As Sum'gial keeps organizing scrolls in his portable shelf, the communication book keeps buzzing nonstop. Tired of it buzzing nonstop, Sum'gial decided to multitask.
He opened the chat application looking over who is online.
DeathKnight_01: SHOW YOURSELF DAMNED LICH, MUSCLE IS POWER!
TheLich: Stop shouting, I am here.
Elegant Goblin: This is a surprise gob.
WeAreHere: We see…
Ball of Liquid: Can someone help me with researching Mythril Slimes?
SleepLover: I need more sleep…
Righteous: Everyone here should be destroyed, why am I still alive sob…
TheLich: @DeathKnight_01 stop shouting pls.
DeathKnight_01: I WON'T WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
TheLich: Nothing, it is just disturbing to talk to someone with muscle is his metaphorical brain.
Sum'gial kept gathering scrolls to the portable shelf, while ignoring DeathKnight_01 instead he started to look for serious requests at long term posts at forum.
One of the requests made by Elegant Goblin drew his attention, as he read more and more, he realized that goblins were cursed so harshly that it was a miracle that they were alive as a race, and Elegant Goblin overcame the curses becoming undead. Looking at the curses at play, Sum'gial's soul fire twitched. Starting from intelligent reduction to goblins giving only male members all sorts of curses. Goddess of Life, really overdid with the curses.
The request made by Elegant Goblin was a simple one, that required finding old traditions of goblins. From the chaotic memories Sum'gial still had, there were a bunch of legends in Ther'vassi archives. He could gather those and translate those and close the thread. A couple of days of work, and he could have a reliable ally in this chatroom of madness.
He took note of it, and kept working with his scrolls, he would get the scrolls done, then, pay attention to other details. Over hundred thousands of scrolls and blueprints, needing to organize one by one would take too long. Sum'gial had a few military generals under his commands, but none who could do delicate work. As Sum'gial started to think about even if he did have eternal life, he would have more and more projects on his hands.
Sum'gial decided to get some helpers, evil and lawful ones. The only place that had evil and lawful creatures he could get in short notice was hell. He considered it for a moment, and decided to act.
He cleared a table with the same precision he gave to everything—parchments squared by size, inkpots aligned, quills ranked like soldiers. Beneath the clutter lay a heavy tome: On the Summoning of Devils and the Binding of Contracts.
His soulfire flickered as he skimmed. The Contract of Ilyrion was binding enough on the material plane, but Hell's creatures laughed at divine arbitration. They obeyed habit, precedent, and iron-clad clauses.
No, for this he would need something stronger. An agreement sharp enough to coerce an Amnizu—Hell's own administrators, demons of law and memory. If anyone could file a tower's worth of chaos, it was one of them.
He dipped a quill and began sketching terms. Multitasking came naturally; with one hand drafting clauses, his other hand flipped the communication book back open. The Forums of the Damned were still buzzing, lines of nonsense and fragments of truth crawling across the page.
Ball of Liquid: can someone help me with researching Mythril Slimes?
DeathKnight_01: MUSCLE IS ALL YOU NEED. SLIME = PUNCH.
SleepLover: …too loud… make it stop…
FrostWightDuchess: Barbaric. All of you. True refinement is measured in stillness, not shouting. None of you would survive a single sitting of proper Eternal Iceleaf Infusion.
Elegant Goblin: uh mycelbrew talk again? gob not sure if want.
WeAreHere: We see the ceremony. We see hollowness.
TheLich: What does steeping leaves have to do with necromancy?
FrostWightDuchess: Everything. Only those who master ritual—quiet repetition, exact timing—deserve to be called true practitioners. The rest are hedge-witches, slurping power without grace.
Ball of Liquid: …mycelvrew magic?? is that real??
TheLich: Not magic. Pretension dressed in porcelain.
FrostWightDuchess: Spoken like a lich who confuses order with elegance. One day you will meet a so-called archmage who thinks power alone is enough. You will see why tradition matters.
TheLich: I want a mycelbrew I can taste, not something in a cup that wastes resources.
Archivist_42: Can you make a mycelbrew undead can actually taste? Otherwise it's wasted parchment and wasted time.
Sum'gial frowned. The old lich had written recipes for everything from soul-pickles to embalmer's wine. Somewhere in the archives… yes. Scribbled under "Alchemical Diversions." Spectral Infusion. Crude, unfinished, but functional.
He tested the brew quickly: soul-dust, frostweed, curse-ash. Bitter smoke touched his tongue, just for an instant. Not flavor exactly, but sensation.
TheLich: Uploaded recipe: "Spectral Infusion." Original Sum'gial's work. Temporary taste illusion for undead. Not elegant, but functional.
Archivist_42: Documented. At last, a contribution worth indexing.
Ball of Liquid: MYCELBREW PATCH NOTES DROP?! 😂
WeAreHere: We see bitter smoke. We taste nothing. We approve.
FrostWightDuchess: Spectral tricks. Hollow tricks. A parody of refinement.
TheLich: Perhaps. But it works.
Ball of Liquid: Do you have slime mycelbrw as well?
DeathKnight_01: Mycelbrew is for the weak, Muscle Power.
Ignoring the rabble of forum of damned, Sum'gial went back to organizing scrolls, and thinking of contracts to make. A blueprint on databases, very incomplete needs worked on.
Jacob POV
Jacob, mounted on a bony wallclimber, rode towards E'nathyr. The limiting factor for this army to move was Jacob himself. Moving with two thousand undead in underdeep made some noise, it would take only a couple of hours for drows and duergars to find out what is going on. They set off around twelve hours ago, as such they should be aware of what is going on. He made no attempt to hide what he is going to do.
Jacob's thoughts drifted towards what happened before he set off. He knew his father's chaotic style. He wondered if his recent actions were to throw him off. He didn't like the fact he like how his father currently acted. Almost all the actions Sum'gial took were either chaos or destruction. He remembered the plague that destroyed his home. The plague was no problem itself, the fact that everyone that died of it rose as Undead was the problem.
As a legendary warrior, no amount of plague affected him, his home, neighbours, friends and family died in that plague. As a necromancer, Sum'gial was chaotic, smart, charismatic, and evil. He never randomly attacked anyone though. His malice was directed at the surrounding area where his lands lay.
After he killed Sum'gial the necromancer, the lich that took his place was truly malevolent at everything that lived. Especially towards him. The current lich wasn't random, or anything chaotic. All that's left is obsession. If someone pissed off current Sum'gial, the lich would methodically destroy everything.
He wasn't scared of the necromancer, he wasn't scared of the chaotic Lich, Jacob was scared of the lawful Lich. He didn't want his ire at all.