The first elves were kind by nature; they didn't even consume meat. However, the war between metallic dragons and cromatic dragons changed that. Somehow, cromatic dragons decided that their forests were in the way. The attack took the elves by surprise and angered them. As a long-lived species, the anger and the resentment of elves took a huge toll on both species.
The end result wasn't kind to either the elves or the cromatic dragons. Cursed by the cromatic dragons, elves splintered. A part of them became the ancestors of drow; a part of them became the ancestors of goblins. Their numbers dwindling by bloodline corruption, elves retreated to their forests. The Age of Goblins followed the Age of Dragons.
In the age of goblins, artificers rose to power. As a chaotic race, they were good at building magitech; they were so numerous that gods themselves took action. They tricked goblin aristocratic circles and caused class stratification. As the gap between the aristocratic circle and the common rose, the goblin nation Ther'vassi killed itself. Their fall brought about the rise of countless kingdoms on the surface world.
An extract on the rise of Humans by Veyn'dor. As Sum'gial read his son's take on surface kingdoms, he couldn't help but agree. As a rigorous historian and an archmage, Sum'gial admired his son's writings—though not so much his use of spacing or grammar. His nonexistent eyebrows twitched. As the scrolls and books were being categorized at a fast speed by Ahr'zel, to his liking, he had more time on his hands.
He needed a tower spirit. The Tower of Bones was very large, and the management of it took valuable time from him. He used not to mind it, but after tasting the benefits brought by a competent devil, he couldn't be satisfied anymore. The tower had thirteen floors; he had only himself to take care of the chores. Even an infinite amount of time wouldn't be enough for his obsessions. He couldn't trick another lesser archduke into his service; Hell wouldn't let him.
He thought of taking disciples. He could find a couple of servile and talented individuals or high-level alchemists or artificers whose lives were ending. He needed lawful individuals; then he would train them up. Previously a manager of a large cinema with high ratings, he could easily train people up to his specifications.
He'd better put feelers out for recruitment. For the high-level alchemists and artificers, Sum'gial had to turn them into undead. Considering the undead do have infinite lifespans, he would charge five hundred years of service. For the apprenticeship, Sum'gial would need twenty years. Regardless of their age, what he needed was rigorously organized living beings.
While thinking of this, he remembered Elegant Goblin's request in the Forums of the Damned. He picked up the communication tome. As he uploaded the requested knowledge and some more, Sum'gial was curious about what the forum members would think—about what they would think.
Vyrgil POV
Vyrgil of Nosgoblin, the first vampire in the goblin race after the ages of goblin, was a curious creature. Standing tall at three feet with white hair and red eyes, dressed in a posh gentleman's suit with leather shoes, Vyrgil was smarter than most goblins. Vyrgil remembered the curse of gods raining on the Goblins, the wonderful cities; yet why they fell, he wasn't aware.
The post he made in the Forums of the Damned was a bait; Vyrgil already knew all that happened in the past. He didn't live to be over two thousand years old by being reckless. Vyrgil had been doing his best to live. While reading the answer he was seeking from the Forums of the Damned, he read a term he didn't understand. What was class stratification?
Vyrgil, despite breaking the most curses by becoming a blood ancestor, couldn't understand this term. He would have to ask the lich what it was about.
Sum'gial POV
He got a private message from Vyrgil. While surprised a little, Sum'gial didn't mind. However, he wouldn't answer the question directly. Sum'gial was of the opinion it was better to teach a man to fish than give the man a fish. He would give a couple of books, but before that he needed allies. Despite his OCD saying so, he couldn't randomly give knowledge to an unknown vampire.
Orbisar was a world where the strong eat the weak, where chaos and order took turns to mess up the world. Whenever class stratification happened in the Underdeep, the Mushroom Queen's wrath would rain upon that place. Class stratification—and how to avoid the Mushroom Queen's ire—was the sum of drow scholars' sum of knowledge.
Sum'gial wanted allies more than he wanted knowledge. The knowledge and the skills he currently had were larger than the whole of E'nathyr combined. He needed time to digest and innovate the current knowledge he had. Wars were messy affairs; his OCD didn't allow him to jump around like the previous lich was doing.
Sum'gial would use the magitech left behind by the artificers and surpass them. Furthermore, he was aware there were remnants of goblin aristocrats in the universe. Despite Orbisar being their birthplace, there were smart goblins who took their ancestral craft and went to uninhabited planes and worlds. He never wanted to take the stage again.
Sum'gial started to write another contract to ensure its binding abilities. Ahr'zel, a lesser archduke, was probably much better than him at drafting contracts. He would seek his counsel when he was done with the initial draft.
—
It took him a couple of hours to get the contract done. As Sum'gial entered the library, he started to think how to make Ahr'zel work for him completely. Despite library rules—which only ensured the books, tomes, and scrolls were safely categorized—he needed another alternative. Devils from lower levels never worked for nothing; no amount of souls could satisfy a lesser archduke.
Sum'gial entered the library and saw Ahr'zel working non-stop. He was satisfied with his work ethic. Despite being overly underpaid, Ahr'zel's work etiquette was impeccable.
Ahr'zel stopped for a moment and looked at Sum'gial, a corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably. "What now?"
"I would like to make our employment more complete," Sum'gial replied dryly.
"I am not your employee, but this dimension's," Ahr'zel said.
"Skeleton, Sk€leton. Same thing. As the owner of the dimension, you are my employee. You should have realized by now, there are no loopholes in the rules of this dimension. Otherwise, you would have bolted out of here in a soulfire flick," Sum'gial spoke.
"Even so, I don't wish to be underpaid for anything," Ahr'zel said.
"I am well aware, so my proposal is that you summon your underlings using their true names. After the work is done, I will give something much more precious than any souls," Sum'gial said.
"What do you have that's so precious?" Ahr'zel asked.
"The body of a fallen god!" Sum'gial said.
"You are mad! You couldn't possibly have such a thing?" Ahr'zel said.
"Does this dimension remind you of something?" Sum'gial asked.
"These rules, this spatial stability, the ease you control all of these—did you turn a kingdom of god to a library?" Ahr'zel asked.
"I turned it into my tower," Sum'gial was speechless of the pitfalls left by the original.
"And you still have the body?" Ahr'zel asked.
"Not the whole body, but a part of it. Just a hand."
"Which god's body part do you have?" Ahr'zel asked.
"That will wait till we have a contract of employment!" Sum'gial cut the conversation sharply.
"I will sign the contract, but an archduke of Hell isn't easy to deal with. He might not take it kindly to me nor my subordinates, leaving the entire Hell resources department empty," Ahr'zel said.
"Then let's make a deal with the archduke. I don't like the idea of being on the blacklist of an entire Hell!" Sum'gial said.
"The archduke knows my true name; he can make me hand over anything I got my hands on!" Ahr'zel said.
"Then change your true name!" Sum'gial replied dryly.
"How can someone change their true names willy-nilly?!" Ahr'zel asked.
"True names represent the characters of the devils they represent. Change your character; change your true name," Sum'gial said.
"And how would I do that?!" Ahr'zel asked sarcastically.
"Simple: use an Enchantment school of magic and affect your soul," Sum'gial said.
"Yeah, I do have an Enchantment school legendary wizard in my right pocket!" Ahr'zel said.
"Well, do you have a misunderstanding about an archmage? I can easily cast such a spell," Sum'gial replied.
"And leave my soul under your control?!" Ahr'zel asked.
Fake sighing, Sum'gial said, "You want something, yet you are unwilling to pay the price for it."
"Let's go over it one more time: you want my loyalty and my subordinates' loyalty, you want to make a deal with the ninth archduke of Hell—the fallen gold dragon, the favorite of the King of Hell—and you want to alter my soul so that I can be a clerk in your kingdom of god turned into a tower!" Ahr'zel burst out.
"Sleep on it; we will talk about it later on," Sum'gial said.
—
Sum'gial was working on the mycelbrew recipe requested in the Forums of the Damned. The one he had shared beforehand got some response in the chat group, yet it didn't give good taste to the drinkers. While working on it, he was keeping an eye on the chat group as well. He was able to recognize most of the members, yet there were members who never made a sound.
Sum'gial wasn't sure what to think of the members of the Forums of the Damned. A goblin vampire, a fallen elven high priestess obsessed with mycelbrew, a legendary monster slime undead, a dracolich who wants to sleep, a hive-minded creature, a legendary death knight obsessed with muscles, and an undead ship that wanted to do good—these chaotic members made his nonexistent brain burn.
Nonetheless, he needed allies; that's why he was meeting their request on the Forums of the Damned. Ther'vassi goblin magitech was incredible; their ideas on the micro magic brought the undead plagues. They used the magic network to create communication devices that could talk across worlds and planes. The current inheritors of their magitech were probably the experiments that Ther'vassi worked on.
Sum'gial wanted to systematically started to work on the Ther'vassi magitech. He didn't want to leave his tower for any reason. If anyone opposed him, he wanted to be able to attack everyone in Orbisar from his tower. If they didn't leave him alone even with that, he would turn Orbisar into the undead world. Sum'gial was someone who lived for his obsessions, and he would satisfy every single obsession of his till the end of time.
But first, allies—that meant working on mycelbrew recipes.
Sum'gial set the predecessor's brew beside a cool glass bowl and accepted a simple limit: the potion would feed the undead; taste would have to ride on top of it. Not tongue—memory.
He chose a small, single memory from his living days. Not glory. Not pain. Bread, torn open in a warm kitchen while rain knocked at the window. He narrowed it until only warmth, steam, and rain remained.
Breath condensed on the inside of the bowl. Three calm breaths. Three clear drops. He sealed them in a phial and returned to the bench.
The base potion he did not alter—same soul-dust, same frostweed, same curse-ash. He only changed the way it met the memory: warm the base to slow-heat (never boil), stir until the sheen turned even, then add the three drops and count nine breaths. The surface rippled once and stilled. It was enough to try.
He poured a cup. No tongue greeted it. But on the second sip the mind found weather, and on the third sip a ghost of butter crossed the thought like a bird's shadow.
Acceptable. Now make it repeatable. As Sum'gial uploaded the new recipes on mycelbrew, he was curious of their reactions. The reward for this action was a couple of blueprints left by Ther'vassi. He was curious what they would be.