Ka'Lula and Penelo stare down at the lich sprawled across the throne room floor, his bony fingers clutching his ribcage as peals of laughter echo around the chamber, bouncing off the cracked walls and shaking the torches in their brackets.
"What's happening?" Penelo whispers, ears trembling.
Vuvi, Veena and Sera drop out of the air unceremoniously,
The lich gasps between laughs, pointing a skeletal finger at Ka'Lula. "She came," he wheezes. "By the flames, she actually came. After all these years… I thought I would be stuck here for eternity! But she actually came!"
Ka'Lula blinks, flustered. "You were... waiting for me?"
"Yes, yes! You!" He sits up, bones creaking and joints crackling, then pushes himself upright with a dramatic flourish. "I have stood guard over this mountain for two hundred and forty-seven years. Watching. Waiting. Bound by oath, cursed by my very blood. I could not die, I could not leave... until a dragon-kin of divine lineage came to release me."
