The Witch and the Lich: In which the Witch talks about herself, a lot.

Credits; Krell, Rea,
"How old exactly are you?"
"I make the oldest immortal look like a fresh graduate of the academy."
"In years maybe?"
"Eleven thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-four years, thirteen months, and six days.  Don't suppose you want the hours too?"
He paused and tried to find something to comapre it to.  Nothing was that old, save for a few things that were safely taken for granted. 
"That makes you about a thousand years younger than the Empire itself.  Which would make you roughly," He paused and counted off on bony fingers.  "About fourteen years older than the fleet."
"I was sixteen then, my father and I had just started traveling.  We called it the first war then, and the second was the point when Daniel justified the fleet's creation.  You call them 'phases' now, but it felt like a war when you lived through it."
"You fought then, and you called the Admiral by name.  Anatolian then?"
"Born on Danieland proper actually, but I spent all of the years that could be considered an actual childhood there.  And I used to visit from time to time.  Haven't had a reason to go back for ages though."
"I imagine not.  And how is it that I've never heard of you, seeing as your all ancient and accordingly powerful?"
"Well obviously Rea isn't my real name, that would be the first thing.  Besides that though, I track down and assasinate immortals.  So needless to say most of them don't like me much. Not many know I exist anyways, so whether or not they like me is sort of a moot point.  Say, do you know of Petra, the demonslayer?"
"I've heard of her.  What has she got to do with you?"
"What she does for demons I do for immortals. Demons plan to rule the world, she stops them.  Immortals plan to live forever, and I stop them."  Rea took out a little leather bound book and unfastened the strap.  She flipped it open and he saw a name, Imperial Grandmother Holine the fourth.  It seemed impossible, but perhaps that was why she had turned up to travel with him in the first place.  They shared a common foe, and for whatever reason she had chosen to help him rather than simply do the deed. 
"This book was found in the possesion of my first target.  A powerful Ga-Vok warlock, who had gained mastery by summoning a demon, calling himself the Alpha.  I did not slay him, that was left in the charge of his successor, a friend of a relation of mine.  I fought the demon at the side of a still older immortal, a sage from Appeni.  Together we forced it to retreat, and the Alpha fell at the blade of his own right hand.  I took the book and realized that it was my responsibility to follow it.  Each page names a target, an immortal, and  gives me all I need to know, time of death, time of birth, fighting style and magical strength.  When I kill the target the page turns and the next target is named.  I have never taken more than a hundred years to kill my target."
"And that particular target?"
"Oh, she yells at her servants.  I have no qualms about killing her.  Problem is that she's totally paranoid and it's nearly impossible to get her away from the imperial guard.  I happen to like the guard, and I'd prefer not to have to kill them."
"Can I make a suggestion?"
"Let you handle her while I watch?"
"I have a problem with her.  She did something to me a while back and I want to undo it."
"The whole 'lich' business,"  She nodded before continuing, "Yes, it can be undone.  Precedent exists.  The Greeks of Earth told a story about a hero who's life was bound to that of a particular log in the fire.  His mother removed the log from the fire, but when he accidentally killed his uncle she threw it back in and he died as it burned.  I happen to have met the man, he travelled with me before his death.  Full corporeal regeneration, zero memory loss, instant and natural immortality; It's one of the rare ways to gain natural immortality.  When a self created lich destroys their phylactery it counts as suicide; but for rare compelled lich, the destruction of the phylactery by its creator simply allows them to start their life over as a divinely permitted immortal.  Which means, since I assume you'll worry about it as much as he did, that you will never show up in the book.  Making you the fourth such individual I've encountered.  It's part of why I went looking for you; this doesn't happen very often and Holine's one greatest administrative flaw is keeping good records."
"Then you must be the_witch?"
"And clever to boot; yes I am.  I had the system's planner build me in.  I'm good enough with computers that I could write myself in if I ever got written out, but most of the archivists are too lazy to anything more than upgrade the system twice a millenia.  They all wonder who I am, but if they did know none of them would ever do anything about it.  For one thing I'd lock them out of the system if they tried.  I've got an uplink implant, so I pretty much know anything anyone is stupid enough to write down.  Mostly stupid stuff, but the military keeps good records, the guard has to file orders, and some of the immortals have commadered parts of the system for their own records.  It comes in handy."
"I was good with the yes.  So what you're saying is that if I can get Holine to break the phylactery than I can be alive and normal again?"
"More or less.  You've got it easy, all you have to do is bust open a fancy crystal or whatever.  I've got this complicated spell network that involves all kinds of self-esteem, romance, and temporal transfer involved."
"To do what?" 
"Get older."