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Angus knew he shouldn’t be this far away from any city. He had promised his grandpa that he’d stick to odd jobs within the city of Neverwinter and nothing more. And he kept to that promise until he had stumbled across a missing person’s ad stuck underneath the marriage announcement of some royals. Some dwarf named Cyrus Rockseeker had disappeared just under a decade ago during a time of great turmoil. Now that wouldn’t have been interesting if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had been the only living being with the location of the Rockseeker Fortune.
But Angus was the World’s Greatest Detective and finding the location had been a cinch. It had been easy to convince his grandfather that he was going out of town for a while to scout out some schools. A few cross-references here and there as well as a well-placed bribe or two and he found himself stumbling through Wave Echo Cave, looking for the end of the mine and hoping it was worth all this trouble.
He was starting to doubt it though. The maze of hallways was damp and cold, making each one blend together even with his amazing sense of direction. His clothes were torn and stained with grime from a particularly hard tumble he had taken straight into some kind of jelly monster. Pieces of that monster were still in his shoes and got up and between his toes with every footstep.
Eventually, he came across a hallway that seemed different. Visibly, it was exactly like all the others that he had been down. Same emptiness, same biting cold. He couldn’t put a word to the feeling that the hallway gave him, only that it seemed like the right one to go down.
He walked down it for what seemed like hours, his shoes squelching and that feeling pulling him deeper and deeper down. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself to try and conserve his heat.
He turned the corner and was met with a dead end. For a moment, he thought he had gotten lost again, but then he noticed that it wasn’t a wall. It was a vault door nearly twenty feet high and covered in dried blood. The calling was even stronger here, telling him to go forward, to open the door to gather all the treasures inside for himself.
And then he saw the skeleton and the calling were completely forgotten.
There were a few dwarf skeletons in the mine, mostly near the entrance or scattered aimlessly around the mine. Most were pretty difficult to see until you grew closer or stepped on them. Any possessions that remained reflected their passion: hunting, magic, adventuring, cooking. Hell, Angus had even taken a cloak from an old school teacher and used it for warmth until he found a spider trying to climb into his ear.
This one was different. It was farther down the mine than any of the others, too tall to be any kind of dwarf, slumped against the wall about two hours down the hall. Its outfit seemed casual enough. Some flashy jewelry hung limp around its neck, wrists, and hands. A white button-up shirt yellowed with age and a pair of… sturdy blue denim jeans? Based on that, he would have guessed a homeless person who had made their way down the mine for shelter but had gotten lost and died down here. But then there was the bright crimson cloak. It was made of some sort of fabric that Angus had never seen before and was far too fancy for someone to just buy off the street.
He crouched next to it, intrigued by this strange, mystery of the person lying before him. How had they died? There was dried blood streaked across the wall behind them, suggesting that they had been cut across the back, landed against the wall. What was their profession? He couldn’t tell but based on the cloak, something high-paying. He noticed something poking out from under the skeleton’s arm, like the end of a cane. There was a small sun pendant dangling from the end that glinted in the faint light of the cave.
He reached out and grabbed the cane, and the world seemed to speed up around him. Lightning shot out from the cane, hitting the walls and ceiling and the skeleton, disintegrating it on contact. Having the title of a detective smart enough to figure out the location of a lost mine meant nothing when in reality, he was a small, tired, cold child being surrounded by lightning. Instinctively, he threw the thing across the room, hoping that the chaos would end.
It hit the wall and snapped cleanly in half and things took a turn for the worse. An explosion shook the cave, walls of fire and heat weaving around Angus, and turning the walls of the cave into a smooth glass. He hit the floor as fireworks of red and yellow exploded out of the umbrella, releasing a wave of energy as a figure appeared in the chaos, phantasmal and resplendent arms outstretched in a powerful show of force.
They turned towards him as the maelstrom died down, their crimson red robe fluttering around them and shadowing their face completely.
“How long has it been?” Her voice wasn’t quite there, more of an echo than anything else.
Angus stared at her, mouth agape and glasses half hanging off his face.
“Kid, hey, how long has it been since the ----- ----?”
He readjusted his glasses, a bit confused at the sound that had just come from the… spirit’s form. “Uh… I didn’t quite catch that ma’am…”
She sighed, sounding a bit annoyed. “The ----- ----. How much time has passed since then?”
“I still didn’t catch that, I’m sorry. It sounded like static. Are you a spirit? Maybe the amount of power that just got released-”
“Static? Did you just say I sounded like static?” The woman floated towards him. “Tell me, kid, can you understand me.”
Angus shook his head. She floated back, her hands reaching up to her hood and grasping it tightly. “Oh gods, Taako… What did they do?” Arcs of red energy began to shoot off her, scorching the walls and coming dangerously close to hitting Angus. After a moment, she took a slow, deep breath, whispering something under her breath that Angus couldn’t quite hear and the lightning stopped. “They didn’t leave and --- ------ hasn’t taken this reality. If it had, I would have been back sooner. You haven’t heard any big blasting sounds or seen any white eyes in the sky or anything like that kid
“No, ma’am, I-I haven’t…” His eyes drifted towards the vault door for the first time since he saw the skeleton. “You weren’t here for the treasures, were you?”
Her head snapped up and for a moment, Angus thought he saw a pair of glowing red eyes in the shadows of the hood. “Kid, let’s get you out of here right now.”
“Why? I’ve traveled the entire cave by myself and-”
“There’s something in that vault of unimaginable power and trust me, you want to be as far away from it at all times if you can.” She sounded so forceful and angry about this truth that Angus took a few steps away from the door. She bobbed her head towards the exit. “It’s been a while since I’ve been through here. Do you know the way out?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She floated with him in silence for a bit, the only sound being the dripping of water in the cave and the scurrying of mice. Angus could feel a lot of magical energy radiating off of her that reminded him of a firepit: warm and comforting when with those that respected it but dangerous and powerful with those who dare to cross it.
“Are you a ghost, ma’am?” he finally asked.
“No- well, yes and- I’m a lich. Normally I’m a smokin’ hot elf, but I got merked by some dwarf and got stuck in my fucking umbrella. Can’t believe I didn’t think about the consequences of creating a magic-eating umbrella when I myself am a spirit composed of magical energy.”
“Aren’t liches evil?” Angus asked. “I’m not saying that you are, ma’am, it’s just that in my research, many liches become liches to live forever and feed off of other people to remain on this plane. You’re not going to feed off of me are you?”
“Don’t worry about me trying to feed off you. I got the whole sustained thing under control.” Angus noticed her right hand go towards her left before dropping to her side. “What’s with this whole ma’am thing anyways? It’s nice, but you talk like you’re some little schoolboy.”
“I’m not in school right now, but I don’t know your name and my grandfather always taught me that it’s polite to call people sir or ma’am out of formality.”
“Man your grandpa is really old-fashioned isn’t he. Well if you don’t want to call me ma’am, you can call me Lup. How about you, little man? Got a name or am I gonna have to call you Junior?”
He chuckled. “No, Miss Lup. My name is Angus McDonald.”
She laughed, the sound sharp coming from her non-corporeal form. “That name is fucking perfect! Oh, wait, uh, darn perfect.”
“You can swear around me. I work with plenty of adults who use worse words than fuck.”
“What kind of job could a five-year-old have? Is that even legal?”
“Since I am 10, and that is under the age of 18, it is not legal for me to have a job. But since ‘World’s Greatest Detective’ isn’t technically a job and more of a profession that I get hired for occasionally, it’s better to compare it to someone asking me to mow their lawn and paying me for it.”
“World’s Greatest Detective? Is that what you were doing down here?”
“Yes, ma’am! I had heard about the disappearance of a dwarf in these mines and how there was a fortune hidden in here that no one had found yet. I decided that I would be the one to solve the mystery and finally bring peace to the family.”
“Well, I can tell you what happened to that guy. He killed me so I returned the favor.” Lup let out a high cackle filled with malice and satisfaction that sent shivers down Angus’ spine. “I’d just leave all of this stuff alone from now on. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
“I agree that may be the best course to take.” Angus ducked under some webs and glanced at Lup jealously as she phased right through them. “If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing down there?”
“I’m going to assume since you did a ton of research that you learned that the vault is near-impossible to find without a special map, so I decided that something… very dangerous would be best left in that mine. Seems as though the vault has done its duty well if you’re the first person to find me in however long it’s been.”
Angus nodded. “So… what are you going to do now? You’re free from the umbrella and it’s been an unknown amount of times since you became trapped.”
Lup made a movement as if to speak but then backed down sadly. “I’m not sure. I’m a lich, and I know people don’t take kindly to liches anywhere they go. I also know that I am out o’ luck when it comes to my corporeal form; I saw my skeleton on the ground. The people that are normally here for me when I’m in this form are… somewhere. I don’t know where they are in this world or even if they’re still alive.”
Angus noted that while she spoke about these people, there were palpable amounts of love and care for them in her voice. But although she sounded concerned about their well-being, she didn’t sound scared at the prospect of one of them being dead. Interesting.
“I think I might just travel around and hope I come across something or someone familiar.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, ma’am. From what I understand, there is a stigma against liches and while I am sure you are capable of handling them, I have a job proposition for you.”
Lup stopped and glanced over at him. If she had a corporeal face, he guessed that her eyebrow would be cocked and she’d have a confused grin.
“Really? Go on.”
Angus didn’t know why he was doing this. He had just met this woman in a very deadly situation and now he was going to offer her companionship. But his instincts were screaming at him to trust her and to keep her close, and he trusted his instinct more than anyone he had ever met.
“Well I am the world’s greatest detective, and in a world that is filled with magic, I have to admit that I don’t have enough knowledge about magic to properly investigate it. You are a lich, which means that you have extensive knowledge of arcana. You can help me better understand magic and maybe teach me some in the process.”
“And what’s in it for me? I am a bit selfish.”
“I will offer you shelter. With my knowledge of what resources this world offers and your knowledge of the arcana, I’m sure we can work together to create a device to contain your energy so you can travel around without trouble. Maybe we can even find a way to get you a corporeal form. As well, I can help you find the people that you are looking for.”
Lup nodded her head. “That’s a pretty easy answer there. I’d shake your hand if I could, but point is, we have a deal.”