16/11/3140 PC

  Cerazon has done it. Everyone thought it was meant to be impossible. He turned himself into a lich, it is one thing to create undead thralls, if a bit icky, but to actually go and convert oneself into an undead, while powering the spell and keeping one's ability to use magic is something new.

  The other mages in the Arken University are all twittering about his achievement, conquering mortality and all that, but none of them see the risks. How can we trust that which is not human to keep the interests of humanity at heart? We’ve seen it time and time again in the eventual psychopathic state of thralls that have been kept around too long, why don’t they too assume the same will happen to Cerazon?

  I of course desperately pray for his continued sanity, Cerazon is one of our strongest after all, the only ones able to stop him should he have a psychotic break are either in hiding or too old to remember half their spells without grimoire assistance. They’d be easy pickings to an advanced cantrip.

  I feel in my heart that it is an inevitability.

  This diary will serve as the documentation of my efforts to prevent a rogue archmage from killing us all. If you are reading this then I have failed and you are the only hope for humanity.

  23/11/3140 PC

  It’s been a week since my last entry and winter grows colder. In my worry I have scoured the silent kingdoms for zombies, so I could study the effects of necrotic energy on the soul. What I have found is groundbreaking, perhaps enough to put my name down in history in different circumstances.

  The necrotic energy was always known to taint souls, but where other mages assumed it was a type of decay, I have found something far worse, these souls do not get weaker, rather the necrotic energy seems to both twist and empower them. An easy thing to overlook as the effects appear to be gradual, but with far worse consequences.

  Archmages are assumed to be the natural peak of power, once one transcends the restriction allowing them to only wield magical energy, their potential always seems to exhaust, although there is a lot of variance in it, I was only half as powerful as Cerazon is now when at my peak.

  If this limit is suppressed by necrotic energy then Cerazon will have the potential to transcend beyond the abilities of any hero who might be able to stop him. This fact is terrifying, my only hope is that his willpower as an archmage is able to resist the effects of the energy for as long as possible.

  30/11/3140 PC

  I presented my findings at the monthly enclave to the council and… I don’t believe they took me seriously. In my haste to present my findings, I didn’t write up the normal thousand page grimoire with peer assistance considering all possible uses and consequences of the matter I am studying. Why is our bureaucratic process of discovery so flawed? This discovery is urgent and requires immediate action and they didn’t even attempt to validate my claims.

  Due to my lack of organization Cerazon took the lead in dismissing me and even went as far to assume my jealousy and offer to convert me into a lich as well. The audacity! In fact I do believe that he is already aware of this phenomenon and his entire dismissal was prepared in advance to keep the council on his side.

  Despite my advice, several of my older colleagues have taken up Cerazon’s offer to undergo the procedure as well, no matter what I said, they were not swayed. I know what is going through their minds, the fear of the end after a life as long as ours, but that should be celebrated with a legacy, not drawn out by turning oneself into an ugly decaying husk.

  In my worry I have contacted several other magical councils overseas to relay my worries, I hope my local council can see in time that this is not a betrayal, rather an act of selflessness. Separation will not assist us when the liches go insane, hopefully they can notice their own minds changing and act upon it, but that is entirely dependent on their bravery, and mages as old as I, tend to be missing that trait as it isn’t particularly favourable to one's continued existence.

  7/12/3140 PC

  In my worries at the impending catastrophe I have resorted to something I always vowed to steer clear of in all my years: Human experimentation.

  My old apprentice, Argathon, got in contact with me after seeing my argument and we decided in the heat of a moment to collect the data we need so badly directly by using Cerazon’s published work to convert a weak mage into a semi-lich (of course under the subjects ill guided agreement), and then accelerate the process of necrotic empowerment using a chamber of time. Argathon has spent years on the construction of this esoteric piece of magical equipment and despite all his efforts, it is still very weak, completely incapable of accelerating the time of an archmage. Luckily our test subject is nowhere near that level of power.

  After a day isolated in the chamber the subject managed to remove the protective enchantments himself, stop the device and proceeded to attempt to kill me and Argathon with worrying magical power. After restraining him we calculated that he had accrued a far more intense empowerment that he had any right to, he simply did not experience enough time in the chamber to be this strong.

  We reviewed our numbers for two days and at last Argathon reached a revelation I hadn't considered. The rate of necrotic effect seems to be exponentially increasing. Even on my previous zombie test subjects this has reached a noticeable level. We cleared up our calculations and figured that the rate directly correlates to the time of the year. It was always noticed that necrotic energies intensify at the winter solstice to occasionally dangerous levels, allowing spirits to wake.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  But this has far worse ramifications, If we are right then the moment the winter solstice arrives Cerazon will have no ability to prevent his psychotic break. Archmages are connected directly to the energy flow of the world, the only way to stop him would be to kill him before that time arrives.

  And the winter solstice occurs in exactly two weeks.

  14/12/3140 PC

  Argathon and I momentarily separated, he went to attend the northern pre-solstice enclave and I went to the southern one. I would thank god for the powerful teleportation spells we used to cross the planet and back, but I invented these spells, god played no part.

  Anyway, we have managed to enlist ten other archmages to join us in attempting to slay Cerazon and despite reviewing and validating our research data, two of them still had the audacity to ask me for personal favours in repayment for their assistance. I gave them willingly; It's been three thousand, one hundred and forty years since the last cataclysm and if we die here then a couple of favours won’t matter. I hope this event doesn’t reset the calendar date, although I realise I should hope instead that there are still people around to reset the calendar date should we fail.

  We departed my tower to seek out Cerazon for a final attempt at peacefully convincing him, with the full intent and preparations to immediately attempt to kill him should he disagree, but to our surprise we found neither heads nor tails of him. One of his apprentices who had also undergone the procedure confidently informed us that the target was currently in his tower, fully warded as he was converting more mages into liches and didn’t want to be disturbed.

  We silently took care of the apprentice, but were stumped when we reached his tower, the wards he had set up are the the most advanced I’ve ever seen, taking into account all of the latest developments in magical warding with a foundation so strong that the shield could last a fortnight of constant archmage bombardment before it’s self repair functions broke down.

  We have taken the group decision to build a defensible fortification surrounding the tower, although we could break through the magical defences in time with our combined strength we would expend all our energy and have none left for fighting.

  21/12/3140 PC

  The solstice is upon us and despite our relief at the around thirty more archages that have come to assist our cause, our worst fears were confirmed today. Cerazon left the tower and stood on the other side of his warding shield for about an hour, all attempts to communicate with him broke down when he single handedly crushed one of the archmages who had gone to negotiate with him with an apprentice level cantrip. The other archmage he somehow managed to subdue, and then in front of the rest of us, unable to do anything to him behind his ward, converted the man into a lich.

  The process was far more grotesque than it needed to be, he even forcefully bound the mages soul to himself with a slavery contract and then commanded him to be unreactive while he flayed them, which isn’t even part of the lich conversion process.

  In all my years I have only seen a few things of comparable atrocity, I even felt disgust for the first time in five hundred years, an emotion I thought I had lost the ability to experience when I used the spells that massively slowed my metabolism in exchange for greatly elongating my lifespan.

  I took the opportunity to study the heinous lich with a farsight spell, his eyes no longer retained their humanity, just a cold empty hunger that didn’t even seem appeased by what he had just done. It was unsettling to say the least.

  He then started what looked like the process for deactivating his wards, but I fear that he is actually preparing to detonate them to escape. Luckily he can’t teleport away as he will still be contained in our much larger ward, but that is a small relief, we have no idea how many other liches he has converted in his tower, for all we know there could be more of similar power levels to himself.

  I am signing off this entry to prepare for the worst, I hope I survive long enough to write the next.

  29/12/3140 PC

  I fear I may not have much time left, Cerazon won the last fight and I barely escaped the battle alive, I am missing an eye and a leg and anyone who could help me regrow these body parts I don’t believe will be around much longer. Cerazon had managed to convert far more archmages than we had anticipated, and also had a colossal army of undead mortals that shouldn’t have been able to affect the battle much, but due to sheer numbers could.

  The problem wasn’t landing a killing blow, it was keeping the dead down. We underestimated their tenacity, especially Cerazon’s, he had cast some sort of spell that transferred most of the damage done to him to his allies, allowing him to survive decapitation and a portion of his skull being shattered. No one is his match.

  Argathor, may his soul rest in peace was annihilated when Cerazon expended a third of his magic pool to create great beams of radiation that didn’t affect the dead, but reduced the living to puddles of melted flesh.

  After sealing my wounds I have fortified my magic tower and begun working on possible counters to Cerazon. He has bound his army to himself meaning that he is the only one that needs to die to remove the whole threat of the undead, they will all fall like dominoes if he perishes. It would be nice if I could take advantage of this, but I am alone and that fact has made his army fanatical about his continued existence, so I don’t like my chances.

  05/01/3141 PC

  The dead press themselves against my wards, annihilating themselves in the battle of attrition that I am slowly losing, my ward is not capable of withstanding the increasing levels of necrotic energy released from their destruction. It is only a matter of time until it fails, but I will not go out without a bang.

  Engraved in the cover of this book you may find a sigil, this is my last spell and masterpiece, surpassing some of my greatest teleportation spells in complexity. It eludes me how I was able to create such a thing in so little time, but I guess urgency is indeed the greatest motivator.

  You may activate this sigil with a drop of your blood and when you have done that the book will bind itself to your very being, if you ever touch a lich this book will erode the magical bindings that hold their soul to their being, allowing you to kill them with a touch regardless of how powerful they might be. Good luck.

  I have set my tower to detonate when the first undead reaches me, the explosion should be able to level a city, so I have no doubt about my impending doom, only regrets that I didn’t invent this spell sooner and that I don’t have the time to drink every last bottle from my wine cellar. This book will survive the explosion because I am sending it into the void behind space, it will find its way back to reality at some point, though I don’t know where or when that will be.

  Kind regards,

  Armon the wise, advisor of the silent kings.

  Written By: Skippit ()

  Writing Prompt: “The last mage, in a tower, surrounded by undead, writing about how to defeat them for good in case someone can do what he/she/they cannot. Journal style format.”

  Themes: Magic, Fantasy, Apocalypse, Necromancy