A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

"I'm bored, Ambrose."

I sighed and pulled my attention away from Spread Undeath. "I still don't know what to do about that, Az. To me, this is fun."

She scowled at me from her cross-legged position on the floor. "How is sitting in a dark room and staring into a shiny rock fun? I'll admit, it looked pretty at first, but now it's just… dull."

"Maybe you should go on a walk? Maybe hunt a bit?" I proposed. "I could always use more genetic material."

"But, just– blegh," she said in her huffy tone. Then her eyes turned pleading. "Come with me?"

"I'm a little bit busy here." Spreading my influence over this entire mountain was a critical part of my plans. Hard to Mold a mountain into a tower if you didn't own the mountain, right?

"Please? C'mon, you've been working on that for days. I'm bored of watching and you need a break." She gave me another look, then continued, "Also, if you don't start paying attention to me, I'm going to start nagging."

Wasn't she already nagging? Or is this only a mere glimpse into the depths of her nagjutsu? "Fine, fine, I'll come with you, but after this I need to focus, alright?"

Azrael clapped her hands together and hopped to her feet. I expected her to say something, but she just grabbed me and started running up the stairs.

Unlike liches, wraiths were a sort of hybrid between rogues and casters, so Azzy, as a level four Lethean Wraith, had split her Enhancements evenly between Reinforcement and Willpower. Theoretically, she would be my match in terms of Willpower, but liches were a bit slanted in that regard. Our true form was actually that of a crystal; we simply inhabited bodies. Because of that, we had no innate Reinforcement, and were instead blessed with boatloads of Willpower.

That didn't stop Azrael from throwing me around like a sack of potatoes, though. Reinforcement apparently had just as big of an impact as Willpower, just on the body rather than the mind. In terms of raw physicality, she was only a bit below one of my Antigos. It was a good thing she'd been on my side, back in that cave. If she hadn't been, I might not have survived.

Eventually, she set me down, and I immediately set about Creating some Undead. I didn’t get far though before she shoved me over, breaking my concentration.

“What was that for?” The unexpected movement had actually caused me to lose all the Necrosis and Mentum invested in the magic, which was extra annoying since I was so far away from my Phylactery. Distance reduced my regeneration, after all, and I doubted that Azrael would want to return to the mountain over and over again to let me recharge.

“What’s the point in going hunting if you’re just going to hire someone else to do it for you?” She whipped out a knife. “You can use this, if you want.”

I frowned at her. “You know, you could have told me that before we left the cave. I would’ve made some kind of weapon.”

With a shrug, she pushed the knife into my hands and walked away. “I know you don’t have much experience with this, but fighting and killing does increase the speed at which your Boons level, you know. Perhaps you noticed that after killing the group I was with back in that… cave?”

In fact, I had noticed that, though at the time I’d just assumed it was due to my unique use of my Reconstitution Boon. “Alright, so what am I even supposed to do? I haven’t really done this before.”

She smirked at me. “We’ll get you used to it first, then move on to the bigger stuff. We’ll just be fighting undead, so we’ll have the drop on them almost every time. Most of them just leave other undead alone, except for the really big ones. Those types don’t really care what they’re eating. We’ll try to avoid them, though.”

I followed her through the forest. The plants here were twisted by a lack of life energy, and instead sought fresh Necrosis to sustain themselves. A couple of them attacked, but for the most part, we were left alone. Many of the plants that we moved past had already secured snacks, their roots and flowers sprouting through corpses that still twitched in unlife.

Eventually, Azrael raised a hand in a universal sign for “stop.” She pointed forwards at an undead of some particular power. It was currently carving through a small horde of zombies, taking down dozens in a handful of seconds with its sharp claws. The monstrosity’s flesh was pink, like its skin had turned transparent. Otherwise, it was still mostly humanoid, with the largest differences being its lack of eyes, pronounced jaw, and the three talon-like claws that replaced its fingers.

“Fateeater,” Azrael explained, “They’re a type of undead that eats others. I didn’t expect to see one, especially not one this small. They get big pretty fast, especially here. Luckily, undead that care more about consuming flesh than destroying life mutate out of control pretty quickly, meaning they’re not very mobile once fully grown. Still, the big ones always have ways to attack and pull in prey at range, so we should stay away from them for now. This one, though…” She pulled a shortsword from its sheath, and its form began to shift. It was soon unclear where exactly it was, and it seemed as though its actual blade could be almost anywhere in a small radius.

I readied my own dagger, though I didn’t send any energy into it. I hadn’t tested my abilities on actual metal yet, and didn’t want to corrode or shred my borrowed blade. Instead, I cranked on Delinear Sight, shunting energy into it to shift the way that I perceived the threads of space.

Putting all of my focus into the effort, I locked onto the threads that specifically constituted the Fateeater’s body. Typically, these threads would move and shift, trembling as a creature moved. Matter was not locked to a specific grouping of threads, but did cause it to shift and compress in its presence. I was trying to fix that.

With all my concentration, I sent Spatium into the threads that the undead’s form currently sat upon and bound them to the creature. The efficiency was awful, but it got the job done. A headache was already building, but I pushed through and moved on to the next step of my plan.

Now, I created a Fold between the beast’s skin and a space immediately in front of me. Azrael had already engaged the Fateeater, which was causing my own Mentum to drain away at a prodigious rate, But that was fine as long as I could finish this.

I pulled and pushed on the threads of reality simultaneously, bringing part of reality closer while another part of reality went away. This process felt like it took quite a bit of time, but in reality, it happened almost instantaneously, Spatium bridging the gap between one spot in reality and another with a snap.

With that done, I repeatedly stabbed at the bit of its body that was now before me.

It wailed as my dagger punched into it again and again, looking down at its own body and finding a hole. It clawed at it, and I felt my connection tremble as the space I’d translated was forcibly expanded by matter, but I reinforced the connection with another hefty burst of energy, and the Fateeater’s claws fell off as they passed through a razor-sharp tear in space. Its screams only grew louder, and it reached for the hole again. This time was different, though, and I felt Necrosis flood through the Spatium I’d used for the Folding and the makeshift binding that held one portion of space to the beast’s body.

The hostile Necrosis rampaged and consumed, and I had to cancel the Spatium Manipulation for fear that it would find a way to connect to me. While my body was partly made of Necrosis and I had no reason to actually fear for my physical health, my Mentum was still pure, at least until I transformed it into Necrosis or Spatium. I didn’t want to know what would happen if that got messed with.

The Fateeater now had a gorey hole carved in it, and Azzy flashed me a thumbs-up when it stumbled back from one of her attacks. She was a much more elegant fighter than I, and she danced back and forth, in and out of the undead’s reach, dealing damage while not receiving any in return. She managed to target the weak spot I’d made again and again, bypassing its tough hide to reach its insides.

With the few remaining zombies still harassing and distracting the monster, she made quick work of it.

“Alright, that was a good warm up. You ready to head out now?” Azrael was cheery, and I glared at her. “That took about half of my mental energy, and I can hardly regenerate any at all this far away from my Phylactery.”

“Alright, well why don’t you just use it smarter? Don’t get huffy with me.” She crossed her arms. “If you can make portals like that, then why not just stab its brains out through one? You could’ve targeted a much better area for that.”

I was about to respond, but then stopped. Why hadn’t I tried that? I mean, its brains specifically were a no-no: I’d realized that creating portals inside solid or energy-rich matter was almost impossible, since it was considered more real than less thin matter. The amount of Spatium required to tell reality that my portal was more real than an actual solid object was just untenable for my current self. That was why I’d needed to spend additional energy to stop the undead from tearing my portal apart with its bare hands, in fact. Just that single expenditure, which had only mattered for a bare instant, had been the cause of half my loss in Mentum. It was much more efficient to stick the portal right on top of the undead’s skin.

Still, even with that, there were better ways to use this power. I’d just targeted a random patch of flesh on its torso. What if I’d targeted the heart, or managed to stick a portal in its lungs? Those things might not matter for the undead, since all you really needed to do for one was bleed enough Necrosis from it that its body stopped working, but for an actual living creature? It was something to consider.

As for creatures like the Fateeater, the neck would have been a great target. If I’d managed to cut out enough of the beast’s throat that Azrael could have finished the job and removed its head, then the threat would be over. The head would still be alive, but all we’d need to do then would be subject it to enough energy that its Necrosis burned itself out trying to devour it.

Instead of trying to argue with her, I gave Azzy a contemplative nod.

Maybe I was going too far on my old DMing mindset? Was I limiting myself for balance purposes? Oh goodness… That was it, wasn’t it?

No, no, no. To the Nine Hells with balance! I’m gonna do the DM equivalent of using poorly designed homebrew monsters on level 1 noobs.

My enemies would stand no chance!

I looked up from my internal monologue and realized that I’d been unconsciously following Azrael as she walked. She’d actually started moving up the mountain, which I actually rather appreciated. Spreading my influence around other creatures was more difficult, at least, unless they willingly accepted it like Azrael had. Well, she “willingly” accepted it. I’d had to explain every little detail of what it would allow me to do to her.

I’d left out the fact that I could directly perceive anything within the area from any angle, instead saying that I could attach my viewpoint to the walls. Even then, she’d given me a look, and said that she wanted me to set up a place for her to bathe outside. If I’d given her the full story, I just know that she’d have had rude words to say about it.

Anyways, back to the present. Killing the monsters that lived on the mountain was critical, and I could actually feel my influence growing closer and closer as we walked upwards.

“Is your Mentum refilling yet?” Azrael turned to look at me.

I nodded, feeling it out. It was a slow trickle, but I’d be back to full before too long.

My abilities were honestly rather overpowered, but my sustain was awful. Close proximity to my Phylactery fixed some of that, but I knew that I wouldn’t always be able to stand right next to it. Sometimes, like now, I’d need to leave. That meant that my efficiency needed to improve drastically.

I needed to incorporate tactics like the ones Azzy had gotten me thinking of into my fighting. Hopefully I’d never need to use them in a serious situation, but I couldn’t bet on that. My monsters were strong enough. Now I needed to improve my own power.

A side benefit of being on the mountain was that I was able to continue spreading my influence as we traveled. It wasn’t too big of a deal, but it helped me calm myself, and gave me something to do to take my mind off being outside of my tower-in-the-making. Being outside my dungeon was very stressful, since I knew that I wasn’t right next to my Phylactery and wouldn’t be able to protect it if something bad happened. I didn’t have any minions in there either, and I made a note to myself to fix that as quickly as possible.

Before long, Azrael and I reached the top of the snow-capped mountains.

Snow, as an undead, was very interesting. It was still cold and moist, but you had no body heat, so it didn’t melt. You also didn’t have any homeostasis for your nerves, so you didn’t get that numb feeling that cold stuff normally gave you as a mortal.

Azrael, once again, was seeming to have some issues. The snow made her uncomfortable, and she was shivering. She, like me, was undead, and so I knew it wasn’t from the cold itself, but more likely because her body and mind didn’t fully realize that they didn’t need to do so. I suppose that’s just a problem that comes with having the same body that you did when you were alive, rather than swapping bodies out every once in a while like I did.

My influence was just beneath us, so I dragged a bit of it up to the surface and used a bit of my Mentum to shunt the snow above us to the side.

“So, what’s the plan now?” I asked, still not aware of why we were on the mountain.

She shrugged and plopped to the ground. “Relax a bit.”

I sat beside her. “I thought you wanted to go hunting, though?” Had she changed her mind so quickly?

“I mostly just wanted out of that cave, but I could tell that you weren’t loving it so far away. This is something of a compromise,” she said with a sideways glance.

“Oh. You don’t have to stop having fun just because of me. I could handle it.”

She waved a hand, responding, “I really don’t mind. There’s no need to hunt. We don’t need food, or water, or warmth, or even clean air, and there aren’t any factors causing us to need to rush to grow stronger. It’s just boring in the cave, that's all. Just sitting out here is enough for me. It just feels nice to have fresh air, you know? To feel all those little mortal things again?”

I paused, but then nodded. Before, as a fleshless skeleton, I’d not had much in the way of senses, and that was fine at the time, but being able to feel things again had been pretty nice. I could have never enjoyed the chill up here if I’d stayed as I had been before.

We sat for a while longer, but then I felt something else, and a chill ran down my spine.

Azrael noticed, and concern found its way into her expression “What’s wrong?”

In lieu of an answer, I carved a hole into the mountain, tearing my way down into the top floor of my tower dungeon, right next to my Phylactery. I sent a surge of Necrosis into my Domain, and shifted blocks to contain the threat that had just found its way into my depths. With Omnipresence and Omniscience, I looked in on the small beast that had somehow locked on to the scent of my influence and charged in here.

It seemed that Azrael and I had a visitor.