When it finally felt strong enough to iigate, Tenebroum was horrified to discover the source of the noises in the depths of its ir. It wasn’t simply structs that had run amuck as it first feared… it was far strahan that. Whole aspects of itself that had been sloughed off as it bled out a torrent of souls in those first few minutes had gealed into smaller copies of itself, and they were at war with each other, ruining many of its remaining structs and whole ses of its ir in the process!

  At first, su oute struck it as extremely strange, but it was only when it realized that it would do exactly the same as soon as it was within its power that everything became clear. I would never let myself be devoured by a lesser of myself either, it quickly realized.

  Tenbroum immediately retreated after that. Many of its less durable strus were already destroyed and y strewn across the halls of the rooms it had carved out to dispy them in an orderly manner.

  Fortunately, the things rarely strayed into the uemple for too long, so their interruption to the Lich’s pns were limited. It had created three golden phycteries out of the heads of mages, and though each of them was inferior to the inal, o lihem together with dark magic, it started to feel like something approag a shadow of its former self.

  Even though Tenebroum had shattered into thousands of pieces, putting itself back together seemed like it was going to be slightly easier than it had initially feared. It had but to create a new vessel, and it would fill almost instantly thanks to the miasma of lost souls that it had vomited forth so retly. It just wished that it could move faster to colleough energy so that shards of itself would stop wreg the pbsp;

  It couldn’t, though. The mages of its library still couldn’t reay real sensus on why it was that its new phycteries were so inferior to its inal vessel. There were a nearly endless number of possibilities. The most popur tenders included the fact that Albrecht had been alive when he’d beeombed, he’d suffered more, he’d had a greater e with the s in life, and the lingering touch of the Worm’s magibsp;

  The Lich thought that it was uo be because of the Worm’s dark magic. Even though it couldn’t rule that o, it still hated the idea that it owhat monster anything. The rest, though, all of them were good choices, and though the Lich had po experiment by coating high priest Verdenin in a thin yer of gold to see if e or suffering was the deg factor, the other aspects of itself had already smeared the man and the other living acolytes across the walls of the blue tiled uemple, leaving it with livi subjects.

  What a waste, the Lich hissed to itself for the huh time as it tio supervise the work of the drudges. It couldn’t make a phyctery of any power, but the number of heads and gold it possessed was nearly endless, so it could make nearly as many of them as it wanted, and that’s exactly what it was doing now. It had a new pn; si was not likely to replicate its initial success, it would try another path.

  First, it had to go down and quell the fighting, though, and it couldn’t do that until it had created enough heads to siphon up enough of the swirling power that lingered in the backdrop of its ir, and that would take time. Still, after a few days, it had created ten vessels that differed only in the expressions on the faces of the mages. They were all equal in their mediocrity, and for now, that was enough.

  Ten vessels weren’t enough to repce the old one, but it was with them in tow that it reached its throne room ahem up for now on a temporary basis ohe scraps of anything that might have been tainted by the Worm were swept away. It was only ohat was done, and it could again feel some e to the byrinth as a whole, thanks to the soul hat it activated its defunct huard ahem up into the fray to quell the violenbsp;

  The Lizardmen had moved very little in all the decades sihey were embalmed. Other than a few upgrades it had given them in the wake of Oroza’s attack, they were basically unged sis earliest days. They were still some of the most dangerous warriors in the plex, though, and the Lich wished to disrupt the battle that was raging somewhere above it to force the dozens of small spirits that thought they were Tenebroum to flee the bodies they hid in so it could devour their spirits directly.

  Were it stronger, it would simply rip them out without the intervening steps, but it wasn’t even at half strength, and it still cked the ability or the rao ect to its far-flung servants, and that ate at it. It had sent drudges beyond the barrier to firm that it still could, and o verified that it was dark out, there were no difficulties with it peering out to take a look, but despite that, it cked the will to do much more than that with Lunaris hanging shtly in the sky.

  It was not time to focus on the wider world once more, though. Now was the time to put its own house in order, and that meant ending the destru aurning sileo the Lich’s great ir. The six members of its huard made short work of a struct that was meant for casting more than fighting. The piece of Tenebroum that tried to flee into another form was siphoned away before it could do that, though. , they entered a body that was meant to wield shadows against masses of armed men.

  The Soul Stealer, the Lich remembered fondly. It had tens of thousands of shadows tucked away is reservoirs. It had sidered making it a minion in its ht but decided that, in time, it might bee too powerful.

  Anything that could devour on its own might grow to eclipse its master in time. So, instead, the Lich had made it one more body to wield in specialized situations. In this case, though, it was entirely useless against the already dead lizard men, and no matter how fiercely it shed at them with dark and otherworldly forces, the most it could do was cause a thin rhyme of frost to coat their skin before they beheaded it and forced it to flee its body.

  The Lich had its forces retreat after that. That wasn’t because they were in any danger, of course. It was because it had run out of room for more soul fragments. Over the st few decades, Tenebroum had ged on the lifeblood of the world, and now, every attempt to soak up as much of this poossible was met with the same problem: it had insuffit pces to put all of it.

  Over the few days, Tenebroum repeated this same vicious cycle. Craft an inferior phyctery, link it to the work it had already created with sigils and materials that had once been part of its ned soul web, and then devour another piece of itself in an effort t stillo its yer and wholeo itself.

  The work took lohan it would have thought possible, though it picked up over time. As the Lich steadily gairength, it brought more workers us sway, and in time, it even ighe fes in the heart of the byrinth once mohe sweet prayers of the devout and the haunting hymns that often apas giant pipe an. In its pce, there was only the ever-dwindling sound of battle, but still, it rogress.

  When all this was done, and the uemple was repaired auro its dark beauty, the Lich vowed to seek out new mortal men and women to worship it. Now was not that time, though.

  In the end, the Lich was left without only a few of the ravaging monstrosities. Each of the things that were left was fighting to devour the others as they had before. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that those who remained were also wearing some of Tenebroum’s fi structs. It had no wish to destroy those if it didn’t have to, and the things seemed too evenly matched to finish off each other. That made se least.

  Every shard of itself that yet lurked in these halls erhaps one pert of its former strength. That was more than enough to reanimate a dozen drudges, but it was far too little to properly utilize a fiuned masterwork of igineering that was built to fight a god.

  In the end, it simply walled off that portion of its byrinth for a time and revived a few fleshcrafters to repair and alter the thing. It was a retively simple matter that took only a few weeks to switch the creature from wielding shadows as a on to simply drawing them i like a terrible vacuum.

  When that was plete, it made exceptionally short work of the remaining monstrosities. Before the thing wielded whips as of braided shadows. It released them in gouts and in waves before reharvesting them once more. Now, it skipped all that and simply used the magics that it had to harvest the shadows to directly harvest the remaining aspects of Tenebroum instead.

  It was shogly quid simple to do. O was finished, and the Liimated it, the fighting was done in the spainutes. Rather thaing them, it simply ripped their souls to pieces and ed them directly. This left the crumpled forms of its other selves on the floor, only a little worse for the wear.

  The Lich berated itself for not having something like this years ago. It might make an effective on against any number of minor deities that it might enter, and its powers were really only an amplification of its already existing ability to trol souls.

  It might be forced to rely on such tricks more often, though, because without whatever powers the Worm had given it, whions of its powers seemed to be missing. The ability to suppress and infme disease seemed to be ent now, and though it was still firmly ected to the nd around Bckwater, the animal and i life that remained seemed more distant than ever.

  Is that because I am still too weak? Tenebroum wondered, Or is that because this is as strong as this new crippled form will ever get?

  Though the newly restituted Lich feared the tter, it would not give up. There was always a way to get stronger. It had been diminished before, and it would learn from this terrible event as well.

  Even as it schemed and fretted, the majority es that were still funal returo life and began to up the terrible mess that had been made. Everything that had suffered the toualzekeen would be locked away in a crypt of its own for the time being. Everything else would either be set aside for repair or spare parts. Now that all of these distras were finished, it could turn its gaze back ter projects.

  A brief update for everyone. week I will be increasih After Death to 3x/week. As a result, the schedule for all my stories will adjust slightly. The new schedule is as follows:

  Monday: Death After DeathTuesday: Brewing BadWednesday: Death After DeathThursday: TenebroumFriday: Death After DeathSaturday: Brewing BadSunday: Tenebroum

  Will Brewing bad or Tenebroum be getting a simir treatment? Nht now, as you see, I am out of days in the week!

  However, when Tenebroum Ends It's possible that I might increase Brewing Bad's posting frequency as well. It all depends on reader levels of i. I will free a couple days up when Tenebroum finishes in a few months ( You believe it?!)