The First Lich Lord
Chapter 116

“How’s the hammer treating you, Decker?” I asked as they entered the forge floor. This was only the second time they’d come down this far since our initial meeting. The first time had been to get the promised hammer.

“I freaking love this thing.” Decker had a huge smile. “It feels like waving around a hammer half its weight, and it has an explosive attack that can pulverize a boulder, and it recharges as I continue to fight.”

“Glad it works.” I frowned as I saw that not just Decker’s group had come down, but Ezra’s group as well. I glanced upward. “Poor Chompy, never stood a chance.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ezra scoffed. “You keep improving that bloody thing! Even with multiple groups of us it still managed to take out Scott and Marcus.”

I snickered. “Serves you right. Sorry about Scott.” I shrugged. “At least that’ll go to helping me recoup the cost of rebuilding Chompy.”

“You didn’t have it target Marcus?” Aaron asked sternly. “Did you?”

“I plead the fifth.” Ezra’s group had been down several times since our initial deal, and each time I had to rebuild Chompy, improving him. “So, why are you down here together? You do know it’s bad etiquette for groups to team up in dungeons that are not designed for large groups.”

“Sorry about that,” Aaron was trying to hide a smile. “We needed to make sure we got down here so we could talk with you, and with the strength of that beast of yours that wasn’t a guaranteed thing.”

“You could’ve talked with Michael on the micilium floor,” I suggested. “You’ve used him to relay stuff before.”

“We could’ve,” Jessica agreed. “But this is probably a better conversation to have in person.”

I was immediately on edge. Maxwell was up on the micilium floor himself, and Raven was out stalking through the dungeon hunting down unsuspecting groups. She’d been doing that for the last week, and one time she’d died. That had scared her, but it had worn off fairly quickly. That particular group had become a mini boss that now wandered the floor after I got a hold of them.

“What’s going on?” I asked, already checking the mana reserves in my armor and the soul energy reserves stored within Mercy. I didn’t think Aaron would turn on me, especially not now, but I didn’t know about Ezra.

“Easy big guy,” Tucker said, wincing. I noticed the glare from Ezra.

“We’re not here for you,” Aaron said. “We’re here because we have some very bad news.”

“How bad is bad?” I asked, squinting. I was now level 98 and had almost all of my flesh back, except for skin.

“Bad like, there’s an army of inquisitors heading for your dungeon,” Ezra said.

“Fuck…” I breathed out a long sigh. “I knew this was too good to last.”

“We hoped they would be satisfied with you staying in the dungeon,” Aaron said. “But evidently not.”

“We’ve tried to convince Livia to fight them,” Jessica said. “But she stubbornly refuses to believe what we’re saying about you.”

I instantly shot a questioning look at Ezra’s group. “Do you believe them?”

“I am inclined to, yes,” Ezra said. “So far, none of the things we have found in the archives points to corruption in Olattee, not that there isn’t useful information, just not about Olattee. Though we have hardly touched the archives down there.”

“We have scoured this dungeon from top to bottom for something like that,” Susan said. “But we have found nothing. So based off the three things you told Livia, that only leaves you being from Earth.”

“Assuming you weren’t lying from the start,” Tiffany said, expressing her lingering doubts.

“I have no way to prove that one way or the other,” I said. “But what are we gonna do about the church?”

“Tell me, Ezekiel, what happens if you get killed in here more than once within a month?” Aaron asked.

“Well, I die and will be trapped in my phylactery probably for the next hundred years. I don’t know what else to say. It’s better than being dead, but it is very annoying.”

“Can you tell us where that is?” Ezra asked.

“No. I will not tell you where that is,” I said flatly, doing my best to note their expressions. “It is safe under the control of someone far more powerful than any of us. If the worst happens and you do feel inclined to seek me out, I’m sure you can replace your way to him and then do what you can to help him.”

“You seem awfully composed for someone facing imprisonment inside a jar for 100 years,” Ezra noted.

“Could you flee and let the dungeon go?” Jessica asked.

I ignored Ezra’s point—it was simply the way it was. “That has been a hot debate between me and my friends,” I assured her. “My reason for staying is complicated. I might replace help in Tehomal, but at what point do I stop running?”

“There is a connection here?” Aaron said with sudden interest.

I closed my eyes and sighed. I hadn’t meant to pass on that information. “Yes, there is, but evidently this particular region is incredibly dangerous. But that’s not the reason I stay. I stay because there is something deeply wrong with Olattee. You’re right, there is no information in this ziggurat that would indicate that. But what I have seen the clerics do and summon to this world all points to one thing.”

“What is that?” Ezra asked.

I summarized what we had found with the hidden cult. “There is never a reason strong enough to summon something like that. I may be evil, but I’m evil with a lowercase E. What they are doing, like what the Blood Sultanate did, is an evil far greater than me—I’m talking uppercase E.”

“So, you intend to stay and fight because…” Ezra trailed off. “You want to stop them? If you are truly from Earth and trapped here, your life is legitimately on the line. Why would you risk it like that? Heck, you’ve told us, we can do our own investigations to prove what you have said and launch our own crusade.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But to quote an old movie: Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most. And that is the indifference of good men.”

“Ah, Boondock Saints, such a great movie,” Decker smiled.

“We’ll do what we can then.” Aaron had clearly been rooting for me to leave, but I think he knew there was no convincing me.