Quill reached above, pulling his own weight into the crevice he had created.

  The mud around the walls stained his blood-stained tunic. It was a hard climb up to the surface, but it was all a means to an end. He hated to spend any more seconds down in the rancid sewers.

  “Finally.” Bright sunlight grazed his eyes when he pulled himself out, temporarily blinding him before warmth settled on his skin. He then stood and spun around, finding an abandoned city around him, and he had to wonder what his face looked like as he stared at the ruins before him.

  The gray buildings loomed over the sky, casting shadows on the dirt paths. An abundance of grass and shrubs lined the edges of his vision, taking root over the cracks and crevices of the path, while rampant vines snaked their way up to the building walls. It looked like an abandoned slum taken by nature.

  Quill blinked.

  He hadn't noticed it before in the tunnel, but his eyes were full of and . It was completely different from how his undead senses perceived the world around him before. In a way, it reminded him of his mortal past before he was a lich. He shook the thought out of his head.

  He turned around, the sewer’s muddy hole sinking from where he came out. He then looked down at his clothes, finding a tunic that looked more in line with a dirty old rag.

  . Quill cursed. He was an undead, but he was a neat and tidy one. Before, he couldn’t tell apart the grime from the cloth over his bones, but now that he had real skin, the cold, sloppy mud was unbearable to the touch.

  With a step, he started his way to find a suitable replacement.

  He crept to the nearest ruins before shuffling inside, though there was nothing here but old debris and rotted furniture. After going through the rest of the buildings, they were more or less the same.

  “This is going to be harder than I thought.” The two suns shone above, the smaller blue ‘Azure’ and the larger yellow ‘Amber’ piercing through the clouds. Quill spent the next few minutes looking around in search of clothes in the ruins, but he came out with nothing.

  He sighed before he sat on a series of stone steps. It was then that he heard the sound of faint murmurs in the distance.

  It was the sound of people

  Quill pushed himself up before starting towards the noise.

  Normally, he was averse to conversing with mortals. They didn't really seem all that eager to talk to a skeleton, especially one that commanded a legion of the undead. Unfortunately for them, the undead commander was itching for a new shirt.

  The greenery and ruins were soon replaced with old but still functional buildings. They were tight-knit, close as neighbors, almost as if space was an issue. A stranger stood on a wooden veranda above that jutted out from plaster walls, hanging rags and underwear on thin metal lines.

  Quill continued down the path as a growing crowd of swept by him. Some eyed the stain on his shirt, while others covered their mouths around him. He ignored their remarks as the path wound and steered, turning around buildings and going under overhanging houses, eventually leading him to a sprawling marketplace. The ruins before were actually the outskirts of a bustling .

  Stands and stalls called out to the passing crowd, a mix of shouting and talking along with the footsteps and drawing of wagons. Quill's nose caught the smell of charred meat on one stand, along with skewers on another, but he couldn't help but swallow the spit pooling in his mouth.

  That was one other thing he had forgotten in his centuries living as a lich. He didn't really need food, not physically able to starve as a skeleton, and because of that, he had forgotten all about the taste and smell of meat. More than once, he was tempted to take one for himself.

  But a lich wasn't quick to succumb to worldly desires. That would come later when he got his hands on clean clothes.

  He cast his attention to the horse wagon rolling over the distance, the wagon carrying with it farm produce. He wasn't exceptionally interested in cabbages and carrots, but his eyes were drawn to the stall right it.

  There was an old woman selling wool clothing right by the edge of the market streets. Quill checked his pockets, and whether it was fate or luck, he found five silver coins inside a pouch. It wasn't much, but it would be enough.

  He churned through the streets, towering a head over the rest of the crowd before he then arrived at the stall.

  “This one, please.” He said in the language before he raised a robe in front of him. It was unremarkable in every right, but it was perfect to cover the stain and smell.

  The old woman only looked him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Put it back, . It won't do you much to cause a ruckus when the City Watch is closeby.”

  Quill furrowed his brows before shaking his head. “You misunderstood me. I want to buy this.”

  The woman sighed. “Fifteen silvers–the price is final.”

  Quill stared at the old woman, her face confirming the price before he then eyed the robe again.

  He debated over himself whether to find another place, or to just outright murder the woman and steal her goods. He was leaning toward the second option, but he had to remind himself of his circumstances now.

  He sighed before dropping the robe back to its place. Killing the woman would prove to be difficult, especially in broad daylight with the aforementioned guards watching the market. It wasn't worth the hassle over a worn-out robe.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Quill continued down the market, visiting stall after stall with no luck in acquiring new clothes. Most of the vendors mysteriously marked their prices up, with some even denying him the right to buy entirely. They were treating him like some kind of beggar.

  Quill burned with annoyance. Was it really this hard to find clothes in the middle of a city?

  Passing a wooden bridge, he found a water canal right under. An idea popped into his head, but he didn't necessarily like it as much as he needed it.

  He started towards the canal, retracing his steps back from the bridge before climbing down the incline of dirt. The water was clear enough, the sunlight piercing past the trees above before striking against the surface.

  At once, he pulled his tunic, minding the mud before he then dumped the shirt straight into the waters. It was a last resort, but left with no other choice, it was better to have a wet shirt than a dirty one. He washed the rest of his torso before donning the tunic back on.

  And then he found himself staring at the water.

  There was his reflection. He was a young elf in his early twenties, with long black hair tied up in a messy man bun. It was strange to have a body that was neatly wrapped in a bundle of skin and muscle, though it was skinnier than he liked.

  He then came to a realization. It was no wonder then why all the people here were elves and nobody else. If he was right, then this place was part of theterritories, far west of the human settlements.

  That was a problem. He was thousands of kilometers away from his own home. With nothing but a wet shirt to his name, he had found himself on the other side of the continent. He needed to know exactly where this city was.

  Quill started again on the streets. He stopped at a large set of stone walls cutting through the buildings. A gate stood at the very front, allowing passage into the other side, but somehow the air around here was different.

  “You.” A sharp voice called from behind. It was a woman, an elf with golden hair. A white tunic fitted around her waist, adorned with gilded ornaments that made it obvious her position as nobility. “You're not allowed inside.”

  “Who are you?” Quill's voice rolled like stones, the annoyance boiling inside him. Everyone around here seemed so dead set on making this second chance at life harder for him, and the guards behind the woman were no different.

  “Your place is in Gren.” The woman threw a point behind her shoulder. “I’m saying this for your own sake, .”

  The guards stepped forward, their elven armor clinking against the swords by their waist.

  It was a blatant display of threat.

  Quill wasn't taking it. He didn't live for centuries only to grovel at some spoiled elf noble's boots. He stared the woman down, his gaze burning right into hers as his entire body surged. “I’ll remember this.”

  He clicked his tongue before he showed himself out, passing back through the gates without any cause for a problem. He wasn't stupid enough to give these pigs any reason to do anything more than to humiliate him.

  He drifted his way back to the water canal, stomping along the dirt paths before climbing down. He stared at his reflection again, the shape and outline now distorted as the current grew stronger. He was a lich, but he was trapped inside this body.

  He dropped to the edge. He pooled water over his face, flushing the heat off his head before staring at his hands. He had forgotten what it was like to be trampled upon, but Pormor and this city made sure he was reminded of that.

  It will not happen again.

  “Fenith!” Someone called out in the distance. It was a skinny woman with tattered clothes, the meat of her arms sunken into the bones.

  “Not another one.” Quill cursed. There were only so many pigs he could handle in a day. The former owner of this body must’ve killed a lord in a past life to warrant this much of a misfortune.

  “Where were you!?” The woman ran up to him before wrapping around him tightly. Her hair brushed his cheeks, and the scent of dirt and mild flowers filtered to his nose. He was about to ask who she was before staring at her face.

  For some odd reason, her face reminded him of his reflection on the water. Adding to the fact that she had called out to this body by name… then she must be family, or at the very least, a close relative.

  Quill churned his head for anything. If only he had finished the Possession spell, then he might’ve gained access to this body's memories. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, so all he could do was play along. “I’m… alright.”

  “I’ve been looking everywhere.” The woman wiped her eyes. Quill swore his shirt had already dried earlier, but somehow it was now wet again.

  “I’m sorry for the trouble.” Quill's voice rolled as easily as his pretense.

  “You do realize you’ve been gone for a week?” The woman tapped his shoulder.

  Quill remembered the blood stain on his tunic. He had already pieced together that this ‘Fenith’ had died in the sewers, but somehow he couldn't find the words to tell the truth. This was why he hated socializing with mortals.

  His eyes drifted before it landed on the woman's hands. It was bruised and battered, with many scars and cuts marring her skin. Quill was familiar with the hands wrapped in toil. A young woman wasn't supposed to have them.

  A flash of empathy settled on Quill, though he didn't understand where it came from.

  “Stay still.”

  Quill sighed before he closed his eyes. He drew in a deep breath before finding a sphere in the darkness. There it was.

  His Core.

  Quill fixed his focus on it, caressing it in the dark and holding it in his hands. As expected, this body’s Core was White, but there was a stain on the surface. It was a small crack that oozed a thick, almost liquid miasma. That was where the Black mana came from, allowing him to cast Black Application in the sewers.

  The mana output from the fracture was low, but it was just enough for him to cast one other spell from his magic arsenal. It was a simple spell, one he was able to grasp even way back in the earlier days of magehood along with Black Application.

  Quill opened his eyes before turning left and right, making sure no one was watching before he then raised his hand to draw Scripts in the air.

  Just like the Scripts for Black Application, Quill relied on his existing knowledge of Black magic to draw the spell piece by piece. It wasn't going to be perfect, and he had to make rough modifications to make it work with this body’s mana configurations, but it was nothing for the Night Lich.

  If anyone could pull off such a feat and do it a second time, it would be him.

  Quill placed his hand over the woman's to heal her wounds. It was going to take a while before her cuts would close entirely, owing in part to his lack of Black mana in the first place, but it was a good sign that it even worked in the first place.

  “I used healing magic on your wounds.” Quill brushed over the woman's palm. “It will take a while, maybe half an hour, but the bruises and cuts should heal by then.”

  The woman only stared at her hand.

  “When did you learn magic?”