A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

I looked over the still-writhing bit of flesh with interest. My senses told me that it was somehow both dead and alive. My Omniscience told me it was something called a “Cadavrrhizae Limb,” and it seemed almost fungal in nature.

“You said that these things were covering an entire forest, right?” I asked Azrael, my mind going to Humongous Fungus, a mushroom that had been growing for thousands of years by the time it was found and was considered the largest single organism on Earth.

“Yeah, that thing was massive.” She shuddered. “Sorry for getting your monsters killed, by the way.”

I waved a hand as if to brush off her concern. “I know for a fact that you’ve been downstairs. Don’t worry about it, I have thousands of them.”

Azrael’s eyes widened. “Thousands? I thought there were hundreds at the most. I guess I just got so bored looking at the same thing over and over again that I just started ignoring them,” she considered. “By the way, those bottom floors look amazing. I thought you were busy leveling your Skills, pushing to level 5?”

“Oh yeah, do you remember that Spriggan we found a while back?” I asked with a bit of pride. “I guess I never directly showed you, and they’re at work in the walls and floor most of the time, but…” I called one of the Wisps out.

Azrael stared at the new monster type with wonder. “You changed it from Vitasis to Necrosis? I didn’t even know that was possible.”

I took a moment to preen under the implied compliment, but my desire to explain the mob’s capabilities was too strong to go ignored for long. “I call it a Wisp. When I hit level 5 in my Necrosis Manipulation Skill, I got a Skill that lets me give my monsters the ability to think for themselves. I can decide what sort of things they know, and that actually includes the ability to use my Boons. Sadly, it doesn’t look like I can give them more than one at a time, but they can work together really well, and these Wisps are especially good at using my Domain of Undeath Boons, since I actually infused a bunch of my influence into them while I was converting the original into what they are now.”

She continued to stare at the Wisp, fully entranced, but managed to ask, “Isn’t giving them intelligence a bit scary? Especially when you give them such strong abilities?”

I waved a hand in front of her face, and she flinched with an “eep!”

“They’re still completely loyal to me, just like the mindless undead. Honestly, the Antigos already had so much raw mass that I think they were already starting to get smarter from it, though I don’t exactly know how. Anyways, they made the new floor by using my Mold Terrain Boon. They could have also used my Create Undead and Animate Necrosis Boons to populate the floor, but I had a new idea for a mob.”

“You keep using that word. What’s a mahb?” Azrael queried, making me realize that I kept accidentally using English words when there were no precise Glyphic translations.

“Ah, sorry, it just refers to monsters that are made for adventurers to fight,” I explained sheepishly. “Anyways, you wanna see the new monster?”

She nodded with great interest, and I decided to make one on the spot. I didn’t have any up here, and having one walk all the way up the stairs would take too long. Furthermore, doing things this way should get me extra style points.

Azrael was looking confused by the time the second body had fully formed, but I raised a hand to keep her quiet while targeting the Created corpses with Sympathetic Bonding. It took a few moments of intense concentration and knot-tying, but the misshapen bond took form between and around the bodies, intrinsically linking them. I Animated the two perfect clones, and then used my Construct Consciousness Boon to give them a single driving thought-construct.

“Introducing,” I suddenly announced, “the Twinscale.” Azrael stared at the beasts for a long minute, then turned to me and asked, “Aren’t those just two lizards?”

I winced, realizing that she couldn’t see any of what I was doing and I’d just made a complete fool of myself. Oh well. “Just go fight them and see what happens.”

She shrugged, pulling a dagger out of a hidden pocket and zipping forward with great speed. The Twinscale had no time to react at all, and its right body was stabbed on the forehead. Sadly for Azrael, these things were tough. When she pulled back, a small smear of necrotic blood pooled at the top of both of the Twinscale’s heads, but she hadn’t received the instakill she’d been after.

Instead, two angry lizard bodies launched themselves at her in lockstep, forcing her to defend from two angles simultaneously. For each stab or slash one received, small wounds appeared on both, but these beasts worked together perfectly, and I had to stop one of the things from biting her each time she managed to block the other. Of course, I knew that Azrael wasn’t going all out, since they were just my undead creations and she knew I wasn’t going to kill her, but it still impressed upon her how strong these things were.

“Are you sure normal people will be able to handle these things? I know you said that you wanted people to feel like they at least had a chance in here.” She looked concernedly at the Twinscale’s bodies, which I’d forced to stop attacking.

I shrugged. “Their biggest advantages are their toughness, venom, teamwork, and lack of fear towards death. I expect that sufficiently powerful, well-organized teams should be able to handle them.” My words caused her to think for a minute, but then she nodded, agreeing with my assessment.

We chatted for a little while longer about what had gone down in the Cadavrhizae’s forest, and then she went back up to the tower’s roof while I started trying to recreate the limb that she’d brought for me. Sadly, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to manage it, since it had a good amount of Vitasis in it, and not just pure Necrosis. I could try to corrupt it, but I got the feeling that it would simply crumble to dust if I did so, since it was held together by a mix, rather than just one or the other.

There was something else to do about the monster nearby, though. It was clearly a threat, not just to Azrael but also to me. What would happen if that thing decided to spread its Domain out and started fighting me? That just wouldn’t do.

I had a huge excess of Antigos, that was just the simple truth. It would be a waste to just tell them to leave, though, so I’d thought up a couple ways to handle it. My original idea was to slap them all with Spread Undeath Boons and tell them to walk in straight lines away from me until they couldn’t anymore. That would take a lot of time, though, and I’d just found a more immediate use for some of my troops.

I directed about half my Antigos to gather around the base of my tower, and they began flooding down the stairs in a stream. Soon, a massive army had gathered, and I had a perfect use for them. Slowly, I began to equip them all with basic, rudimentary Consciousnesses, allowing them to think for themselves and have greater performance. I upgraded a handful with Spread Undeath, making them into my generals. Then, I told them all to march. Just a couple moments later, Azrael came storming down the stairs.

“What are you doing? Where are the Antigos going?” She sounded worried, like I was doing something foolish. “Are you leaving us undefended?!”

I frowned at her, and my response came out a bit terse. “No, I’m not stupid. That’s only about half of my army, and they’re going to handle the threat that you just brought to my attention.”

Azrael blinked. “Oh… I didn’t realize you could do that. For some reason I didn’t think that you could send so many of your undead outside at once.”

“Just because I haven’t until now doesn’t mean I can’t,” I said with a chuckle. “With enough time, I could probably form an army large enough to recreate the aftermath of that war you told me about.” I was, of course, referring to the war between the old kingdoms of Yalten and Kerenth that had increased the size and power of the Dead Belt so much that humanity had been relegated to the freezing poles of the world. In that time, the dead had ruled the continent, consuming the world in their infinite hunger, touching the hearts of men with darkness and terror. Sadly, a mixture between divine intervention and attrition had slowly beat back the walking dead, who were incapable of increasing their numbers without bringing corpses within the areas of the Dead Belt that had denser concentrations of Necrosis, which became harder once the living started to cremate their dead.

For some reason, Azrael seemed a bit uncomfortable with that, but she brushed it off. “Can I go watch?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You should be plenty safe. I sincerely doubt that Cadavrrhizae thing will be able to handle a swarm of over a thousand Antigos, especially with me fighting its Domain.”

She considered it for a moment, then asked for a Windilope. I took a moment to form one for her, then instructed it to keep her within a couple miles of the army and bring her back if things got bad. After that, I just formed a stone chair out of the floor and sat back to watch the fight through my Omnipresence.

It took a few hours for the Antigos to arrive at the Cadavrrhizae’s forest, but once they did, howls echoed through the mountains and the army broke, dashing forward to create carnage. I didn’t bother stopping them. This was the way they fought best, and trying to force them into formation would only hurt the situation, not to mention that my only experience with battle strategy was limited to tabletop roleplaying games.

The Antigos were brutal killing machines, and moved faster than the fleshy bits in the forest could react. Tentacles were chopped off and purple blood splashed across the ground as the army advanced, slashing every living or semi-living thing in the area to bits. Trees were shredded to bits, shrubs were uprooted, and soon only barren land remained, littered with the remains of plant life and still-writhing Cadavrrhizae limbs.

I guess this is what happens when you tell an undead army to kill a forest? Perhaps I should have been more specific, but this was likely for the best. I had no clue what means the beast inside would have, and it could very well have some ability to manipulate the plant life. In fact… I started Transmuting the plants into dust as soon as they were considered dead enough for me to do so. Best to take no chances with something that controls both life and death.

The army advanced forwards, taking only minor damage from the hostile terrain. The Antigos were incredibly tough, having very dense muscles and bones, and I made sure to get some practice with my yet-unused Necrotic Restoration Boon. My army was unstoppable, my warriors immortal representations of my might directly guided by my will. Nothing would stop them, they would– oh, one of them just died.

I inspected the fallen soldier with my Omniscience, and found that it had been infected with some sort of Vitasis-venom that originated from a thorn. It hadn’t instantly killed my creation, but I hadn’t been able to notice it in time, since I was more focused on the Antigos that had sustained substantial damage. I examined it for a moment longer, trying to come up with a solution. One eventually popped into my head, and I started making Wisps inside the forest, giving them my Necrotic Restoration Boon with Construct Consciousness. I couldn’t focus everywhere at once, so instead I’d make dozens of little helpers to do it for me.

Once I had about a hundred Restoration Wisps, I returned my attention to my Influence, finding that the Cadavrrhizae was trying to retake the land that my Antigos had vacated. I let out a soft chuckle, then pushed back with as much force as I could, my Empowered Control reinforcing my power over my own Domain. Instantly, the forest stopped trying to encroach upon my land, and I decided to install a few more Wisps with my Spread Undeath Boon to ensure that I would remain in control of this battleground.

It took quite a long time, since my Antigos were chopping their way through the entire forest, but eventually the target of this crusade came into view. The Cadavrrhizae was just past a few more trees, and it gazed in our direction. I could sense the malevolence and voracity in its gaze, as the sensation penetrated even through my Domain. Luckily, my Antigos didn’t particularly care about the killing intent of their target, happy to die for me as they were. They pushed forward into the enemy undead’s clearing, and soon the real battle commenced.

Spikes erupted from the ground, and several of my Antigos were instantly slain by twisting red spikes, each seeming to be partway between living and inanimate. The Wisps tried to help, but they were already too late to do anything, as the spiraling spikes had sucked the deathly energies straight out of my creatures, which were now slowly turning to dust.

The Antigos were enraged by this sudden attack, and started throwing themselves at the spikes, breaking them apart as they pressed forward. More spikes came, and more Antigos fell, but it wasn’t even close to enough. For every foot that they advanced, one of my creations would become fertilizer, but there were hundreds of them. Before long, the Cadavrrhizae had to directly intervene, its flesh warping as it ascended into the sky, hanging upside down as its legs seemed to grow into a huge, drooping flower, with the monstrosity itself as its fruit. The odd plant continued to grow as the Cadavrrhizae was pulled forward, and it split in half to reposition itself further ahead, at which point it would continue to pull the undead along until the other plant would need to be moved. It continued to walk forward in this unnatural yet organic way until it hung over the front line of my troops.

The Cadavrrhizae screamed in anguish and rage, dragging its plant-like fingers across its eyes so hard that it created gouges in its own flesh, out of which a clear fluid poured. So much came out that it was like a faucet had been turned on, and I called my creations back, sensing that something was wrong. Sadly, not all of the Antigos reacted quickly enough, and the liquid splashed across a few dozen of my troops.

Strange growths bubbled across my undeads’ bodies before violently bursting open in gorey explosions, revealing flowers that had grown beneath the skin of the vanguards of my army. On closer inspection, I found that these plants were formed out of the bodies of my creations, their flesh having twisted into the shape they were currently in. The buds of these flowers snapped open, and revealed vicious grins that had been formed out of the bones of my units, ribs coming together to form long, sharp teeth.

These plants snapped forward like a cross between piranhas and venus flytraps, snapping around the torsos of my Antigos as they tried to escape. Watching them chew on my units was disgusting, even for me, especially when I saw the plants grow larger and larger from the consumption of their flesh.

With a not-insubstantial amount of anger in my heart, I decided that this had gone far enough, and commanded my Antigos to fight back against these plants. Luckily, it seemed that the Cadavrrhizae itself had run out of that strange clear fluid, as it had stopped releasing it from the cuts in its face, instead moving itself out of the way to allow its plants to defend it while it prepared… something. Green and purple light streamed out of its body into an orb in front of it, but I wasn’t planning on letting it show off its ult.

I commanded my Antigos to charge the plants and slash them to bits. They recklessly charged forward, and a battle ensued. For every corpse the plants consumed, they became a bit stronger, but the sheer number of Antigos that attacked them all at once was simply overwhelming, and most fell within mere moments. A few took quite a bit longer than that, but I instructed my troops to simply move around them and get at the big guy.

The Cadavrrhizae was close to finishing the formation of its creation, and I saw that the green and purple light had completely stabilized. Now it was pouring so much raw Mentum into the orb that it was having a tangible effect on the air between its hands, causing it to shudder and quake at the amount of power that it was producing. Nonetheless, it remained defenseless for the moment, and my creatures rushed forward, hacking the “legs” of the creature to ribbons in an instant. A moment later, the Cadavrrhizae landed on the floor and the Antigos launched themselves at it like starving wolves. Moments later, the forest seemed to die around us, and the tendrils of flesh that had made up the Cadavrrhizae’s Domain turned to dust and blew away in the wind.

The stream of Mentum was halted, and a small object fell out of the orb the enemy undead had been working on. I inspected it with my Omniscience and a mixture between confusion and concern brewed within my heart.

Not trusting my Antigos with the delicate object, I Transmuted the ground around it into stone and had Azrael’s Windilope bring her forward to see it. Azzy looked around, confused, but I had one of the Antigos point towards the dead body of the Cadavrrhizae, and she soon spotted the small seed. She dismounted and put it in her pocket, then hopped back on the Windilope, ready to come home.

Shutting off my Omnipresence and leaning back in my stone throne, I rubbed at my forehead in consternation.

If that little seed was anything like I was expecting, then things around here were about to get weird.