A Bored Lich

After twenty minutes of paddling away from the fight, Doevm and Elero finally decided to stop and take care of the two unconscious passengers.

\'What the hell was that?\' Doevm thought as he took out a healing potion. He popped the cork, spat it on the ground, bent down and poured the contents down Frey\'s throat. \'When did I become so useless?\' He massaged the throat muscles, forcing the sleeping giant to swallow. Doevm sat down and waited for the wounds to heal. \'I knew a thousand ways to beat Trak, but I couldn\'t use a single one of them. Even now, I can only think of magic to counter him, and nothing else. Nothing but that horrible excuse for magic.\' He closed his eyes and pictured the library. A single book pulsed faster than his heartbeat. \'I can take care of that later. First, the weak links.\'

Frey\'s eyes fluttered open. He groaned and sat up: "What happened?" He held his head as he slowly got to his feet. Blood was still drenched on his torn shirt. He could feel his nose snap back into place.

Then the memory of the fight flashed in his mind, and he found himself staring at Thomas. "Oh, that\'s right." Just looking at Thomas\'s pale face made his stomach curl. Thomas breathed in shallow breaths. The blood was still pouring out of the chunk missing from his side. Bile rose to Frey\'s throat, but he didn\'t let it escape. He just watched as all Thomas\'s wounds vanished like his own had done before giving a sigh of relief.

"Frey," Frey turned and pain erupted from his cheek. He stumbled back and shook his head. Doevm opened and closed his hand.

"D-did you just hit me?" Frey asked. His answer was confirmed when Doevm held up his red knuckles, then hit him again. Doevm grabbed his bloody collar. "Doevm, what the hell?" Frey wanted to ask, but he found his entire body shaking. He couldn\'t speak since Doevm squeezed around his neck. It didn\'t hurt, not physically.

"I waited," Doevm muttered. Something hot had built up in his chest ever since the fight, and now his blood boiled. "I was patient. I thought that it would work itself out, but here we are."

"What\'s happening?" Thomas asked, having just regained consciousness. Doevm didn\'t even so much at glance at him.

"I\'m giving a lesson," Doevm replied before slapping Frey. "You massive, ignorant, piece of shit." He held up his hand but lowered it after a few seconds of hesitation. His glare, however, didn\'t leave Frey. He paced around and held his head. "Why did you let Gregen into your head?"

"Doevm, I don\'t…" Frey stuttered. "I don\'t know what you\'re talking about."

"Doevm, I don\'t know what\'s with you," Elero began. "But you should calm down. You weren\'t exactly acting as your usual self in the fight either. Maybe we should just go get some rest."

"Rest won\'t fix it. It won\'t fix you, Frey." Doevm kept pacing back and forth and grabbing his head. "You lost to him. You held back. Why?"

"I tried my best." Frey rubbed his swollen cheek and took a step back.

Doevm stopped in his tracks and shook his head. "I can\'t even..."

"Doevm, you\'re bleeding," Elero pointed to Doevm\'s closed fists. His nails were digging into his palms. "Just calm down. We need to keep it together."

Doevm took several deep breaths before turning to Frey. "You know, I really fucking hate humans." He took a step towards him and Frey took a step back. "Especially the hypocrites. They say one thing and then act in a completely opposite way. It\'s like it\'s all some sort of joke. I don\'t find it very funny. I never have. It just pisses me off and then I can\'t think straight. Then I make mistakes; mistakes like trying to surpress my emotions, like thinking you could be more than human, or like getting distracted in battle." He kept walking forwards and Frey kept backing away. "But most of all, I am really, really tired of your shit."

By now, the two other group members were walking behind Doevm, alternating their gazes between the two. Frey kept backing away, right into a tree. "Doevm I swear on my life that I did everything I could back at that fight." He held his hands up.

"Get into a stance." Doevm said. "Because if you don\'t, I\'ll kill you." Frey half expected a laugh, some sort of nervous chuckle, an announcement that this was some sort of plan, but what he got was a broken nose. "This is how you fight," Doevm\'s knee pushed the air out of Frey\'s lungs. "There is no purpose." Doevm pulled Frey up by his hair and slammed his head in the tree.

"No greater reason for violence, but it happens. People die. It happens. People try to think up greater purposes for themselves, a reason for sharpening their blades. It usually goes along lines like their family or friends but you know the truth."

Frey\'s eyes began to close, but Doevm pulled his head close and whispered with a bit of soul magic, "Stay conscious. You know what you did back there, or rather what you let him do to you. I don\'t give a damn if you lose. That\'s something I can fix. Your mind though, that\'s on you. You can\'t let yourself get beaten because you don\'t know what to fight for. Get it together." Doevm punched his side again. "I should have saved Hopi instead." He reeled back again but an arm caught his strike.

"That\'s enough Doevm," Elero said. "There isn\'t a point to this. You weren\'t completely sound of mind either. I don\'t know what Trak said or did that got you so angry, but you need to stop taking it out on someone else. I haven\'t known you for very long but I thought you weren\'t like this. Frey isn\'t completely free of blame but neither are you. We lost. Now let\'s plan and get back at them, like you usually do, or am I wrong?"

"Plan?" Doevm huffed. "What plan? At this rate, it will be only the two of us who fight them." He pointed to Thomas. "He is next to useless. Frey is just going to get himself knocked unconscious because he\'s afraid. You and I are the only ones who can actually take one of them. Who says we\'re going after them in the first place?"

"They tried to kill your friend," Elero said. "And you\'re not the least bit angry at that? Oh wait no, you don\'t see them as anything more than your tools, isn\'t that right? Is that why you don\'t trust them enough to let them get to know you, the real you? I just got here. I can understand keeping secrets from me, but you\'ve known them for a long time. I can only guess that secret you keep is why you\'re so angry, and why you\'re taking your anger out on them instead of yourself. Who says that you\'re so righteous?"

"No one," Doevm cut her off. "No one does and I never asked anyone to think of me like that." He turned back to Frey but Elero pulled his hand, then applied pressure with life essence, just barely sparing the bones

"And now, what will you do? Give up on your friends and go off on your own? I won\'t follow you. In fact, I can just end this right now." She pulled out an artifact and aimed it at the sky. "So you have two choices right now. Apologize to them and get your head straight, or I activate this and, in the time it takes for the generals to get here, I\'ll break you so bad you won\'t be able to fight. And trust me, I know how to break someone."

"Funny," Doevm said as he reached forward. Elero moved the artifact out of his way and activated it. Nothing happened. "Looks like someone might have broken it from the very beginning," Doevm titled his head to the side. "Now I heard you were going to try to beat me?" He surrounded his hand in life essence. "But you also told me that the darker the hue of life essence, the stronger the person is. The last time I checked, I have a darker hue than you." He crushed her hand just shy of breaking the bones. Then he leaned forward and whispered. "And if you ever want to see that heal-"

"That\'s enough," Thomas practically cried as he got in between the two of them. His tearful eyes were red. "Look at him," He pointed to Frey\'s beaten figure. "His only fault was that he fought next to you. Was that sin so bad that you needed to beat him? I know he held back, but I can\'t blame him, and I ask that you don\'t either. My father dragged him here. I don\'t want him fighting when he doesn\'t want to. I don\'t want any of this." He took a long, shaky breath. "Just please, can we go back to the camp? I-I\'m tired…so tired of all of this. It\'s over Doevm. We\'re done. I\'m going back home. I-I can\'t do this anymore. This isn\'t what I imagined at all."

He stepped back and pulled his Amphiboard out of his spatial ring. As he hopped on and put his paddle into the water, he took one last look back with tear-filled eyes. "I\'m sorry that I got in your way. It seems that…that\'s all I ever do around you…around anyone." Before he went off, he turned around. "Right, I managed to snag this." He tossed a spatial ring to Doevm, who put it on and pulled the contents out and into his hands.

"Where did you get this?" Doevm asked as he sorted through everything.

"Off of Gregen\'s finger," Thomas gave a faint smile. "And this I got from the mace-wielder," he tossed another spatial ring to Doevm. "I figured since I couldn\'t beat them, I might as well go after their rings, their points. I don\'t think there was anything in the rules against that."

Doevm looked down at his hand, which held "Lich\'s Malice", a book he hadn\'t been able to let go since fighting that fake magician. He slowly put the contents back into the spatial ring before hold his aching head. He took a deep breath and dispersed all of his thoughts. He let go of the book and let it float back to its shelf. \'I need more control,\' he thought before turning to Thomas. "Wait," he sighed. "There\'s a map in here."

"So what?"

"It\'s a map of the west side of the camp," Doevm unfurled the map. "With a bunch of venomous salamanders. That means our best choice are ranged weapons."

Thomas gave a nervous chuckle before shrugging. "But I thought I was useless. If I\'m going to go with you, I need an apolo-"

"Freeze," Doevm said with a bit of soul mana, and his group members froze. He slowly sat down, still holding his aching head. He stared at the water without any thoughts crossing through his mind, just emptiness. "What the hell am I doing?" He leaned back against a tree. "I could have handled this better." He could still feel "Lich\'s Malice" pulsing, wanting to be opened. He allowed his body to relax, but the more time passed, the more his mind wound up, getting tighter than before. "Forget what happened," He said with soul mana. "Go lay down," Doevm said, and everyone lay down. "Wake up," Doevm said, and Thomas and Frey opened their eyes.

Frey\'s eyes fluttered open. He groaned and sat up: "What happened?" He held his head as he slowly got to his feet.

"We lost," Doevm sighed.

"No I don\'t mean that," Frey stared at Doevm. "I mean what the hell was that? What did you just do to us?"