"Pope Rupert!" the woman shouted as she sat up.
"That's a name I haven't heard in a long time," I said reminiscing about the past of the time before I was a Lich.
Hearing my voice from her side, she slowly turned, tensed with hope and excitement hoping to see the person her ancestors were looking for all their lives.
The moment our eyes meet, it was as if she had met her god and immediately went down to her knees and prostrated before me. "Pope Rupert, we have been looking for you ever since the holy war ended ten thousand years ago, and we would like it if you could come back with us to the holy continent and help reform the Radiant church as it has been changed into a place worse than hell, the…" as the woman rambled.
"Hold on a moment, why don't you start with your name and why were you looking for me?" I snapped back at her irritated with her long-winded ramblings and taboo words that she said. "Also, do NOT. DO NOT.EVER, call me by that title and name again" I said in a solemn and stern voice as a great amount of aura seeped out of me.
In a dazed, she looked at me and asked "then, what should I call you now?".
"Anything you like just don't use or say those two words in front of me" I replied in a calmer voice than before.
"Sir?" the woman looked up at me to see if I was comfortable with it. With my silent consent, she continued, "My name is Samantha, and I am the descendant of the nine cardinals that were executed more than ten thousand years ago.
"Wait a minute, what do you mean by you are the descendant of the nine cardinals that were executed?"
"To be more exact, I am the descendant of Alex of the 9 Cardinals and to answer the question of why I call myself the descendant of Alex is because we isolated ourselves from the rest of the world and married mostly between families and only a rare few that married outside".
With a thoughtful look, I became more confused as I had more questions, "Wait, how did they manage to escape from being executed? From what I remember of their personalities, they would never have allowed any of you to live?"
In a voice, she repeated what she has learnt about the past, "When the 9 Cardinals learnt about you reprimanding the holy son, they knew that there was something fishy about the events and immediately hid their families away from harm to prepare for the worst and with the voting confirming their suspicions, they wrote a letter to their families to assist you after your banishment as they accepted their deaths…".
With a tremble in my voice, I asked again to confirm, "They knew?"
"Yes" with Samantha confirming my question, an emotion I have not felt in a long time burst out of me as I released a large amount of energy into the sky to vent my frustrations, anger and lastly grief.
Frustration. The frustration of not remembering them or seeking their families when I regain my sanity.
Anger. The anger directed at myself for forgetting about them even their names and families as I conveniently led a carefree life while their families struggled hard to find me.
Grief. The grief suppressed within me for more than ten thousand years as I finally took the time to mourn for them.
With such overwhelming negative emotions hitting me all at once, I slowly started to lose control of my mind as the corruptive power within me started to act up again causing me to once again lose control of my body as my dark side that I thought to have vanquished after the war was actually just silently waiting for an opportunity at my most vulnerable to strike back once again.
As I was screaming in pain and losing control of my mind, a warm body wrapped around me.
A voice of an angel came soothing me, calming me and caring for me telling me that it was okay, and everything is fine now.
As this voice enters my mind, like a powerful potent holy magic, it caused my dark side to slowly recede back into the deepest parts of my mind as I slowly regained my senses.
When I looked by up at the person hugging me, I realised that the person was Samantha and while her face was white as if her skin thirsted for the sun, her smile and teary eyes were what made my stone-cold heart thaw ever so slightly, while I stayed in her embraced a little longer before parting ways with it.
Regaining my previous demeanour, I asked once again, "Can you tell me what happened after your families escaped?"
"After our ancestor's families escaped execution, we formed an organization to protect ourselves and it was supposed to help you regain your position as po- your former position after you were banished but you turned into a lich and went on a rampage destroying 85 per cent of the world's population. Hence, we then changed our purpose became to help you regain your sanity, but no matter how we tried only the only outcome was that they were killed by you. But we never gave up and continuously tried just when we were about to give up, you suddenly regain your sanity and left. That's when we changed our purpose again to finding you and reuniting together with you, hoping that you could continue being the shining example of what the radiant church should be". Samantha narrated, however, that I could see that there were some things that were not said explicitly, however, I chose to ignore it thinking that some things are better off not knowing.
With all this knowledge being learnt from a young age, Samantha was able to answer my many questions.
After a moment of silence, I replied, "I don't think it's a good idea to go back, especially with the large scale destruction that I have caused ten thousand years ago".