Maris stomped disconsolately up the stairs from the lower levels. To anyone coming the opposite direction down the rough hewn stone corridors he would most likely have appeared as rather terrifying figure. But that was hardly his fault, it was rather hard to look friendly when you're dead. Not, he thought to himself, that it was the being dead part the was necessarily the problem. No, it was the fact that he was still MOVING that got to people. Had he just lain unmoving in the corridor then no one would give him a second glance (once the first glance had confirmed he had nothing worth stealing anyway), but put his skeletal form in a flowing black robe and send it stomping down a darkened corridor and suddenly everyone cops an attitude.
"In my experience," Maris thought "mortals have an overly propriety attitude to locomotion."
Now, admittedly he didn't meet that many new people, but every time he did they invariably ran screaming. Sometimes away in terror, sometimes towards him with drawn swords, but screaming and running seemed to be fairly constant. He didn't even feel particularly bad when he set them on fire any more, it was just one of those things.
Setting things on fire was a large part of Maris' job description, being a Death Mage. He had all manner of spells and incantations at his disposal of course. Dark and terrible magics that rent flesh and mind alike. He could summon unclean nightmares from beyond the grave and shape the very darkness itself. But mostly he found himself setting things on fire. To be fair, this wasn't always his fault. After a particularly pitched battle against a group of particularly rabid paladins a few years back he'd been given the skeletal claw of a fire demon as a reward. Maris had the feeling that this had more to do with the fact that the demon had been almost annihilated by the paladins, and he'd managed to get away with just getting his arm cut off.
Well, that and an axe to the face, but who's counting?
Whilst it had seemed like a good idea at first, Maris quickly came to realise that having one hand that burns with an eternal fire that can never be quenched is not exactly the most practical arrangement in day to day life. He could no longer visit the Library Of Screaming Evil. It wasn't that he was banned as such, but the Librarians saw him coming and asked him politely not to come in. That was somehow worse than being chased out by the Book Golems for sneaking into the forbidden section like he normally did.
And robes. How many robes had he gone through? He didn't like to think. At first he thought he'd have to go around naked like the low ranking skeletals on the upper levels. Even after he cut the sleeves off, one careless movement was all it took to send the whole thing up around him. eventually he managed to save up enough gems and gold to trade to the slavering pygmy smiths down on level 16 for an enchanted grave-iron gauntlet. It wasn't ideal, but at least it kept the flames in and he could get back into the library on his days off. Even if he was confined to the smoking section. And there was always the advantage that idly toying with the clasps of the gauntlet was a sure fire way of catching the attention of any rebellious subordinates. The orcs had been a complete nightmare to work with until he'd set 12 of them on fire. Now they got along quite well.
Stomp, stomp, stomp. Down the corridor, right at the intersection, around the pit trap. Stomp stomp stomp.
He was being punished for something. That much was clear. Otherwise there was no way he should have received orders like these. He wasn't sure quite what exactly, but that was the nature of an organisation like this. When each of your superiors is more insane than the last, seemingly by increasing orders of magnitude as you go up the ranks, the slightest little thing can get you into all kinds of trouble. He'd realised many years ago that the issue wasn't really about if you'd done something that the higher ups didn't like. It was if they even noticed. Most of the time they were locked away pursuing whatever strange rituals it was that went on down in the lower levels.
"Probably something to do with summoning Succubi". He thought. "Ah well, that's the living for you."
Maybe that was it. Maybe they'd finally got one of those chrono-psychic orbs working and it had predicted he'd think that about them and so they'd sent him off on this ridiculous errand as preemptive retribution.
Sadly that wasn't even the most insane thing he'd heard recently. Still, whatever the case the order had come down and he, lowly Necromorphic Death Mage that he was had no choice but to obey.
Go and count the Skittering Rat-Things up on level one.
"Bastards." Maris thought as he stomped his way up out of the darkness.
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