Second Time

Leaving the fish monsters resting at the bottom, Loimos approached the door, sensing a considerable amount of life force coming from a singular being, in fact, that amount was so great that the undead's better reasoning should have dictated for him to back off and come back later.

Yet, he took hold of the door, placing his skeletal limb against its surface, it had yet to begin rusting in spite of the water, but it was softer than expected, it was like the metal had begun absorbing the water like a sponge.

He gripped the handle and tried to turn it, the movement was smooth and unimpaired, the door swung open on its own, revealing another expanse nearly identical to the one Loimos had been standing in.

Only that it was dry, free of water even as Loimos unsealed the door, the water was stopped by an invisible force, the unseen wall bore no effect on the skeleton.

Before the undead's eyes laid a curious sight, he moved forward, some sort of chair with armrests equipped with various sorts of objects sprouting from it.

Items made out of various materials, symbols shining with various colours engraved on their surface, looking down, the ground was free of any of that volatile dirt, it was oddly flat, various circles drawn along its surface with the chair in its center.

Loimos didn't step beyond any of the circles and simply observed the figure slumped in the chair, hooked up to all of those seemingly magically powered devices.

It was a familiar yet different figure, one that had no business to still be breathing.

The old man Loimos had first relieved of his excess life force was still alive, incredible amounts of life force being constantly produced and injected into his barely twitching body.

He looked even more decrepit than he had been back then, his grey beard was nowhere to be seen, having fallen to pieces, leaving only what was hardly recognisable as a person.

The living corpse opened his eyes, the effort being the greatest he must have exerted in a long time.

Loimos looked up at the ceiling, there was to be found the secret to the old man's machine, all of the machinery took root from a single orb stuck in the ceiling.

Much larger than the others Loimos had encountered on pedestals before, this one wasn't the same thing, this was the core of this feeble dungeon.

Not that Loimos could be certain, but it would make for a fine explanation as to why this entire place was nothing more than the shell of a dungeon, the elderly man had come along and repurposed the core to his own benefits.

And what filthy benefits they were, eternal life.

The vestige of a man could consider himself lucky that Loimos couldn't be offended, otherwise he would have already gotten to taste his own ground up teeth against the ground.

"You… Again…" his words took a while to come but they had the benefit of being clear this time.

The undead knew for a fact that this was the same person, their life force was squirming in the same way.

'...'

'...'

Was he perhaps expecting a conversation with Loimos? Not that the undead was adverse against producing words and listening to some random guy that would soon be dead, but he couldn't speak. 

The crumbling sack of dry flesh sighed in realisation of this fact, and went on to monologue to the one being that couldn't care less.

"I am… Ramth, Ramth Of The Underground Tower" he presented himself, the undead simply standing there, the old man seemed to be meaning to reveal some important information, so his demise could be postponed by a few minutes.

Ramth began to explain that he had been the founder of that underground tower, a secret yet widely known place of learning for mages and scholars interested in the undead.

Whilst the tower was quickly deemed heretical, forbidden and many other bad words, people that wished to study, learn and spread their discoveries about the undead always found their way in.

Those that wanted to burn it down and hang all of its denizens never could find even a single good lead, Ramth was just that good at concealment.

But unlike those that came after him, Ramth wasn't truly interested in the dead, he had only created this place because he wished to understand the workings of death force, so as to manipulate his life force to behave similarly and achieve immortality.

At least, that was the theory, he never achieved his goal and ashamed from standing in the midst of true geniuses and scholars of the undead, he left his own tower and locked himself deep into this dungeon.

The best he was able to create was this device, modifying and adapting the dungeon core, he made use of the fact that it could create life to turn it into a giant 'machine of immortality', technically successful, he couldn't help but scorn his own creation.

He never stopped it however, because being alive in this way was simply so much better than death.

Before hooking himself to it permanently, he had managed to create some sort of clone of himself, which Loimos had brutally slaughtered on his first day of existence.

"I only wanted to transport my mind into one of them" Ramth had used the orbs to transport the souls of others, and using the pile of bodies and souls as sacrifice, fuel for his spell, he hoped to manifest their physical form, kill their soul and mind and then place himself into their bodies.

All ridiculous make believe, he didn't have the sort of competence to pull this sort of thing off.

The orbs weren't even his own creation, stolen before they were used in a summoning ritual.

And Loimos, who had been forged from the countless corpses and souls, had nothing to do with him, he had simply been there to witness a natural event.

"Curse you, who does not know degradation, who does not know the looming presence of death-" Ramth only wanted to speak his mind to the first person that would come along, he had spent too much time in isolation, he felt the need to talk.

Yet, he had forgotten who, rather, what he was conversing with, he had stared at the wall whilst retelling his miserable existence.

A skilled mage, but not one of exceptional talent.

A man with a dream too grand for his capacities.

He had failed to judge his own worth accordingly and tackled challenges that wouldn't topple over no matter how much momentum he accumulated.

His gaze wandered to his listener and then, his words got stuck in his throat as he saw the pits of darkness in Loimos's eyes brighten up with a purple glow.

A colour that simply didn't exist, yet did.

The undead said nothing, but Ramth felt like he had received an answer either way.

Loimos knew all that there was to know about death, because he was a pure manifestation of its grasp.

"I-" the decrepit old man didn't get to ramble any further, he had nothing of interest to spout.

Loimos walked up to him and with a single swing, dispersed the living before him like dust in the wind.