A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

Making an interdimensional portal was harder than it sounded.

Well, actually, it was probably easier than it sounded for most people, but much harder than I’d expected. I’d expected the Spatial aspects of my magic and my expertise to come into play.

I’d only been half right.

Part of making a portal was brute force, and the other part was finesse. I needed to tear open a hole in reality, as though I was going to open up a portal leading from one place to another, then attach the Empyrix to those threads and continue weaving them. Making threads with it was the finesse part, and I felt confident that I’d be able to manage this part.

The hard part was forcing a non-Spatial magic type to enter the “realm” through which I affected space. This was where the brute force came into play. I had to force the energy into accepting the perception I used for Spatial magic. This was done by taking my Forbodum, molding a ton of Mentum into it, and smashing it into the Empyrix.

The Empyreal energy didn’t want to affect space. It wanted to do Empyreal things– mainly floating up into the clouds, glowing, and looking pretty.

That wasn’t my goal for it, though, and even when I replaced its innate intent, it still had trouble interfacing with Space. It fought me every step of the way, but then, finally, it accepted defeat.

Quickly, I forced the Empyrix to form strands and bound my Forbodum strands into them, merging them.

As though it realized what was happening, the hostile energy fled from the altered space I had shunted it into– but not into my material plane.

Tearing its way into the “false,” four-dimensional space that I worked in when I created seams, the Lux-aligned energy attempted to pull itself away from my Forbodum, but I held tight on the bonds between the energies, not allowing them to detach from one another. Slowly, the strands began to stretch like a rubber band, and in the physical world, the space before me began to become foggy, like a bathroom mirror after a hot shower.

Another realm gradually took shape through the portal, and I quickly pinned both my Forbodum and the struggling Empyrix in three places to prevent them from snapping the connection between the base plane and the one behind the portal.

I let out a mad cackle as power began to flow into the new basement floor of my tower.

I hadn’t wanted to put this portal directly in my Repository room, since the chances of something making its way through the portal and gaining access to my greatest weakness was simply too high. Instead, I had dug further into the foundations of my tower to create a reinforced chamber in which to experiment with this portal.

Fenrir stood to my right, and I was flanked by both Carnic and Drachma-Uban. While they weren’t here to venture into the portal– they were far too important to me to be risked like that– I felt that they might want to bear witness to my entry into another plane.

Fenrir was taking a scholarly approach, trying to examine every inch of what we could see on the other side– mostly a chain of floating islands that stretched into the distant sky, with nothing that could be considered “ground” anywhere in sight.

Uban seemed like he wanted to go back to bed, and not for the first time I regretted providing him with knowledge of how dragons acted in fantasy settings.

Carnic simply stood with us in solidarity. I’d tried to communicate with him a few times, but he didn’t seem to be one for conversation and preferred to just exist. I was hoping that getting some people to run his floor would give him something to do.

On each side of the portal, a half-dozen Wisps hovered and pulled in the energy that was slowly leaking from it, condensing it into gems. The process was slow-going, but it was happening, and that’s what mattered.

“Father, I believe it’s time to send in some test subjects,” Fenrir reminded me.

With a silent nod, I raised my hand and created a Caerbalope out of raw Forbodum energy. The little rabbit sniffed the floor curiously, and then I commanded it to jump through the portal.

It was instantly reduced to ash.

“As expected,” Fenrir said with a bit of disappointment.

Continuing on with our tests, I created an Antigo and had it step through.

This time, my creation lasted a bit longer, even managing to screech in pain for a few brief seconds. Sadly, it too was eventually scorched into a pile of rapidly-disintegrating dust.

This time, Fenrir just clicked his tongue.

These tests continued for a while until we decided that most of the mobs in my dungeon weren’t going to be enough to survive in this new dimension. That meant the next step…

…Was to go in myself.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Fenrir queried, concern and a bit of fear evident in both his voice and our mental connection.

“I’ll be fine,” I simply stated, “If going in there somehow snaps my connection to my Repository, I’ll just be pulled back with it. I’m really in no danger, Fen.”

With that, I pulled off my robes– they wouldn’t last for more than a few seconds anyways, so there was no reason to bring them in with me– and took a step into a hostile world.

Instantly, a burning heat crept its way into my body, but I maintained a firm grip over my physical form, channeling power through it to heal any dark spots and willing myself to stay whole.

Once I was sure that I’d be able to maintain myself and survive in the Empyreal plane, I pulled on my influence. A titanic battle of energies took place– the entire force of my domain against this world’s ambient magic.

Unluckily for this plane, my Occult Sovereignty was directed and empowered by myself, whereas the ambient energies, advanced though they may have been, were simply there.

Slowly, I managed to gain ground and press into this world, forcing the power to submit. Once within my influence, the Empyrix was affected by the effects of my Influence Boons rather than its innate intent. The power was still dangerous for the undead, but it no longer coordinated with itself to attack. Additionally, once it was a part of my domain, it became a part of my power. Though I had less control over it than my own Forbodum, it still worked with my domain, rather than against it.

As my power grew, the strength of the dimension weakened, and I cackled at my inevitable success.

A beam of golden light blew through my skull, unraveling the first layer of my clone seams and turning my cackle into an internal scowl. I turned my eye sockets in the direction the attack had come from, and found a flying, dreidel-shaped creature made of white stone and swirling golden energy.

Summoning my might, I cast a modified variation of Nyarleth’s Writhing Earth, causing tendrils of black and purple energy to spear towards the golem-like construct from the ground.

The monster obliterated one of my energy constructs with a shear of the same golden energy from its beam attack, but the others landed and gripped the stone parts of the golem, yanking it back towards me.

Towards my domain.

The golem fought against my spell, but was unable to free itself before it was fully inside my domain.

From there, it was easy. A tidal wave of energy crashed into the golem, dimming the golden light that powered it, and I caused one of my tendrils to wrap around the center of its body and squeeze.

That segment of the golem’s stone body cracked in half, falling away to show a spinning orb of energy, evidently the source of its power.

My influence flooded into the core, devouring the Empyrix within it just as it had done to the energy surrounding my portal.

The core slowed more and more until it was completely still, and I sent a final burst of Forbodum into it.

Instantly, the golem core began to spin again, but this time fueled by the Forbidden.

Another golden beam blasted through my influence, missing me by a couple feet. Peering into the distance, I found an armada of these Empyreal golems.

I let out a quiet chuckle, then began pushing my influence once more, raising walls of white stone from beneath the dirt and reinforcing them with my might.

Around me, Nailwolves began to slowly form. While the nature of the Empyrix was harmful to them, without the hostility that it previously had I felt that I would be capable of sustaining them, and some mid-range combatants would be worth the expenditure.

“Fenrir,” I casually called out through the portal, “Fetch the Runic Snipers for me, would you?”

With a thought, I redirected some of the Wisps that I had coalescing Empyrix crystals to instead channel that energy into a single location: a power input for a new set of Enchanted Orbs that I’d built explicitly for use in this plane of reality.

Once my Snipers had entered the Empyreal plane, I took manual control over all six of them and started charging their attacks.

I’d known going into this world that Empyrix was hostile to all things Necrotic, including my Forbodum energy. Anything that I used that was powered by Forbodum would naturally be attacked by the magic of this dimension, therefore powering things with the realm’s own energy would be much more efficient.

I was fully aware that attacks against Empyreal creatures with their own element would be less than effective though, so I still hooked up the weapon of this design to my main power source of Forbodum gems.

Directing the Runic Snipers to charge their attacks, I directed each to fire at a different target, allowing the aiming software that was installed back in my tower to take the reins from there.

Once they were locked on and fully charged, the Runic Snipers released their payloads, each firing a bolt that traveled at the speed of Knowledge, with all the power of the Forbidden.

Though it was prohibitively expensive to use these weapons in this world, I’d taken the time to stock up on a veritable ocean of Forbodem energy, stuffing it all into the “battery” I used to power all of my devices.

Each of the Snipers’ projectiles hit true, detonating with the power to obliterate the golems they hit and do a small amount of collateral damage. Each slain golem’s energy was invaded by a mist of Forbodum, the fallout of the explosions, and transformed into a generator of corrupted power.

My weapons aimed and fired once more, and I felt a sense of pride well up in me. A manic cackle escaped me, and I commanded, “Keep pushing! Take everything!”

With newfound vigor, my domain bulldozed into the ambient Empyrix, ignoring the golem’s paltry attempts to reinforce it and overtaking them, allowing my Nailwolves to close in and utilize their deadly Spatial magic to smash the stone comprising the majority of their bodies into bits, and penetrate their defenses to claw straight into their cores.

With the introduction of my Nailwolves, the Empyreal golems were easily held back. But that wasn’t enough.

No, we needed to overtake them.

This place– this entire realm– would be mine.

“Carnic,” I ordered, causing my leporine boss to step through the portal seamlessly.

Though he didn’t exactly seem like it, Carnic was easily the toughest of my bosses, and it showed in his lack of reaction to the burning that all of my creations were suffering due to the Lux aspect of Empyrix.

Instead of saying any more, I simply raised a finger, pointing to the oncoming horde of constructs.

With all the speed of the creature he was based on, Carnic bounded forward, leaping into the enemy troops with reckless abandon and smashing downwards with his mace.

Originally, my most recently created boss’ weapon would tightly wrap blood and viscera around itself, gathering it from slain creatures and using it to increase its mass. That matter could then be fed to another rune and burned like coal to make Forbodum energy, which could be channeled into Carnic’s armor and used to heal him. Of course, I knew that the creatures in this realm would most likely function differently from those on the standard material plane.

With my Runic Snipers, I’d used a small amount of Empyrix to create runes that used the stuff as an energy source. For Carnic, I’d done the exact same.

His huge club shattered the first golem it struck, causing rubble to shotgun away from the point of impact. The light that once powered the construct seemed to fight against the draw of the weapon’s runes, but were inexorably pulled towards it, powered by ambient Empyrix that had already met the same fate.

One of the golems sent a wall of energy rocketing towards the rabbit, who was pushed away but otherwise left unharmed. The Empyrix of the golem’s attack was grabbed out of the air and channeled through Carnic’s weapon, converted into Forbodum at an utterly abysmal efficiency rate, and used to heal the small amount of damage the boss had sustained within its armor.

Normally, I’d never even consider converting Empyrix into Forbodum, as their lacking compatibility dropped the efficiency of the act to less than a single percentage point. However, I knew that there would be Empyrix aplenty within this realm, so choosing not to do this would be like a man drowning in an ocean, knowing he could have brought a water filter with him.

Carnic continued to go on the offensive, his incredible speed and strength allowing him to plow through the enemy ranks, using the energy of his foes’ own attacks to heal himself.

With the Snipers, Nailwolves, and Carnic working together to crush the opposition, the tide of golems was beaten back, and I pressed my influence even further. Slowly, my side gained ground, as evidenced by my influence spreading further and further into the enemy ranks.

Things continued like this for a time, and I gained a solid foothold in the area. It didn’t take long, however, for things to get a bit more complicated.

A screeching sound came from my right, and I turned to face the new threat. Flying above an endless abyss, hidden in the clouds, something was approaching.

I shot a spear of influence in that direction, trying to locate the new creature so I could crush it, but it evaded my attempts to locate it.

Just as I was starting to get frustrated, a bird-like creature shot towards me, forcing me to dodge out of the way.

The beast crash landed, and a odd thrumming sounded out, followed by a flapping. Seeing that the creature was no longer moving– beyond flapping its wings wildly– I stepped forward to inspect the new threat.

My guess about it being a bird had been partially correct. It was like someone had taken the blade and body of a swordfish as well as the wings, legs, and feathers of a vulture, smashed them together, and called it good. The odd sword vulture had taken a dive at me, but missed and instead embedded its blade into the ground. Now it was stuck trying to get it out, but progress was slow.

I gripped the sword vulture’s face and guided the corruptive influence of Forbodum into its brain, causing it to thrash momentarily before stilling forever.

I looked back over my shoulder to where the sword vulture had come from.

“Schnitzel.”

It appeared that these fish flew in schools.

“Uban, get in here you lazy dragon!”

A loud yawn came from the portal, followed by the thundering of footsteps and a tired voice, asking, “What is it? This better be important.”

I pointed to the cloud of flying monsters. “Go fish.”

Drachma’Uban stretched out before leaping at the sword vultures– right above an abyss of sky that I couldn’t see the end of.

I wasn’t worried, though.

Uban was a land dragon no longer.

Stretching out titanic metal wings, the dragon soared through the heavens, his flight empowered by the very Empyrix that sought to destroy him.

The dragon opened his gaping maw and, rather than spraying out a breath attack, simply snapped his mouth down around huge swaths of the creatures.

I chuckled at Uban’s antics, then looked back at Fenrir who was awkwardly standing behind the portal on his own.

Rolling my metaphorical eyes, I waved him in. “You might as well get in here as well.”

Sustaining all of my creations and fortifying them against the damage that the realm sought to inflict upon them took quite a bit of my power, but it was perfectly fine so long as I didn’t need to personally act against any monsters.

Watching the native scum get beaten back and subjugated made me feel all tingly and warm inside.

Wait… nope, that was just the Empyrix trying to reduce me to cinders.

Anyways, I kept up my expansion and observed my creatures battling with the enemy, occasionally respawning some Nailwolves to restock the army.

Carnic’s durability and regeneration meant that he was fine. Uban was having the time of his undeath. Fenrir had started building fortifications with rituals.

Everything was going great.

Then a hand gripped the back of my spine and squeezed until it snapped.

Instantly, I was resummoned into the same position and tried to move away from the threat, only to be kicked from behind so hard that I skidded forward against the grass and cracked my head open against a boulder.

Righting myself, I looked back on my attacker, finding what looked like an angel, with a crown made of burning fire in place of a halo.

The man glared at me, speaking a single word, “Leave.”

The word was said with so much power and force that I almost complied, but something about the way he said it felt overly imperious and self-assured. That made me decide to become a thorn in this guy’s backside, if just to bring him down a peg.

“Nah, how about you go test how far down the ground is for me instead?” I retorted.

The man snorted. “I am Icarios. Kelemnion brags about you far too often for my liking– killing you will bring him down a peg.”

Before I had a chance to process what he’d said, a wave of Empyrix bore down on me from above, and all I knew was pain.