[Hollow King] Chapter 4: Exploring the Tomb (Patreon)

The goblin didn't argue. It obediently dropped to all fours and limped down the corridor, its bony claws clattering loudly on the stone.

Maybe I should have fixed its broken wrist, Lucas thought, but it was too late now. He leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed, and watched his first undead valiantly reach the stairs and descend into whatever lay below.

Hold on, how is it supposed to tell me what it finds?

Lucas realized he hadn't thought that far ahead.

Can my goblin speak like it had in life? Surely not. The soul has passed on, and the bones move only because my mana makes them.

Lucas raised his hand and inspected something new—a thin strand of mana ran from his finger down the corridor after his undead minion. It constantly tugged, reminding him of flying a kite with Sophie in the park last spring.

This must be what connects me to the undead and lets me feed it my mana. If only I could use this to look through its eyes or have it speak to me. Lucas sighed. I hope my undead get more features as I upgrade the skill because this is quite useless—

The thread snapped, and Lucas heard his undead crash at the bottom of the stairs.

What was that? Lucas stepped beyond the door and paused. Wait, what if a goblin ambushed my undead? His hand reached up to the crown on his head. I should leave this behind. The crown only invites greed, and I don't think a goblin would risk fighting an Elder Lich to the death over some rotten robes. But if I'm still wearing the crown, well... I know how that goes.

He retreated into the room and quickly searched for a hiding place.

The stone chests were his first thought, but he lacked the strength to close them. Too obvious for storing valuables anyway. What if someone sneaks in here while I'm away? I need to find a place they wouldn't check. Lucas did a quick lap around the room and paused behind the throne. Hold on, what about here?

He reached down, moved aside a clump of dark green moss at the base, and found it covered a large crack in the throne's foundation.

This looks promising.

He clawed dirt out of the crack and figured the crown might fit. He fed it in carefully so he wouldn't damage it, but after some struggle, the crown slid in snugly.

Whoa, it's a perfect fit, and this is a great hiding spot.

Lucas moved the moss back into place to cover the crack and nodded in approval.

Nobody should notice the glint of the golden crown under all that moss.

Feeling a sense of safety without the crown on his head, Lucas hurried after the undead minion he had spent so much mana raising. He made sure not to slip on any ice as he crossed the throne room and squeezed through the gap in the doors. He slowed as he cautiously walked down the corridor, careful to make as little noise as possible. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he slowly leaned over and saw his goblin undead collapsed below.

No sign of any monsters. Lucas scratched his skull. Why did it collapse then?

He made his way down the uneven stone stairs, steadying himself on the wall, and reached the bottom.

Is this a library? The room was grander than the throne room, with a high ceiling and shelves carved into the stone walls. This place feels like it's underground. Perhaps carved into a mountain? The shelves still held some thick, leather-bound books, but the place had clearly been looted, judging by the rotten crates scattered around. There were even a few skeletal remains, mostly goblins.

They didn't call out to him. Their souls and lingering ghosts had likely long moved on if their state was anything to go by.

Lucas's hollow eyes scanned the rest of the room, and once he was sure it was empty, he crouched beside his undead. "What's up with—"

It twitched the moment he touched it, and he felt their link reestablish.

"Huh? It's fine?" Lucas tilted his head. "Stand," he commanded. The undead goblin rose obediently, as before. "Walk until the next room."

It did as it was told and kept walking. The further away it got, the more Lucas felt the mana thread between them tug until it suddenly snapped, and he saw his goblin collapse to the floor a few steps from the next corridor.

"Oh," Lucas said, feeling like an idiot. "Of course the skill has a range."

He walked after his undead, carefully avoiding the crates and dead goblins. Just because he was undead didn't mean he wanted to step barefoot in goblin remains. Once he reestablished the connection and got his undead minion moving again, he turned his attention to the books.

These look really old...

He reached for the nearest one, and it crumbled at his touch. What? He tried another, then another. Each one disintegrated into dust that spilled through his fingers like sand.

Just how old are these books? Lucas wondered, and now understood why the goblins hadn't bothered to loot them. Who would want some dusty old books that disintegrated from a mere touch? He kept going, curious if a single one had stood the test of time.

Nope, they are all rotten—wait, what is that?

Nestled between two rotten books was a thin one. Half expecting it to fall apart like the others as he pried it free, he was surprised when it stayed intact.

This book looks expensive.

The cover was pale blue leather, and a thin crust of frost clung to its edges, even though the air down here seemed warmer than in the throne room by the lack of frost. Silver letters ran across the front in a peculiar script of hooks and slashes that looked like no language on Earth, yet somehow he could read it.

[The Rime Codex: Principles of Frost]

Lucas tried to open the book, but it was frozen shut. No matter how he tried to pry it open, it wouldn't budge.

"Strange. Is this a grimoire of some kind?"

He set it on the shelf, stared at it, and wondered what to do. That's when he had an idea. Maybe it needs mana to open? He placed his hand on the cover, gently fed it mana, and the frost cracked and gave way.

The cover then sprang open, revealing the first page.

If you are reading these lines, you are a mage of great potential. Inside this Codex, I have stored the findings of my greatest spell: Frost Nova.

The text seemed printed, but a handwritten note sat below.

This is a special copy of the Codex made as a gift for my dear Master, Au.

Signed, Isolde Varrenhal.

"I wonder who Au is." Lucas flipped to the next page and was immediately overwhelmed by the number of diagrams, annotations, and numbers. This Frost Nova spell was complicated, but he could also somehow understand its workings the more he read.

If I studied this book long enough, I think I could learn the spell, Lucas realized. He closed the book and hid it between the rotting books. But not yet. I need to search this tomb and secure it against monsters before sitting down to study. Not to mention, I doubt I have enough mana as a level two Elder Lich to cast any fancy spells like Frost Nova. Just raising a single undead sent me into a coma.

After searching some more, he found another abnormal book nestled among the others.

This one was larger, bound in leather so black he almost thought it was a shadow given texture. There was no title on the cover, but the first page read: [A study on the Folding of Distance]. In the corner, it was signed by Au, the same person to whom the Rime Codex had been dedicated.

Lucas's grip tightened with mounting excitement as the opening pages discussed teleportation. The next section dove into the wonders of spatial storage. He turned the pages faster, being careful not to damage the parchment. He didn't stop until the final page.

If you got this far, you are a tenth-tier Spatial Mage. A practical god of magic. Congratulations, you can now make dimensional portals! That's right, it's theoretically possible to connect two portals, no matter the distance, even between worlds and dimensions. Theoretically is the keyword there, as I'm yet to figure out how.

That's where the writing stopped. No diagrams or further explanations. Lucas looked at the back of the book, but it was as blank as the cover.

I need to meet Au, Lucas decided. No matter what, I need to learn how to make portals between dimensions.

Lucas set the book down. The strangest thing was that he understood this book better than the first one. The Rime Codex had felt like reading a textbook written by someone smarter than himself. It took him time to chew over the words and diagrams to get their meaning. But this... this was different. It felt like reading his own handwriting. Diagrams that should have been incomprehensible unfolded in his mind before he'd finished looking at them, the logic clicking into place with ease.

Unfortunately, even if I understand how to cast teleportation, I won't get the skill if I don't have enough mana to cast it. I learned that lesson while raising the goblin—the voice in my head doesn't reward me for half-baked attempts.

Lucas returned the spatial grimoire to its spot between rotting books and moved on to the next room with his undead. There were still many shelves to search, but he wanted to check out the rest of the tomb first before returning here.

"Follow me," he told his undead, as he had to keep it close. He made his way to the far side of the room, ducked under a crumbling stone arch, and entered another wide corridor. On the right, he saw the entrance to another room. "Go in there."

His undead obediently rounded the corner, and Lucas waited for it to get jumped. When nothing happened, Lucas sighed with relief and followed into the dark room. It seemed to be a small study, dominated by a stone table in the middle and shelves lined with books. Lucas was about to skip the room when something built into the stone table caught his interest.

A black stone slab.

He circled the table and inspected it.

Why is this here? It was about the size of a laptop and seemed purposefully built into the table. Strange markings similar to those on his bones ran around the black slab's perimeter.

Is this some kind of magic device? Lucas guessed.

He hesitantly placed his palm on it and fed the slab magic. It greedily drank from his reserves, the markings around it slowly lighting up one by one. Too curious to stop, Lucas let it drink its fill, and just as he was about to collapse again from mana deprivation, the markings flared with violet light, and silver ink crawled across its surface, forming words.

[Name: Lucas]

[Race: Elder Lich]

[Soul Level: 2]

[Inheritance: ██████████]

[Skills: Death Touch (II), Bone Mending (II), Raise Dead (I)]

[Passives: Phylactery, Undead Physiology, Deathless, Soul Sight, Necrotic Affinity, Undead Dominion, Polyglot]

[Immunities: Fear, Poison, Disease, Suffocation, Starvation, Dehydration, Sleep, Mundane Exhaustion]

[Resistances: Necrotic Damage, Cold Damage, Pain, Mental Influence]

[Weaknesses: Holy Magic, Soul Magic, Fire Magic, Consecrated Ground]

"Is this information about me?" Lucas mused. "It's like a status menu from a game I played as a kid."

His gaze lingered on the blanked-out inheritance line, and smaller script unfurled beneath it, as if the stone tablet knew where he was looking.

[Inheritance: The knowledge of this body's previous owner remains etched within its bones. Skills and spells mastered by the previous owner may be learned at a greatly accelerated rate]

"But how do I know what skills or spells the previous owner knew?" Lucas asked aloud, not expecting an answer. Yet, the tablet provided him one.

[Inherited Disciplines: Necromancy, Soul Magic, Runecraft, Spatial Magic, Abjuration, Transmutation, Divination]

"Necromancy... Spatial Magic... wait, there's no Ice Magic. Is that why I found the Rime Codex harder to understand than the black book with spatial spells?"

Lucas felt like everything was starting to make sense. This Elder Lich had once been some powerful Archmage, and the latent knowledge of this mage was the intuition he kept feeling. Perhaps it was even the voice he heard in his head?

Whatever, let's learn as much as I can from this tablet. First, what am I? He focused on his race, and more information unfurled.

[Elder Lich: An undead that arises when a mage of exceptional power binds their soul to their own remains. Unlike lesser Liches, an Elder Lich's bones preserve the knowledge and power of the mage they once were. An Elder Lich can also endlessly grow stronger by harvesting souls, while a lesser Lich is limited to the magical power possessed at death]

I can endlessly grow stronger? Then what happened to the last inhabitant of these bones? Lucas wondered. I may never find out, but at least I now know what makes an Elder Lich better than a lesser Lich—

His thoughts froze as flickering orange light spilled into the study from the corridor, followed by approaching footsteps.

How did I let someone get so close?! Lucas realized he had been careless as he glanced down at his undead goblin standing uselessly at his side as commanded. What should I do?!

The steps paused.

"Another study?" a man said in a foreign language Lucas somehow understood. An arm holding a torch appeared first, then a man rounded the doorway and stepped inside. He looked to be in his mid-forties, and his eyes were heavy with exhaustion. Lucas noted the man's badly weathered leather armor and the sack slung over his shoulder. His weapon was sheathed at his hip as he glanced around the study.

The man hummed to himself as he scanned the room with his torchlight, then paused when the light reached the edge of Lucas's rotten black robes.

"Oh no..." he whispered and slowly glanced up.

Lucas met his gaze.