A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

“I believe that you have yet to examine the memories you gained from absorbing the Ordinance rune in depth?”

My mind froze in place. Schnitzel. I hadn’t done that, had I?

“No, I have not. I'll rectify that right now.”

“Ah, no! Master, I can explain the situation. Ordinance inscriptions have two primary effects. The first, as I'm sure you're aware, is to add rules to the area, such as making air toxic, stopping water from freezing or fire from burning, halting the wind, or allowing grass to grow through stone.

“The other is the same, but different. You see, the way that the Ordinance rune works is as an If/Then statement.

“It's coding, master.”

It’s coding.

I felt a nudge from Fenrir as he pushed some thoughts at me, and I saw a series of linked inscriptions, all feeding into one another as a massive ritual.

I saw a man stepping on a magical landmine. An image flashed by of a huge stone door, opening up on its own as a man stepped in front of it.

Honestly, making Fenrir might’ve been the greatest decision I’d made to date.

Right away, I tore open the gate to Kelemnion, dropping through the inky blackness and onto a hard floor.

I immediately started seeking out inscriptions that could pair with Ordinance and started reading.

Ordinance: A command, order, or decree, often from a person of significant authority in the area.

Defense: To defend against or otherwise prevent attack.

Infliction: To cause unpleasantness or pain to be inflicted upon another.

Observe: The action of watching or noticing something, especially if it is of significance.

Process: A strategy that involves using a number of actions to reach a certain goal.

Reference: To mention, comment on, or cite something.

By the end of the third consecutive book, I was having a bit of a soulache, so I popped back into the base world to get to work trying to understand the new inscription runes.

I had learned a lot this time, and I quickly sent Fenrir my new findings through our link so he could do some tinkering of his own. I also formed him one of the quills I’d given to the Scholars earlier, so he wouldn’t have to do that energy-intensive air-rune thing.

Now fully alone with my own thoughts, I needed to take a moment to review for myself.

First of all, the majority of inscriptions had more than one rune. The runes could do stuff on their own, but they were often the most successful when they had support.

When an inscription went from simply having support to having multiple functions or undergoing multiple steps, it was called a ritual. Rituals were considered separate from talismans and enchantments, though there was some intersection at times. The main way to differentiate is that enchantments were usually constantly fed power, talismans burned through their material to fuel themselves, and rituals drained small amounts of power for upkeep, and then used larger bursts to create actual effects. In other words, they were more efficient enchantments.

One example of a relatively simple ritual would be linking an Ordinance with a Process and an Observe rune. If I made the Observe detect the presence of life, then I could have the Process rune connect that input to the Ordinance and activate it, potentially cranking down the temperature to inhospitable levels.

The main advantage to this method was that it saved energy, was less predictable, and could react to different situations. Instead of having the Ordinance rune run constantly, it could instead activate in short bursts, meaning that less power would be consumed and it might be able to catch people off guard. Imagine walking into a room and being blasted by bolts of lightning from all sides, that sort of thing.

I also now had a way to make stone doors. Up until this point, I’d not had a way to really do that, since I wasn’t a doorsmith back on Earth. Now, I could set an Observe rune to look for a specific item-key and only open if that was brought to it.

In fact, I immediately had a great way to test my new knowledge.

“Hey, Uban?” I nudged the land-dragon through our bond, but he was snoring like an avalanche, so I left him to his slumber.

Slowly, I formed the idea of what I wanted to happen in my mind, using my Abstractive Influence to bring it into the real world and then siphoning it into my Repository with Conceptual Control.

Once I felt that I had plenty of all four of the types I needed, I formed a portal in the floor and dropped straight onto the ground in front of the exit of Uban’s cave.

I used one of my quill-spikes on the right wall, simultaneously manipulating the matter to force it to fold into a flat rune. As I carved, I pushed my manufactured Intent into the Observe rune, telling it what I needed it to do. Specifically, it was to keep track of the energies in Uban’s body and trigger the system once they reached critical lows. Once the land dragon is defeated, trigger.

Then, I turned back to the open portal. My mind was sent into the surrounding area, and I pulled some Conflict Tungsten into a tall rectangular shape in front of the tear in reality, embedding it into the rock with a rod that pierced into the top of the wall on either side. It was at a slight angle, maybe 5 degrees or so.

For funsies, I cut a large black skull into the center of the door. Usually, those come before boss rooms, but whatever.

Next, I started carving the first of the two Ordinance runes.

This small ritual I was crafting was to have a single function: I wanted the door to swing open when Uban died. Sadly, metal is heavy, and I don’t have grease to make a door work, but luckily I could screw with the laws of nature a little bit here and there with these Ordinances.

The first of the Ordinances would affect the rod that I’d stuck through the stone. The metal and rock would lose their friction with each other, effectively acting as a perfect grease.

This ritual’s second Ordinance was a bit more costly, but I had experience with screwing around with space magic so it was a little easier on me. This one would shift almost all of the door’s weight up to the top, into the rod.

When I say “almost all of,” I mean something like 99.9%, if not more. I just had the Intent affect it until everything except the very top was lighter than air.

Basically, this rune would make the bottom of the door swing up. Maybe if I got really lucky, I could catch some idiot off guard and break their jaw? Unlikely, but possible.

I also carved a Reference rune into the wall. The intent was easy enough to form: it was a locus-based photo concept, a type of intent that was primarily used for illusions and, well, References. It was an image and idea of the wall that I’d carved the rune into.

Later, I’d be able to link the Reference rune with another by using the same intent, allowing it to work as a sort of copy-paste function. I could even replace the intent I’d used, simply needing to include that alteration as part of the Reference’s intent.

The books said that Reference runes were crazy hard to pull off, and I’m sure that’s true if you’re needing to do it off memory and don’t have access to the original work, but I could produce large quantities of Conceptium at a time and store it for later, so that really wasn’t a problem for me.

In fact, I could probably go make these doors on every floor. That sounded time-consuming and off-theme, though, so I wouldn’t. Maybe later on I’d introduce a quest system to certain floors and make players– err, people collect certain items before moving on.

I did take a few moments to teleport down and add a front door to the dungeon, though, and set it to open up whenever someone was standing on either side of it. I felt a buzz as I completed, and decided to check up on the new level after some maintenance.

Some of the girls in the small town that I totally hadn’t forgotten about spotted me and stared in fear. I took a moment to inspect them, and found their health to be adequate. The box of food left by Esheth was starting to run dry, and I’d need to find an alternative food source soon, but there was still about a week before they started starving. Plenty of time to procrastinate.

Or… maybe I shouldn’t? They’d probably get upset.

Ugh, fine.

My mind searched around for a leader, then screeched to a halt.

A small amount of panic welled up in my soul as I turned and spotted Azrael, standing directly behind me with a blank expression.

“Uh, hi th–” She vanished from my senses, and my skull disconnected from my spine.

I let out a raspy sigh, directing my body to put my head back on and healing up my broken neck.

Azrael seemed to be in the exact same spot, but now she wore a pout and her foot tapped impatiently.

“Apologize.” Her voice was firm and unforgiving.

It seemed she wouldn’t let me get away with this one.

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone for weeks without telling you what I was doing or where I’d be.” Look, I’d been aware, I had just gotten caught up with all my new stuff.

She maintained her hard expression for a moment longer, then seemed to slump.

“Don’t disappear without telling me,” she said tiredly, “I won’t be so forgiving next time. Also, get over here.”

I did as she asked, too afraid of upsetting her anymore not to.

Apparently though, she just wanted to break my ribs. With a hug, I mean.

The microfractures were easy to fix, so I didn’t begrudge her the damage.

“Notice anything different about me?” She asked, still sounded a bit upset but also slightly coy.

My Esoteric Sight and Abstractive Knowledge swept over her, and a brief moment of shock overtook me. She’d gotten a combination affinity while I was gone!

But then again, she had been pretty close to level 5 when I’d become an Ancient Seeker. With that said…

“How did you get a Light affinity? Didn’t you say that was necessary for the magic type you wanted?”

She shook her head, releasing me from her deathgrip. “I looked through your book and found something else I liked.”

“Oh? Wanna explain?”

She grinned excitedly. “Sure! So, you remember how I already had Lethe, Nyx, and a minor affinity for Necrosis?”

I nodded. Azrael’s race, Wraith, started with an affinity for Nyx, or Darkness, but a lesser affinity in Necrosis, Death. She’d chosen Lethe as her element, but since she only had a minor affinity she wouldn’t have been able to combine them into a higher-tiered element.

“My original plan was to just leave Necrosis out of the mix, but the book you gave me, as well as my own legend, showed me that there was an affinity for it.” Suddenly, the space around her… well, it stopped existing. At least, that’s what my domain told me.

“This energy is called Absiete. It represents the lack of something where it once was present. For example, Life’s opposite is Death, but Death is really what you call it when something goes from being alive to dead. The same case is true for Light and Darkness, heat and cold, matter and space, and so much more.”

Azrael looked real proud of herself, and I was fascinated by her element, immediately wondering what we could use it for. Perhaps it would be good to use for offensive inscriptions? Or maybe I could even redo the door runes I just made and make them more efficient? An energy that could become the absence of weight with the right intent would probably do better than just slathering a ton of my jack-of-all-trades Forbodum onto the metal.

Then she pouted again. “And you weren’t even there to celebrate with me! I’ve been working towards this for years, Ambrose!”

I winced– but not really, since I didn’t have skin. “I apologized!”

“Mhm,” she hummed with a glare. Then she smirked a little. “I guess I can forgive you.”

I breathed a sigh of release.

“If you make me a new set of gear as a token of your undying devotion to me.”

I gaped at her bemused expression. I think the face was particularly humorous on me because of the fact that I pretty much looked like a purple Skeletor.

“I used to prefer lighter armor, but my new kit lets me ignore a lot of the issues that I previously had with it, so I’d like something tough, okay?” She requested, completely ignoring my confusion. “I still like to use two weapons, so some shortswords would be greatly appreciated, though they can be longer for the same reasons as me wanting heavier armor.”

She raised an eyebrow, and I nodded quickly, agreeing to her terms.

If it gets her to forgive me, then it’ll be fine. It’s also probably going to be fun, so no reason not to, right?

Not to mention, if I can find a way to make her safer against the oncoming threat, then that’s for the best.

“How many days has it been?” I ask Azrael seriously.

“About fourty.”

More than I’d hoped, but fewer than I’d feared. That left me with something liked 324 days to mount defenses, finish the tower, and level up.

“I’ll go work on that armor, okay? Also, I finished the boss for the sixteenth floor, feel free to pop in and say hi. I think he turned out pretty well.”

Azrael nodded at me with a smile. “Remember to take breaks and come say hi. If you’re leaving, tell me first.”

I gave her my assent and tore open a portal to the top floor of my tower.

The first step of crafting a set of armor was to gather the metal. I could, of course, use Conflict Tungsten, but that would affect her ability to use magic, which would just be stupid. It would most likely fight the ability that she would be relying on to move properly in the armor.

Instead, I searched for something else. My preferred material would be steel, but all I really knew about it was that it was iron with carbon in it.

Actually, wait.

I pulled out some of the gear that the team I’d nearly TPK’d had dropped and inspected it with my domain.

Their blades were made of steel, so I inspected it and found that the average was about 2%, and there were trace amounts of other metals mixed in. It was all inconsistent, though, so I looked deeper.

Eventually, I was able to query my influence about the precise molecular structure of the metal, and had something of an epiphany.

Using an utterly immense amount of Mentum to control my power, I slowly shifted the molecules that made up the sword I was working on. Immediately, it all went to crap, and I messed it up, but I knew what I had just done.

I’d just used my old transmutation Boon on the metal.

Actually, speaking of Boons…

Seif Ambrose

Ancient Seeker 5

Repository 2

Infomorph 2

Loci Server 2

Firewall 1

Forbodum Manipulation 2

Esoteric Sight 2

Conceptual Control 2

Available Boon (Energetic Intent, Dao Pool)

Occult Sovereignty 1

Encompassing Knowledge 2

Abstractive Influence 1

Kelemnion’s Gate 1

Library Pass 2

Librarian’s Favor 1

Dark Whispers 1

Ancient Mutterings 1

Inspiration 0

Enhancements: Willpower x5

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

I’d managed to level up my Forbodum Manipulation at some point while I was making the doors, so now I had a choice to make.

I reached for the Boons and felt them out.

Both Boons expanded on what I could do with Conceptium. Energetic Intent would teach me how to use it as a standalone power, uninfluenced by my magic. It would be like using Mentum, except it would be automated. An inscription powered by this would directly manipulate other magic to accomplish its goals, meaning that it wouldn’t have the same affinity-based weaknesses that a normal energy type might produce. It wouldn’t have the same strengths either, though.

Dao Pool, though. Dao? Like that Xianxia stuff?

Inspecting this Boon showed that it was based on the utilization of Conceptium inside my Mentum pool. This would allow it to influence everything I did with my power passively, meaning that I wouldn’t need to expend any additional effort to create it or pull it from elsewhere. Instead, I would simply need to spend some time converting my Dao Pool to the intent I desired. Then it would be produced alongside my Mentum, binding itself to it in the process.

That sounded pretty good… for a regular mage. My Repository could already store Conceptium. Heck, I’d formed rats out of the stored intents! That did mean that I had to produce it myself, but Abstractive Influence helped with that, and what’s a Dungeon Master without a little set-up?

Also, Dao Pool sounded like it could replicate the effects of Energetic Intent, but my senses told me that was wrong. After all, I hadn’t been able to use Mentum as the energy in a rune, and while Mentum was required for basically everything I did, it could never be used alone.

I grabbed Energetic Intent, and new knowledge blossomed within my thick, dead skull.

I reached out to some of my stored Death Conceptium, pulling it out into my hands. Normally, the power would simply dissipate into the air, and I’d need to corral it and separate it from the matter it was attached to, but now I knew how to fix that.

A thin stream of Mentum exited my mind and wrapped around the loose intent, stripping it away from the matter.

Now I understood why Dao Pool wouldn’t have managed to do this. I hadn’t combined the power, I’d just used my Mentum as a barrier between it and the physical world.

The next step was to crunch it down, increasing its density more and more until it went from the equivalent of magical gas to magical water.

Eventually, I held pure Death in my hands. Not the energy type, but there were some similarities. Necrosis, I realized, came with a subtle Concept of Death, but it wasn’t very strong. Instead, the reason it was so lethal was its means. It was decay in its basest form, the antithesis of Vitasis. Anything it touched died, and because it had a very slight bias against living things… they died.

Were that bias to be stripped away, Necrosis would effectively become inert, and the same was true with basically any other element.

Any other element…

Argh! I so wish I could go experiment with the effects this had on Light right now! I can’t, though, because I need to make this stuff for Azzy. Curse my ADHD!

In any case, this might at least be able to help with the gear.

Back to what I was doing before picking the new Boon.

…What was that?

Oh, right, transmutation!

I had just figured out how to use the Boon I’d had before specializing that allowed me to transmute one material into another. The reason it had been so expensive for Mentum back then was that I’d had no clue what I was doing, and I hadn’t been able to keep the ability for the same reason. Now, though, I had a way to look closely enough at the molecular makeup of an object to realize how to replicate the effect.

Now I just needed some practice, and surely I’d be able to tinker with the alloy and find a perfect ratio between carbon, iron, and maybe even some other things?

It would take some time, but surely not too long, right?