in the face of this surreal conversation. Talking with an Undead was NOT something he was trained in! But a talking Undead was an Undead that wasn’t actively murdering him, so he figured he could just keep it talking, until the cops got here.

“No, the Awakening was forty years ago. Everyone knows that. Magic came, or came back, all over the world, starting right here. This is the Awakening Memorial Museum.”

“Awakening Memorial Museum, huh.” The Undead shook its head. “I was worried for a moment that I had the wrong world.”

“Wrong world? You came from another world?”

The Undead shook its head. “No, I come from this one, if I did my calculations correctly. But I have spent the last forty years in another world. Not by choice, mind you.”

Rufus felt his eyes go wide. “You came from this world? Forty years ago? A-are you one of the Sleepers?”

“Sleepers?”

“Ah. Um, forty years ago, the International School blew up. All the students and staff were fine, except for twenty. They never found any trace of them. Since that event sparked the Awakening, people started calling those twenty the Lost Sleepers.”

The Undead laughed. It was not a cheerful laugh. It was a laugh that chilled Rufus’s bones to hear it. Sheer malevolence and hatred rolled off the Undead like waves at the beach. “Hah. Lost, is it? Yes, Lost is a good word. Damned to a nightmare, more like.”

Rufus took a breath to steady his heart. He wanted nothing more than to just fall apart, but that wasn’t an option. He had to keep it talking. “What is your name?”

“My name?” The Undead paused, as though thinking about the question. “My name. It has been so long since I had a name. They took them from us when we wouldn’t do what they wanted, you know. Made us forget. Part of the slave magic, to keep us from getting organized, or finding a way around the bindings. And after, well, people called me plenty of names, but none of them my own.”

The Undead turned back to the henge, running its skeletal fingers across the names. “My name. It is there, on the tip of my tongue, if I still had one. I remember Marina-san liked the sound of it. Her Familiar helped her keep her name, all our names. Remembered them for us.”

Rufus just watched as the Undead rambled to itself. From behind, he heard footsteps. Turning, he saw two officers, armed with spellguns. They moved quickly up next to him. The closest officer spoke in a soft voice (not whispering, since that carried further), “You the night watchman?”

Rufus nodded once. “Rufus Trent.” Motioning with his head at the undead, he said, in the same soft tone. “Unknown species of Undead. Intelligent, can talk. It claims to be one of the Lost Sleepers.”

“No shit?”

Rufus nodded again. “I’ve got a hot mic, and Control is recording everything.” The two officers looked at the Undead with the same wonder that Rufus had just a moment ago.

For its part, the Undead did not seem to care about the new arrivals. Instead, it was still concentrating on the henge. “My name. My name. My name! MY NAME IS AKAGAWA KAORI!”