A/N: This story is set in the Forgotten Realms setting, but only deals with original characters.
Warnings: This story contains elements of non-consent. Please do not read if that makes you in any way uncomfortable.
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Zafi awakened slowly. Her head pounded dully. When she sat up, it was a moment before she realized that she was locked in a large golden cage. She quickly stood and recited a simple spell to unlock the cage door, but the door only rattled slightly in response. Next she tried a spell to simply melt the door, but as soon as the words of the spell left her mouth, she felt the magic fall flat. She could blast the door with fire, but in a confined space it would be much too dangerous. Concentrating, she could sense now that the cage had upon it several powerful enchantments, beyond what she was accustomed to seeing and decided that she was simply stuck. She sat back against the cage bars in frustration.
The last thing she could remember before waking up in the cage was fighting alongside other wizards on a battlefield in northern Mulhorand. She looked around her now for some clue as to what had happened. All around the cage were piles of manuscripts and bookshelves full of what looked to be very ancient volumes. The air was musty and damp and the cold of the room cut through her robes to bite at her skin. She was puzzling out where she could be when she heard a door creak open somewhere to her distant right.
Zafi stiffened when an unnaturally silent figure appeared around the corner of one large bookcase. It wore regal garb, though the clothing was tattered and torn, with a finely crafted golden crown upon its head. But no human face gazed back at Zafi. Instead she beheld two blazing pinpoints of red light in dark sockets set in a leering skull. Its cadaverous form bespoke years upon years of age. It was an undead wizard. A lich.
As a Red Wizard of Thay, a country that didn't shy away from necromantic experiments of the most gruesome kind, Zafi was not unused to the company of the undead. But she felt her heartbeat quicken in fear anyway. There was something undeniably sinister in any lich's skeletal gaze.
"Ah...," rumbled the lich in a deep baritone. "You're awake. Good."
Zafi felt her heart beating in her throat and felt a useless desire to flee, but she tried to master her fear and looked back at the lich with what she hoped was a defiant glare.
"Where am I?" she asked, her voice quavering despite her resolve. "What do you want?"
The lich didn't speak as he glided noiselessly closer to her cage.
"Your magic," he bellowed, wrapping the bare bones of his fingers around the cage bars and staring at her closely. Zafi recoiled from his closeness.
"I don't have many powerful tokens with me," she lied. The lich laughed softly, the sound somehow more hateful and angry than mirthful.
"You are a poor liar, my pretty," he voiced softly. "But what I desire from you has nothing to do with anything you carry."
"I don't understand," replied Zafi in a small voice.
"You are a skilled wizardess," croaked the lich, circling the cage. "Your defensive magics managed to subdue my scouting party and you commanded my undead as if they were mere children. I had to send my finest vampire to gather you up."
"I will be frank," he continued. "If you will consent without question to aid me in performing a relatively simple ritual, then I will consider letting you go."
"And if I don't consent?" asked Zafi in a feeble attempt to sound like an equal at this bargaining table. The undead wizard swooped in front of her and closed in with a heated gaze.
"Then I will claim your soul," rasped the terrible creature throatily.
"What sort of ritual?" asked Zafi slowly, already feeling defeated.
"That is not your concern," replied the lich in a tone that demanded obeisance. "Either you are prepared to do as I say or you are not. There is nothing else to discuss."
Zafi turned the predicament over in her mind. Her hand rose to her brow and then slid through her raven hair in concentration. She strongly suspected that she could expend every enchanted object she possessed and the entirety of the power in her person and fail to defeat the lich. And to attack the lich without defeating him would be certain death—or worse. At least if she agreed to the ritual, however vile or dangerous it may be, she had a precious chance to get away mostly unscathed. She sighed deeply.
"Alright," she said clearly.
At this the lich passed a hand in front of the cage door, which swung open immediately. Inclining his head to Zafi, he motioned handsomely for her to exit her prison. She stepped cautiously over the threshold and waited for some direction. The lich then lifted a bony finger to point her onward in front of him. She complied quickly but as she passed the lich he stopped her with an iron grip around one wrist. Immediately Zafi felt her body seize with an unearthly coldness that she felt in her bones. She fell shaking to her knees.
"Wait," growled the lich. He waved a hand over Zafi's form and paused when his skeletal claw hovered over her breast. Then he quickly leaned forward, seized either side of Zafi's high collar and tore the bodice of her robes partially open, revealing a large, glittering talisman hanging on a chain in the hollow of her breast. The lich released her wrist and gently drew the talisman into his fingers, inspecting it. Then suddenly he fiercely wrenched the chain from around Zafi's neck.
Zafi wanted desperately to protest. The talisman had once been a gift from her father to her mother and passed down to her, a powerful token of protection from evil. But the lich gestured her onward and she knew better than to argue. He led her on as she stumbled through piles of books and strange objects of arcane value—orreries, large cases filled with staves, old whitened bones. Eventually the lich waved her through a grand oaken door onto a large platform.
Zafi stood at the top landing of a long staircase overlooking a great open stone chamber. She looked down at where the lich had drawn a huge arcane sigil in blood red chalk on the floor. She didn't have long to ponder the meaning before the lich hooked an arm under her knees and gathered her up. He glided to the open center of the sigil and dumped her indelicately in the middle. Exiting the circle, the lich made his way up the stairs to the platform that overlooked the sigil. He sidled up to a large pedestal atop which rested a very old and worn tome. He waved a skeletal hand and the monstrous book flipped open to the appropriate page.
Zafi cast her eyes all about her in silent horror. She recognized some of the symbols strewn throughout the sigil and knew they were meant for the conjuration of demons. Despite what the lich had said before, she quivered with the thought that the next few moments could be her last. Demons were only useful for a few purposes.