A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

The party that had entered my dungeon consisted of five people, an absolutely ripped archer in leathers with a wicked scar across his face, a swordsman of some kind who wore full plate armor, one who looked to be either a mage or a healer, one who was definitely a mage, and the winged guy, who was apparently named Astaliar. He was also the leader of the group, and everyone treated him with deference.

He led them into the first portal with a smirk on his face, utterly confident even when entering hostile territory. I’d have to teach this idiot a lesson.

The first time they encountered a Twinscale, they’d thought they were separate creatures. The swordsman rushed in and tried to finish it in one solid blow to the back, but he’d been expecting it to have the durability of a normal beast. My mob was much tougher than that. It barely took any damage at all from that first attack.

Both bodies of the Twinscale had pounced as one. One used its immense bite force to shred through one of his greaves and yank him to the floor, injecting poison, while the other started to bite at his helmet, which was apparently made of much sterner stuff.

An arrow, enhanced with some sort of karma magic, pierced through the skull of the body that was failing to get at the swordsman’s head, and my Twinscale went down. That did mean that there wasn’t a huge lizard chewing on the swordsman, but it didn’t help with the poison coursing through his veins. As the man screamed in rage and pain, Astaliar pointed at him… and laughed!

The others joined in, though halfheartedly, and even the swordsman was trying to force a grin through what must have been sheer agony. Were they seriously sucking up to this piece of meatloaf? Was this guy some big shot out there? If so, does that mean he’d have more loot? Well now I’ve definitely gotta kill him! Not just for the stuff, I swear! It’s, uh, because he’s an awful person, yeah!

The healer rushed to the swordsman’s side the first moment he could, and the energies of Light and Life flowed between them, purifying and healing the warrior back to fighting shape. I glared at the healer–Damon, according to the grateful swordsman, who was referred to in turn as Chetz. It looked like healers were broken here, just like in games. I’d need to get rid of him.

Sadly, the party grew more careful after that first encounter. The only opportunity I got to try and off that healer was when he stepped into a spike trap and I’d been able to get three Twinscales to attack. Four bodies went after the remaining fighters, while two attacked the healer.

What followed was a heated battle, and I started to feel a bit of hope spark within me, but eventually the lazy leader pulled out his own sword, which began to blaze with holy fire.

Unsurprisingly, it was a combination of Lux and Ignix, Light and Fire. My undead melted like butter from the mere proximity of that power; his blade didn’t even touch the Twinscale’s flesh before it had destabilized back into energy. Suffice it to say, that attack failed pretty quickly.

After that, the party leader had scolded the ranger, who was named Keshet, and they'd gotten callouts for the rest of the traps, easily avoiding them from that point forward.

Within just a half hour, they’d found their way to the portal to the next floor, and immediately entered the next portal. I started to panic just a bit. Before, I’d been confident that Uban would be able to handle anything thrown at him, but by this point, my concerns were growing. My flightless dragon had yet to be tested in battle, and while he was much tougher than the Twinscales, I didn’t know how he’d hold up to that lightsaber of an ability.

Still keeping the majority of my attention on the adventurers, I started summoning Nailwolves on the 9th floor, not even bothering to look over the place the Wisps had set up for them. It just didn’t matter right now. Each wolf was taking more time and energy than I would have liked, but I could only pray that it would be worthwhile.

Sure, there were the Antigos, and I’d previously only been worried about using them because I didn’t want to be seen by those who traversed my depths as uncreative or unfair. Now, I just wanted them dead. Still, while they were fast and tough, I knew they wouldn’t be able to stand up to that sun blade either. With the exception of Uban, my Twinscales had been the toughest creatures at my disposal.

However, with the unique property I’d decided to give to the Nailwolves at the last minute, they might be able to even the playing field at least a little. I would simply have to hope.

The party reached the next floor, and seemed to barely slow down at all. They continued slashing, shooting, and blasting things to death like clockwork.

I’d come to realize that every member of the party had the Lux element, not just Astaliar and Damon. They didn’t use it in all of their attacks, but as they started to face larger groups of mobs, they also started taking more damage. This forced them to pull out the big guns.

“No, nono, dodge that!” I shook my head in annoyance. The mage in the party, Esanan, used both Light and Wind energies, and he kept throwing out what looked like steam, something that would normally hardly affect the undead, but was melting them like butter.

“What’s going on?” Azrael questioned with a creased brow, brought to worry by my stressed tone.

I shook my head at her. “It’s just… I didn’t expect them to throw a full party of Light users in here! How’s that meant to be fair?!”

Her expression softened. “Oh, Ambrose, you poor, innocent dummy.” She patted me on the shoulder with a strained smile. “It’s not.”

“What?” Confusion overtook me, then realization dawned on me. These people didn’t care about having balanced or fun character builds. They were minmaxers and metagamers, one and all. They were awful players.

I glared down at the party with my Omnipresence once more.

As a Dungeon Master, I had learned how to balance encounters. It really wasn’t that hard. If the players were making things hard for me, then I would just make things so hard for them that the party could barely survive. Of course, those people had all been my friends, so I’d always pulled my punches at the last minute.

These people were not my friends. They were my enemies. They were here to slaughter my creations, conquer my tower, kill me, and crush my Phylactery into bits. And who knew what they’d do to Azrael? I could only imagine that they’d torture or experiment on her, that is, if they didn’t just kill her right away.

Since these mortals weren’t going to play fair, neither would I.

Portals started to open in the air of my second floor, and all of my creatures flooded the place as one.

“C’mon boys!” Astaliar cackled, carving his glowing blade through yet another of the huge lizards. “To fame and glory!”

Just then, something changed. The room seemed to darken, even with their shared ability to see through the normal occlusion that a lack of light would create. The beasts they were fighting backed off as one, in even greater lockstep than their normal creepily twinned motions.

The sweat under Chetz’s armor seemed to freeze, and his breath grew halting. He could feel it; death was approaching. He raised his sword defensively, looking all around himself and preparing to mount a defense.

He didn’t notice the shadow forming above him until it was too late.

“Ch-Chetz?” Esanan stumbled backwards in shock.

It had happened so fast. One moment, his friend was standing steadfast, prepared to defend the backline. Then there was a screeching of metal, and his friend was gone.

A presence slowly formed in front of Esanan, and the raw amount of energy he felt flowing off of the beast was the first sign that he was well and truly screwed unless Astaliar came to his rescue. Then he realized that there wasn’t only one of these creatures; there were at least a dozen of them in the area. At that moment, he accepted his fate.

He looked at where Damon, his brother in all but blood, had stood only moments before, and found that he was nowhere in sight.

In all his wildest fantasies, Esanan had never expected to feel so happy to be betrayed by his best friend. Tears filled his eyes, and a trembling smile replaced his fearful expression.

“Good luck, brother.”

His body was shredded to pieces.

Damon ran, his shame dripping down his cheeks. He wanted to return, to help his friend, to push back the threats, but everything in him told him to run. And so, like the coward he was, he fled.

As distracted by his fear as he was, he tripped and got his foot stuck in one of those collapsing-ground-spike traps. It pierced his foot, and he cried out. Tenderly, he pulled it out with a squelching sound, then knelt to heal it.

It seemed that fate was on his side today. Just as he bent over to tend to his injury, a tall, emaciated, humanoid creature with antlers and huge claws leapt through the space above him, crashing instead into one of the stone trees. He quickly healed his foot and kept running, this time being much more careful with his footing.

Somehow, miraculously, he made it all the way back to the place they’d entered from, and looked about in dismay. The portal was simply gone, replaced by a stone outcropping.

Panting, he leaned against the rock, pressing against it in the hopes that he’d find a way through. The stone was rough, and seemed to follow some consistent yet ever-changing pattern, as though it was a form of living art. It almost felt organic, like it had been petrified rather than carved.

He heard a smashing sound come from behind, and turned in horror, thinking the beasts had caught up with him. Yet, instead of those lupine monstrosities, he saw that a square plate of scrap metal had somehow fallen to the floor. He looked for the source of the object, thinking that a monster had perhaps managed to catch up with him, but he found nothing.

He didn’t even notice the huge maw that consumed him until its many, many teeth had broken his back and shredded his skin to bits.

Oh, he thought to himself, a strange amount of clarity pulsing through him even through the immense pain. That wasn’t a statue, was it?

Astaliar stood with Keshet to his back, the remainder of their party having died or fled within seconds of the swarm arriving. What had gone wrong? It had all seemed so easy. Too easy. Perhaps… had that old man been right?

The scion of House Galias gritted his teeth, refusing to admit defeat. He stood valiant, slashing his opponents to bits while Keshet shot down any that approached from his end. They would make it through this, and tales would be told of their valor!

At least, that was what he thought before he felt it.

Danger was approaching, he could sense it. This wasn’t simple fear; no, this was the dread of a man who was about to die.

He gripped the pendant around his neck, looking at Keshet for one last time. “Should you make it out of here, I shall hold the greatest banquet in decades to celebrate your return.”

The shocked look on the archer’s face was priceless as he crushed the amulet. Spatial magic suffused his body, and he felt himself being whisked away.

Then Keshet’s body crumpled, as though he had been crushed by the hand of an invisible giant, or perhaps a wrathful god.

Something in the Spatium of the air shifted, and Astaliar screamed in agony as the force barely grazed his right side. In the next moment, he was gone.

I swallowed. Hard.

I didn’t mind the killing itself, but something in the way it happened had felt… twisted. They’d had no chance. No way out. Well, other than that Astaliar figure, but I somewhat doubted he would be a member of the living for very long, and even if was, he wouldn’t be a functional member for a long, long time.

My Nailwolves’ upgrades had proved effective, it seemed. Even since the creation of Uban, I’d had an untested theory with my Construct Consciousness Boon. So far, I’d only ever put full Boons into them, but what if I just put a part of one in there? Would I be able to give them more information in a shorter period of time? Perhaps even a part of the base Skills that were required to use some of the Boons?

The answer seemed to be yes. On their own, the Nailwolves’ minor Spatium Manipulation was weak, but when there were many of them together, they could manage things that not even Seif himself was able to replicate. For example, they could apparently crush a person like a soda can.

The process of making them this way had really been pretty simple, in the grand scheme of things. All he’d needed to do was slowly teach them how to use the most basic aspects of his Skill, and they’d figured out how to use it as a weapon all on their own. His personal favorite wasn’t actually the crushing attack, though that was extremely powerful, but rather that one stabbing attack a few of them had targeted the mage with. It sorta fit them, and he resolved to teach future Nailwolves that specific ability, rather than a small discipline of the magic, in order to cut down on their creation time and costs.

Recalling that I wasn’t the only one whose life had depended on the results of this fight, I turned to Azrael with a thin smile. “It’s done,” I said simply.

She looked at me, but for some reason, she didn’t seem any less worried.

Astaliar crashed face-down into his cot, crushing it flat in an instant. The thing had been made of high-quality materials, enchanted to feel as soft and supportive as a normal bed. It would be difficult–and expensive–to replace, and he would have to spend the remainder of this trip without the amenity.

He didn’t care about any of that right now, though. The pain was simply too great.

His screams echoed through the camp, and healers rushed to him, bursting into his tent and trying to help him up. He shoved them away, even throwing one of them through the side of his tent. The fabric tore, but the sound was drowned out by the young man’s anguish.

Eventually, a sufficiently powerful healer got their hands on him, and soothed his pain, gradually healing what they could. Still panting from the horrific experience, Astaliar slowly sat up from his position on the ground.

The crowd collectively gasped, and the noble scion glared at them, his body trembling uncontrollably. “Why are you looking at me like that?” His gaze cut through them, and not a one dared return it. “What is it?!”

Only one man dared step out of the crowd. It was Esheth. Part of Astaliar wanted to curse him. The other part wanted to beg his forgiveness.

Esheth, the compassionate soul he was, outstretched an arm towards Astaliar. The boy had always seen Esheth’s empathy a weakness, but now he understood. In this moment, where none dared to do so much as look at him, Esheth was there to help him–to save him. And the noble had never needed help so desperately as he did in this moment.

Esheth showed him a kind smile. “It looks like you could use a hand, young master.”

Astaliar reached out to accept his aid, then looked down at his arm and screamed.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Ambrose?” Azzy looked at me with concern.

I shrugged, trying to make my smile look more genuine. “Of course, Az. We’re safe, and that’s all that really matters, right?”

She kept staring me down, and I looked away, unable to face her intense gaze. Her hand brushed my shoulder.

“You know what I really admire about you, Ambrose?” I didn’t respond. “You keep going on and on about all these things you want to do. I know we don’t really talk too much, and you act like it’s all for your own gain, but I can tell that you’re making this place for more than just yourself. More than just me, too.”

She sighed with a slight smirk. “You care. You want this place to be cool and fun and interesting, not only for you and me but for people, human people you’ve never even met. You want it to be completely unique–unlike anything else. Most of all, you want it to be fair.” Hearing the word like that made me feel like something inside me was twisting.

For some stupid reason, even though I didn’t care that the men had died, just thinking of how hopeless their situation was felt like a suckerpunch to the gut. I should be feeling happy, proud of how my legions had crushed the powerful foes in barely a minute.

Instead, I felt divided.

Part of me was angry that I’d broken my own rules. Part of me was angry at them for forcing my hand. Part of me felt like they would hate me, which was just so nonsensical. They were dead, for heaven’s sake!

Then again, dying had never stopped players from yelling at me, so maybe it was just natural that I felt this way?

“So, that’s how I know that you don’t feel too great right now. Also, your face is very easy to read.” I just nodded, acknowledging that she was right. She just stayed there, and I eventually realized that she wasn’t going to leave until I started talking.

“Uh, yeah, you’re right,” I said awkwardly.

Her eyebrows raised. “That’s all? You don’t want to talk about it?”

I cringed. How was I meant to tell her that I felt like I’d just made a bunch of dead people mad at me by being unfair, when I was really just protecting myself? How could I explain that I’d been in situations like this before, except instead of killing people, I’d lost friends, and now this was just bringing back bad memories.

Since becoming a lich, everything had felt a little more numb, but I supposed that didn’t apply retroactively. All those little memories of people walking out on me because I’d done something wrong, because I hadn’t been perfectly fair, they all felt just the same. Well, no. Sometimes it was because I had been fair. Too fair.

I calmed a bit at this thought. It wasn’t my fault that all that stuff had happened. All I could do was move on and make sure it would never happen again.

My eyes locked on the Phylactery at the center of the room, and a thought formulated in my mind.

“Hey, Azrael, do you know if the levels of my Boons matter when I upgrade my specialization?”

Her eyes widened, having been caught off guard by the surprisingly normal question. “Uhm, uhhh,” she stammered, “I don’t exactly know, sorry, but I’ve heard that people, even with the same specializations, sometimes end up with completely different Skills. I was never able to confirm anything, but I thought it had something to do with the Boons they used the most. I’m sorry I don’t know more.”

I gently punched her shoulder, and she frowned at me, “Don’t worry about it,” I clarified, “It’s alright. I’m going to get all of my abilities on par with where I think they should be, and then I’m going to specialize.”

She stared blankly for a moment, then gaped. “You’re already level 5?!”

I shrugged in response. “I basically spend all of my time using and experimenting with my Skills. What did you think I did in here all day?”

“I guess that makes sense,” she admitted, “You’ve been constantly training up your Boons, simply by making this place. So, what do you think you’re going to pick?”

Considering, I pulled up my status, then all of my options.

Seif Ambrose

Spatial Lich 5 (Max, Specialization Available)

Phylactery 5 (Max)

Undead Possession 8

Reconstitution 6

Incorporate Phylactery 6

Mental Shield 0

Mentum Generator 8

Clone 1

Necrosis Manipulation 5 (Max)

Deadsight 7

Animate Necrosis 8

Shape Necrosis 5

Create Undead 9

Necrotic Restoration 4

Construct Consciousness 10

Domain of Undeath 5 (Max)

Spread Undeath 9

Mold Terrain 10

Transmute 8

Omnipresence 7

Omniscience 5

Empowered Control 5

Spatium Manipulation 5 (Max)

Delinear Sight 7

Stitching 5

Folding 5

Notions 2

Notching 8

Seaming 2

Calling 5 (Max)

Taglock 6

Nomantic Call 5

Bondsight 7

Alter Bond 5

Sympathetic Bonding 4

Call Through Space 0

Enhancements: Willpower x5

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon, Drachma’Uban

Please select a Specialization Advancement.

Spatial Archlich (Death+, Space)

Archlich of Space (Space+, Death)

Ancient Seeker (Forbidden Knowledge)

Death’s Custodian (Phantom)

Caretaker of Slumber (Burial)

Debt Collector (Death Pact)

Bearer of Nothingness (Abyss)

Witness of Azathoth (Eldritch)

“Well,” I considered aloud, “I’m pretty confident that I’ll be upgrading to one of the combinations, rather than focusing more on something I’m already doing. Most of them seem pretty good, but I think the ones that would help me least are Phantom, Death Pact, and Abyss. Forbidden Knowledge sounds fun, Burial might be handy, and Eldritch could probably provide me with new options for making creatures.”

“So, one of those three?”

“Most likely, but I don’t actually know what they all do… wait.” I stopped, looking down at my second floor. It was still swarming with mobs, so I mentally ordered them all to make their way back to their original spots, but more importantly, there were bodies.

The corpses weren’t exactly in good shape. One had been shredded to bits by minute spatial tears, another stomped flat by a falling Nailwolf that had been flooding its own body with enough Spatium to treat almost everything else like it simply didn’t exist. Uban had also eaten one of them, and the last was the person I’d been comparing to a soda can before.

Still, as I looked closer, I found that they all had spatial storage bags.

Surely they had to have some books in there, right?