"I...It's the lich!" Ruby shouted in disbelief.
"Ye-es!" the accused chuckled. "What brings three foals here of all places?"
Stream pointed a sharp feather at his face, surprising him. "Don't try to lower our guard with your jovial interactions! We know you're just using psychological warfare!"
The undead's 'eyes' remained affixed to the mare's wings. "I am?" he asked.
"That orb!" Pollen shouted. "That's the source of his power! We have to destroy it quickly!"
The lich tripped over his words before he could actually speak. "Wait!"
It was too late. Stream flicked the orb away from its owner towards Pollen who chucked it at the hooves of Ruby. The stallion used as much strength as he could put into his legs and jumped high into the air. He fell down, forelegs first, and crushed the sphere, releasing magic and spirits trapped within.
"We did it!" he cheered.
As the three celebrated their victory, the lich rolled his 'eyes' and got up from its chair. The floating undead glided over the steps and balcony and stopped at a random point in the ground, lowered itself, and caused a hole to appear. He grunted and mumbled as he looked for something in particular, but with a sudden grunt of victory, pulled out another glowing, purple orb. The ponies were dumbfounded at the sight. They noticed that there were shadows resembling the fingers of minotaurs underneath the orb, and every time the orb shifted, so too did the position of the shadows.
"I tried to warn you," the lich sighed. "There's plenty of orbs all over my continent. There's no point in breaking one. I can just grab another," he explained as he floated back to the rocking chair.
The ponies exchanged confused glances.
"A-aren't you the dreaded lich?" Pollen asked.
"Eeyup," the lich answered.
"Didn't you terrorize the world with your undead hordes? You almost destroyed the griffins and the minotaurs!"
"And don't forget that I drained the life force from Saddle Arabia!" he said joyfully. "Hmm...I wonder how it's doing since I let that go."
"Wh...ah...You're just asking like this to misdirect us!" Stream accused.
"I mean, I was reading this nice book before you came around," the lich said. He showed them the cover. "The history of Equestria volume seventeen." He looked back at the cover and bounced in the chair. "Is it true that you have managed to make things move on their own without magic? Like boats? Just with water?" he asked eagerly.
The trio were at a complete loss for words. The lich seemed earnest and was awaiting the answer eagerly.
"Yeeeessss..." Pollen slurred. "We were, uh, going to use one, but had to use an old sailboat."
"Your monsters would have heard us," Stream growled.
The lich slumped. "Awww. I really wanted to see this 'steam' machinery." His eyes flickered with realization. "Monsters?"
The pegasus gestured towards the monstrosity stomping away. "Like that horrific thing?! It chased after us!"
Her target leaned forward to get a better look at the monster then relaxed and dropped himself back into his chair, 'wee-ing' as he rocked back and forth at high speed. He somehow stopped the chair and cleared his non-existent throat. "Ah. Them. They're the only ones left."
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.
"I dissolved all the others, but those souls got used to having such an immense body fit for destruction." The lich's robe shifted in the guise of a shrug. "I've dissolved it about two hundred and thirty-three times, and every time they came back, so I just gave up."
The trio's eyes nearly bulged from their heads.
"How did you even remember how many times you did that?!" Pollen asked incredulously.
The lich shrugged again. "I have an eternity to live through. I can do something as mundane as counting." He heaved a sigh from his non-existent lungs, producing a strange black smog from his nasal passages. "They seem to miss the old days of me trying to render the world into a world of undead free from the fears of death and pain. Oh well!"
A pony's skeleton came out from the cabin carrying a tray with an iron percolator and four tea cups. It passed them to the lich who placed them on a small table it grew from the balcony. The skeleton wheezed and returned into the house. A satisfied sigh came from the lich when it took a sip of the contents of its steaming beverage.
"Oh, have you ever heard of this stuff?" He asked. The lich shook the cup in front of the two ponies. "It's this thing I just learned of...coughing? Something like that." He took another sip and savored the 'flavor'. "Disgustingly bitter! Do you want some?"
The trio flinched and pulled away from the cup in response.
"No thank you," Ruby responded. "And it's called 'coffee'," he grunted.
Despite being unable to properly display any emotion, the lich still gave off the feeling of disappointment.
"Really?" He looked at the tray and drooped slightly. "I was so excited to have others try this out," he lamented while the tray floated. "Oh well."
When the undead chucked the tray with the beverage over his shoulder, its contact with the ground caused a bright explosion that devolved into a smoke cloud replete with screaming faces in agony and howling of the damned.
"What was in that?!" Stream screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Uuuh, the beans that I mashed, some hot water, cream I stole from the armies that came before, some bonemeal, and tainted souls of those from the corner between corners," he listed off.
Stream narrowed her eyes. "The what?"
"Common ingredients. Good for the bones," the lich said as he patted his chest with his invisible limbs. "Say, what's wrong with your friend?"
The pegasus turned around to see Pollen pacing back and forth aggressively, mumbling to herself like she had lost her mind. Before Stream could even call out to her, the unicorn pushed her aside and jumped onto the balcony, startling the lich.
"What is this? What game are you playing at?" She gestured to the rest of the continent with a foreleg. "You made an entire continent from the remains of the dead of millions of years, pulling them from the ground of the ocean itself!"
"Yes," the lich responded.
"You almost wiped out two races and you caused an entire land to become a desert because you drained all the life energy from it!"
The lich nodded in agreement. "Yes. Very true."
"You almost took over the world dozens of times, and every time you left just a little smidgen of life left afterwards!"
"That much?" he lamented.
Pollen tripped over her words and only managed get out incomprehensible noise. "You act so disappointed! You sound like you want to keep trying to destroy the world! Which is it?!"
She watched the undead stare at her, rocking back and forth and moving the orb around it. "Have you failed and tried again to succeed?"
"Yes, of course," Ruby answered.
He got jabbed in the gut by Stream. "Don't answer him!" she berated.
They watched the lich 'stand up' and float towards them, although they could still see hoof imprints pressing into the ground while he moved forward.
"I've failed so many times after almost making it that I just...lost interest," he explained. He hummed. "Trying again and again and again. Normally, an immortal being like me wouldn't need to worry about such things since I literally have eternity to eventually get what I want." He chuckled. "But I digress. You living beings are too hardy. By the time I reassemble my forces and have so many magic spells ready that they're falling out of my tower, well...You've all recovered from what I did." He leaned in towards the ponies, his aura 'somber'. "You have to stop doing that so much. Too many of you. It's like fighting mice." The lich chuckled and remained in place, making it look like there was a floating torso draped in sheets standing in front of everypony. "Always making me develop new spells to deal with that."
"And it seems we develop our technology faster than you can follow," Ruby quipped.
He felt his soul being burned through by the lich's gaze. The three were certain that he was going to attack them after that, but the undead simply exploded in laughter and likely pointed at Ruby with his invisible limbs. "That's exactly right! But I have my magic to deal with that just as well."
Stream leaned forward. "Wait, you developed magic? We were told you just modified existing ones."
"Pfff. No. How else was I going to keep my undead hordes anchored if the spells doing so could be deciphered in seconds because the spell they were built on was already known?" He shook his head. "No. I just made a new spell language every century or so." He looked at the mountains behind him and grumbled. "I think I made three in fifty years. I was really inspired that century. Ended up with a plethora of different runes that mixed and matched." Cackling escaped his bones. "Couldn't make heads or tales of that. Lasted five centuries, but by then I had already founded several more languages."
"So...you're not interested in destroying the world anymore?" Ruby asked nervously.
The lich sighed and leaned towards the chair's armrest. "No. I've had my fill of almost getting close to succeeding. Maybe I'll try again in the future, but I'm more interested in all this technology you've been developing. It's so exciting!"
There was a scratching implying he was scratching something with his invisible limbs, and a sinister aura came from for just the briefest of moments.
"Stop fraternizing with him!" Pollen screamed. Outraged, she stomped towards the lich while pushing her companions away with her magic. "I still don't believe that you're not interested in destroying the world."
The lich's shoulders shifted, implying a shrug. "That sounds like a you problem," he teased.
The mare's nerves were overheating, and she jumped back to let out a spell of light magic, taught to her to banish the undead that were supposed to assault them on the continent. The ray of light hit the lich, but he didn't react, although his chair did rock back and forth, much to his annoyance. Baffled by the occurrence, the mare let out spell after spell at the lich until she cast one so strong it blinded everyone.
"Ah! I'm blind!" the lich screamed. He was dragging himself across the ground, groaning in pain, much to the bemusement of Pollen. "My eyes! I can't see from them!" He paused, looked down, then stood back up. "Oh right. I don't have eyes."
Pollen's mane deflated, her body went limp, her mouth agape, and her ears drooped. "B-but...They were made to fight you..." she whined in despair.
The lich stuttered when he looked at her. "What? With a spell language I made seven centuries ago?!" He laughed heartily and rolled onto his back. "You living are good with technology but not sorcery. It's hilarious."
"W-well, you were alive too! What even got you into this?!" Pollen rebutted.
The atmosphere became somber as the lich sat up and stared at the mare with defeated flames serving as his eyes. "Well, you have told me a lot. I suppose I can share it with you." He paused a moment, and the three could hear his hooves clicking together. "My wife and children...They died of a disease. I was a...doctor, once. Once," he emphasized. "I could not save them nor could I save the village I was in."
"So you took up necromancy to try and bring them back?" Stream asked.
The lich nodded slowly. "Yes. I was brought through so many different sects where I learned so many different things until I finally had to kill the heads of my last sect to use their magic-infused corpses as the focusing lens to becoming a lich. I realized then..." He took a deep 'breath'. "That living prolongs suffering. Disease, famine, thirst. I realized that, in death, there is no suffering, only eternal peace and comfort." He looked down to his invisible limbs. "I still don't know how to bring my family back."
Pollen was taken aback and seemed paler than usual. It took a great amount of courage to talk to the lich with his back turned to the trio. "I'm so sorry. What kind of disease was it? Perhaps we know of it now. The solace of that could at least appease you partially if we found a cure."
A low grumbling came from the undead. He stared straight into Sneezy's eyes before speaking up. "I don't know, I made that up!" he laughed.
"I knew it!" Ruby shouted. "That sounded way too generic!"
"Hey, this pony gets it," the lich laughed. "What kind of sappy backstory was that? How did you even fall for it?"
Pollen was defeated and just sucked in her lips from the cheer disbelief and rage she was experiencing.
"Was any of that true, then?!" Stream asked with some disgust.
"Um..." The undead paced about while trying to recall every event. "Some of the sect stuff, but I really only wanted an undead army," he said in a positive tone. "You want some coffee, unicorn? You look like you're going to explode."
"No, I don't want any coffee!" Pollen exploded.