《Lich Dungeon》 Prologue 20 years ago. I looked up, sensing invaders in my domain. I was not ready. They had come earlier than expected, likely to disrupt whatever ritual they knew I was planning. It was going to be close to see if they''d succeed. The ritual wasn''t one of great malice or evil however. Not one that spawned a wave of armoured undead, led by an archfiend from a deep layer of hell like I had done in the past. Nothing quite so sinister. Instead this ritual was to¨C I jerked, shaking away my thoughts. They had a mindcaster. Quickly, I ordered my nearest minions to rush out of the entrance to this part of the cave. The two minor fiends, one slightly larger than the other, wouldn''t last long against a specialised force, I knew. But the easy pickings should make the Church''s forces cautious. And that would give me time. Picking up a heavy wooden staff tipped with a dark onyx, I turned and slammed the butt of it into the floor. At the entrance of the cavern, I could make out stalactites forming, moulding the hint of corridors into what seemed like natural formations. Quickly glancing at a crystal ball to my right, I saw the two fiends stuck in fierce combat with the party. Analysing their formation with two blue flames socketed deep into my chalky skull, I speculated at their specialisations. At the front, there was an obvious tank. Massively built and decked out in plate armour that slightly hindered his movement and holding a tower shield with glowing sigils, he struggled slightly at blocking the blows of the larger fiend before attempting to retaliate with a heavy blow from the axe at his shoulder. Behind the tank, hiding behind a stalactite, was the mindcaster. She was dressed in a leather gambeson and her eyes were shut tight. Snapping them open, I saw her yell something to the man behind her. The man, this one with two curved swords, one slightly shorter ¨C almost a dagger ¨C and leather covering his vitals, nodded and went to help the tank. Curious. At this point, the second fiend had noticed the gap and rushed forwards past both the Tank and the Swordsman who ignored him. I was about to berate them in my head when a shadow landed on the back of the second fiend. Ah an assassin. Not many chose that route. Assassins were highly specialised versions of rogues. They went the direction of mastering their stealth then aiming to kill opponents instantly before hiding away again in a moment of distraction. With the help of the mindcaster, that would happen with deadly regularity. I was already lamenting the early death of the fiend when a ripple of earth from the magic I had cast reached that section of caverns. The fiend stumbled making the assassin''s dagger carve into its shoulder leaving a long gash which then started to flake away at a rapid pace. The poor fiend was about to turn to catch the nimble rogue, when an arrow appeared in one of it''s eyes. I looked away from the crystal. I had things to do. There was no doubt in my mind that my two minions were done for. Checking that my set up was ready, I began. I had set up a runic circle made of powdered quartz surrounding a pedestal. Upon that pedestal was a gemstone as black as night. Despite this, it shone; veins of amber flashing through it like orange lightning. The chamber itself was bare but for these two things. Pushing down my anxiety, I approached the gemstone, careful not to scuff the markings. Removing any last thoughts from my mind, I placed my bone hand upon the gemstone. -------------- We moved into the final room. The last fight had been suspiciously easy: after Iiana stabbed the second fiend, we were able to grind it down taking turns to kite it. They may have been strong and tough, but they weren''t the brightest. The only surprise in the fight was the ripple of strong earth mana that changed the room. Before, it had been a simple carved chamber with an entrance and an exit. Now it was a maze of piercing rock and jagged stone. If this was the calibre of Lich we had to face, then we were vastly unprepared. More likely, it was an artefact from a past empire that the Lich had collected. Whatever it was, it had destroyed everything, including traps. Everything, that was, past this room.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. After breaking through the stone door, we entered a vast hallway. The ceiling was invisible with how high it was and the entire corridor was built with a king in mind. Pillars vanished into the inky heights stone figurines, likely gargoyles, hidden stealthily among them. At the end of the hallway was a throne covered in soft velvet and encrusted with diamonds. That alone would cover the costs of the dive. Sitting on the throne a bored look entombed on its skeletal face, eyes burning with blue fire and a giant standing 8 feet. It towered over even Derek our tank. ¡°So you have come to kill me have you?¡± It boomed, voice echoing menacingly through the hall. Likely, the abomination had crafted it with that in mind. ¡°Do you weaklings even know who I am? I am the greatest Lich of all time. Even the ruler of Goream fears my wrath. And yet here you are. Puny mortals knocking on the gates of Hell. Shall I collect your souls? They will make a fine addition to my collection.¡± I gestured to our hired mindcaster to remove its protections. A risky endeavor but one that couldn''t truly hurt. All I had to do was keep it monologuing. ¡°We are the adventurers team of the Church of Mythros! We came seeking treasure and the bounty on your head.¡± The creature laughed. Maniacal cackles travelling and multiplying throughout the hall. ¡°Treasures I have. Overwhelming strength too. But hypothetically,¡± it said smugly, assured of its victory, ¡°Should you miraculously beat me, how will you share the spoils?¡± I had prepared for this. We had agreed before hand and crafted contracts within our party. ¡°You shall not separate us, fiend!¡± I shouted hoping to aggravate it into a rant, ¡°You are but a monster! You have sent out waves of creatures to pillage, rape, and take people upon whom you then experimented on in your halls. You shall pay for your sins.¡± The fiend merely looked bored but it carried on regardless. ¡°Ah, so you''re one of those fanatics are you. Though I had believed Mythros more intelligent than that. Ah well.¡± It sighed before shaking its head disappointedly. Our mindcaster nudged me before urgently whispering. ¡°There''s something wrong. I got rid of the protections but I cannot feel its mind. I think it may be a construct.¡± I grew alarmed and the grave face I spotted on the mindcaster''s reflected my fears. Signalling to Iiana, I had her drop onto the Lich''s back. He didn''t even notice. It was a trick. ¡°Destroy it. Now.¡± I shouted to the party. Our attempts to catch it monologuing had worked against us. The cave began to rumble as I gave the command and I saw the throne tilt slightly. ¡°Under the throne! Move!¡± The party rushed towards it. Derek being the strongest, heaved on one side tipping it over with a crash to reveal a passageway. Here we could see artefacts of Legend among which was the mythical Staff of Earthshaping. The culprit of the newly formed caverns. At the far end were two doors. One was closed, the other opened to reveal a library filled to the brim with books and journals. Through the gaps in the closed doorway, we could see the glow of mana being used... the Lich. Derek immediately began to prepare but our Kensai, Garok pushed him aside. Striding up to the door, he sliced a cross into the heavy wood before kicking it in with a crash. This was definitely the door. As we entered, we could see the real Lich. Despite the situation, I was disappointed. It was nowhere near as impressive, nor as intimidating as the construct. The rumbling grew louder as he grinned at us mockingly. As a last ditch effort, I aimed, nocked, drew, aimed again and in one swift motion released an arrow at the runic circle at the floor. I was rewarded with a look of terror on the Lich''s face before I turned and began to run. Iiana had already stuffed a bag full of the artefacts. One of them had to be the phylactery. At this point, all we had to do was get out and we would have done it. Behind us, the cave started collapsing and I smiled with grim satisfaction at the feeling of mana surging behind us. I had managed to mess up one of the runes. Backtracking through the hallway, the construct was where we had left it. Our party charged down the hall, uncaring for any traps we had missed. The mindcaster had other plans however, and turning back, she attempted to remove the jewel encrusted cloth from the throne. ¡°Leave it you idiot!¡± I shouted but before I could drag her away, I watched in horror as rocks buried her along with the throne. Once again I started to run, rocks snapping like the hounds of Hellion himself behind me. There was no saving him. Eventually, we made it to the more stable parts of the dungeon. Here, it was more natural rock but it was supported with beams of reinforced wood. Heaving a sigh of relief and saying a prayer to my chosen deity ¨C Ea, not Mythros as I had told the Lich''s construct ¨C I bade farewell to our fallen companion. Greedy though she may have been, she was a benefit to our party. Chapter 1 I woke from nothingness. I had been in limbo for what could have been an eternity, drifting in and out of consciousness. At least, I thought so. When I was ¡°conscious, I couldn''t see, hear, touch, feel. Nothing. Yet my mind had worked with seemingly perfect clarity. What was peculiar were the times I was out. I had the strangest visions: there was a battle, that I knew, yet it appeared hazy as if through a lens. After the battle, a dense staff, a ritual, a cave in. All the images were further tainted by an intense feeling of familiarity; and yet, I remembered none of them. But now ¨C now I knew I was awake. This was no feverish dream repeating itself like Ouroboros eating its tail. I could see, hear, everything that I had lacked until now. I. Was. Alive. I quickly took stock of my situation. I was in a rock chamber, at least, it had been. The room looked like a natural formation on the outside, but there were obvious signs of workmanship on the walls where the rock was suspiciously smooth. In some parts of the chamber, I could hear the soft dripping of water from a stalactite into a puddle, making ripples with every drop. At one end of the chamber was what appeared to be the only exit. A broken wooden door, nearly covered by the rubble surrounding me. I tried to move towards it. My body didn''t respond. I felt the cold tendrils of fear curl in my soul. I tried again, only for my heart to fall further into the abyss. I could not move. What''s more, I could not feel my arms and legs. I turned my head to look at myself and froze in horror. Upon a pedestal was a cut piece of black opal. As I watched, a glittering flash of amber shone from the centre splitting throughout the gem like dye in water. As I watched, the amber was drawn back into the centre before once again flashing out in the same pattern causing the gem to pulse with a steady rhythm as if the heart of some ancient being, no. The heart of me. With this revelation, came another thought. How could I even see myself? Could I separate my mind from my body? It was worth a shot. Concentrating, I sensed deep into the very core of myself and willed my mind to move. I sensed something seeping out from my body and shivered, breaking my focus. I looked around. I was still in the same place, but there was something strange. For some reason, I could tell exactly what was around me in a small 5 cm sphere. Furthermore, I could tell exactly what the composition of the air was and the rock below me that held up my core. Curious. Either way, whatever happened, it was useful. After a quick moment of thought, I decided to try again. Settling back into my previous mindset, I quickly felt the same sensation of something seeping into the world around me. I resolved myself to try going for longer. It could have been any length of time before a sharp pain snapped me out of focus and I heard an echoing crack ring out in the smothering silence. Instantly, I felt as if I was burning up but freezing at the same time. In this terrifying pain, it was impossible to tell the passage of time so it felt like an eternity before it faded. I looked at my core. Within it, I could see a small blemish, a minuscule chip on the polished exterior.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. What was more, the threads of amber that had until now been diffused throughout the entirety of my core were now dimmed and subdued though still gently pulsing. It seemed that whatever I had been releasing was connected to the threads of amber. With a slight bout of anxiety, I attempted to sense my surroundings before marvelling at how much I could sense within my sphere of knowledge. My senses could now reach from the ceiling to the floor and almost to the walls. More interestingly, there were one or two types of plants that had grown over the ground: a layer of black-grey moss covered much of the available space but a few enterprising plants had sprung up near a trickle of water presumable from the surface. What particularly stood out to my new-found sense was a strange energy, very similar to the energy I released when expanding my sphere of perception, that snaked it''s way towards my core. When it reached it, it disappeared, although not before a vein of amber flashed towards it. The next time this happened, I took a close look at the amber. As it flashed out, I saw it snake around the tendril of energy before pulling it into the centre of the gem increasing it''s size by a tiny margin. Next, I took a look at where the energy was coming from. As it happens, this was much harder as I couldn''t simply follow the tendril. Instead, I waited until a tendril came by before moving my sight towards the end of it. Slowly but surely, I found the source of the energy: the plants! From this and what had happened previously, I drew some conclusions. It appeared that when I expanded my perception, I released the amber energy from my core, and let it sink into the environment. Whereas, by absorbing this energy from the plants increased the amount I owned. In that case, all I had to do, was wait for my energy to recover before expanding my sphere! It turned out, that such a thing was extremely boring so I decided I would attempt to research the moss. Using my sphere, I was able to see examine the moss in great detail. It was black-grey and roughly an inch high. From a distance, the moss seemed furry but from up close, I could tell that there were many miniature ''conical'' depressions in the moss. These holes further had smaller holes within there walls as if imitating a cave system. Together, it made the moss seem extremely fragile yet strangely beautiful with fractals running along the entire organism. A further oddity was the way that water filled the holes. Suddenly, I noticed the same energy I had previously seen emanating from these plants diffusing through the many patterns before being infused into the moss. Strange. I wondered what would happen if I gave it some of my energy. Yet that led to a problem. I didn''t know what the energy was, let alone how to control it. As far as I knew it was some rule created by the gods. That being said, there was no harm in trying. Chapter 2 In order to harness whatever energy I was seeing, I felt like the best start I had was to try expanding my sphere. While last time had not ended up particularly well, I resolved to keep better control of myself. While meditating, I might also have a chance to examine the energy when it was leaving my core. And so, I sank back into the trance that had ended so poorly last time. I could still vividly remember the sharp crack that had occurred before. However, this time I didn''t fall as far into meditation as last time. Feeling inward, I was beginning to sense something seeping out ¨C the same sensation as last time ¨C and I decided that I would attempt to ''follow'' whatever it was that was seeping out. Attempting to grasp the feeling, I began to slowly be able to ''catch'', as if with an intangible, invisible hand, the (at least presumably) energy at the middle of my core. Slowly, I tried manipulating what I had grasped. Slowly, but surely, I was able to move the strand. Interestingly, there was some resistance in certain places as I controlled the amber. It seemed to want to flow, like water, along certain paths. As I moved further away from my centre, the paths began to multiply and also become smaller, thinner. Yet the strand stayed the same length. Moving further, the difficulty of manipulating the energy began to grow harder and harder as the resistance grew; but I persevered. I had no better ideas and this had gotten results. Therefore, I would see it through to the end. When I neared the outside of my core, the resistance had grown to such a point, that I started feeling pain. I knew that something had to give, and between losing results and possibly losing the fragile looking ball that was my core, I made the obvious choice. Slowly, I let go of small slivers of the strand, gently releasing my grip. As I did so, I noticed that the strand fell apart into multiple smaller threads that wove like sand through an increasingly fine mesh. As they went, they became smaller and somehow seemingly more refined. Unfortunately, my control over them disappeared as the original strand split. Undaunted, I kept slowly relaxing my grasp while moving the strand forward, watching as it diminished like melting wax. When it had become a tiny speck, it reached the edge of my core and with a non-auditory ''pop'' it went through. As it did so, it joined back with seemingly countless grains of energy emanating in a stream from my amber sphere. The grains were not all the same colour; some were red, others green, a few were white. But the most overwhelming colour... was amber. This had confirmed it. The amber colour that I had seen in my core, was this energy. And I could manipulate it.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. But, at this point I had only managed to control one tiny speck in a massive rainbow ocean. Would it even be possible to manipulate more than one? Even this one had taken all my mental focus. That said, did I even have enough energy? I quickly checked my core and saw that its glow was barely even dented. And so, I tried again. This time however, I didn''t try to strongarm my way through. Rather, I let the energy move as it wished, dividing constantly as it found different paths through my core. While watching, I also noticed that some bits of the energy stayed behind, too large to pass through the sieve. These bits were then destroyed by passing strands being broken down into smaller impurities ¨C if you will. These were then carried forwards until they became stuck at which point they clogged the smaller paths being battered again and broken and carried forward. All the way to the edge of my core where they were so small, that they acted as the sieve to smaller and more refined energy. Furthermore, they seemed to stay stuck, like layers of sediment on the outside of the core, making me wonder if eventually, I would grow. This discover only added to the idea that it was best to let the strands ''dissolve'' and fall apart. Yet I had also completely failed at my original task of controlling multiple strands. And so, I set back to the laborious task of multitasking. Checking my energy levels, paranoid, I was relieved to see they weren''t diminished at all. Apparantly, only when I released large amounts of the energy could I overexert myself and cause damage. Thus having done my checkup, I settled back and began to meditate. This time, when controlling the strand, I grabbed the next strand to come away from it. This, I could do easily. The next two, and the next four after that were also surprisingly easy. The difficulty came as they started multiplying into the 50''s and the hundreds, doubling every time until they were millions, exhausting my mental strength and letting the remaining strands out of my control. Knowing that I couldn''t maintain that many, I let go of roughly half of the coils I had, focusing on manipulating the few remaining. Also, I decided not to attempt to capture more coils as they fell apart but kept the numbers the same. This time, when the energy pierced through the core, I was nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of having so many tiny specks of energy everywhere. In fact, I was able to manipulate them here as well! With that in mind, I attempted to gather what I had left. It all amounted to a measly speck of dust, not quite enough for what I had planned, but I had time.