The Lich

Mortals. Need I say more to expose your pathetic arrogance. I suppose I must, then, as you seem not appeased. You who draw your swords in my home, before my hearth, and in my humble hall of friendship. Rambling on about justice, about sanctity, and above all of life.

What do mortals know of life, so thoroughly is your lives entrenched in death. You call this magic of yours the magic of life, and yet all you do is delay an inevitable end. You cling to the feel of your skin and the tautness of your muscles, measuring life in ones ability to maintain that hollow shell. For all your healing, for all your "life", your fate remains inescapable.

But not mine. No I, with this magic you claim to be the magic of "death", have attained life beyond the flesh and sinew. For a thousand years and a thousand seasons more has my life continued, and with the grace of justice and the gods will continue for thousands more. And yet you, who fear death with all your puny existence seek to lecture me on life.

A desacrator, an unholy abomination with no respect for the "sanctity" of this so called life, you say. In what are you so sanctified, according to whom do your gods torment you so. I, the defiler? What a claim to lay before me, you who should be declared murderers. You who damn an entire race to an inevitable and preventable demise, all for the sake of your sanctity, for your useless piety, for your false gods. Strike me then, if you remain so certain of the justice in your hearts, but be forewarned. The Lady of justice, blind though she may be, lay behind my blade, and in this very hall around me, crying out for the destruction of your sorry, rotten souls.

I was thinking lately about good bad guys, and especially bad guys that could really be identified with. The concept of a lich giving the mortal heroes a lecture on life and death just sort of came to mind tonight as I was trying to get to sleep. Hopefully with it out of my mind and down on paper I can actually get some sleep.