Calliope stared at the semi-corporeal litch with amazement. There were legends of such creatures, powerful mages who used their arts to stave off death, but she had never thought to meet one. Markus hung in the air suspended by the ghostly tendrils as Sron continued to pound rhythmically at the door. There was an unquestioned majesty to the being, it seemed to flicker between a handsome powerful man and a sunken corpse like a strobe, never quite stable and always in flux. She could feel the things arcane strength and she yearned to understand the mystery it represented.

“I wouldn’t want to live in a world where we got what we deserved,” she said, casting a scornful lk at Markus.

“And I don’t doubt he would cut my throat if it profited him, let us make a compact you and I, but let me take the captain, it would please me to have power over one who thinks himself my better.”

The lich laughed cruelly and guestured at Markus, blasting the pirate into unconsciousness with a negligent wave of his hand. The door began to splinter under Sron’s continual battering and the lich turned his empty eyesockets towards the straining timbers.

“I’ll need a crew if I am to do your bidding in the wider world,” Calliope pointed out. The lich seemed to consider this and then made an obscure gesture. The paving stones on the library floor began to grind and flow, opening slowly in a downward spiral, books rattled from the shelves and feel fluttering to the ground. Calliope backed instinctively away from the yawning void that was opening but the litch swooped across the gulf and snatched her up in his arms and then plunged downwards into the darkness. 

Calliope opened her eyes and found herself in a large circular chamber. It must have began life as an armory or perhaps a powder magazine far below the keep. Vaulted arches supported the hexagonal walls and ceiling with a gothic grandeur. The walls were lined with alchemical equipment. Strange glowing liquids dripped through copper coiled piping. Ambelics and beakers bubbled on ghostly white arcane flames.  The air was thick with the smell of strange herbs and other unguessable substances which lined the shelves in jars and bottles of every conceivable shape. Several corpses hung from brass rings in the ceilings, and though all were significantly decayed, it was clear that they had been butchered and some of their organs harvested. On one of the walls were a collection of spell books and scrolls that made Calliope’s mouth water.

“Let us seal our compact apprentice, then we shall slay your crew, I can teach you how to breathe unlife into their bodies, you will find they are much more to your liking when their only thought is to do your will. The litch picked up a dagger of obsidian from a central table that was already stained with blood.

Calliope nodded and the amulet at her breast pulsed hot as though in objection to this course of action but she ignored it.

“Before we do, let me take my vengeance on the good captain here, it must be mine alone,” she purred. The litch laughed at the bloodlust in her voice and made a gesture. Bronze shackles sprang into existence around the pirates wrists and then wrapped the ceiling beams suspending Markus before her. The pirates eyes fluttered open and he found himself completely at her mercy.

“So nice of you to join us captain,” she mocked, “oh don’t struggle, even if you could kill me, my master cannot be slain so long as his phylactery remains intact.”

“What are you doing you faithless whore!” Markus snarled. Calliope laughed and drew her sword.

“This is going to take a long time for you,” she said and mouthed a spell. Fire leaped along the blade of her sword and she could feel the litch’s expectant glee behind her. She moved the blade close to Markus’ face so that his stubble beard began to smoulder.  

“One good turn deserves another,” she said pleasantly, drew back her sword and delivered an over hand slash. The blade arced through the air like a serpent. There was a titanic crash as the flaming blade struck full force against the jade ring Markus wore, shattering it in an arcane detonation that broke every vial on the shelf and threw Calliope to the ground. The Litch howled in a pain which was beyond physical injury and recoiled as though struck with a cannon ball.

“I will eat your soul!” the thing shrieked but Calliope was already incanting another spell. Using the same shield spell she had used in the dungeons of Calaverde she neatly severed the shackles holding Markus suspended and he dropped to the the ground. The undead thing wasn’t defeated but without its phylactery it was at least vulnerable