The First Lich

 As I watched the sunlight stream in through the window unhindered, I could see the devastation of the surrounding area. The crops had been flattened. The once golden field of wheat and vegetables is now just piles of smoldering plant matter. Sighing, I push away from the window. I will need to go out and salvage whatever I can later. Even mages need to eat. 

 I probably shouldn't go out before I have some kind of weapon. Then it struck me. I hadn't even checked what card I got. Tuning on my heel, I start to head back to the stairwell. Earlier I just booked it up the stairs in order to see what was going on. I could have at least grabbed it. Taking the first step, I descended the steps.

 After walking back down the stairs and down the dimly lit hall, I arrived at the study. Glancing around, I started the search for the card. A few minutes later I find that I had kicked it under the bookshelf when I ran upstairs. Once I finished sliding it out of under there, I stared at the face down card. Carefully I grabbed it and made sure I did not see the face of it till I had it in my hands. Here is the moment of truth. I slowly and very dramatically turned the white crystal card over. On the face of it is a picture of a staff. Under the icon on the card there was just one line of text.

 [Bone Staff (Rarity: Common)]

 [Type: Item]

 Taking another glance at the picture, it really does look like a staff made of fused bone. "This is exactly what I need. Something to defend myself with," I muttered. Glancing out the door of the study I could see the stairs at the end of the hallway. Once I summon this, I can go check what happened outside. It could be dangerous out there, but I need to know what happened. Also, it has been a few minutes since the barrier broke and nothing has come to kill me. That is always a good sign.

 Now to figure out how to summon the staff. The first thing I decided to try is to feed the card some essence. Easy right? After a few minutes of bouncing essence off the card I found something interesting. Using my essence, I could get a clearer picture of the weave of the card. After that I decided to look in the books my mother has collected for an answer. After skimming through the third book that seemed related, I found it. There are a few ways to summon an item card. The most common way is surprisingly counterintuitive. You take the card, grip the top and bottom, and just break it. Yeah, you break it. Then the card will collapse and assume its next most stable form. That form is whatever the card is. If you break an item card it summons the item, or if it is some sort of spell or effect that will trigger instead.

 That means that anyone can use a card as long as they can withstand the consequences. That explains why my parents seemed to always have card blanks on them, and why I was never given a card. If I had broken a sword card, I could have stabbed myself. That Is honestly a scary thought. Imagine one day a trader just trips and falls on his pack. Then one of the spear cards breaks and skewers them. The other way to do it is to use your will to encompass the staff card and visualize where you want it. I will try that later. This is a staff, so it will be better if I hold the card at armlength when I break it. It's not like this is the first time I have dropped it. With that thought I snapped it in half.

 After brief flash of light and a crash, I am left staring at what is possibly the coolest staff ever. I proceed to reach down to grab it fully intending to pick it up. What happens instead is a stream of essence starts to trickle into my core. That then startles me into dropping it again. Staring at the bleached white staff, I wonder does it want to be dropped? This is the second time. Leaning down to grab the staff I brace for the essence stream. When it starts to feed my core essence, I run my hand down its runed surface. The surface of the bone staff is quite odd. Even though the staff is straight the half-melted surface tells otherwise. Combine that with runes spiraling up and down it, softly glowing in a sickly green light and you get an awesome first staff.

 Gripping it tight, I prepare myself for what I might find. The letter said that... Blankly staring into the distance, I stand there for a moment. Nope, not thinking about it. I need to get going. Ruins aren't going to search themselves after all. Walking through the house, I find myself back at the door. The same one that was blocked by the barrier. I cannot deny that I fear what I will find out there. With a deep breath I firmly grab the door handle and turn it. Looking out the now open door the first thing that greets me is a mound of dirt that is piled up against the door. Staring at the new thing in my way, I wonder What could have done this much damage. I knew that whatever happened flattened the fields but this, this is on another level.

 After slogging through the loose dirt and stones, I could finally see what had happened. The graveyard is gone. In its place is a crater as deep as I am tall. The strange part is that when comparing the power that made the crater to the destruction around it there is not as much as there should be. "We're sorry but this line will only appear if our lives have been taken." As that line bounced around in my head, I felt numb. As much as I wanted to mourn there is just too much to get done. Honestly, I am surprised that I am this composed. This is too much for me.

 As I circled the crater, the valley's entrance came into view. It only made the numbness in me grow. It feels like there is a wall in between me and the stuff I should feel. Looking at the melted landscape I could imagine what had happened. Someone came with hostile intentions and my father fought them to defend me. Standing there in the shadow of his giant form I could see the strike that ended the fight. Whoever came had the power to cleave his molten form in two. Turning I followed the path that the invader had possibly taken to confront my mother. When I reached the crater once more, I sat down on its unnatural edge.

 I remained there for a while just staring at the sun crossing the sky. "They are gone. There is nothing left." My father's corpse I could bury, but there was nothing left of my mother. Sighing, I stood up to go inspect the fields. Making a grave for my parents will take a while. During that time, I will need something to eat. The house has stores of meat that we set aside, but the fields were not ready for harvesting yet. Normally that would be my mother's job. We had a group of undead that my mother made to tend to the fields, but they were stored in the graveyard. That was the main reason we even had a graveyard. It was storage for my mother's undead.

 Crossing the far bridge, I stopped for a moment to look at the river. The explosion had pushed a lot of debris into the water. "Just another thing to take care of," I sighed. Walking through the fields it was just as I feared. The majority of the plants were flattened and burned. Salvaging what remained would take a bit. Turning, I started back towards the house to grab a basket. On the second trip from the fields, I noticed a gouge in the wheat that led away from the graveyard. It looked like something had been thrown and had skidded to a stop in one of the far fields. Setting down the basket, I started to investigate.

 When I found her, I thought she was a corpse. Laying there at the end of the gouge was a young woman. As I stood there, I could see her chest rising slowly. Looking back over my shoulder I could see the graveyard in the distance. Somehow it seems she got thrown from somewhere near the graveyard and landed here. Carefully, I made my way closer. Cuts and scrapes covered her body but that was not the worst of it. Her entire left side is covered in burns, and I am sure that her arm is broken in two places. Everything about her says she shouldn't be alive.

 Now the problem, as if all that isn't enough, should I even save her? From what I can tell, the remains of her clothing and the items scattered around belong to the order. Carefully I reach towards her neck and bring her necklace into view. My father had on just like it from when he was in the order. Unlike this one his is a fire burning a skull. He told me it represents the drive to punish evil. This woman's is a figure wrapped in sunlight. Sighing, I carefully shift her onto her back. Leaving her here is no different from killing her myself. 

 A frustratingly long time later, I finally manage to get her into the house. I had to make a stretcher out of my new staff and her's, which I found stabbed deep into the ground a few feet away. Then I had to carefully put her on it and drag it back to the house. That was nerve-wracking. Then when I got her inside, I had to find a few of our smaller tables. After dragging them through the house I lined them up and put some padding on them. Next was getting her on it. The less said about it the better. After that I redid the temporary bandages and replaced them after cleaning the wounds using some of the poultice we had in the house. The entire time I did this I asked myself why.

 Why am I helping her? Because leaving her would be the same as killing her. Why do I care about her death? Because she can shed some light on what happened, and I don't even know if she is the one who killed them. From how it looks outside, my father died first and then my mother killed the invader somehow. What will I do with her when she wakes up? An even better question is will she even wake up? With the injuries she has its insane that she is even alive! I don't know how she survived the blast, but it is clear without some help she will not last much longer.