It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, the first was obvious, and the second, well, it's Britain, so stormy is definitely plausible for the last night of October.

The Forest of Dean, second largest of the Royal Forests, over a hundred square kilometers of ancient woodlands, criss-crossed by roads, trails, and assorted hamlets. Had things not gone differently, in seventeen years, give or take a few months, two teenagers would, while camping, discover an ancient artifact that would allow them to defeat an evil that had been temporarily defeated seventeen years before.

Give or take a few months.

A few hundred kilometers away from the forest, in a small village not unlike many that dotted the English countryside, a godfather was handing over his motorcycle to a groundskeeper, intent on finding a betrayer.

For now, though, let us focus on the forest, particularly a dense part of the ancient woodland, the ground covered in fallen leaves and underbrush. Suddenly, as if by magic, someone, or something, appeared. They were thin, emaciated, one could almost call them skeletal, and dressed, if one was charitable in using that word, in barely more than tattered rags. Beside them was an ornate box, sealed, and topped with a standard yellow C5 envelope, addressed, in green ink, to "nobodez".

Suddenly the body seized, and whomever they were, seemed to be panicking. After attempting to hyperventilate, and failing quite dismally after discovering that they had no lungs with which to hyperventilate with, they passed out. A half hour later, they seized awake once more, and after determining that, no, they weren't hallucinating, or else on a very bad trip that didn't look to be ending anytime soon, they took stock of the situation.

"Well, frak," they said, though were quite surprised to be able to speak, what with the whole lack of lungs, and not to mention the rest of their pulmonary system with which to speak with. Then, after looking around, they found the envelope, and after removing the contents, a folded sheet of A4 paper, they began to read in the surprisingly bright waxing crescent moon.

"Hello," they read aloud, their voice seeming to have a few sub-harmonic echoes lending it a distinctly sinister demeanor. "I'm sure you're quite freaked out at the moment."

"No fraking shit sherlock," they snarked, then continued.

"… with you being…well undead and all but there is a good reason for all this. You must entertain me."

"Entertain you?" they asked aloud. They then looked around. "Who the frak are you?" They then shouted, "WHO THE FRAK ARE YOU?"

Only the startled sounds of animals fleeing from the shout of the undead responded.

They then continued reading, though only spoke aloud the pertinent parts.

"… turned you into a lich … undead sorcerer of unimaginable power … total confidence … phylactery …pocket dimension … one creature per day … crossbows … reverse engineering … exotic materials … same universal plane … un-vistable … grand adventure … magic book … spell, rituals, and upgrades … finger tips …" and this they paused and looked at the white tips of their distal phalanges. They rubbed the tip of their thumb, now only a bone, across the tip of their index finger, and surprisingly, felt it, but then, as a lich, they had to expect some magical senses. They then returned their attention to the letter, "… scan and store … can be damaged … fumation … directly related … strict and unbending … Forest of Dean, Halloween, 1981."

Just then they stopped reading, then chuckled, then gawfawed, then outright laughed out loud, eventually succumbing to something close to maniacal laughter. A few minutes later, after discovering that their lack of lungs made laughing for a long time almost enjoyable, they finished the letter, and watched as it, in a flash of bright light not unlike that which characterized the nearly omnipotent powers of the being Q on Star Trek, was either transformed into, or replaced with, a thin, nondescript black book. At first glance it looked almost indistinguishable from the notebooks favored by techies and hipsters over thirty years from now in an alternate future.

The lich, intrigued, opened the book, and smiled when, on the front endpaper, or rather end-parchment, a familiar symbol was illustrated. It consisted of a crudely drawn circle, almost exactly the same style as found in the Intel logo, that served as the head of a stick figure, though one that was missing its body and had two-fingered hands. The lich knew this symbol, for it was one they had designed, in the past which was an alternate future, to accompany their nickname on the internet. A stick figure with no body, appropriate for "nobodez".

The lich then began to page through the book, discovering spells, rituals, and "upgrades", as the letter described. To the lich's horror, though, most of them where either quite gruesome in utility or frightening in their brutality. Others, though, seemed more useful. Luckily the lich had memorized the "proper" ratio for gunpowder, 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur, and so would be able to give their minions at least basic firearms until they could get to either a military base, a terrorist hideout, or across the "pond" to the United States and their more liberal firearms laws.

The lich known as nobodez only stopped reading the book when the sun rose above the trees, casting the lich's shadow across the book. With a snap the book was closed and stock taken of the environment.

"I'm going to need a backpack, and then I'm going to need a safe deposit box," nobodez said to themself. "And quite possibly I'm going to need minions. Oh yes, minions are a definite." Nobodez punctuated their decision with a solid three minutes of maniacal laughter.

- Edited 08/26/13