Sum'gial was finally done with the laboratory. Every vial, shard, and rune-stone had been cleaned and categorized to his exacting obsession. Order at last.
Next on the list was the library. But before he could immerse himself in months of cataloguing, he had to send Jacob off to E'nathyr. To show he was serious, he would not just send his son—he would also send a quarter of his most chaotic generals with their soldiers.
Unrecyclable garbage belonged in landfills.
And E'nathyr, with all its so-called glory of Veytra, would serve as a perfect landfill. The rest of the troops would be recycled easily enough under his management. The thought of producing every piece of standard-issue equipment by hand made his soul-fire twitch, but neatness demanded precision.
Three generals.
Two death knights as Jacob's bodyguards.
One thousand five hundred skeletal foot soldiers.
Five hundred mounted.
Five hundred with crossbows.
All stood waiting, ready for deployment at Jacob's command.
He summoned his son to the throne room. As Sum'gial waited, his mind wandered to the library. Six months at least—perhaps more—to put the shelves in proper order. The previous Sum'gial had been a slob, but he had at least known how to assemble a collection.
The doors opened. Jacob entered, and Sum'gial turned his attention fully to him. After two weeks of rest, the boy looked… tolerable. Armor polished. Boots shining. Sword humming faintly with enchantment. Even his hair—glossy, neatly trimmed—satisfied Sum'gial's precise eye. He allowed himself a small flicker of satisfaction. Good thing he had written that clause about grooming into the contract.
Sum'gial rose from the throne of bones and walked to the great window, motioning Jacob to follow.
He gestured toward the ranks outside.
"These are your troops for the diplomatic mission."
Jacob nodded once, then spoke, his voice edged with disbelief.
"That contract you made me sign—it was lawful and detailed, even down to brushing my teeth. What happened to you? You were a standard drow before I smashed your phylactery."
The lich's soul-fire flickered faintly.
"My backup plan for the phylactery was designed to summon a random soul from the Hell River, to defend mine if it fractured. It performed its function. It also… left something behind. Obsessions. Compulsions..."
Jacob stared at him, mouth twitching with disbelief.
"For real?"
"Yes," Sum'gial replied flatly. "Putting aside my condition—you will go to E'nathyr as my ambassador. And also as a mercenary."
Jacob frowned. "Mercenary?"
"You require a legitimate reason to remain in the city," Sum'gial said. "Surely you don't believe you can drink mycelbrew with the matrons of E'nathyr every day without consequence."
Jacob raised an eyebrow. "Ambassador isn't enough?"
"You need more contacts," the lich answered. "More excuses to entangle yourself in their affairs. You will also introduce orchids into their mushroom trade. What I want there is war. Endless war until I can take what I require." His soul-fire dimmed thoughtfully. "The library alone will take a six months…"
Jacob's eyes glimmered with dark delight.
"I could always kill more drow."
Without another word, Sum'gial drew a mirror from his pouch and held it out. The glass gleamed faintly with necrotic light.
"This mirror is two-way. It will allow us to keep in touch. Do not waste my time with it."
He paused, soul-flames narrowing.
"Consider this your final clause, stupid son. Fail me, and I will recycle you as well."
With that, Sum'gial turned away and began the walk toward his library.
—
Sum'gial ascended toward the third floor of the tower, his soul-fire twitching with every thought of the chaos above.
Thirteen floors. The laboratory was done, but twelve disasters remained. The library alone would take six months to catalogue, and every floor beyond would take twice as long. Not one lawful soul to assist him. Not one creature capable of order. But he would see it done. He always did.
The thought of broken blueprints, misplaced grimoires, and scrolls left to rot made his essence crawl.
He remembered, dimly, from his life as Steve, selling off a first edition surface-world book because of a misprint—the supply list repeating the word "wand." A trivial mistake to most, but unforgivable to him. Back then, limited time had forced compromise. Now, as an undead, compromise was obsolete. He had eternity. Every book would be completed. Every blueprint corrected. Everything under his hands would become perfect.
When he stepped into the library, his good mood died.
Chaos, wall to wall. Tomes gnawed on each other. Grimoires misfiled—Summoning for Dummies stuffed beside Catalogue of Abyssal Creatures. Scrolls stained with mycelbrew rings. Cursed books whispering endlessly, never silent. Disorder layered on disorder. It was like spiders crawling over skin he no longer had.
He bent, picked up the nearest scroll, and began to hum. Notes on undead body modification—half-legible, amateur, sloppy. He set it aside for rewriting. First the scrolls. Then the tomes. Then the cursed books. That was the proper sequence. All he needed was a cup of Ashwake—bitter, smoky, volcanic. A drink he would never taste again. The memory of it tightened his bones with longing.
Practicality came first. He extended a hand and shaped bone into a new servant: a portable bookshelf with legs. It clattered upright, a rolling rack of bone and iron that followed like a skeletal hound. His soulfire flared as the necromantic network rippled back at him. A new spell. Unplanned, unexpected. He twitched but noted it down for later. Cataloguing new magic would have to wait.
He began stacking scrolls, one after another, already plotting the next improvement—expand the interior, make it an endless cabinet. Otherwise, efficiency would suffer.
Then a shelf rattled. A book slipped loose. Not by his hand—never by his hand—but because the walking shelf's leg had nudged the pile.
He caught the volume before it touched the floor. The cover shimmered in his grip:
The Ther'vassi Channel — the ancient communication grimoire that linked all twelve necromantic centers across the world of Orbisar.
Curious, he opened the book—regretting it immediately.
Centuries of voices clawed at him. Unread messages piled into his mind like a landslide: billions of words, millions of remarks, and—he noted grimly—no indexing system. The Channel was designed to be interactive with the mind. That was also its flaw.
His soulfire twitched.
He slipped a hand into his robes and drew out his reading glasses. He no longer needed them, but routine demanded it. Once perched on the bridge of his nonexistent nose, the words sharpened and aligned. His reading speed increased tenfold. At least something in this world still respected order.
He skimmed. Faster, faster. Most of it was useless chatter. But again and again, one name leapt at him: Sum'gial.
He groaned inwardly. Of course. The old Sum'gial had left his mark here, taunting, insulting, then vanishing for decades. The inheritance hadn't spared him from the consequences.
And there it was—the worst of it.
The Dead Knight. Ping after ping. Exactly once an hour, for decades, demanding the same thing.
SHOW YOURSELF, LICH.
His soulfire flickered, twitching with each fresh interruption. He sighed, long and low, already cataloguing how many hours it would take before the Knight finally broke his patience.