Annihilation

"You are a fool," Gromph said to Dietr.

The halfling cowered from his gaze and quivered.

"I didn't ask you to come with me," Gromph added, "and you don't belong here any more than I belonged in the Green Fields."

"I wanted. ." the halfling began then coughed. Dust puffed from his throat. "I wanted to live again."

"Why?" Gromph asked.

"My mother. She has been attending seances to contact me. She has no other family and needs me to support her."

Gromph laughed.

"It's not fu

Gromph laughed more then cast a spell.

"An amusing diversion, traitor," he said into the air, "but a temporary one. We'll finish it in the Bazaar. Now."

He still had ten words left in the spell but had nothing more to say.

The lichdrow has been hiding in House Agrach Dyrr, Nauzhror sent. The siege continues at a stalemate.

"I don't understand," Dietr said.

Gromph turned to look down at the halfling again.

"Can you get me home?" Dietr asked. "Can you send me back to Luiren?"

Gromph raised an eyebrow at the little creature's audacity then slid his tongue around a quick divination. Obvious as it was by the halfling's appearance, it didn't hurt to be certain. The spell revealed a telltale glow around the slight humanoid.

Where have you been? Nauzhror asked.

Nowhere I'd like to visit again, he replied, but someone's come back with me.

I see, said Nauzhror. The gate effect seems to have given him some kind of physical form.

But he died on this plane, Gromph added, so when he came back. .

"Yes," the archmage finally answered the halfling. "I can take you anywhere you want to go. Of course, I won't."

The halfling shook, and Gromph thought he could actually hear the creature's bones rattle.

"Please. .?" the halfling whimpered.

"Your mother will not be happy to see you, Dietr," Gromph said. "You died. Remember? You came back to this world unbidden. You came back as a. ."

It is a huecuva, Nauzhror provided.

"An undead creature," Gromph said to the halfling. "You're a huecuva. Do you know what that is?"

The halfling shook his head, terror plain in his bloodshot eyes.

Gromph, my young friend, the lichdrow's voice reverberated in the wizard's head, welcome back. Of course I accept your gracious invitation. It will be my honor to attend you on your last day.

Gromph nodded, mumbled through a simple necromancy, and directed it at the halfling. The archmage felt the undead creature come under his control.

"Stand up straight," Gromph commanded, and Dietr instantly complied, though it seemed to cause him some discomfort.

Gromph cast another spell on him, one that set a flicker of magical fire playing over the halfling's dead flesh.

"No. ." the halfling muttered. "Please. ."

Gromph tightened his grip on his staff and conjured a globe of protective force around himself.

"Please don't. ." the huecuva pleaded.

Gromph looked around the Bazaar—abandoned tents and stalls, most with their wares secured under lock and key, and a few curious drow eyes watching from safe places in the surrounding stalactites.

"Won't you please just let me—?" Dietr begged.

"Silence," Gromph said, and the halfling was compelled to obey. "You decided to come through with me, Dietr, and now you're in Menzoberranzan, not Luiren. In Menzoberranzan, undead are property."

The huecuva's mouth worked in silence, and his skin crawled over his bones.

Gromph felt something, a presence, and quickly sca

Gromph rushed through another incantation, leaning his staff against his chest so he could use both hands to work the magic. Twisting tendrils of blue-hot flame leaped from his fingertips, growing as they made their way unerringly at the green shadow. The fire shuddered in the air and was drawn thin. It poured into a spot at the top of the shadow and disappeared into it.

The crown, Nauzhror sighed.

"Stand in front of me," Gromph said to the halfling.

The huecuva did precisely as he was told, even as the wave of blue fire shot back at Gromph. The flames hit the halfling full in the chest, and activated the protective spell Gromph had cast on him. The blue fire was replaced by a flash of red-orange that carried back along the path of the reflected spell. The green shadow was replaced by the fully revealed form of the lichdrow Dyrr, who was no longer invisible.

The fire from the huecuva's defensive aura burned the lich, making Gromph smile. He looked at the halfling and saw that Dietr was smoking, his dead flesh smoldering. His face was twisted with agony.

"Go," Gromph commanded. "Kill the lich."

Dyrr cast a spell on him, but Gromph's defenses proved capable of turning it away. It made the archmage a little dizzy, and that was all. Dietr staggered forward, reluctant but compelled to act. He wasn't moving fast enough.

"Kill the lich," Gromph called after him, "and I'll send you home to your mother."

Dietr believed the lie and broke into a run. Dyrr moved up to meet him and raked a clawed hand across the huecuva's face. Red-orange fire flared at the touch, blowing blistering heat into the lichdrow's masked face.

Dyrr threw up an arm, but the damage had been done. He roared, frustrated and angry.

Gromph was already working his next spell. Before Dyrr could strike again, it took effect, and the lichdrow's arm stopped in mid-swipe. Gromph hadn't quite expected the spell to work, but it had. Dyrr was frozen.

"Take me home!" the undead halfling shrieked.

He raked his own set of undead talons across Dyrr's sunken cheeks. The frozen lichdrow growled at the pain and humiliation of the wound and was able to move again.

Taking advantage of Dyrr's misdirected rage at the huecuva, Gromph cha

Dyrr had been casting a spell—likely one that would have blasted Dietr to flinders—but the arcane fire took him full in the face. His spell was ruined, and the lichdrow was burned again.

You're hurting him, Grendan said into Gromph's mind.

Dietr struck again, digging a deep furrow into the lichdrow's forearm. Thick, dead blood oozed slowly from the wound.

The lichdrow looked at Gromph, and the archmage could see in his undead eyes that he was hurt, and hurt badly. Gromph smiled, and—

Dietr exploded in a shower of black fire, dead flesh, and yellowed bones.

What's happening? Nauzhror asked.

The sphere of magical energy that surrounded Gromph winked out—its magic spent—as the archmage realized that the black fire that had destroyed his huecuva hadn't come from Dyrr.

The lichdrow looked up into the air over the Bazaar, and Gromph followed his gaze.

Nimor Imphraezl hung suspended on batlike wings a dozen yards above the floor of the Bazaar.

Wings? Gromph thought.

I knew he was no true drow, said Nauzhror.

"Well," Nimor said to the lich, his voice deeper, weightier than Gromph remembered, "seems you need me after all."