A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

I examined the small kernel, considering what to do with it. The seed that the Cadvrrhizae had left behind was stuffed full of energy, both of life and of death. Considering where it had come from, I had initially considered destroying it, yet… This could be a great tool. I could sense the dense energy within it, and found that it held no hostility towards me. No, all it wanted was energy, fuel to accelerate its growth.

Considering its nature, and how I didn’t have the requisite affinities to truly develop or control it, I wasn’t going to let it grow just yet. Still, it was something to consider in the future, in case I ever found a way to generate Vitasis, or maybe if I enslaved someone or something else that could. Maybe I could also find a way to replace its Vitasis energy with my Spatium, which would likely result in a much less chaotic creation.

I didn’t exactly know how a seed of all things could be considered dead and alive at the same time, but then again, the Cadavrrhizae had managed it, so why couldn’t this thing? As for what it would grow into, I got the distinct sense that it would be based on the energies used. I’m pretty sure that the Cadavrrhizae was actually trying to make a clone of itself, and it might have even been trying to infuse its own soul into the seed, but it had clearly been unsuccessful, considering the seed didn’t appear to have any intelligence of its own yet.

Shoving the seed into a pocket, I looked over my status on my Phylactery.

Seif Ambrose

Spatial Lich 2

Phylactery 2

Undead Possession 1

Reconstitution 4

Incorporate Phylactery 2

Necrosis Manipulation 5 (Max)

Deadsight 7

Animate Necrosis 8

Shape Necrosis 5

Create Undead 9

Necrotic Restoration 4

Construct Consciousness 8

Domain of Undeath 5 (Max)

Spread Undeath 9

Mold Terrain 10

Transmute 5

Omnipresence 5

Omniscience 4

Empowered Control 4

Spatium Manipulation 2

Delinear Sight 4

Stitching 3

Folding 1

Calling 5 (Max)

Taglock 6

Nomantic Call 5

Bondsight 7

Alter Bond 5

Sympathetic Bonding 2

Call Through Space 0

Enhancements: Willpower x2

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon

I’d not yet gotten a chance to practice my Call Through Space, since it seemed to be more of a combat Skill, but otherwise everything was leveling nicely. Well, with the exceptions of my Phylactery and Spatium Manipulation Skills. I was going to fix that now, though.

First, I dismissed my body. It had served me well, but I needed to practice this Skill, and I wouldn’t be able to do so while still inhabiting a regular body. I watched my cloak flutter to the ground with my Omnipresence, then dismissed the image from my mind.

The first thing I wanted to work on was Undead Possession. It hadn’t leveled ever, and it was one of the Boons I’d started this life with. It had started at level 1 and then never gone up, because I’d only ever used it once and that was on a regular old skeleton. I had better things to use it on now.

First of all, I used Create Undead to form an Antigo on the floor and sent my mind into the body. I immediately felt a bit of dissonance, though, and I knew that this was the effect of sending my mind into something that wasn’t exactly prepared for it. It had been fine with the original body I’d used, since my mind had been weaker, but I was too powerful for it now. My soul was simply too large and my mind was too fast to not have immediate reactions and a good storage space. I dismissed it right away and returned to my Phylactery.

I hadn’t exactly wanted to do this, since it seemed a bit weird to inhabit the same body as one of my Animated creatures, but I suppose that it was inevitable, in the end. Animate Necrosis was cast on the Created corpse and it rose almost instantly. I sent my mind into it yet again, and felt power surge through me.

I’d created powerful bodies for myself in the past, but they were more geared towards the use of magic. I got the sense that my ability to do so would be much more limited in this body, and yet… The sheer power in my muscles, the nimbleness, the flexibility… Was this how my Antigos always felt?

Then I tried to step forward and almost tripped. I was much taller than I was accustomed to, and my reactions were faster, too. It was an almost imperceptible difference, and yet it threw me off so thoroughly that I could barely stay standing. Furthermore, my vision was almost entirely in black and white, with the exception of a mass of purple splotches I could see below me and a single grouping of energy in front of me that was both green and purple, mixing together and dancing. A surge of rage flooded through me when I saw the green, but I calmed myself.

It seemed that I’d also inherited the Antigo’s hatred for life, which was even more powerful than my own.

I explored this new body for a while. I didn’t intend to keep it for long, but I did need to level up this Boon, and didn’t know if it had more to do with possessing the body or remaining in it. I was going to stay in here until I felt like I’d learned how to control it properly.

My eyes drifted back to my Phylactery, where I could luckily still see my status. I pressed a hand against the gem and used Incorporate Phylactery, then took off down the stairs, walking carefully at first, but then growing a bit more reckless and running at top speed. The best way to learn how to do something was at threat of pain, and falling off these stairs would most certainly hurt. My Antigos themselves were mostly immune to pain, but with my Phylactery Incorporated into this body, it would probably hurt pretty badly to break a bone.

I did trip a couple times, but after an indeterminate yet extremely long and boring amount of time, I managed to make it to the bottom of my tower. Walking all the way up here like this really gave me a new appreciation for the spire’s length. I’d traveled the stairs once until now, but Azrael had to make the trek every time she wanted to leave. Maybe I should make an elevator?

Brushing off the random thoughts, I looked back up the stairs, sighed, and started running back up. If this wasn’t enough to get me a couple levels in Undead Possession, then I would have confirmed that the amount of time I spent in a body didn’t matter to the Boon.

After another long hike, I shunted my Phylactery out of my body and glared into the icosahedron.

Phylactery 3

Undead Possession 3

Reconstitution 4

Incorporate Phylactery 3

Available Boon (Soulform, Mental Shield)

I sighed when I realized that it had, in fact, worked. It looked like I’d have to spend a whole bunch of time piloting each of the different types of undead I could control. I was not excited to spend a day or more as a Caerbalope, and especially not as an Arachnomicon. Wait, would I even be able to possess a Twinscale? I hope not.

Soulform was almost like a direct upgrade to Incorporate Phylactery, allowing me to just flat-out make a body out of it. I wouldn’t need to do any Reconstitution at all, my Phylactery would just undergo a magical girl transformation sequence and I’d have a body. This body would have perfect efficiency for my magic, my Mentum regen would be enhanced, and I’d be able to use any of my Phylactery Boons within it. Not only that, but I would be much tougher than usual. However, if I died while in that form, I would just be dead.

I wasn’t very interested in that one. One of my greatest strengths as a lich was that death wouldn’t be the end for me, no matter how brutal or scarring it was. I would be able to return to life as long as my Phylactery were intact.

With that in mind, my eyes flicked over to the next Boon. It was almost the opposite of Soulform. Mental Shield would form a disruptive Mentum barrier between my Phylactery and the outside world, though it would drain an amount of my Mentum to do so. Still, it would become very difficult for hostile magics to influence or damage the Phylactery, and that would apply to my entire body when I was using Incorporate Phylactery.

I was once more faced with a difficult situation: There was one option that would be very easy to level but would have a limited impact on my general capabilities, and another that would be hard to level but would have a good long-term effect that could prove very useful. In this case, if anyone ever reached my top floor and tried to destroy my Phylactery, they would find their magic entirely ineffectual. It might not stop truly dedicated people for very long, but it would at least provide me with time to muster up a countermeasure.

The choice was obvious, even if it was difficult for me to delay my growth even further. I would have no way to increase the level of this Boon on my own, since I really didn’t want to intentionally damage my soul to progress a little faster. Instead, I would simply have to level the rest of my Boons at an increased pace.

Bleh.

With a sigh, I started to form a Dualjack Caerbalope with Create Undead. I planned to go through all the different variations of Caerbalope, but I figured that Dualjacks would probably be the least immediately jarring for me. Once I’d Animated it and began the process of Possessing it, though, I found that it was still plenty shocking.

I had four eyes. Not only that, but I had two hearts, two sets of lungs, and so on. Sure, they weren’t currently in use, but I could feel them, the open cavities on the inside of my body. It was incredibly strange, especially coming from the Antigo, which didn’t have any of that organ nonsense going on at all.

My vision felt splintered, and I probably would have had a headache if I were still a normal, fleshy being. Instead, I just felt extremely dazed. Like with the Antigo, I could only see in black and white, except with splashes of color similar to those that Deadsight showed me.

I tried to right myself and step forward, but fell over instantly as my body tried to twist unnaturally into the visage of a bipedal cartoon rabbit. Instead, I had to slowly learn how to control my new body, crawling across the floor. Eventually, I grew confident enough in my abilities to reIncorporate my Phylactery and start making my way down the stairs, but was shocked when I saw how large the steps were.

Right. I’m smaller now, which means that, by comparison, everything else is bigger. This… this was going to take a while.

I would have to estimate that the trek with the Antigo body probably took about three hours both ways. This time it took double that, if not more. I spent at least half a day carefully traversing those steps. By the time I got back up, I was annoyed to say the least. I separated my Phylactery from this stupid little body and exited it the moment I could. I couldn’t check my status from here, but that was fine.

Reconstitution was cranked on, and I immediately started reforming my body, the same I’d had before all of this dumb experimentation. Even through my irritation, I took the process slowly, making sure that all ratios were balanced and that I squeezed every drop of power I could into the body. I must have spent at least an hour working on it, and when my body got shunted into it, I could sense that it was stronger than ever.

I had the temptation to experiment with my new efficiency ratios, but I looked at my Phylactery first.

Seif Ambrose

Spatial Lich 2

Phylactery 4

Undead Possession 5

Reconstitution 6

Incorporate Phylactery 5

Mental Shield 0

Available Boon (Durable Phylactery, Mentum Generator)

Necrosis Manipulation 5 (Max)

Deadsight 7

Animate Necrosis 8

Shape Necrosis 5

Create Undead 9

Necrotic Restoration 4

Construct Consciousness 8

Domain of Undeath 5 (Max)

Spread Undeath 9

Mold Terrain 10

Transmute 5

Omnipresence 5

Omniscience 4

Empowered Control 4

Spatium Manipulation 2

Delinear Sight 4

Stitching 3

Folding 1

Calling 5 (Max)

Taglock 6

Nomantic Call 5

Bondsight 7

Alter Bond 5

Sympathetic Bonding 2

Call Through Space 0

Enhancements: Willpower x2

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon

Oh thank goodness. If I hadn’t managed to get a full level from all that time spent in that utter hell, I probably would have pushed that Dualjack off the tower. Sadly, I would probably have to do all of that again, especially considering what I was currently being offered.

Durable Phylactery would basically make my Phylactery much tougher, working with Mental Shield to make me incredibly hard to kill. It would also cost Mentum to defend myself, but it would give me even more time to react to sudden threats to the core of my being. This option was very tempting, but so was Mentum Generator, which would provide me with a proportional increase to the amount of mental energy my soul would regenerate, one which would increase the lower my supplies of Mentum grew. It also worked well with Mental Shield, since it provided more of the energy that the aforementioned Boon required to function. Furthermore, it was good for daily life and development of the dungeon. While I wasn’t necessarily bottlenecked by my limited supply of Mentum, I would definitely be able to work towards my goals at an accelerated pace, and Mentum Generator would definitely be the most generally useful Boon. Just like my normal Mentum recovery, it would lose effectiveness with distance from my Phylactery, but that was fine. At least it would work without the Phylactery literally being inside my body 24/7.

I mentally selected Mentum Generator, reasoning that it would be useful no matter what happened in the future, and glared down at my Boons, each of them representing options of what I could choose to work on next. Eventually, I just decided to use Incorporate Phylactery and start trying to level up the new Boon. It worked better at low levels of energy, so spending it all really quickly would be the best way to powerlevel it.

After some consideration, I decided to just try to push my influence as far out as possible. I didn’t really do it all that much these days, but I did have increased speed and efficiency with my Empowered Control Boon. I couldn’t grant my Wisps that Boon, since they could only have a single one at a time and Empowered Control just increased the strength of my other Boons, but it was very powerful, and I had yet to test its limits.

With my Omnipresence, I surveyed the patchwork of influence that surrounded the area that I’d converted myself. The Wisps hadn’t been very thorough, since I’d basically just told them to wander around and cover as much area as possible. That was fine though, and the moment I started filling in the gaps, I could tell that it was actually helping out my own efficiency to do so.

With as much force as I could, I slammed my conscience into the edges of my Domain of Undeath. Doing everything at once like this would be far more draining than simply going area by area, but that was perfectly fine with me since draining my energy was actually the primary goal here.

Once I’d covered a few square miles of territory, I started to feel some drain on my spirit, and could sense that I was running out of energy and should probably stop. Just as I was about to slow down for safety’s sake, though, I felt something in my head click on, and a stream of energy started flowing into my pool of Mentum, signifying that my new Boon had just increased its output. This allowed me to push even harder, draining myself more. The stream, however, didn’t seem too appreciative of my efforts, and it grew and grew, fighting against me until I found myself doing things in the least efficient way possible, just trying to tear the energy out of my soul as quickly as I could.

Eventually, I could feel myself about to hit rock bottom once again, but the stream didn’t increase in size anymore. By this point, my Domain had completely caught up with the wandering Wisps I’d sent out all those weeks ago, and they each seemed to brighten and dance around, as if happy to return home after all the time they’d been out on their own. I sent each of them an extra burst of energy to express my appreciation for them, then took a look at my Phylactery while I waited for my Mentum to recover.

Phylactery 4

Undead Possession 5

Reconstitution 6

Incorporate Phylactery 6

Mental Shield 0

Mentum Generator 3

I groaned, lamenting my decision to take Mental Shield. At least I hadn’t also taken Durable Phylactery. If I’d made that mistake, I would have needed to resort to beating up my own soul to level up.

There were five more levels to go until I maxed out this Skill. What to do now? I could go back to trying to pilot one of my creations, I could try to figure out a better way to use my Reconstitution, or I could sit around and focus on spending as much Mentum as possible.

Or, I could do all of those.

With yet another irritated groan, I discarded my current body, which quickly discorporated into the energies I’d used to form it. A small book started to form on the ground beside me, and a moment later, I found myself much, much closer to the ground. My body felt stretched and bloated, and my legs could barely hold my weight, as disproportionate as it was. My vision was even more distorted than it had been as a Caerbalope, and I cursed at my previous self with great vitriol for this decision.

I was currently an Arachnomicon. This was going to suck.

I quickly hopped up to Incorporate my Phylactery, then started learning how to walk in this body. Slowly, slowly, I started to make my way towards the stairs. It wasn’t that I was going slowly to get used to the body, no, it was because this thing was so hard to maneuver that I felt like I was about to topple over every time I moved at anything greater than a snail’s pace. Even if I didn’t manage to get another Skill level out of this, at least I would have gained a new appreciation for my smaller creatures. This was awful.

Once I reached the stairs, I positioned myself along the wall, ensuring that I would be able to feel my location without access to my other senses. After that, I sent my consciousness outwards, aiming south and starting to bore a hole in the empty world with my Spread Undeath Boon. Once I was just barely used to that, I started to slowly scuttle forward. I felt myself reach a ledge hopped down, still focused on spreading my influence down towards Yalten. I landed on the floor roughly, but nothing broke or bent, so I decided to keep moving forwards.

In this way, I drained my energy away and learnt to manipulate the body of one of my creations yet again. This time, though, I got the distinct impression that this wouldn’t take just a couple of hours. No, I’d eat my cover if this didn’t take days.

Bored out of my mind but still immortal and timeless, I continued in this way until I eventually scuttled forward and felt the wall to my side suddenly vanish, indicating that I had not only reached the bottom floor of my tower, but I’d also circled the entire room. Instead of celebrating, though, I only felt dread as I canceled my Omnipresence and looked to my side at the towering staircase.

Time to go back up, I guess.

I turned the corner and placed my front legs on the staircase, and instantly knew that I wouldn’t be able to afford to split my focus for this. With all the might contained in this stupid little body, I pulled myself upwards one step after another. Each floor became progressively more and more hellish, and I knew that this alone would take at least a full day, proving my prior hypothesis correct.

I gritted my pages and endured, though, and was rewarded when I finally reached the top and Possessed a nearby Antigo.

Seif Ambrose

Spatial Lich 2

Phylactery 5 (Max)

Undead Possession 8

Reconstitution 6

Incorporate Phylactery 6

Mental Shield 0

Mentum Generator 5

Available Boon (Soul Jar, Clone)

Necrosis Manipulation 5 (Max)

Deadsight 7

Animate Necrosis 8

Shape Necrosis 5

Create Undead 9

Necrotic Restoration 4

Construct Consciousness 8

Domain of Undeath 5 (Max)

Spread Undeath 9

Mold Terrain 10

Transmute 5

Omnipresence 5

Omniscience 4

Empowered Control 4

Spatium Manipulation 2

Delinear Sight 4

Stitching 3

Folding 1

Calling 5 (Max)

Taglock 6

Nomantic Call 5

Bondsight 7

Alter Bond 5

Sympathetic Bonding 2

Call Through Space 0

Enhancements: Willpower x2

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon

Thank Azrael–the god, I mean–I could finally be done.