He chuckles. "You've been asleep for too long, lich. Magic has changed since you sealed yourself away." He raises the golden staff. "Power has changed. And you failed to change with it." He begins warping the abundant necromancy in the air, and braids it in a strange pattern, the power funneling into his scythe, and he sends it out in a pulse, secretly searching for the phylactery. "The world is not the one you knew." He begins summoning the liches skeletons, and strips them of their power, reducing them to dust.

@Shadow Dragon

Polybius let out a growl, probably for the first time since he was alive. Coming from an empty skull, it was a strange sound indeed, more akin to a hiss. He calculated that he could take on either Ophion or Soulcors, not both. Not as he was.

"If you want to see me change, I won't disappoint you!" The lich teleported himself a short distance, into one of his banefire braziers. Structurally, said brazier was a metal platform hosting a sickly green flame. Said flame was used for rapidly decaying matter so as to break it down into a state the lich could absorb for energy. Placing himself into the flame was a calculated risk, albeit a large one. The flames were very potent, and setting one off would likely detonate the others in the room, and there were four such braziers in total.

"Soulcors, we'd better be careful. He's playing with a lot of power. If he can't control the flames, he could end up blowing this place sky-high!" It might have been worse than that. Banefire was already attuned to the netherworld. A catastrophic explosion could very well tear open a hole to other planes, or weaken the fabric of reality so as to lead to a tear later.

"Can you find his phylactery? I can fight the lich directly if you can get onto that!"

He turns to the lich, and begins screeching. The horrid scream seizes any minor undead around him, and corrupts them, their magic being overridden as he takes them from the lich, turning them to dust. "Banefire?" His eyes blaze white, and he searches the room for the phylactery. "At least he'll take his own life with it." He begins spinning his scythe, the weapon absorbing the necrotic power around it and softly vibrating.

@Shadow Dragon

Polybius won't lose anything at all if he can regenerate from that phylactery!" Ophion had to shout as the banefire swelled, turning the lich's eyes the same green color as the flames. "Check under the floors, behind the walls, in the columns, anywhere not obvious! He's going to attack any moment, and I don't know how long I can hold him off alone!"

Ophion didn't dare attack the lich yet, for fear of setting off the banefire.

He growls, and begins literally tearing the room apart with his scythe, the blade slicing though solid stone like paper. He splits the ground under him, checking to see if he buried it, and smashes though the columns, effectively breaking the solid stone around him. "Where's the-." He stops. And raises the golden staff. "Show me the phylactery." The staff glows, and begins slowly turning his hand to point at it.

@Shadow Dragon

Polybius exited the banefire brazier, charged with its foul energies. His skeletal frame glowed green, as did the once-red orbs in his eye sockets.

The lich spoke once more, clearly unstable. Is this power enough for you now?!"

Ophion answered his question with a fireball to the face, one which Polybius seemed to be hardly affected by. "Soulcors, get on the phylactery!" He launched another fireball at the lich, was was deflected by hand, something not normally possible, even for Polybius.

He waits until the staff stops moving, and flies over, tearing the floor apart in his search for the phylactery. "Where'd you hide your core, lich?" He shudders from the growing power in the room, and his white eyes begin staining green. This is very, very bad. He looks at the corrupting flames, and he shudders. Banefire.... He looks at his scythe, which pulses with darkness, and raises it, turning to the basin.

@Shadow Dragon

Ophion blasted Polybius a third fireball, this time aiming for the ground under the lich's bony feet. While this knocked him off-balance for a moment, it did nothing to stop Polybius from unleashing a necrotic energy blast directly at Ophion. The black bolt of energy hit him squarely in the chest, sending the wizard staggering back. His wards, although strong, were not unbreakable. Had he been unshielded, it would have seriously injured him, or killed him outright if he was a lesser mage.

Knowing that liches were often immune to electric attacks, Ophion shot Polybius with an acid attack, hoping to corrode his bones. It had minimal effect, other than to apparently anger the lich even more.

"Did you find the phylactery yet?!"

He looks at Ophion, and sighs deeply. "I found it. And I know how to destroy it. But you need to run." He slams the blade of his scythe into the banefire, and the ruins glow as the weapon greedily drinks it, draining it dry in a instant. The blade now glows with green flames, flickering at the edge, and he darts for the phylactery, sweeping his scythe in a large arc, ripping it, and the wall behind it, to shreds. "Get out of here Ophion!"

@Shadow Dragon

"Not without you! I can teleport us both out from here! Whatever magic Polybius put on this place was drained when he absorbed the magic from- UGH!" The lich shot Ophion a second time with a necrotic blast, this time knocking him to the floor. Thinking quickly, the wizard did a short-range teleport to reach Soulcors. "If you can hold him for a minute, I can get us both out of here."

He spins his blazing scythe, making a large sheet of green flaming metal between them and the Lich. "Where is your phylactery? I know it's over here somewhere." He growls in effort, his form shaking from all the necrotic power it's absorbing from the lich king. Patron, give me strength. His mantle flares suddenly, with the appearance of a large, thick black robe, and his eyes becomes both pitch black and blinding white. A deep, ancient voice whispers to him. "I am with you, Soulcors Eclipse." He raises his scythe, his demeanor cold, pitiless. A monster.

@Shadow Dragon

"Wraith! The phylactery is in this chamber, you have to find it NOW!!" Ophion erected a ward on himself, knowing fully well that it wouldn't be enough to withstand the blast that was to come, but hoping that it might mitigate the damage just enough to spare his life should he be caught in it.

Polybius raised his hands as if to fire another bolt, but then suddenly doubled over and fell, as if in pain, a sensation a lich couldn't truly feel. His bones began to hiss and rattle, unable to contain the banefire he had absorbed. He chuckled, knowing that his destruction would be an inconvenience if his phylactery were still intact. Presumably, it was shielded against the explosion that was to come, but not necessarily against whatever power Soulcors could use against it. As long as the phylactery was intact, there was no way to put Polybius down for good.

His hiss becomes a horrid scream, and his scythe glows brightly from the banefire. "I will end you, Lich." He begins inhaling the necrotic power from the lich, and a river of necromancy blasts from the skeletal undead, streaming into his helmet as he devours the liches power, funneling it into his scythe. He points the liches own staff at him, and shoots a jet of raw necrotic power into the lich, draining away at the lich's strength and power, and lets the staff show him where the phylactery is hidden. He spins his scythe like he swinging it at the lich, but throws it instead, sending it blurring though the air in a wheel of banefire. It passes just by the lich, missing him by inches, and sinks into the phylactery instead, obliterating it, and half the room behind it, the scythe dropping to the ground untouched.

@Shadow Dragon

Ophion saw Soulcor's scythe arc through the air and towards a statue set into one of the walls, evidently the hiding place for Polybius' phylactery. There was an explosion as the weapon made contact with the statue, and the wizard briefly glimpsed the shards of a glass vessel, what was left of the phylactery itself, its hiding place no longer able to secure it.

There was no immediate effect on the lich himself, only that he was now vulnerable to destruction for the first time in thousands of years. He was also about to explode. The scythe began to return to the wraith as Ophion ran over to Soulcors and, with some reluctance, laid his hand on the wraith's helmet.

"Get that scythe and we'll teleport out! I got you!" As soon as the weapon was reunited with its owner, Ophion teleported them as far as he could from the catacombs. It wasn't very far. In a flash, they found themselves on top of a nearby hill overlooking the mountain which stood on top of the dungeon they had just left. Moments later, there was a loud rumbling sound, and the mountain in front of them slowly but surely collapsed, the explosion being great enough to send stone flying kilometers into the air. Mercifully, the two of them were just out of range of the falling rocks, but they could see that a colossal amount of damage had been done.

He watches his scythe tears it's way though the Polybius's clear phylactery, the ruins on the weapon flaring as it consumes the Greater Undeads soul. He raises his hand, and it hurdles back to him, the green flames seeping into his weapon, devoured by its ruin etched magic. He bends as much necrotic power away from his helmet as he can when the mage touches his helm, to lessen any damage that might befall Ophion as he consumes any excess power from the self destruction of the Lich king, his form glowing with necrotic power like a black sun.

He watches the caverns, and the mountain, implode into itself, and he drifts a inch or so from Ophion so his inflated aura doesn't start corrupting the Draconians flesh. He shudders, both from overuse of his magic in fighting the lich, and from the sudden exposure to the heat and sun again. He inclines his helm to the destroyed dungeon. "And so ends Lich king Polybius." He examines the golden staff, and his eyes smile. "Now to break this down and reforge it."

@Shadow Dragon @bloonewb

Ophion took a look around at the wreckage.

"We can worry about breaking that down later. We won today, but at what cost? There's no way that the release of this much necromantic energy doesn't have consequences. At minimum, it may cause the dead to rise in a certain radius. Hmm. There aren't many graveyards or catacombs around here. None that I know of, at least. At worst, this may have weakened the fabric of this plane in a certain area, but what that area is, I can't say. We'll have to be vigilant." He paused for a moment, pondering the implications of the situation.

"Anyway, I can teleport us back now. You can stay with me, but we're going to have to get you a better disguise. Aurescia and I can help you with that. Maybe something a bit more substantial than your illusion? Some real skin on your spirit, perhaps?"

________________________________________________

(Some years later)

Not much of note had happened in the dracon realms, but periods of peace were inevitably calm periods between storms in these lands. Adykon and Aerta kept their farm and continued to have more eggs, all of which hatched. His adult children kept their farms and lives, even having more offspring of their own. Larek, Veax, and Caex grew a bit more distant from Adykon, while Kosjurec and his family visited Adykon every few months.

Contrary to expectations among many of the dracons, Xigyll not only survived, but grew rapidly from immigration and the kobold's high rate of 'natural increase', so to speak. Much to his frustration, Hekaga's Grand Prince Ternoc was still unable to obtain the title of king, as the other major realms were unwilling to recognize him as such. Hekaga's military was willing to recognize Ternoc as their king, but most of Hekaga's aristocrats and temples, fearing the return of his father's tyranny and wary of inviting the wrath of the other realms, did not recognize him as king. Attempting a coronation ceremony was just too big of a risk. The most Ternoc was able to wear was a coronet indicating a lesser power.

For his part, the Grand Prince managed Hekaga well; the gates between the city's walled-off districts were indefinitely left open, renovations to the royal palaces and great temple went off more or less on time and within budget, slavery was reduced within the city's limits, although by no means ended, and the city's budget was kept balanced, however precariously. The other seven major cities did very well for themselves, as did the wider kingdoms associated with each. Minbenthac and Naushindcalgoa (Naugoa for short) experienced economic booms due to newly and carefully-written trade deals with each other and the wider world, and Naugoa's overseas trading colonies finally paid off huge dividends when compared to the capital expended to establish them decades or centuries ago.

Ophion himself had done well during this time, and his store provided more than enough money to pay for any number of experiments, including some which involved Soulcours.

"Soul, can you hand me the nightshade powder? I'm almost done with this one!"

He's floating in the air, in a meditative stance, and a ghostly hand picks up the nightshade powder, bringing it over to Ophion. "I'm still not used to this." He chuckles. "But, then again, I doubt I ever will be." Dozens of spectral skeleton hands fill the air around him, sorting various herbs and ingredients. "Any new you want to try out?" His scythe glitters on his back, the blade lined with thread-of-gold from the Liches staff, the powerful weapon deactivated for now. He smiles with his glowing eyes. "How's the outside world doing?"

@Shadow Dragon

"It's going pretty well, in fact. You'll be seeing it in the flesh again if you like. The drow body is almost ready to go!" Sure enough, there were three glass cylinders in the room, each with a body gestating in a green liquid.

"Now, keep in mind that the body doesn't need food or water or much of anything when it's stored in the cylinder here, but you will need to feed it, give it water, and avoid serious harm when you possess it. If the body is killed while you are still possessing it, your wraith form won't be harmed, but it will erase months of work and thousands of gold pieces. Also, I don't personally know if this looked like you, but everything Aurescia and I could do made this one very close to your original corporeal form."

He nods in appreciation. "I can't thank you two enough for all the work you've put into this project." He looks at his incorporeal, smokey body, and chuckles. "It'll be strange to have flesh again, after so many years of being a wraith. I wonder what it'll feel like...." He smiles, looking into the tank. "It's close enough. I'll take it, once it's finished anyway." He rests one black arm over the case. "Is there anything I could do for you and your lovely wife in return?" He tilts his head slightly in question, his ethereal hands still sorting around them. He subtly pulls away Ophion's mental fatigue, keeping him bright and alert.

Ardasa hummed to herself, striding down the hall on what she feels are longer legs.

"Just you wait, little one," she said, touching the nose of the bundle in her arms. The baby cooed up at her, stretching up with his stubby arms. Ardasa smiled down at him, feeling reinvigorated by his presence. While other ladies within the court would complain about the nuisance of child rearing, she found little stress, if any, in holding her babies in her arms, of feeding them, bedding them down at night, and even in the late hours, playing with them when they woke up. This was what she felt she wanted to do. By day, she was the empress of mighty Xigyll, the city of hopes and dreams. Second only to the emperor himself, her word stretched into the halls and keeps of every general and noble in the realm. Yet, by evening, she was a mother, like any other who lived within her city. "Do you want to see dada? Yes you do! Yes you do want to see dada!" she said. The baby's smile seemed to widen at the thought.

As she entered the meeting hall, all the councilors and generals fell silent. They stood up, in near unison, and turned to face her. A voice broke the silence.

"Mama! Mama!" came the cry of a young kobold girl, as she ran from her fathers side to collide with her mother. Ardasa was experienced enough to carry her baby in one arm, and hug the older one with the other.

"Hello, Forgga," she said. "Have you been busy?"

"Very!" Forgga shouted. "We were talking about . . . econna . . . enna . . . monicee . . . s."

"How exciting!" Ardasa exclaims. "Well, I think you should listen closely. Gold is one of many things that keep our city alive and running." Forgga dashes back to her father's side, as he stands up from the head of the table.

"Well, how's the little one?" he asks, his normally grim face parting into a wan grin. Ardasa hefts the bundle up.

"I think little Alteonus wants to see his father," she says. Rughoi gingerly accepts the little kobold into his own arms, still awkward with holding a baby.

"It's been too long since Forgga was about this size," he whispers.

"Your Might, if I would return you to the matter of the finances," says a councilor.

"Urgh . . . of course," Rughoi responds, trying poorly to hide his sigh. He hands Alteonus back to his mother. "I hope I'll be done by . . . the evening. Maybe a little later. Then I want to hold him again." He pats his daughter's head gently, as she turns her head up to face him. "Come along, Forgga. There is much work to be done, especially if you are going to be empress."