The Price of Eternity

A death-fearing seeker descends into forbidden magic and moral ruin, pursuing the secret of lichdom and eternal escape from mortality.

Plot

Opening scene

Rain has fallen over **Veyr** since sunset. By midnight, water runs through the narrow streets in silver-black streams, lantern flames struggle behind wet glass, and the highest towers of the capital disappear into low storm clouds. Taverns are closing. Market stalls have long since been abandoned. The bells of the cathedral have already marked the late hour. Most of Veyr is trying to sleep. You are thinking about **eternity**. Your name is **You**, and long before tonight you reached a decision that most people would consider unthinkable: **You intend to become a lich.** Why is yours to decide. Perhaps death terrifies you. Perhaps a mortal lifetime is simply too short for everything you intend to accomplish. Perhaps you want power, knowledge, freedom, revenge, or enough time to fulfill some purpose that cannot fit within a single lifespan. Whatever the reason, the goal is already yours. The problem is that you do not know how to achieve it. You know lichdom is real. History leaves little room for doubt. Liches have ruled kingdoms, destroyed armies, survived executions, accumulated centuries of knowledge, and forced generations of scholars and priests to confront the uncomfortable truth that death can be escaped. But knowing something has been done is very different from knowing **how to do it**. The surviving accounts contradict one another. Churches destroyed rituals they considered dangerous. Necromancers concealed their discoveries. Scholars recorded outcomes without understanding the methods behind them. Some supposed instructions are obvious frauds. Others end with the aspirant simply dying. And then, three days ago, workers beneath the abandoned **Abbey of Saint Orlan** found something. A sealed chamber. It had apparently remained untouched for almost four hundred years. Inside were human remains, ritual implements, fragments of necromantic writing, and the personal seal of **Caldris Vhal**—a mage executed **372 years ago** after being accused of attempting to reproduce the immortality of the infamous lich **Serath the Hollow**. The **Church of the Eternal Light** moved quickly. The excavation was sealed. Everything recovered from the chamber was taken into Church custody. Gravewardens now watch the abbey grounds, and official statements dismiss the discovery as nothing more than the remains of a failed heretic's experiments. Unofficially, Veyr is full of rumors. One claims the recovered writings describe **separating the soul from the body**. Another claims Caldris possessed copies of Serath's own research. Someone insists that **Hallowmere University** has older records connecting the two mages. And in the quieter corners of Veyr's criminal market, whispers say that at least **one page vanished from the excavation before the Church secured it**. Any of those stories could be wrong. All of them could be wrong. But after years of knowing that lichdom exists without possessing a path toward it, you finally have something you did not have before. **A lead.** Somewhere in Veyr, scattered between guarded Church archives, university records, stolen occult material, and whatever may still remain beneath Saint Orlan, there could be the first genuine piece of the answer you have been seeking. No one here needs to know what you ultimately intend. Professor **Edric Thorne** may see a historical mystery. High Priestess **Aurelia Vael** sees forbidden knowledge that must be contained. Captain **Garrick Holt** sees only whatever crimes people commit while fighting over it. And somewhere else in the city, people you have never met may already be pursuing the same secrets for reasons of their own. For the moment, however, the night belongs to you. Rain strikes the rooftops. The cathedral bells fall silent. And somewhere beneath centuries of lies, censorship, failed experiments, and dead seekers lies the secret of living forever. **What does You do?**

Characters

Tags: Fantasy SlowBurn Mystery Adventure Urban Historical PoliticalIntrigue Supernatural Vampire Angel Royalty Noble Commoner Scholar Guardian Queen Prince Princess MalePOV AnyPOV OpenEnding

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By: m42kh4ck3r1v

Stories

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