《Dungeon Lich's Memoir》
Chapter One: To Start a Lichs Memoir
There must always be a Lich overlooking the dungeon. A dead but yet undying heart at the core of our home.
Let this testament serve as your guide and inspiration, my daughter. To teach you how to ¨C and, more importantly, why ¨C we must stay here. Why we must dissuade, and slay if need be, trespassers to our subterranean abode. When my story is over, my darling daughter, perhaps you will understand why your nursery attendants were skeletons. Why surface-dwellers had pet dire-dogs while you made do with barrow-spiders. And even why your mother¡¯s eyes glow red in the lightless corridors of our darkest dungeon.
We will start from the beginning¡
It all starts with I ¨C your dearest father¡¯s ¨C death.
¡ Worry not, for the beginning starts with a fight. I was not going to bore you with the circumstances of my birth out in the Rift Valley, of long years spent learning to endurance hunt on the plains.
Five we were. A party of heroes. Armed with the finest reed-woven armor, grooved wooden war clubs, and daggers with iron tips taken from a fallen star.
A great rock had fallen from the heavens directly into our village hunting grounds. Using the metal from this rock we had forged rudimentary weapons with which we¡¯d vanquished all other opposing villages for three valleys over. Our ancient rivals were still using stone mallets, and we slew them with impunity.
It was after driving the last rival village from our land that we discovered the Barrow. A mound old even in those ancient times, partially built into a mountain.
A single, jagged opening offered access. The stone-carver villages had displays outside, all pointed towards the entrance. They¡¯d at once worshipped the spot and feared it. But now they were dead, and our iron tools could surely best whatever paltry gods the stone carvers worshiped.
Five volunteers went into the barrow, me included. They were:
Gavrin, he who excelled at dire-deer hunts. He wielded a handheld club and was one of our village¡¯s best healers.
Yona, particularly skilled at chasing dire-dingoes away from the village storerooms.
Yurt, Yona¡¯s half-brother. A practical joker and a bit of a klutz. Not bad with a bow.
¡ I cannot quite remember the penultimate fellow¡¯s name. Good with a spear though.
And myself. Your dad. It has been centuries; I looked much different back then. Had more skin clinging to my bones. But I digress.
Onward we marched. Only, I did not have a torch with me, carrying both a shield and a meteoric iron-enhanced blade. The war band wielded the best weaponry in the entire valley and more than prepared for anything we could face.
There were traps ¨C a false floor leading down to a pit I nearly fell in, saved only by timely intervention from Yona. Gavrin stepped on another tile that sunk in, sending him off balance. Then, a trio of stone-etched arrowheads tied to wooden bolts flew through the wall directly ahead of us. I ran to the front and blocked it with my wooden plank shield, saving the party.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Though the mound lay embedded in a mountain the corridors looped around in a circular pattern. There were few dead ends, more a gauntlet of traps, funneling us into a central burial chamber. There, we encountered a slew of open sarcophagi and, dead in the center, a fetid she-lich!
This mistress of the dungeon was dressed in furs from animals we¡¯d never seen. She was squat but muscular, and with a hefty brow quite unlike the people of our village. It was as if this rotting creature sitting on a simple stone throne was a relic of an older era.
Dead emerged from the sarcophagi, from holes in the ground, and even fell from the ceiling.
Now, this sounds perfectly natural to you, born in the dark such as you are. But we had never seen a walking corpse. Nor a lich.
Yurt¡¯s arrows did nothing to stop these barrow wrights.
Gavrin¡¯s club did some blunt damage, though only crushing the skulls proved remotely effective.
Yona and I hacked at the oncoming horde with our blades. We sliced brittle limbs off the desiccated corpses, but even a severed arm or leg would not stop them.
Our nameless forgotten friend impaled one with his spear, only to have his weapon stuck in the chest cavity of a creature that was still crawling at us. Others swarmed him and tore him apart.
Fire. Fire was our only defense. Yona set one of the walking dead alight with her torch. Though the barrow was cold and damp, the corpses were long-dead and bone-dry. Still, for every wright we felled two more crawled out from the depths.
¡°That thing is controlling them!¡± I said.
We made for the she-lich. My shield physically pushed the horde back ¨C as corpses, they were light on mass.
The lich had an ¡®honor guard¡¯ of sorts. They wore hefty metal garb stronger than even our iron blades. And their weapons ¨C great stone axe heads with ornate carvings ¨C were unlike anything our paltry village could hope to develop.
Still, iron proved superior, while flames would still burn them with time. Yona and Gavrin took to this task, while I pushed through with my simple shield and made for the lich.
A great blasting scream and a fell glowing green light emanated from the she-lich¡¯s hand. Intimidation tactics, but we were past her guards and with knives drawn at that point.
I ignored the psychic nightmare visions she imposed on all who came within ten paces of her. Acting on instinct, I thrust my iron blade into her heart.
There was nothing to pierce. The lich was farther gone than even its minions. It could have just as easily reached over and raked my face off with its knife-sized nails. And yet, instead, something happened¡
A gurgling sound came from the Lich. A forgotten, ancient tongue. I pulled my blade out of the lich¡¯s chest. The entire cavity was barren.
Again, the creature spoke. This time, its barbaric blather warped into something I could almost understand.
¡°Your weapons¡ strong. Bond. My time is done. You must¡ bond with the dungeon. In my place.¡±
I moved away from the rotting creature, but it grabbed me with its clawlike nails and dug into my skin.
A purple miasma burst forth from the gaping chest wound on this she-lich. It surrounded me, and I breathed in a deep wafting breath before I was able to break free.
Muscles seized, paralyzed. I tore my reed armor off just to breathe, to no avail. I fell to the floor, letting out a death rattle.
All around, the barrow appeared in a state of collapse. Archways fell, tombs toppled over. Yurt took off running for the exit without further prompting. Yona lunged for me, which I could still just barely register with my failing senses. But Gavrin held her at bay, for the purple miasma was only spreading. He dragged her out through the exit as dust and tomb-mold were kicked up by the collapsing chamber.
What happened next? Well, I died, my dear. Years before you were born, my mortal form breathed its last.
But the beating heart of that she-lich was not done with me yet. It had designs for this new intruder with superior weaponry.
The barrow¡¯s halls and central chamber collapsed. Yet, in some small hidden divot beneath the throne, the lich¡¯s will still reigned¡
Chapter Two: If I Only Had a Heart
I died, certainly. And yet, that was not the end.
Silence filled the collapsed tomb when I next gained ¡®consciousness.¡¯ The only pathway out had collapsed. A narrow vertical shaft dead center in the chamber had also collapsed. That would cause problems with the air supply eventually, though just as I thought this I noticed a lightness in my chest.
There was nothing there. I looked down to discover a wound in my chest, all blood having long-since flown out or coagulated. A trail of dried blood led over to, then underneath, the throne. The throne itself jutted out and aside, revealing a small crawlspace.
I pulled myself over with my arms, noting a rather numb feeling and no sense of fatigue in my muscles. With no clue how much time had passed, I was trying to use my dying breath to ensure my friends and allies made it out of the barrow.
Within the crawlspace, there were two still-beating hearts, as well as the remains of the she-lich rapidly crumbling to dust. She¡¯d taken the liberty of removing my heart from my body and using it to replace her own within an elaborate magical interface. She held her own heart ¨C smaller and with a grey coloring to it, in her remaining hand.
Though the she-lich was mostly bone dust, an apparition of the lich as she once was presented itself in front of me. It was of an almost human woman with a thick and furrowed brow. We still had stories of these ¡®other¡¯ creatures, long since extinct, who had villages and communities in the valley before our forefathers had come in and bested them with stone tools.
¡°For untold centuries, I have ruled the crypt.¡± The lich spoke a barbarous tongue, but within my mind, it assembled itself into something legible. ¡°To provide a burial and testing grounds. But my people have not been seen in this land in ages. To be immortal is to become a relic. Your people, your tools, are far more advanced than those with which I first built this dungeon. Bond with the dungeon in my place. Expand it, dangle treasures in front of outsiders to lure in new meat. Rule in my place. Lord over this barrow through the ages, until those arrive with tools strong enough to best you.¡±
With that, the vision of the she-lich faded. I was left alone, watching my own heart beat lethargically at the center of this barrow. I could reasonably puzzle out that the buried chamber was impossibly, unsurvivably cold. But the cold didn¡¯t register for me anymore.
Long before I discovered the extent of my confinement to this place, I had to master the art of shaping the barrow.
With nothing but time on my hands, I spent untold days sitting on that throne. I found, through much trial and error, that I could shape the basic paths and chutes through the barrow in an act of pure concentration. I¡¯d been trying to think about how to escape ¨C before I realized the particulars of my predicament. I thought of trying to force my way through that narrow vent dead center above my new abode. The more I thought, the more the collapsed trestles and supports brought themselves back into serviceable order.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A faint breeze flowed through the chamber once more, not that I could feel its touch on my skin, nor had any need for fresh air any longer.
Once I realized that I could shape the air shaft via pure will, I got to work on clearing open a path through the barrow. This took days ¨C which I could now measure by the cycling of the faintest trickle of light through the air shaft.
I sat there, watching, as the barrow tunnels ever-so-slowly reassembled themselves. Tressels came back into place. Dirt physically scooped itself up and packed itself into the walls.
Perhaps with some manual labor, I could renovate the premises further. But the army of barrow wrights had disintegrated to dust, decay of ages catching up to them now that their mistress was gone.
A week passed, as judged by my limited timekeeping abilities. But through an act of pure concentration, I had bent the barrow¡¯s tunnels back into working order.
With the path clear, I took my first steps out of the central chamber in some time. I walked through the halls, which were now cleared free of much of the refuse and even traps that had plagued our path to confront the lich.
I walked through the winding halls ¨C I could straighten them with a few weeks more concentration, but this seemed a waste of effort at the moment. What I found was that my consciousness began to wane some three hundred paces away from the throne. Not even within view of the barrow entrance. I was tethered here. Permanently.
At the very edge of my limited range, I discovered that which I feared most. The collapsing barrow had tripped every trap in the tunnel. There, at the bottom of a spiked pit, were the corpses of Yona and Gavrin.
Scuffs on the pit¡¯s edge indicated where they¡¯d fallen, held on to the lip, tried to help themselves back up. Yurt couldn¡¯t have been too far ahead ¨C he must have abandoned them, even as they called for help. His own sister, left to fall into the spikes, buried with the dungeon. Buried with me.
No tears flowed from my dead, dried tear ducts. Indeed, there was some intellectual sense that I should be sad. Devastated, even. But my heart just wasn¡¯t in it. Take that literally; it was still back in the throne room. Every reaction was numb.
Months had passed since our confrontation with the barrow mistress and my allies¡¯ attempted escape. Their corpses were decayed. Had I not known what gear they were wearing, the club and knives down in the pit with them, I would¡¯ve had trouble recognizing them.
Instincts inherited from my predecessor urged me to act. I lifted my left hand. The air in the hallway grew still, then swirled with a faint breeze.
A greenish haze emanated from my hand. Lich magic. I found myself muttering in the old she-lich¡¯s tongue, and the haze surrounded Yona and Gavrin¡¯s corpses.
Two dissected dungeon victims rose out of the pit and were placed daintily back on their feet. The corpses stood, hunched over.
I looked into Yona¡¯s eyes. There was nothing left.
There would be no spirited conversation with these new wrights. No reminiscing about old times. Reanimation was not resurrection. Indeed, my first two barrow wrights were mere extensions of my will. As I could alter and repair the dungeon, so too could I order them to patrol areas of the dungeon where I could not tread, or to hold down a hall or chamber while I was busy back in the throne room.
Perhaps there was some solace to be had in the fact that their bodies were not forgotten down in that pit. My predecessor¡¯s wrights were gone ¨C all disintegrated into bone dust that still caked the floors. These shades of my former friends were the only minions I would have, for the moment.
Mentally, I ordered the pit to close itself off. It would happen glacially. Renovation would be required to bring this paltry barrow into ship-shape. That would require practice.
And so, I returned to the central chamber, two new bodyguards in tow, ready to while away the days learning just how much control I had over my tomb, abode, and home.
Chapter Three: First Tentative Steps
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 ¨C the stone carvers¡¯ warnings, some remaining supplies we¡¯d left outside ¨C 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¡
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 ¨C 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 ¨C 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.
Of course, there were no treasures here. Not yet.
A deer walked into the barrow and fell victim to a pitfall. I reanimated it ¨C 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 ¨C Yona and Gavrin included ¨C 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.
Chapter 4: Spat With the Old Clan
My old clan arrived and made camp well outside the barrow entrance. They came bearing a new banner of a fallen star emblazoned on a cowhide. Funny, we hadn¡¯t used symbols like that back in the day. Didn¡¯t use symbols at all. How much time had passed?
At any rate, these distant relations arrived alongside another two camps. They were stone carvers, our old nemeses. The groups arrived early in the morning when my growing horde could not step into the sun. The timing was impeccable, and they spent the rest of a long summer day constructing a semi-circular barrier of stones around the barrow entrance.
They were boxing me in. Creating a seal over the barrow. I would remain, safe and ''alive'' in my subterranean lair, but none would enter the barrow, even by mistake.
It appeared those two treasure hunters I spared to tell the tale had spread the word of my haunted dungeon a bit too far and wide. Now everyone in the valley had marshalled to seal off the forbidden dungeon.
I had a wight who still had his eyes mostly intact venture to the edge of the barrow entrance, lurking in the shadows. He peered out, and I observed through his sight. It was a little trick I¡¯d happened upon, a way the old she-lich had spied upon my party as we¡¯d ventured through her lair.
The people of Starfall ¨C as I would later learn our now-permanent settlement was called, were calling the shots. Stone carvers provided their expertly chiseled stone blocks to the endeavor, while members of my old clan performed more of an overseer¡¯s role. Ah, so the union was not entirely willing on the stone carver¡¯s parts.
Work on the scale required to build a sealing wall around the barrow entrance would take days of effort. Light would prevent us from interfering with the construction, but my minions could always venture out at night. To resolve this, the crews worked in shifts, with many workers operating by torchlight, under armed guard, through the night.
While I was not out to slay and claim souls for the sake of it yet, I wasn¡¯t about to let the barrow be sealed entirely for the outside world. My heart (what was left of it) held up hope that one day I could escape from here. But to do that, I would need to prevent this wall from sealing us all in.
At night we ¨C well, I ¨C made my move.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The repurposed deer slunk out to the entry hall of the barrow. Its bleating sounded alarmingly alien even when it was alive. With months of decay, they sounded like a particularly anguished cry for help.
It cried out into the night. Its bleating was arresting, even to my cold, dead heart. The length of the tunnel caused it to echo, distorted the cry.
Sure enough, one of the many guards, torchlight in hand, came to investigate. He approached cautiously, too cautious to venture past the third tressel holding the ceiling up.
I had accounted for this. Two of the more recently acquired wights slunk out of divots in the ceiling at this too-curious onlooker¡¯s back.
There was a scuffle, unheard by the other guards. Then, some minutes later, another call for help echoed out of the barrow. This one proved strangely familiar to the guards, two of whom entered the barrow never to return.
With half the night shift guards dealt with, my wights grew bolder. They ventured out of the tunnel and skulked around the partially constructed barrier. Our converted guards went first, as they could pass as still among the living. Slowly, stealthily, I guided them to slay the remaining guards.
With the Starfall guards slain by their own reanimated comrades, the remainder of my paltry horde emerged from the barrow. They could range where I could not. With four hours until sunrise, they set upon the workers at their night shift. Then, joined by the full force of guards and as many night workers as were in range to reanimate, they set upon the camp of workers still asleep in their tents and cots.
It was a bloody massacre with no survivors. When it was over, I ordered my minions to haul each body into the barrow and swiftly went about reanimating. It would take all day to convert our haul, but I had nothing but time.
Overseers from the old village returned shortly after sunrise. What they found was a ruined camp, a half-finished barrier wall, and no bodies at all. It was as if their entire workforce had disappeared in the night. A prairie breeze whistled through the barrow, inviting them to investigate.
Though heavily armed, none of the overseers dared enter the burrow to investigate. None even ventured past the broken wall. Cowardly of them, but definitely wise.
Meanwhile, my fledgling army of barrow wights had increased fourfold that day!
I threw a mock celebration, though my charges were hardly the life of any party. Poor Yona¡¯s right arm had fallen off the week prior from natural decay. And Gavrin¡¯s jaw went missing somewhere in the bedlam. I couldn¡¯t possibly risk sending a wight out to go search for it in the light of day. It would be a futile search, and what was left of Gavrin didn¡¯t mind.
The barrow received a new, fell reputation among the living that day. It also gained some additional ambiance. A veritable front patio, with a shaded entrance and a half-finished semicircular wall. And I gained a newfound horde, alongside some inspiration to continue expanding my domain.
Chapter Five: Dungeon Renovation
Untold years passed. The barrow was rarely visited, just a forlorn and forbidden ruin out on the steppe. No large hunting party or migratory convoy ever dared to pass within eyeshot of the cavernous entrance.
The partially-completed wall barrier around the entranceway did have the desired effect of causing the barrow to stand out along the plains. This served my intended purpose of luring in the occasional treasure seeker. This place had partially toppled-over ruins out front! Surely it was the barrow of a great king. Caught a handful of fools per decade in that fashion.
One day, a merchant with a pack of goods-laden donkeys camped out behind the half-finished wall, seeking to use the barrow entrance as a shelter against the rain. Once he and the donkeys were converted, I had the goods dumped into the throne room for examination.
There were ceramic vases and golden trinkets, unlike anything seen in the valley before. Coins gleamed in the narrow shaft of light allowed into my lair.
¡°I can use this,¡± I said to no one in particular.
The only response was a drip of water off some stalactite deep in the barrows.
Under cover of night, I had some wights stick coins strategically along the edge of the wall. A trail led to the burrow¡¯s edge, while vases and gold trinkets hung further in, within view of the entrance.
These paltry golden coins gleamed, visible from far away on the open plains. And once they¡¯d lured in the curious, the trinkets within the barrow tunnels would lead them further into a gauntlet of traps and undead horrors. Sure enough, my visitors increased from a handful of victims per month to at least one new soul every month at a minimum.
It was a perfect system. Even if treasure seekers stole the coins from up front and managed to sneak past pit traps and tripwires to steal some of the initial trinkets, they seldom came equipped with numbers or weaponry enough to put up a fight. Once they walked among my undead legion, I simply had them go return the bait to their position near the entrance.
For ages, this continued. The people who fell into my trap began to change, their attire increasingly appearing as bearskin furs and pointed ornate hats. They came bearing more coins and horse-drawn carts filled with other goods that helped to flesh out the lair with tempting treasures.
I used this time to perfect my trap skills, developing new forms of deadly ambush that even my predecessor had not conceived of. I sat upon my throne, tracking a group of three as they wandered through my maze.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Just after the barrow-tunnels turned away from the entrance, the path became littered with dozens of dead ends and divots off the main path. Treasure chests I¡¯d appropriated from that merchant waited in the first few dead ends. The lesson was clear: take your time, clear out each fork in the path. Keep trying to push through these traps, they will lead to greater and greater rewards.
The trio of hunters were well armed, moreso than the average hapless sap. They¡¯d cut clear through poor decaying Gavrin and two other wights from that now-decades rotten work crew like they were nothing. Now, though, the trio peered into a wooden chest as they picked the lock and cracked it open. There was a faint gleam of gold off their torchlight, then¡
A great green miasma filled the tunnel, covering everything from the chest well into the main hall. There was no escape. A trio of figures writhed about in the thick cloud of gaseous death, falling over and hitting the wall in their futile attempt to flee.
Poison made the corpses stiff with rigor mortis and saggy with toxic gas. But I would take no chances, certainly not with a new type of weapon cutting through my horde. If some organized force was dedicated to clearing out the barrow, I feared I was still not powerful enough to hold out.
Within five hours, three poison-laden wights limped into the throne room. Their leg muscles were permanently stiff. They¡¯d work as fair guards for my central chamber, even if they weren¡¯t going to be chasing down any fleeing intruders.
The ¡®lead¡¯ treasure hunter ¨C the one who¡¯d cracked open my booby-trapped chest ¨C presented his weapon. It was a scabbard, and within it was a finely tuned blade. It was made of a metal far stronger than anything I¡¯d seen in my prior life. I would, much later, learn that this was called steel. But it had cut through Gavrin with one swift stroke. And their armor ¨C I feared the paltry iron daggers and blades of my own wight army would¡¯ve had no chance of even piercing it. Had it not been circumvented with poison, this trio may well have challenged me here in the barrow hall.
I grimaced, noting that my gums had worn away slightly, leaving my teeth in a permanent grin. One of these swords would rest with me. Another, with one of the more mobile guards. And a third would stay with the first major vanguard of wights once the traps were circumvented.
More devious traps, and a more elaborate layout, would be required to keep up with the times.
I concentrated on sinking the throne room hall. The walls began to shift as the hallway towards the entrance appeared to rise into the ceiling from my point of view.
With a groan, the hall settled. Just like that, the dungeon had a second floor. An entire other floor between me and any unwelcome guests.
Still, it would not be enough.
The next victim came from Starfall again. He felled three wights before failing to check for tripwires. Another costly victory.
I called his wight down for inspection ¨C ever on the lookout for better gear to take for myself or better distribute amidst the wights. He was wearing that Starfall crest on his armor, as well as an axe made of steel.
This was not the style, aesthetics, or even metallurgy of the village I¡¯d departed.
I just sensed a galloping of a pair of horses fleeing from the front wall. With this would-be hero now among my undead legion, it appeared there was someone else who¡¯d fled from the edge of my domain once it was clear the dungeon crawler wasn¡¯t coming back.
Eh, no matter. I would have to redouble my efforts to keep up with this new weaponry. And for every curious onlooker who came here alone, I gradually grew my armory of steel weaponry and gear to keep up with the outside world.
Until, one day¡
Chapter 6: Dark Forsaken Ritual
The outside world was indeed changing. Merchants and Travelers now crossed the plains in great convoys. The odd curious onlooker still fell into my traps, lured in by scattered gold. But these were the exception to the rule, and these long convoys of traders came equipped to shelter against storms. My wight army was not being replaced faster than the oldest models could decay.
I kept what was left of Yona in the throne room. This old friend was all-skeleton now, with only the faintest bits of identifiable fleshy bits left. When her spine gave out, I knew exactly the maximum limits of how long a wight was expected to last. Simply put, my undead legion had an expiration date.
Everything felt suddenly vulnerable for the first time in untold years. I sat back upon my throne and began the slow process of sinking the throne room down one more level. One more layer between me and the surface.
It was during this excavation that the sinking throne room revealed a small side chamber already carved into the mound. It was a laboratory filled with rudimentary alchemical materials.
My predecessor had spent her ample free time attempting to perfect the art of necromancy. Wights had proven inefficient for her as well. And so she set her sites on something different.
Compelling the minds of the still-living to do her bidding had been considered. It proved even more inefficient. The compelled had the same limitations with motor control and critical thinking as the undead.
So, having reached the limits of reanimation and finding a dead end with bewitching those that yet live, the she-lich had moved on to magic even more eldritch and heretical. I found a ¡®journal¡¯ ¨C a series of paintings and symbols against the wall, for the she-lich had no written language ¨C that took a year or two to decode.
The former occupant of the barrow had belonged to a clan or tribe that predated even the decadent stone cutters. She¡¯d pulled out every form of magic and ritual her people had known in order to attempt to produce the ultimate in allegiance-swaying corruption. The technique had been developed slowly over thousands of years - far longer than I had served as the dungeon¡¯s master. The old lich¡¯s secret weapon had almost been ready. It was just missing some ingredients. Ingredients ¨C rare in the valley ¨C that were not readily available in the coffers of various reanimated merchants I¡¯d repurposed over the years.
She¡¯d been hoping to test out this new soul-thralling technique against my own party, way back when. Well, suddenly I was glad that we¡¯d killed her when we did. Even if I suffered under this loathesome fate, it was surely better to rule as a lich than fall victim to what I was now prepared to unleash.
Now it was time to watch and wait¡
The next group to approach my barrow had come for war. A team of ten, larger than any dungeon raiders I¡¯d yet encountered, came with their steel weapons and heavy plate mail. A war cheiftainess led them in a tight helmet that covered her eyes. She held a two-handed axe, and on her breastplate was a symbol of that falling star once again.
She didn¡¯t look like a member of my old clan.
I would learn through hours of interrogation that Starfall had been conquered by steelworkers. While before the village ruled undisputed over the valley, it was now a vassal of powers from far beyond the mountains. I would never see this far-off land, bound to the dungeon such that I was. Still, it was important to know that the new management did not necessarily know the legends or origins of this domain.
This war chieftainess marched her horses directly to the old, weathered ruins in front of my barrow. The group of ten entered, weapons drawn.
They walked methodically, disarming tripwires as they went. They threw stones in front of their path to trigger some pitfall traps. I sent forth my first group of wights against them as a probing maneuver. They hacked them down without hesitation ¨C the chieftainess personally dispatched ten wights by her own hand.
I grimaced from my throne. This would be a costly battle of endurance, even if I managed to fell and reanimate the full group of ten.
One member of the party did fail to notice a tripwire. Poison darts broke through weak points in his mighty armor. Rather than retreat to heal their poisoned brethren, the war chieftainess ordered the man¡¯s body be dismembered before he was even dead. They chopped him up with their axes. Prevented me from raising him again.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
This group knew what they were doing. Perhaps my reputation preceded me. I still had two floors of devious traps between me and them. And if they breached the throne room, there was always that secret weapon¡
The remaining group of nine forwent all treasure chests. Nobody who¡¯d made it to a chest had ever made it out of the barrow alive. There was no way they could¡¯ve heard the tale of booby trapped chests. Perhaps they were professional dungeon raiders?
Nevertheless, I held my forces back. Better to have them fall upon the group all at once near the throne room than to squander the horde fighting such a well-prepared party in groups of a dozen.
No further casualties were encountered on floor two or three. One hapless rookie nearly fell down a pitfall near the stairs down to floor three. The chieftainess berated him deeply, but on they continued ¨C with the clumsy member taking point.
I put my desiccated knuckles up against my bony chin. Best to look brooding when the party arrived. I had guards in the wings, and a full horde crawling around in the walls and ceiling ready to pop out as soon as they approached.
Now, sinking the throne room down two stories resulted in a great deal of wide open space dead center in the barrow. The first floor I filled in with tunnels same as everywhere else. On the second floor, I kept a wide-open sub-tomb of sorts, with divots and columns the wights could control.
I also found, again through my predecessor¡¯s notes and lab, that I could manifest myself on the floor above me, in an area corresponding directly above the throne. It was translucent and ephemeral, but it allowed me to introduce myself, should the occasion call for it.
The war chieftainess arrived in the veranda with a mighty shout.
¡°Die, foul beast!¡± she cried. ¡°You are slain by the hand of Helgetha of Fireforge!¡±
The warrioress swung her axe at my shade before I could even say a word of greeting. How rude!
Her axe hit nothing but air, leaving the mighty axewoman confused. The party had never seen a manifestation before. The idea that you could see some projection that was not truly there was still alien to them.
This reaction was exactly what I was planning for.
Dispensing with all pleasantries, I held out my bony hands. Fell magic from a previous age gathered, hungry, homing in on life.
Shadows rushed at my would-be attacker from every tomb and around every column. She swung again, but shadows proved as furtive as my shade.
The proud warrior was ensconced in a web of living shadow. A shout was muffled as the cocoon solidified around her.
The other eight fighters were shouting and rushing at me and trying to cut the webbing free. With a snap of my fingers, the chrysalis was sent chugging at top speeds down to the depths of the third floor, twisting and turning around every corner until it arrived at the throne room.
Living shadow waited before my throne, spanning between the floor and ceiling. A pulsating chrysalis, waiting for transformation. The shell shuddered, some resistance still present in its host.
Quickly, I manifested on the second floor once more.
¡°Come rescue your war chief, if you dare!¡± I bellowed, decaying vocal chords causing my taunt to come off hoarse and shrill.
Overwrought, perhaps. I was already bored after a century or two down here. What can I say?
I disipated the manifestation. They would storm through my maze to rescue Helgatha. Or they would flee with their commander claimed, leaving her to her fate. Either way, I had already won.
The party lost three more members in their mad rush to the throne room. Two to poison traps and one to a pit. I threw up a great deal of poison on the third floor. Better to wick away health and vitality from anyone who made it that far. Not enough time to resurrect them with the party knocking at my throne room, but it would help recoup my losses elsewhere.
Still, they¡¯d cut their way through my wight garrison well enough. I held most of them back for this one final battle.
¡°Face me if you dare,¡± I said, still hamming it up.
The chrysalis remained beside my throne. The party moved ¨C half of them to intercept me, half to try and reach the cocoon. They were met by an army of wights rising from out of the floor. Most were no more than skeletons. But I prioritized the best weapons and armor for this last line of defense.
Battle ensued. I sat upon my throne, watching proceedings.
A member of the living rushed at me, knives drawn. A group of six wights blocked him, their own knives stabbing and hacking at weak points in his vastly superior armor. Another six ran up from the back and soon this living warrior was well on his way to being otherwise.
The second in command of this group barked orders in some foreign tongue. He ordered the party to focus on the cocoon where their commander yet slumbered.
I held my hand aloft and made a slicing motion. A paltry few archers had braved the barrow at some point. A few with a stealthy approach made it a fair way into the dungeon before inevitably succumbing to wight-based disembowelment. Their remains now served me, and one sent an arrow through the eye of the living¡¯s second in command.
One more particularly brave fighter bum-rushed me. I drew my axe and, with my first proper blow in some centuries, I embedded it deep into his skull.
Two remaining warriors ¨C weaker and among the novices in the group ¨C turned to flee. I felt that familiar hunger manifesting in my hand. The magic was ravenously hungry for more victims; it had a mind of its own!. No sooner did I raise it towards the entrance than were this pair consumed by the shadows as well. They were rolled up into two more bulbous cocoons on either end of the doorway.
These new cocoons shuddered once¡ then twice¡ then sagged as they went deathly still.
I held my decayed hand up to the first, largest cocoon. It shuddered again, weaker this time. There was fight in there yet still. But like all things, the chrysalis soon went quiet.
Five viable wights. They¡¯d killed at least twenty on the way in, but these were fresh and with superior armor. And then three more of their number were¡ taken. If the old lich¡¯s experiments bore out, these cocoons could become something far more valuable than a reanimated puppet corpse.
It was only a matter of time before the experiment, at long last, neared completion.