They were finally approaching. After two weeks at sea, the wooden vessel was finally approaching the false continent. The waters of the ocean were warped into a dark, purplish, syrupy substance by the amount of death magic surrounding it. The crew could often see movement beneath the surface ever since they disturbed the border of the currents. Bones would appear briefly at the surface then dip back down. It surprised few when a small portion of a creature the size of the ship itself appeared when they neared the beaches. The little everypony saw was pockmarked flesh exposing the bones beneath. A twenty-four gun ship was the same size as a living creature.

"Time to get off the ship, heroes," the captain announced sarcastically. The griffin stepped down from the steering wheel and shifted uncomfortably. His wing nub was bothering him again.

"Weren't you going to take us to shore?" one of the passengers asked frantically.

"I am." He pointed a claw towards a rowboat. "And my crew mate is going to row you there."

"What about coming back?"

"You have that spell thing the royals gave you, don't you?" The captain snapped his claws. "And then you're back to the port." He grunted and spat over the rails. "You're lucky I was paid so well for this, or I'd never come to this cursed place." His blue feathers shuffled nervously when he looked upon the island. Had he not a wound on the right side of his beak, one would have assumed he was snarling constantly. This time, however, he really was.

The island screamed gross and artificial. Fake mountains made of giant, sharpened bones from some unknown and ancient cadaver. Foliage of a purple, glowing huge, and lands made of white soil underneath. Who knew what erred about the lands? What horrors did the lich leave wandering about his own world?

"Hurry out of here," the captain insisted. "I don't want to lose my ship and crew to the delusions of aging royals and brats with a hero complex."

The first passenger looked at the griffin in shock. "We don't have a hero complex! We--"

She was interrupted by her fellow who pulled her away. "Let's just go. We're wasting time while the lich prepares to assault everything again."

The captain scoffed. "Entire armies have been sent here to subdue him and they've never returned. They only added to his horde. What are you supposed to do?"

"We have the power of Equestria and the world at our backs!" the second passenger declared proudly.

It took a while, but the griffin captain broke out of his stupor to control sudden heaving. "That was cringe, boy. Get out of here. Go. Shoo!"

The three ponies went into the rowboat with a gruff-looking pony that sported a disturbing grin the whole trip from the lowering of the boat to rowing ashore. He kept that expression and said nothing the whole time. The three weren't even sure that he was blinking. Eventually, the vessel slid upon the beach with a 'schkrr' and a sudden bump.

"Let's go," one of the 'heroes' declared.

The creepy sailor waved them goodbye then pushed the ship back into the water by sheer strength of using the oars like makeshift legs. The three ponies watched him sail away towards the warship, his expression unbroken and silent. It made the three shiver.

"Check your bags again to make sure nothing fell out," Sneezy Pollen said.

Sneezy was an off-yellow coated unicorn mare with a mane and tail cut and tinted to look like a paintbrush with golden bristles dipped in multicolored paint. Her cutiemark was a flower releasing pollen into the air. How she got it was always a secret she kept from other ponies who would meet her.

"I've got everything!" Ruby Bastion declared.

He was a bulky stallion easily a head taller than regular ponies. Being a crystal pony meant that his red body always shone and glittered in the presence of light and accentuated his cutie mark which depicted a bent iron bar. Ruby sported thick armor with magic spells and runes of seven different cultures from across the world that conferred untold protection. It resembled a simple iron plating, but changed colors depending on what type of spell or weapon was going to strike him. It cost the royals a phenomenal amount of bits to have made and enchanted.

"What about you, Cobalt? You have everything?" he asked his friend.

Said pony dug through her bag and grit her teeth in annoyance. "I forgot my towel and a camera to commemorate our victory, and I told you to just call me Stream."

Cobalt Stream's wings and hooves were surrounded by a semi-transparent, extremely sharp film meant to chop through even magical spells. She would be able to tear away the spells animating the dead and free the souls trapped within. Her coat was a pale blue laced with several stripes of yellow. Her eyes followed a similar pattern, but her deep orange mane and tale were stricken back like she was flying at high speeds through the air.

Ruby glanced at her flank covered by extra cloth attached to her saddlebags several times. His eyes shot to hers, then her flank, then to hers again.

"No," she stated flatly.

"But we might die! I want to know what your cutie mark is!"

The mare spun around and stomped the ground, crushing some protruding bones. "No! I've told you before, Ruby. You're not seeing my cutie mark! It's not important, anyways!" She snorted and spun around in a huff while readjusting her saddlebags. "They aren't important anyways. Always basing your personality off of it. Psch."

Ruby couldn't find the right words to apologize but stopped trying when Sneezy put a hoof on his bulky shoulder.

"Your curiosity can really get aggravating at times," she said.

The stallion nodded silently. "I know, but seeing as we're going to do what the past heroes could not, there was no guarantee any of us are going to survive, and I didn't want to take a peak if...you know. Would be rude."

Pollen understood his explanation, even if it sounded odd, but she acquiesced and hurried forward. "Alright everypony. Stay close together and don't touch anything. Gotta keep ourselves as fresh as possible if we're going to confront the lich."

Ruby stepped forward and rubbed his chin pensively. "I believe he might be in that castle on the side of the mountain up there," he stated. The mares felt a tinge of uncomfortable familiarity. The stallion looked to the other two. "What do you think? Makes sense, no? Great evil. Fortress. Mountainside. We were dropped off closest to where he would be. Should only take a few days of walking to reach his lair."

The land was revolting. Everything had the sickly sweet odor of rot. The vegetation, if it was even plantlife, was a deep purple with only brief breaks being black colors, usually for the primary bodies of the largest plants. Tiny entities scuttered between the plants, tossing the leaves of ferns and bush alike. A lot were animated bones that had never been attached to anything. Rare were the reanimated animals, but none were too dangerous. Will-o-wisps fluttered around the trees and came from the bubbling cesspit that was one of the swamps of the continent which the group reached the next morning. The goop reeked with an indescribable fetidness that no mere words could encapsulate, but it caused the ponies' eyes to water and throats to crack.

They avoided whatever served as a foul concoction and did their best to not touch it. On occasion, they would see a writhing mass surface as a lump with hollow eyes and a featureless mouth. Melted bones could sometimes be spotted when they sank back down, but it was a rare occasion. The group wasn't sure what to make of it. Were the bones part of those things? Were they just being dissolved?

Ruby wanted to attack one and figure out how they worked, but Pollen and Stream had to stop him. The pegasus would have giggled at her friends having to walk the way, but the air was also thick with revolting essence. She felt like she was wading through crusting pus, somehow.

Several times they prepared for battle when they spotted hordes of skeletons wandering about the brush, but they never crossed paths with the invaders. In fact, Pollen could have sworn that she saw several hordes of zombies and skeletons actively avoiding them. They found themselves a little cave of bone and purple 'moss' to hide in on the fourth night, allowing them a moment of respite as Sneezy set up a false stone barrier to let the group rest peacefully. Stream had started a fire and Ruby was pulling out the rations and distributing them. They ate their dried fruit bars silently as they stared into the fire.

"...What is this?" Ruby said first. "We haven't had a single fight this whole time. It's like the whole island is avoiding us!"

"Yeah!" Stream agreed loudly. "We've been walking around for four days! Not one of these things has even bothered facing us. It's like...it's like we're not even a threat!"

They stared at the fire once more, listening to the wood crackle as it was consumed by the fire.

Sneezy cleared her throat. "I thought that the land would drain our life force, too. I guess that spell of protection was pointless as well." She shook her head and slapped the sides of it. "No! It must be a ploy to trick us into letting our guard down."

Stream nodded. "True. Could be that the lich is waiting for us to approach the castle. Wouldn't have to send his magic far to reanimate us if he killed us. We shouldn't forget that armies have been sent here in the past to destroy the lich and they never came back."

Pollen looked around and grimaced. "Have you noticed that the continent feels...weird? I mean besides all that hasn't happened."

"It feels like everything is lazing about," Stream noted. "Like everything is just relaxing and lazing about." She shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. This is a place made by one of the strongest liches in history. An entire continent of undead, trapped spirits, and reanimated bones. Why would they be doing nothing?!"

The entire cave shook violently. At first, the group remained still and quiet, but another tremor pushed Sneezy into undoing her concealment spell at the entrance and to peer outside. A colossus the size of a six story building was stomping about, its upper torso sticking out from the tree line. It was made from hundreds of bones of different species and held together in an unknown, purple mass, giving it bulk and size. Its 'face' was vaguely spherical with a large concentration of skulls. Their eye sockets were filled with a glowing cyan ball of energy resembling will-o-wisps. The same lights were far less common but dotted the entity's body from its chest to a toe.

"That must be one of the legendary Tomb Guardians I've heard so much about," Ruby whispered. "This is so exciting! We should attack it! It could threaten us later!"

Sneezy shook her head. "We have to conserve our energy and health. Something like that is too big for us to take on in this kind of environment. It's best to find the lich, take him out, and everything will collapse afterwards, including the continent."

Stream sighed. "She's right, Ruby. As much as I want to try out our new toys on the undead, it's best to wait until the lich." She sat back down next to the first and puffed up her cheeks. "I really wanted to fight it. If we had an army it would've been doable."

Ruby hung his head in disappointment and lied back down next to the fire while Pollen recast her spell. The next morning was just as uneventful as the rest of the time the trio had spent on the supposedly deadly continent. They were dragging their hooves at this point. The stench and the lack of any stimulation had rendered them numb.

They were ready for the day to be the same as the previous ones. They had even gotten up earlier than usual in an attempt to avoid the colossus, but a familiar rumbling behind them dashed those hopes. The colossus was there, staring down at them.

"I got this!" Stream blurted out almost instantly. She rushed towards one of the entity's two legs and slashed furiously several times at it through the air before skidding to a halt next to her friends. "How was that?" she said between gasps. The colossus looked at its leg to see a single bone roll off onto the ground, leaving the trio dumbfounded. "Oh come on!"

Now they were running for their lives. It was exactly what they wanted.

"This not what I wanted at all!" Ruby screamed. "We were supposed to be chasing them, not the other way around!"

Pollen tried creating pits in the ground to slow the creature. Its legs would get caught in the holes, then it would somersault forward and roll back onto its two legs. The trio screamed in response.

"They're athletes now?" Stream screamed in disbelief. "That isn't fair!"

"Stop complaining and run!" Ruby chided.

The running only lasted several minutes. The group broke out of the forest into a small opening where a wooden cabin built from carved bone was sitting. On its porch was a rocking chair with something in it, reading a book. Startled, the three tripped over themselves and tumbled towards the house. The colossus skid to a halt, pushing several trees over. It looked at the cabin for a few minutes then turned away and started casually walking around like nothing had happened.

The three were watching over their shoulder and turned to face the reader who had lowered their reading material and was staring at them. It was just a torso draped in a moth-eaten black robe covered in glowing bones and purple flesh sewn into intricate patterns not too dissimilar to an emperor's flamboyant outfit. At least, that was the vague impression one had when looking at the robe. The patterns had all but faded away or fallen off with the rest of the cloth, leaving just the vague remnants of past glory upon the tattered robes.

The center glowed with blue spirit fire that was replicated by the creature's empty eye sockets. Its skull was missing the lower jaw, and there were several fracture lines across the surface of the bone. Floating to its left was a purple orb glowing softly in the darkness of the early morning.

"Oh! Guests! I've never had those before!" the entity exclaimed joyfully.

"I...It's the lich!" Ruby shouted in disbelief.

"Ye-es!" the accused chuckled. "What brings three foals here of all places?"

Stream pointed a sharp feather at his face, surprising him. "Don't try to lower our guard with your jovial interactions! We know you're just using psychological warfare!"

The undead's 'eyes' remained affixed to the mare's wings. "I am?" he asked.

"That orb!" Pollen shouted. "That's the source of his power! We have to destroy it quickly!"

The lich tripped over his words before he could actually speak. "Wait!"

It was too late. Stream flicked the orb away from its owner towards Pollen who chucked it at the hooves of Ruby. The stallion used as much strength as he could put into his legs and jumped high into the air. He fell down, forelegs first, and crushed the sphere, releasing magic and spirits trapped within.

"We did it!" he cheered.

As the three celebrated their victory, the lich rolled his 'eyes' and got up from its chair. The floating undead glided over the steps and balcony and stopped at a random point in the ground, lowered itself, and caused a hole to appear. He grunted and mumbled as he looked for something in particular, but with a sudden grunt of victory, pulled out another glowing, purple orb. The ponies were dumbfounded at the sight. They noticed that there were shadows resembling the fingers of minotaurs underneath the orb, and every time the orb shifted, so too did the position of the shadows.

"I tried to warn you," the lich sighed. "There's plenty of orbs all over my continent. There's no point in breaking one. I can just grab another," he explained as he floated back to the rocking chair.

The ponies exchanged confused glances.

"A-aren't you the dreaded lich?" Pollen asked.

"Eeyup," the lich answered.

"Didn't you terrorize the world with your undead hordes? You almost destroyed the griffins and the minotaurs!"

"And don't forget that I drained the life force from Saddle Arabia!" he said joyfully. "Hmm...I wonder how it's doing since I let that go."

"Wh...ah...You're just asking like this to misdirect us!" Stream accused.

"I mean, I was reading this nice book before you came around," the lich said. He showed them the cover. "The history of Equestria volume seventeen." He looked back at the cover and bounced in the chair. "Is it true that you have managed to make things move on their own without magic? Like boats? Just with water?" he asked eagerly.

The trio were at a complete loss for words. The lich seemed earnest and was awaiting the answer eagerly.

"Yeeeessss..." Pollen slurred. "We were, uh, going to use one, but had to use an old sailboat."

"Your monsters would have heard us," Stream growled.

The lich slumped. "Awww. I really wanted to see this 'steam' machinery." His eyes flickered with realization. "Monsters?"

The pegasus gestured towards the monstrosity stomping away. "Like that horrific thing?! It chased after us!"

Her target leaned forward to get a better look at the monster then relaxed and dropped himself back into his chair, 'wee-ing' as he rocked back and forth at high speed. He somehow stopped the chair and cleared his non-existent throat. "Ah. Them. They're the only ones left."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.

"I dissolved all the others, but those souls got used to having such an immense body fit for destruction." The lich's robe shifted in the guise of a shrug. "I've dissolved it about two hundred and thirty-three times, and every time they came back, so I just gave up."

The trio's eyes nearly bulged from their heads.

"How did you even remember how many times you did that?!" Pollen asked incredulously.

The lich shrugged again. "I have an eternity to live through. I can do something as mundane as counting." He heaved a sigh from his non-existent lungs, producing a strange black smog from his nasal passages. "They seem to miss the old days of me trying to render the world into a world of undead free from the fears of death and pain. Oh well!"

A pony's skeleton came out from the cabin carrying a tray with an iron percolator and four tea cups. It passed them to the lich who placed them on a small table it grew from the balcony. The skeleton wheezed and returned into the house. A satisfied sigh came from the lich when it took a sip of the contents of its steaming beverage.

"Oh, have you ever heard of this stuff?" He asked. The lich shook the cup in front of the two ponies. "It's this thing I just learned of...coughing? Something like that." He took another sip and savored the 'flavor'. "Disgustingly bitter! Do you want some?"

The trio flinched and pulled away from the cup in response.

"No thank you," Ruby responded. "And it's called 'coffee'," he grunted.

Despite being unable to properly display any emotion, the lich still gave off the feeling of disappointment.

"Really?" He looked at the tray and drooped slightly. "I was so excited to have others try this out," he lamented while the tray floated. "Oh well."

When the undead chucked the tray with the beverage over his shoulder, its contact with the ground caused a bright explosion that devolved into a smoke cloud replete with screaming faces in agony and howling of the damned.

"What was in that?!" Stream screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Uuuh, the beans that I mashed, some hot water, cream I stole from the armies that came before, some bonemeal, and tainted souls of those from the corner between corners," he listed off.

Stream narrowed her eyes. "The what?"

"Common ingredients. Good for the bones," the lich said as he patted his chest with his invisible limbs. "Say, what's wrong with your friend?"

The pegasus turned around to see Pollen pacing back and forth aggressively, mumbling to herself like she had lost her mind. Before Stream could even call out to her, the unicorn pushed her aside and jumped onto the balcony, startling the lich.

"What is this? What game are you playing at?" She gestured to the rest of the continent with a foreleg. "You made an entire continent from the remains of the dead of millions of years, pulling them from the ground of the ocean itself!"

"Yes," the lich responded.

"You almost wiped out two races and you caused an entire land to become a desert because you drained all the life energy from it!"

The lich nodded in agreement. "Yes. Very true."

"You almost took over the world dozens of times, and every time you left just a little smidgen of life left afterwards!"

"That much?" he lamented.

Pollen tripped over her words and only managed get out incomprehensible noise. "You act so disappointed! You sound like you want to keep trying to destroy the world! Which is it?!"

She watched the undead stare at her, rocking back and forth and moving the orb around it. "Have you failed and tried again to succeed?"

"Yes, of course," Ruby answered.

He got jabbed in the gut by Stream. "Don't answer him!" she berated.

They watched the lich 'stand up' and float towards them, although they could still see hoof imprints pressing into the ground while he moved forward.

"I've failed so many times after almost making it that I just...lost interest," he explained. He hummed. "Trying again and again and again. Normally, an immortal being like me wouldn't need to worry about such things since I literally have eternity to eventually get what I want." He chuckled. "But I digress. You living beings are too hardy. By the time I reassemble my forces and have so many magic spells ready that they're falling out of my tower, well...You've all recovered from what I did." He leaned in towards the ponies, his aura 'somber'. "You have to stop doing that so much. Too many of you. It's like fighting mice." The lich chuckled and remained in place, making it look like there was a floating torso draped in sheets standing in front of everypony. "Always making me develop new spells to deal with that."

"And it seems we develop our technology faster than you can follow," Ruby quipped.

He felt his soul being burned through by the lich's gaze. The three were certain that he was going to attack them after that, but the undead simply exploded in laughter and likely pointed at Ruby with his invisible limbs. "That's exactly right! But I have my magic to deal with that just as well."

Stream leaned forward. "Wait, you developed magic? We were told you just modified existing ones."

"Pfff. No. How else was I going to keep my undead hordes anchored if the spells doing so could be deciphered in seconds because the spell they were built on was already known?" He shook his head. "No. I just made a new spell language every century or so." He looked at the mountains behind him and grumbled. "I think I made three in fifty years. I was really inspired that century. Ended up with a plethora of different runes that mixed and matched." Cackling escaped his bones. "Couldn't make heads or tales of that. Lasted five centuries, but by then I had already founded several more languages."

"So...you're not interested in destroying the world anymore?" Ruby asked nervously.

The lich sighed and leaned towards the chair's armrest. "No. I've had my fill of almost getting close to succeeding. Maybe I'll try again in the future, but I'm more interested in all this technology you've been developing. It's so exciting!"

There was a scratching implying he was scratching something with his invisible limbs, and a sinister aura came from for just the briefest of moments.

"Stop fraternizing with him!" Pollen screamed. Outraged, she stomped towards the lich while pushing her companions away with her magic. "I still don't believe that you're not interested in destroying the world."

The lich's shoulders shifted, implying a shrug. "That sounds like a you problem," he teased.

The mare's nerves were overheating, and she jumped back to let out a spell of light magic, taught to her to banish the undead that were supposed to assault them on the continent. The ray of light hit the lich, but he didn't react, although his chair did rock back and forth, much to his annoyance. Baffled by the occurrence, the mare let out spell after spell at the lich until she cast one so strong it blinded everyone.

"Ah! I'm blind!" the lich screamed. He was dragging himself across the ground, groaning in pain, much to the bemusement of Pollen. "My eyes! I can't see from them!" He paused, looked down, then stood back up. "Oh right. I don't have eyes."

Pollen's mane deflated, her body went limp, her mouth agape, and her ears drooped. "B-but...They were made to fight you..." she whined in despair.

The lich stuttered when he looked at her. "What? With a spell language I made seven centuries ago?!" He laughed heartily and rolled onto his back. "You living are good with technology but not sorcery. It's hilarious."

"W-well, you were alive too! What even got you into this?!" Pollen rebutted.

The atmosphere became somber as the lich sat up and stared at the mare with defeated flames serving as his eyes. "Well, you have told me a lot. I suppose I can share it with you." He paused a moment, and the three could hear his hooves clicking together. "My wife and children...They died of a disease. I was a...doctor, once. Once," he emphasized. "I could not save them nor could I save the village I was in."

"So you took up necromancy to try and bring them back?" Stream asked.

The lich nodded slowly. "Yes. I was brought through so many different sects where I learned so many different things until I finally had to kill the heads of my last sect to use their magic-infused corpses as the focusing lens to becoming a lich. I realized then..." He took a deep 'breath'. "That living prolongs suffering. Disease, famine, thirst. I realized that, in death, there is no suffering, only eternal peace and comfort." He looked down to his invisible limbs. "I still don't know how to bring my family back."

Pollen was taken aback and seemed paler than usual. It took a great amount of courage to talk to the lich with his back turned to the trio. "I'm so sorry. What kind of disease was it? Perhaps we know of it now. The solace of that could at least appease you partially if we found a cure."

A low grumbling came from the undead. He stared straight into Sneezy's eyes before speaking up. "I don't know, I made that up!" he laughed.

"I knew it!" Ruby shouted. "That sounded way too generic!"

"Hey, this pony gets it," the lich laughed. "What kind of sappy backstory was that? How did you even fall for it?"

Pollen was defeated and just sucked in her lips from the cheer disbelief and rage she was experiencing.

"Was any of that true, then?!" Stream asked with some disgust.

"Um..." The undead paced about while trying to recall every event. "Some of the sect stuff, but I really only wanted an undead army," he said in a positive tone. "You want some coffee, unicorn? You look like you're going to explode."

"No, I don't want any coffee!" Pollen exploded.