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    Over the next month or two, I perfected the art of the pitfall. From the throne room, I concentrated on recreating hidden pits here and there throughout the barrow. The halls were shaped by my will, just as they had been repaired previously. I could alter the positioning, create side-chambers and form spiked pits underneath false floors.


    My former friends could serve as grunt labor. Shaping the dungeon from the throne proved more efficient. Instead, Yona and Gavrin guarded the central chamber. I’d had them retrieve their club and blades. Neither’s condition was getting any better, though. Necromatic magic would arrest their decay somewhat, but the day would come when they were too ruined to function even as puppets. And they wore only the battle-damaged reed vests we’d brought with us. It was the best weaponry and armor our village could muster, but for how long would it suffice?


    After a slow month or two of quiet contemplation and trap laying, we got our first bite. Some hunter or gatherer ducked into our barrow to escape the rain. Much of the exterior decorations – the stone carvers’ warnings, some remaining supplies we’d left outside – had collapsed and had not yet been restored. My powers waned near the entrance of the barrow. Our uninvited guest likely mistook our domain as a simple cave.


    My wights stirred. I held them back. This was no fighter, just a lost soul. With all the pits I’d buried near the entrance, soon this lost soul would be mine to do with as I wished.


    No sooner did I think this than a great crash echoed through the halls and chambers of my burrow. A pit had been sprung.


    The two wights lumbered through the halls by my command. They returned having fished our latest victim out of his pit. Thoroughly dead; the spikes I’d manifested at the bottom of each pit had done their job.


    This was just a simple traveler. No weapons, minimal combat potential. Walking into a slaughter either way. With the trap, death was quick, with minimal surprise and minimal pain. Really, I’d done him a favor.


    Again, the itch arose to raise my hand and get reanimating. There were ways in which this nameless traveler could be useful.


    The magic took hold. A third wight stood in the central chamber.


    Wordlessly, I gave my command.  The traveler marched back out through the halls of the barrow.


    I felt what happened next without laying eyes on it. Sensed my new wight step out of the cavern and into the light of day just as the storm outside cleared up. The light scalded the walking corpse, frying my magic away and leaving it dead, just another body no more than ten paces from the barrow entrance.


    No matter. I returned to focusing on setting up new and more advanced traps in my realm. Our new arrival would have been of little use in a fight either way. And as a front lawn decoration, well…


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    Sure enough, it wasn’t long before someone came looking for the traveler. A band of six. More numerous even than our original war party. Though I was tethered to this throne, I could sense the world outside the barrow with effort. They knelt to examine the corpse of our nameless friend.


    Days had passed. Residual necromancy kept animals from devouring the cadaver. As far as these outsiders knew, this was a fresh corpse. The wounds, too, were all over the place. There were the true deathblows through the chest cavity from the floor spikes, as well as burn marks from where the sun had scorched the necromancy away.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Their natural conclusion was that he’d been slain by something in the barrow and died trying to flee. A fair interpretation. Partially true. The party advanced, war clubs out.


    I’d spent the past days nonstop crafting some new surprises. Getting the barrow up to the condition we’d found it in during our ill-fated raid.


    The words of the she-lich echoed in my mind. I would be ruling this place until someone with far greater power and weapons deposed me in turn. While I was still ruefully contemplating my fate at this point, I wasn’t about to just roll over and die. Let someone else be saddled with this lonesome fate? Allow this burial mound to lie fallow, become used as some bandit camp? Perish the thought!


    So, I sat, brooded, and waited. Only two former friends and a gauntlet of traps for protection. I waited, and listened, feeling the intruders creep through my dungeon as if it were an extension of my own self.


    The path around was winding – intentionally so. It wouldn’t do to give interlopers a straight shot to my inner sanctum now, would it? This also provided an important bonus of maximizing the time spent in a gauntlet of traps. No sooner did I think about the bevy of pits and tripwires awaiting our guests than I heard a ‘twunk’ from the compressed air of a deadly spear thrust out from a divot in the wall.


    This was another gift from the former occupant. We’d encountered many in our storming of the barrow. It was part of my ‘move set’ such that it was, and I needed only will the mechanics into existence. The tripwire, the false divots in the walls, and the spear would all assemble themselves from existing dungeon refuse.


    There was a moment’s delay and then came the screams. One of the intruders had taken several hits to the chest. The shouts were short-lived, as the wounds were too deep and extensive for a barely-armored human to survive.


    After a time, I sensed the remaining party of five continue their advance, glacially slow this time. They left their fallen comrade where he lay. The avaricious hope of treasure tucked in this burial chamber winning out over the desire to bury and mourn a comrade.


    I got an idea. Again, those lich instincts kicked in.


    Still on my throne, I reached out to the segment of barrow where this dead man still lay. I summoned forth necrotic powers and began assuming control of the fallen treasure hunter. The process was slower without direct access to the body, but my magic worked its, well, magic all the same. Soon another fresh wight stood in the halls. One with intact musculature.


    I ordered it to sprint with a thought. It took off running.


    Again, shouts echoed from the hall – closer, this time. The wight pounced on the fellow in the back. Another wheeled around and leaped back, plunging to their death in another pit trap. A newly-dead wight was swift and vicious, tearing apart his former ally quickly and efficiently. In an instant the party went from 6 living, then five, and now down to three!


    These were no warriors. Upon seeing their comrades die, with one even rising to kill their friends again, the survivors broke and fled.


    One of the remaining three fell into another pit. I snapped my fingers, and all further traps went inert long enough for the remaining survivors to flee the barrow. Only when I was sure they’d fled clear out of my range of dungeon sense did I snap again to reactivate my defenses?


    My magic wound through the dungeon, picking out and reanimating the remaining three corpses. Six flesh and blood humans had entered the barrow, and now four new wights stalked the halls of my domain.


    As for the two survivors? Again, those inherited lich-based instincts, a housewarming gift from my predecessor, begged me to let them leave. The better to tell others the tale. Sure, any normal clan-mate would stay well away from this death trap, but rumors of a trap-laden barrow, and speculation about what treasures could be held in here, would send more fortune seeks walking into my grasp.


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    Of course, there were no treasures here. Not yet.


    A deer walked into the barrow and fell victim to a pitfall. I reanimated it – could be useful as an intimidation factor.


    As days turned to months, I focused on morphing further turns and dead ends into my barrow. Traps other than the ones the old she-lich had wielded proved harder to develop. It’s like I was missing some ingredients. Perhaps I required additional power by adding to my wight collection? Or maybe I would grow in strength by building and deepening the barrow? No instructions were provided, so I just did as I felt best.


    Still, the wights walked the halls, I sat upon my throne, and the barrow gradually developed. I lost track of how long I’d been stuck here. My squad of wights – Yona and Gavrin included – offered no company. Indeed, Yona and Gavrin were beginning to rot. It was questionable how long they would remain viable even as undead muscle.


    So, I sat and waited. For months, maybe a year. Things grew quiet, with little happening at all from day after day.


    The first real test came when a band from the old village arrived just out of range of the barrow entrance.


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