15 Atari

One minute Zion was having a conversation with Nyx, and the next the lich felt themself being summoned. "You'll have to excuse me," they said as a necklace, concealed by their cloak began to flash. "I'm going to have to take this."

"The dog got you on a leash?" Nyx asked.

Zion's eyes blazed with offense. They waved their metal gloved hand and a red glowing circle with ancient writings all around Nyx appeared. Nyx started to panic as Zion began to chant and a gate appeared. "Don't, no, please, let me out, let me out." Nyx started to scream.

Zion, indifferent to her suffering said matter of factly over Nyx's screaming "I realize I can't control how you think or feel. It's a large part of the reason why I find you completely untrustworthy. But if you're going to stay here under my sponsorship I require a modicum of respect. Don't mock him again or I'll feed you to that gate piece by piece and you can resurrect over and over in hell. I'm really doing you a favor here letting you get revenge, are we clear?" Zion said as they waved their glove once more and the circle disappeared.

Nyx dropped to her knees sobbing. Zion walked off saying "I'm glad we had this talk. Contessa, go ahead and come out."

Contessa's consciousness began to rouse and she felt like she was crawling forward from the back of her head. Disorientation and confusion swirled through her mind. "What just happened? I feel like I was out for a while" Contessa asked looking around her and then at Zion.

"I just had a conversation with Nyx." Zion said nonchalantly.

Contessa looked at the corpse in the ground and then back at Zion, puzzled. "You mean the seraph of rottingham over here?"

"Ok 1) if anyone gets to be the angel of death it's me. I'm the one doing necromancy. 2) No Nyx isn't obviously in the soul suit next to you. 3) I appreciate the 'ham' reference to long pig in a demented sense of humor sort of way, but even though we're both undead we should still have a certain respect for life, or rather what was once alive, which is why you should come up here and grab a shovel so we can bury the evidence." Zion had dropped the earth next to the grave when the amulet they wore around their next started glowing again. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really do have to take this." Then they disappeared in a puff of smoke.

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Zion knew whenever their amulet blinked they were being summoned by Cerberus. They found it peculiar because they left him unconscious and frozen. If Cerberus was conscious and unfrozen who helped him wake up and if it wasn't Cerberus who was summoning the lich, then who was it?

Not having too long to ponder this, Zion rematerialized through an elvish mirror gate. The last time they saw one of these was at least a thousand years ago.

In the past the elves used them like wormholes traveling vast distances with a single step. When the great elvish city sunk into the ocean and the elvish civilization collapsed these mirrors along with so many other kinds of elvish technology fell into disrepair and then ruin; the civilizations following neither truly knowing nor understanding magic.

The relic existing was a marvel. But the fact that it was working was eerie and unsettling. It meant someone knew enough ancient history to find it and enough magic to activate it.

Elvish mirror gates were very discerning things. In order to pass through in tact one had to conquer the labyrinth of one's own mind. The mirror gate would show you what you were looking for, but if you were not honest with yourself and if you did not know how to keep your focus, you could get lost inside it. What's more, because of the nature of the mirror and how easy it was for the user to get trapped, nearly all of them were haunted.

Who called them through this gate, and why? The lich wondered.

Approaching the mirror they just came through they spoke several phrases in elvish and looked anxiously in it for Cerberus. However, the mirror would show nothing.

After several attempts at troubleshooting Zion turned around, sat down and tried to clear their mind to think; drawing a circle to mediate. As they sat meditating something appeared in the mirror seemingly watching them. It reached its hand out to grasp Zion, but the lich grabbed it instead and, speaking calmly in Elvish, pulled the shade out of the mirror and into the circle as they stepped out of it.

The shade, realizing they were finally out of the mirror couldn't start to feel excited knowing it was now trapped in a magical circle. Looking at Zion half confused and half fearful three words nervously came out. "Who are you?"

Zion too looked a little apprehensive. This shade looked very, very familiar.