A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

Crap! My first adventuring party, and my distraction was already costing me. I ordered the mobs to attack, and the two unarmored people in the back of the group flinched as the entire husk of Caerbalopes screamed at them and charged. The soldiers in the front seemed more accustomed to this sort of thing, though, and reacted with grace, losing only a few inches of ground as they cut down my subjectively somewhat adorable abominations.

I looked over the party, and saw a familiar spread of people. In the front, a basic fighter, what looked like a barbarian, and what could be a rogue or an especially edgy ranger. The rogue's life force looked a little weird, but I assumed it was a quirk of their class. In the back, there was a mage, who seemed to hold fire itself, lighting the room, and a cleric, bearing a staff that emanated a repulsive energy. That was bad news. In games, clerics had almost always had abilities that were extra powerful against the undead.

I moved my attention to the boss room, but… the Antigo wasn't there. In fact, he was in the chamber with my body and Phylactery. I hurriedly rushed him out, Molding the Terrain to open up the hidden passage.

He stomped his way out, and I swiftly Molded the stone door shut again.

The adventurers were moving very quickly, and it seemed that the cleric in their midst was blessing their weapons to cut through the undead, like butter, as they shone with a radiant light that burned away all traces of filth the corpses might have left behind. Something about that light filled me with disgust, and part of me wanted nothing more than to continuously summon Antigos until the cleric succumbed to the pressure, but the rest of me knew that was a foolish idea. Chances were that I was already in danger just from his presence, but killing him would likely result in even more clerics being sent to "cleanse the area." Even if this one couldn't sense me, that didn't mean that stronger clerics wouldn't be able to.

The first room was cleared quickly, with the weaker Caerbalopes not able to mount a solid defense, and no Arachnomicons getting within range of a sneak attack.

The group got excited when they saw the treasure chest, nudging each other and grinning, but the fighter, who I presumed was the leader, hushed them. He quietly approached the storage container, drew a hammer from a bag that looked much too small to hold it–bags of holding! Eep!–and attacked the chest with a downward swing.

The stone cracked under his might, and dust blew out, causing a wave of coughs to spread through the party as the mage glared at the fighter. Then, the mage's eyes caught on a glimmer from the chest, and he rushed forward, the greed emanating from him nearly physical. He dug the gold out of the rubble, shared a hushed word with his group in a language I didn't understand, then held out the coin for them all to inspect.

They seemed very excited, which was good. Greed is good. Greed gets people killed, and that means that I get more resources and study materials.

The party confidently marched into the next room… and was met by a falling bookcase. This time I'd been prepared, and mentally commanded one of the Caerbalopes to get into position to smash the party with a bookcase upon entry.

The barbarian reacted quickly, though, and… cut the falling bookcase in two with his greataxe? Ruh roh, this group might be even stronger than I'd expected.

The mage raised a hand and chanted momentarily. I felt magic energy flow through his body, and though I was unfamiliar with its type, I felt I could safely assume that it was fire magic, both from the glowing orb he held above his other hand to light the room and from the spicy flavor I sensed while looking it over with my Omnipresence. The magic wafted into the surroundings, and suddenly all flammable objects and creatures–in other words, empty books, Arachnomicons, and Caerbalopes–in the room caught fire. The party has avoided the blast, with the cleric having erected a shield of that accursed light around them.

A couple of the party members glared at the mage, who had clearly just done the equivalent of casting a Fireball in an enclosed space, but he didn't seem to notice as he skipped over to the little singed stone chest and cracked it open to yank out the three warm gold coins. He was definitely chaotic neutral. I'd originally pegged him as a wizard-type, but this behavior reminded me a little bit more of a sorcerer. Could be either.

The spellslinger pocketed the prize and rubbed his hands together as he stepped towards the next room. The leader of the group scoffed, but waved for his party to follow.

I knew that the next room wouldn't be able to stand up to this party, so I commanded all of the creatures in it to focus on a single task: stealing. If I couldn't kill this group, I'd have to rob them instead. I told them to especially focus on a book at the mage's side–wizard?–and the bag of holding I'd seen the fighter use.

The party stepped into the third combat room and was met by dead silence. Literally. Heh.

They morphed back into formation, their alertness greater than it had been in any previous room. Luckily, they hadn't seen any Arachnomicons yet, and one was able to slowly reach out from its shelf, put a leg in the bag on the fighter's pouch, and… get a sword through its cover as the fighter noticed the pull on his waist.

He called something out, and the party started looking at the bookcases with suspicion. Drat. It looked like they'd be paying attention to the Arachnomicons now. But they wouldn't be expecting…

A Quadjack Caerbalope leapt from the top of a bookshelf and landed on the wizard, who let out an "Oof!" The avaricious man had simply melted the Quadjacks in the previous room, so the party had yet to see a Caerbalope this huge. It had the element of surprise, and the wizard looked up at it in terror, the flame he’d previously held flickering and growing dim, likely from his loss of concentration. The Caerbalope snatched the spellbook off his body and ran off with it. A few daggers were sent its way by the rogue, they missed, and the beast made a clean break.

The wizard looked off to the side where his aggressor had run off in shock, and I cackled at his despair. Then he laughed. Laughed! Loudly and vibrantly, for a full minute! When the party leader made some noises, presumably asking why he was laughing, the man had to fight to hold back a chuckle as he responded. Then, the entire party laughed!

Infuriated, I had one of the Dualjacks take the book off the Quadjack and rush it to me through the passageways. As soon as I opened the book, I understood why the man was laughing.

This book was not magic. It was a children's picture dictionary. I'd just assumed from the intricate symbols on the front and the size of the volume that it was a spellbook! That greasy man had been pretending the whole time!

I calmed the growing sense of rage at this ridiculous party as I realized that this was probably even more useful to me than a spellbook anyways. The sorcerer had probably picked a dictionary because of its size and the infuriation that his enemies would feel once they got a hold of it. However, it contained knowledge that I literally did not know. So, yeah, this was still a net positive for me. I still felt a bit miffed though, so I nudged all of the Quadjacks to focus on him.

The look of fear on the man's face as the golden-retriever-sized abominations charged at him cheered me up immediately. This was the same pleasure I'd felt when punishing one of my more troubling players with overwhelming amounts of attacks. It's not my fault you annoyed the lich.

Well, technically, this time it was, but whatever.

The party had a little bit more difficulty defending against the Quadjacks, but honestly that just meant that the barbarian got a few scratches on him that were immediately healed by the cleric and the fighter got a few scratches on his shield. After that, they cleaved through the room with the same brutal efficiency they'd had in the first one.

The party wanted to move on quickly after that, but the rogue stopped to take a closer look at some of the Caerbalopes and the Arachnomicons. She poked one with her dagger, then muttered something to herself and moved along. Just like all the times before, the greedy sorcerer pocketed the gold the moment the chest popped open.

The party stopped in front of the door when they saw the engraving I’d placed upon it, the same as the one I’d put on the gold bars the party had pocketed. I’d felt it a good idea to warn people that they were going into a boss fight. While it was an obvious marker that things were about to get real dangerous, it also usually meant that the rewards were much higher. Looking at the party, it seemed that they understood this as well.

The sorcerer looked like he was about to drool, but the party leader motioned for them all to stop. Reluctantly, the sorcerer waited, and they all started to speak to one another. Based on the hand motions and some of my own personal experience with running D&D, they were likely discussing battle tactics and formations. Eventually, they’d discussed all they could, and the cleric made a pass through the party, healing some minor scratches and applying buffs all around.

The party leader stood in front of the door, shield raised, as the barbarian and the rogue pulled the door open, seeing only darkness. The influence of my Domain of Undeath was stronger here, so close to my Phylactery, and it proved powerful enough to interfere with the sorcerer’s fire magic, weakening its light and causing it to flicker in and out.

Seeing this, the mage sent even more energy into the spell. The influenced Necrosis in the air tried to fight back, but most of the fire got through, allowing a dim light to spread throughout the chamber ahead.

The fighter stumbled back as a huge claw snapped towards him, though he still managed to block with his shield. A dim red light lit my seven-foot tall Antigo as it crept closer. I was still holding it back just a little, but it seemed to have an innate bloodlust that I couldn’t explain. Perhaps the combination of so many undead minds had actually given it a personality? Still, it wasn’t like that was a negative thing. In fact, it would allow me to allow the Antigo to mostly control himself, at least partly.

The leader of the party looked shocked, and the faces of the rest of the party members had turned grim. It seemed that they hadn’t expected to find such a strong creature, not after the swarms of weak mobs they’d easily handled before. They didn’t seem to be afraid, and I could sense why. Even with as strong as the Antigo was, their party would still be able to take it down with some teamwork and grit. Their overall power was actually higher than my monster’s.

The rogue entered stealth, the barbarian readied his axe, and I let out a rattling sigh.

I’d really wanted those dimensional bags, but I suppose it’s for the best. After all, what rumors would be spread around if a well-prepared and powerful adventuring party had waltzed into a brand new dungeon and been massacred? I was certain that I wouldn’t be getting any fodder in here if that happened. In fact, it was more likely that I’d be sanctioned or destroyed right away.

Did this world have a protocol for dungeons? In fact, did they even have dungeons, other than me? I’d have to find out somehow.

With the party properly intimidated, I let the Antigo run wild. Immediately, its body hunched down to their level, and it lunged at the downed fighter, trying to bite his head off.

I winced when the barbarian landed a solid slice on my monster’s chest with his greataxe, though luckily the Antigo’s rib bones were extremely well-reinforced, and the oddly-angled swing didn’t manage to break them. I latched onto the Antigo’s mind once more, and began giving it instructions. Though it may have the innate bloodlust I wanted, it seemed that it wasn’t a very clever fighter.

The Antigo lurched forward again, its claws clattering against the floor as it used all four limbs to crawl forward. I hadn’t directly commanded it to do that, but I had told it to make itself a smaller target and move forward to prepare an attack, so I supposed that its actions made sense.

The cleric looked frigging terrified, and I cackled again. That’s right, you disgusting light-wielder! Get outta here! Better yet, DIE!

My bloodlust and intent leaked into my bond with the Antigo, and it skittered forward with incredible speed, trying to get past the fighter and slice the cleric in two.

Its attack failed as a barrier of light appeared before the cleric, halting the Antigo’s momentum as it shattered, and a smiting blade landed on its back as the fighter took an attack of opportunity against it. It clattered away on all fours, a smoking hole cut along its back. Luckily, beings that were puppeteered by my Necrosis didn’t particularly care about their nervous systems, and my monster rose to its feet a moment later, its gaze flicking between the fighter and the cleric.

The barbarian decided that was a good time to launch himself at the Antigo, his greataxe coming down in a downwards swing that seemed to hold an unstoppable power within it.

The Antigo blurred backwards with a speed that it had yet to display, dodging the attack and swiping a claw at the barbarian.

In previous encounters, the barbarian’s flesh had been too tough for all but the strongest Caerbalopes to penetrate. The Antigo was much much stronger than even the Quadjacks, and its claws used the momentum of the savage’s body to impale themselves in his side.

The barbarian lost control of his speed and crashed into the wall, thumping to the floor with a pained choking sound. Real tough, very manly. I inspected the wound more closely and found that it had not only penetrated his large intestine, but had also left a festering Necrosis in the wound that was attacking everything, trying to convert it all into dead matter. Even I winced when I saw how quickly it was traveling, carving up blood vessels and traveling all around. His liver was handling it well, and the man seemed to be dealing with the internal bleeding somehow, but the Necrosis energy had already passed through the liver and into the urea that his blood was transporting to his kidneys. They didn’t fare nearly so well, and the man moaned as they were destroyed. Again, the blood seemed to keep going where it was needed, but with the liver damaged and the kidneys destroyed, his blood was carrying toxins–including the Antigo’s Necrosis–and spreading them all throughout his body.

Satisfied that he wouldn’t last much longer, I turned my attention back to the fight. The Antigo was currently probing the fighter’s defense, but the man was relentlessly guarding against the beast’s attacks, retaliating with strikes that burned their way into its flesh. The cleric was enhancing the fighter’s shield and sword, strengthening them against the undead, and the sorcerer had realized that all AoE did against it was slightly singe its fur, and was firing bolts of flame at the monster, forcing it to dodge out of the way.

It was a stalemate, but I could sense that my monster was going to lose this encounter. The party was constantly expending energy to keep the Antigo on defense, but it was slowly racking up wounds. At the same time, its attacks weren’t able to make it past the fighter, and it would eventually lose.

I obviously didn’t want to lose, but interfering any more would make the fight unbalanced, which wasn’t what I wanted. The thought of that cleric surviving might make my Phylactery quiver in rage, but I had rules I needed to play by. I wasn’t going to make the fight impossible just to win.

At least, I hadn’t planned to. It seemed that the last member of the party had other plans.

The rogue exited her stealth right next to the cleric and plunged a shortsword into his neck. Somehow, even with my Omnipresence, I hadn’t noticed her there. Not only that, but the strike had been completely silent, some Skill of hers likely deadening the noise of not just her attack, but of the cleric’s body falling to the floor. She’d managed to perfectly blend in with the energy and influence in the air, almost as if…

As I gazed at her with my Deadsight, I found that there was no longer any trace of life energy in her. The feeling I’d gotten from her earlier had felt fake, but I’d just assumed it was a rogue thing. I’d been wrong.

This rogue was undead, and she’d just switched sides.