Even though the darkness felt the ripple as soon as the ingots touched the water, it did not notice the discrepancy immediately because it was consumed with other things. The swamp that had been its birthplace was all but gone now, and as a result, it had lost focus on that singular point. Instead, it focused on the entire region that was touched by the Oroza. The entire watershed was its domain, from the headwaters to the delta.

Even to the north, the Wodenspine mountains were no longer off limits to it thanks to the tireless work of lizard worshippers and the strange totems they erected to celebrate their victories. Where once its territory had been a blood-stained archipelago stretching from Fallravea in the east, the swamp in the south, and the red hills in the northwest, the darkness now enveloped the whole region. It was so lost exploring the air currents of the surrounding mountains with the blackbirds it had manufactured by the dozen, designing wicked new monstrosities that were as much shadow as flesh, and monitoring the seemingly endless journey of Krulm’venor that it scarcely had time for the gold.

All that changed when the drudge that had been assigned eventually fetched the gold and brought it down through the labyrinth of tunnels to the hoard that was the darkness’ treasure vault. If there was a single source of light in that room, it would have shone with an unmatched brilliance. Every coin that it had ever stolen from a corpse and every magical weapon that had not been melted down and put to other uses in its growing army of the dead ended up there. It was a wonder, and these days it contained almost as many captured souls that had been set aside as it did jewelry or anything else. The world contained an untold bounty, after all, and all of it belonged to the Lich.

No matter what else it might covet, though, the Lich would never care about anything as much as gold. That tainted metal was the seed from which it had blossomed, and someday it would possess every last ounce in the world. So, when it discovered that its minion had delivered less than it had in previous years, it bellowed until the halls of its labyrinth shook with rage.

“How DARE he,” the Lich roared in outrage, screaming voicelessly to his minions so loudly that birds all around Blackwater took flight in an attempt to escape from its explosive rage.

Normally the bird's behavior would have distracted it momentarily as it struggled to learn more about the creatures of the air by their movements. Weaving together the wyvern and the drake into a single terrifying monster had proven more difficult than it would have imagined, and the Lich had spent months trying in vain to understand what it was doing wrong. To date, only its red-eyed ravens had flown, but they were clumsy things, and they didn’t survive long in the outside world as it tried to use the little wind-up toys to better understand the currents of the air.

If the Lich had been more powerfully connected to the little brat, it would have snuffed his life force out on the spot and stolen his soul to sit on a shelf beside his bard. It would have been happy to torment the two of them for the rest of time whenever the mood struck. Though, for better or worse, the ungrateful little lordling was outside his reach at the moment because the darkness had maintained only the lightest possible touch on Kelvun's soul for the last decade. It had done so because it had been certain that the forces of light were going to be a bigger problem than they had been up until now. Even if it did nothing obvious, it was only a matter of time before some sort of inquisition was dispatched to root it out the growing darkness of the region. It was sure of that.

That was ironic, of course, because anything it did to the Count now would almost certainly draw the attention of the church, but the darkness couldn’t make itself care. It was ten times more powerful than when it last touched the light, and this time it would be the victor. So, instead of crushing him like an insect, it had time to contemplate ever greater horrors that it could inflict on the man. If it was finally going to have to bear the cost of a true battle with the lords of light, then it was going to have to be for something that was worth it.

With every day that passed after that, its desire to humiliate and destroy the man for everything he’d done only increased. The Count had dug a canal through the swamp intending to weaken the Lich, and then he had invited priests of the light to the very heart of its domain. Either one of these would have been sufficient cause to tear the flesh from the traitor’s still-living body if the Lich hadn’t found a way to turn both events to its advantage. But trying to deprive it of its rightful share of the gold that was mined? Trying to break their pact? That was an unforgivable insult.

At first, the darkness thought that the best solution might be to continue to ramp up the child’s paranoia until he executed all of those around him. That would be an amusing way to pass the time, and it would no doubt end in a palace coup and some sort of bloody civil war, which it would find entertaining. That wasn’t enough for it, though, not anymore. Count Garvin didn’t just need to be humiliated. He needed to be humbled and destroyed. Ultimately the Lich would have been willing to spend more days than it would ever consider reasonable just planning and watching the lordling’s dreams to discover what it was he loved the most, so it could turn all those things to ash.

Though the obsession took months as it considered all of its terrible options, ultimately, such an investigation only took a few nights because, in the end, the answer was obvious. Kelvun loved himself more than everyone else combined, but just below that, there were other things that he appreciated, like his kingdom, for one. Despite the fact that the Count had even less to do with Greshen’s greatness than his drunk of a father had, he was very proud of it. After that came the love of the people and a few of his favorite mistresses.

Yes, it decided, feeling its vengeance flow through it. Those would be its targets. First, it would destroy the man for daring to defy it, and then it would use the disaster that was about to befall his kingdom to escalate its plan further.

For the next few weeks, its ferryman made nightly trips to Fallravea. Its minions were delivered to the second tunnel entrance just outside of town. It, of course, led to the warrens that the worshippers of the drowned woman had already started digging in their perverse quest to build her undertemple as she'd been forced to command them. They were so far under her spell that when the zombies flooded the tunnels and began their relentless digging, the humans could only see them as fellow devotees to her shining divinity. How could they not? They saw her as an alabaster maiden riding a river dragon in a silvered carriage instead of the bloated corpse of a drowned woman trapped in a rotting monstrosity by a rib cage of steel.

They were blind enough that they only truly saw what the Lich wanted them to see now, and day by day, that turned to resentment for the powers that be. Once, the priestesses and the worshippers had been Kelvun’s strongest supporters, but now they turn against him almost as one.

At the same time, the level of the river began to fall precipitously. This was a normal behavior that happened every year. In the spring, when the snows began to melt, the river would flood, and in the summer, it would slowly shrink. This year, with the unwilling help of the river goddess, it was worse than it had been in living memory. One by one, the springs that fed it trickled to a stop, drying up the streams that would go on to become tributaries of the mighty Oroza.

This not only weakened the River Dragon but it also forced her to flee her native land. For the first time in her life, she was forced to go to sea to prowl for death. Even in her weakened state, there was nothing that could challenge her, and she went on to bring ocean traffic to a standstill out of sheer rage at being denied her river. The Lich saw no reason to rein in her behavior, though it could have, of course.

One by one, the sandbars emerged, and then day after day, the river began to narrow. At first, it affected only river traffic, slowing and snarling the normal flow of commerce and depriving the Count’s coffers of much-needed duties and taxes. By the time it brought all river traffic to a stop until the rains started again in the fall, though, the people were getting restless. Eventually, the giant chain that had served as a symbol of prosperity for so long hung over a dry river bed, and wells dried up while crops withered in the fields.

It was a devastating blow to the ecosystems, but the Lich didn’t care. Besides the loss of power that it derived from its chained god, the only way that it was affected was that it had to put up illusions over its various river-facing tunnels it had dug beneath Blackwater, so they wouldn’t be discovered. It was no longer of the water after all. The darkness had soaked so deeply that the ground itself was now permanently stained with blood, cholerium, and other darker things.

By the time the people were starting to blame the Count openly, in taverns and on the street, even the lordling’s newest inept spymaster couldn’t help but notice the discontent. There was nothing to be done this time, though. No amount of intentional rumors or coins in the pockets of popular bards would turn public opinion without water, and the sisters of the Orozian temples were adamant in their belief that this was the doing of the young Count.

“Come to our temple,” the high priestess beseeched him in public one day while he was going about his business. “Come to the blessed house of the water bearer and beg for absolution, sir! Surely if you repent, then she will take mercy on all of us in our time of need and unleash the flood!”

It wasn’t the first time that Kelvun had heard that particular message, but it was the first time that someone disappeared after making it so publicly. His henchman was just supposed to torture her until she saw the error of her ways and learned not to embarrass Count Garvin in public, but sadly he didn’t know his own strength, and she perished while she was being made to see the light. The Lich didn’t allow her corpse to stay buried in its shallow grave for more than a night, but it did make sure that the man that had done such grievous harm to one of his servants was made to suffer for it as she ripped him to pieces.

Kelvun’s mistresses disappeared shortly after that in retaliation, adding further fuel to the fire. In the Count’s world, they were his only remaining joy, and one night they just vanished. In a single night all of them disappeared, and no one could say to where. This caused pain and fear to course through him like he hadn’t felt since the goblin wars. The Lich was kinder to the women than they deserved, though, but only because it wanted their beautiful bodies to be as well-preserved as possible for the final act. After months of preparation by the Lich, everything that Count Kelvun Garvin loved most in the world had been taken from him. The land was dying, the people hated him, and there was no one left to comfort the lordling in his hour of need.

Even the drudges had completed their work beneath the city. Truly, the stage was at last set to rob Kelvun of the last thing that mattered to him: his life.