A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

The sage gently stirred the potent concoction within the specially-made device. He poured himself a cup and gingerly sipped at the still-hot liquid.

While many others he knew had moved past the art of tea brewing for the convenience of coffee, he was old enough to remember its significance. Once, it had been considered a magical liquid and was used sparingly, and mostly as a part of special ceremonies, such as a young man’s coming of age.

It had later been concluded that the tea itself contained little to no magical energy, and so its use had become much more common. Eventually, all the once-sacred recipes had circulated across the country, and it was consumed daily by many individuals.

Some of the special ingredients were, of course, extremely rare and expensive, but what was the point of living hundreds– no, thousands of years if one couldn’t enjoy the simple pleasures of life?

He’d tried coffee once– never again. No, Esheth was a tea-drinker through and through.

The old mage looked down at his old, frail hands. His body, as a whole, was much younger and more capable than it should have been, but some parts of him had deteriorated in a way that the healers couldn’t seem to fix. When his hands had first started quivering, he’d merely thought he’d been cold, but later more trouble had arisen, causing him to drop things more often and greatly reducing his dexterity.

Then, even more problems had arisen. His body had grown stiff and slow. Moving had become painful. His first concern was that it had been a curse, but he had no way to tell if that truly was the case.

The doctor’s prognosis had been grim. At the time, Esheth had been a mere level 15, and he’d been informed that, as he got older, his memory would deteriorate in the same way his hands had.

The healers didn’t have a way to precisely examine him or tell him how long he had, but they’d told him that other patients that had a similar list of symptoms tended to develop another condition– dementia.

He would start to lose his memories. He would forget who he once was– all the history he’d lived through would be lost.

Even then, Esheth had been considered a relic of the past. A piece of living history– one of the oldest and most powerful humans South of the Dead Belt.

Above all else, Esheth prized his memory. His many Willpower enhancements had kept it intact over the years, but hearing that he would start to lose that, even with all that added mental strength?

He’d begun to increase his level in earnest.

Ten Willpower enhancements later, he’d hit a wall. Like with every class upgrade, all of his Skills had been set back to 0. To level again, he would need to gain twenty-five levels in twenty-five brand-new skills.

Twenty levels in twenty skills had been possible, and each level after that had been comparatively easy, since he’d only needed to improve a little bit in many aspects, and a lot in a new one.

The difference between four hundred levels of progress and six hundred and twenty-five levels was much larger than it sounded.

Even with as much as he’d worked to progress, he could slowly feel himself aging. He grew slower, stiffer, and his hands shook more and more each day.

The only time his hands didn’t shake was when he was holding his morning cup of tea. It was an oddly calming and spiritual moment for him, and whatever this awful condition was seemed to acknowledge that. Or, perhaps it was merely a subconscious force of will. Esheth couldn’t tell for sure.

Perhaps that was why the slight trembling that knocked the cup out of his hand felt so significant.

The Soothsayer clutched at his chest, where a slight shock had run through him only moments before.

He felt the connection between himself and Fate, the realm of Soothen, strengthen. For a moment, his body was suspended halfway between the real world and one of paradox– a place where all things were certain, yet all actions could result in numerous outcomes.

Esheth had gained access to Soothen somewhat recently when compared to his original advanced affinity, Annihaen. Even so, he was deeply connected to it. He’d always been a firm believer in the idea of fate, to the point where it had heavily impacted the way he chose to judge his opponents, hence why he had chosen to give that young lich a chance to prove that the path of his fate lay higher than Esheth’s own.

This methodology had earned him one of his many titles: Bloodsayer. Some viewed his methods as cruel– apparently, living for a year with the knowledge that you would die at the end of it was enough to drive weaker men mad. He’d even arrived at their locations to find them already dead, with suicides and heart attacks being the most common causes.

Esheth had always been tied deeply to Fate, even before he could see it. Now, he was its favorite child– its champion. That meant he got certain… privileges.

Images of potential futures flickered across his vision, each making him frown more than the last.

Fate was an odd thing. The future was an uncertain thing, but there were specific outcomes that were set in stone, moments where all possible futures converged into one moment.

Thousands of possibilities: he saw an undead horde rising against his kingdom and devouring it, converting his homeland into a land of death– an extension of the Dead Belt.

He saw cities rise into the heavens and conquer the skies, backed by unparalleled magical and physical technologies.

He saw his world engulfed by fire and water, light and dark, life and death.

He saw blue lightning crackle across the heavens, scorching all that crossed its path.

Finally, he saw the crux: an unstoppable, immutable moment in time.

An unfamiliar man with a youthful face sitting atop a throne of light, emanating pure power, untainted by the affinities or natural laws.

Suddenly, Esheth’s body was shunted fully into the real world, and his vision ended.

He lay prone for a long moment, his tea staining the floor and leftover Soothen coursing painfully through his body.

“That,” he grunted, wrestling the residual energy in him into a calmer state. “Was so,” he continued, picking fragments of his favorite teacup off the floor. “Unhelpful,” he snarled.