Once the lich was finished, he stood up and stood back and inspected his handy work. When he seemed satisfied, he stood over Tommy''s body and made aplicated hand symbol with his skeletal fingers. It had a lot of s''s and curves to it, but was epassed by a square frame made by his hands.


    He began to chant in an ancientnguage. It sounded older thantin, if sounds and words can have an age to their sound. Wispy purple vapors seeped from Tommy''s body and gathered in the symbol the lich was making with his hands.


    The purple wisps lit up his hands to a blinding degree until the wisps stoppeding out of Tommy''s body. Tommy was still breathing, but weakly.


    The lich moved his hand symbol to his right a little bit so that it was above Tommy''s knife resting on the ground. He began to chant in that same ancientnguage and the purple wisps left the lich''s hands and started going into the knife.


    This process continued until the lich''s hands were empty of purple light and he pulled his hands apart and let them rest at his sides. "It is done," He said. He looked at the fairy medic and he said, "You should be able to repair his body now without him dying."


    The fairy medic got to work and put her hands over Tommy''s body. As she worked, Tommy''s body repaired itself, but the more it repaired itself, the more something else happened. The light had gone out in Tommy''s eyes despite him still breathing.


    As she repaired his body, a light came back into his eyes but this was a bright purple light that shone through his pupils. It was much like the purple eye lights that the lich announcer had. Tommy''s were brighter and more than like LEDs than the announcer''s flicker mes.


    After the fairy finished her work, Tommy took a deep breath and began to breathe more normally. He sat up quickly and grabbed his knife, stuffing it back in his inner jacket pocket.


    The lich looked at Tommy and said, "That knife is your phctery. It contains your soul. If your body is destroyed, you can be brought back as long as your phctery is safe, but if your phctery is destroyed, you can''t be brought back. You die."


    "Good to know," Tommy said. "So what now? Since I''m a monster now, I need a ce to stay. Can I stay with you Dn?"


    "I don''t know how this works. The monster world seems very segregated. Victoria?" I said.


    "You will have to join the lich sect and live with them. Dn can visit you, but your ce is with the liches now," she said.


    "Ok. I can live with that," Tommy said.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    I looked over at Dan. "How are you doing? Are you ok?"


    "Yeah, I''m alright. All I have is this scratch on my arm. It''s not deep though so I should be fine," Dan said.


    "Oh no," Victoria said.


    I looked at Dan and then at the unconscious werewolf on the ground. I inspected his ungloved hand and there was dried blood on one of his ws. Oh fuck. So not one, but both of my friends were monsters now.


    Victoria ripped open Dan''s jacket and lifted his shirt. It revealed dark veins stretching across his chest from his arm to his sternum.


    "It''s progressed too far," she said. "Normally if you got a scratch, you cut the skin off around the scratch and you''d just have a nasty scar for the rest of your life, but we''d have to cut you in half at this point to get it out. It''s almost to your heart, and once it hits your heart, it bes permanent."


    "We could try to fight the lycanthropy with vampire blood, but you''d still be a monster either way. At that point it would just be deciding which kind you want to be."


    "What do you mean?" Dan said. "What''s going on? Lycanthropy?"


    "A werewolf''s w scratched you," I said. "It means you''re going to turn into a werewolf."


    "I''m going to be a werewolf? Does that mean I''ll have to live with werewolves for the rest of my life?" Dan said.


    "I think so," I said.


    "Does that mean we''ll still be able to hang out?" Dan said.


    "I mean, now that you''re a monster like me, yeah," I said.


    "Cool!" Dan said. "I was really worried we wouldn''t be able to be friends anymore and that I''d have to live on the streets again. Now I get to keep my friends and I have a home? That sounds too good to be true."


    "You''ll be cursed to transform under a full moon and lose control of yourself and stuff. Doesn''t that bother you?" I said.


    "Nope. That just sounds like getting ck out drunk once a month. And I''ll have other werewolves to protect me from myself right? That sounds way better than ending up in a jail cell every few weeks," Dan said. He looked relieved. He looked happier than I''d ever seen him actually.


    "I''m with Dan," Tommy said. "No more boring human life. I get to learn magic now and be a wizard? That sounds badass! That sounds way better than working for some randompany until I die."


    "Wow. You guys are handling this much better than I expected you to," I said. "Then again, turning into a vampire didn''t bother me that much either. I reacted like you guys. Happy to finally be off the streets or not be barely scraping by."


    "You guys were meant to be best friends. You are some really weird peas in a really weird pod," Victoria said.


    "So, Dn, are you ready to fight the champion of the low power level? See if you can go all the way?" The lich announcer said, this time through his mic.


    He put the mic up to my mouth, and I said, "I''ve never been more ready."