A Lich's Guide to Dungeon Mastery

Days. It had taken days to figure out how to reliably transmute objects. Apparently I’m way too distractible for this sort of garbage.

It had taken another day to figure out what to use.

Eventually, though, I’d had a sort of realization when looking for metals to use in the design. I’d found aluminum, and realized that it actually had a greater tensile strength for its weight, and I could always just bind multiple copies of the gear together and have them build on each other.

In the end, I’d given up on the whole alloyed steel thing and just transmuted a ton of stone into aluminum.

Somewhere during the process, Azrael had come to check in on me, so I’d been able to show off my progress. It was at that point that we tested her strength, the effect of her new powers, and I’d gotten her measurements with my Encompassing Knowledge– with her permission, of course. I’m not a creep, no matter what my search history might imply.

Now it was time to actually form the armor. I’d gotten an idea of what the inside of the gear should look like to let her feel comfortable while still covering her entire body, as she’d allowed me to form gear directly around her and told me what to do to make it feel better.

It’s good that she trusts me so much.

Now that she was gone, though, I needed to take that huge chunk of aluminum and crunch it.

Honestly, it wasn’t all that hard. A bit of Mentum pressed into my influence and it was done.

I went over the shape for a bit, and confirmed that it was exactly what Azrael and I had agreed upon.

Then, I created a Seam bound to the space of the armor, and made another.

And another, and another.

Azzy was 5’4” and some change, and her weight was in the 120 pound range. With two Reinforcements, she was a lot stronger than a regular person. Back on Earth, steel plate armor was usually somewhere around 40 to 50 pounds. This would be closer to 20.

Azrael could lift over 200 lbs without all that much strain– a bit under 300 if she put some real effort in– and that was before her magic kicked in. With it, she could act like most of it didn’t even exist.

In fact, we’d measured, and it seemed that things weighed half of what they normally would, or at least she could lift twice as much. And that was only using a small amount of energy! Enough for her to sustain for days.

With those numbers, we could have her armor weigh something like 100 lbs before it started to affect her much.

Now, the reason that all of this mattered was that when I connected two things with my old Sympathetic Bonding, any forces that were applied to one object were spread to the others, and the effectiveness was based on proximity. That meant that the most effective way was to link them together via a portal, and the most efficiently I could do that was by overlaying them with a Seam.

The reason all of this mattered was that the armor was a static object, but I’d be linking a bunch of sets together and overlaying them. The linking wouldn’t increase the weight, but Azzy would have to carry the seams as well, thus increasing the weight of the gear.

Eventually, I overlapped five sets of armor, and sent a pulse of some power I’d gathered with Enegetic Intent– Protection Conceptium, specifically, targeted at the idea of Azrael– in the hopes that it would help out a little bit. I didn’t know if it would actually do anything, and couldn’t observe any changes, but I knew that it wanted to.

At the bare minimum, it might influence any magic that came into contact with her to help instead of hurt.

Next up was the inscriptions. Because I was working on an object that was already tough for its weight and was then five times as strong as it should be, the only reason it was possible for me to carve them all in one go like this was the power that my domain held over the objects.

The first enchantment I'd come up with was a simple force deflection inscription, using a simple Observe rune designed to detect objects moving at speeds that could harm Azrael. I left the exact interpretation of what could hurt her up to the runes, hoping they'd know what she could handle.

Said rune was connected via Process rune to a Defense rune that was given extra vague instructions to defend Azrael. The intent used had pretty much just been shown images of walls, shields, and counterprojectiles, then allowed to disperse a bit in a controlled environment. Hopefully, that would be enough to allow it to be at least a little creative in how it tackled the problems thrown at it. Azrael’s new Absiete should help in that regard.

A few References to those inscriptions were layered across her different armor pieces, making sure that she'd be protected from just about anything that came her way.

I also set up some similarly formatted Ordinance enchantments to increase the durability of her armor while she wore it and make it slowly repair itself when damaged. That second one had been extra tricky, since it wasn't something fully natural but instead required me to tell it to gather anything– even particles– that broke or scraped off, and then smooth those bits back into the normal shape of the armor.

It still might need my attention at times, but it should be much more corrosion-resistant and last longer in a fight.

It was at this point in the work that I realized that I'd made a stupid mistake.

None of the ritual or enchantment inscriptions I'd made so far had a passive power source.

A brief review of my memories was enough to show me what to do. I needed a source of crystalized energy, specifically of the type that I was trying to use in the rune circuit.

Now, there were a few ways to get crystalized energy. First, it could be found in areas where there was a high density of power. Indeed, I did see a few Necrosis gems scattered about my influence. I’d previously neglected to inspect them, dismissing them simply as large concentrations of death, like where battles had been fought in the days of yore. I couldn’t very well check every single thing in my domain, else I would have to drop all other activities to intake all of the knowledge that entered my domain as the wisps floated away.

The next way was to manufacture them forcibly. You basically needed to find something that could contain the given energy type without destroying it and apply a ton of pressure for a long period of time. The process was meant to be long and tiring, sometimes taking entire days to form larger gems.

Luckily for me, I didn’t have to do it on my own.

Wisp labor is neat, isn’t it?

I created four Wisps with knowledge of basic energy manipulation to do all the heavy lifting for me, then gave them some pure Mentum to work with. They would draw some out and leave it there, then use more Mentum with the intent to crush the original amount into a crystal. The Mentum would be able to be converted into another type, as it was basically just the purest magical energy, with no direct purpose or means of its own other than to follow the will of the one controlling it. It couldn’t even interact with anything other than energy.

In any case, it was time for me to work on some more of the inscriptions. I wasn’t actually making them directly on the armor, but rather on plates of aluminum that I intended to hide away in seams attached to the armor. The actual runes on the armor were References to the plates, meaning that once I finished a plate it was much simpler to spread the enchantments across the entire piece.

The next few ideas I had needed some testing, so I spent some time working on them before installing them. By then, the first few pure Mentum runes were completed by my Wisps, and I directly converted the first by carefully packing in Forbodum. The next was inserted with Energized Intent centered on the defense of Azrael, and the other was given the same energy, except focused on destroying whatever it was aimed at.

Keeping the Mentum separate from the Conceptium inside the crystal was a little more difficult than actually forming the power, but it just took some concentration and then it was over.

The last of the first four gems was brought to Azrael, who then insisted I take a break and watch the setting sun with her. I conceded, then popped right back to my workshop with her crystal in hand a few minutes after it got dark.

The crystals were installed in strategic places across her armor, with the Absiete gems going on the inside of the chest and one of the Forbodum sources ending up at the waist, with the other being put in the armor’s helmet.

The next step hadn’t been directly explained in any of the books, so–

Red light spread out from the bloody gem, and the mage hardened his concentration, delving into the world of magic. A thread of his purest power extended from his fingertips, stroking the gem. The brief contact was enough to excite the wicked might, and his white Mentum carefully wrapped itself into careful spirals, linking it to his mad scrawlings on the wall.

The power was pulled through into the runes, and crimson sparks erupted from them. A mad laugh escaped him as the portal opened.

I sighed at the disturbing interruption and buzz in my mind, but shook it off and did my best to absorb the knowledge. Basically, I had to make a tube of Mentum connecting the inscriptions and the gems, and the runes would pull it in.

I carefully linked the attack-repelling inscriptions to the Absiete gems, and the armor-mending and durability enchantments to my Forbodum. Absiete, representing things that weren’t there and opposites, should be good at destroying attacks, whereas my own energy type was meant to be centered around two things: gathering knowledge and being a jack-of-all-trades. That should have made it better for that task than Absiete would have been.

A quick test– chucking a rock at the chestplate– showed that I’d been right, as the rock simply vanished into thin air.

Dropping the chestplate on the ground showed that the durability-enhancement was also active, as a lattice of purple energy spread across the affected area and stabilized it. Carefully inspecting the area that hit the ground with my domain, I found that small particles of aluminum were being dragged back into the gear. Even better, it seemed that the extra layers of armor inside the seams were also being affected by the restoration, as the loose particles contained within them were also being dragged back into place.

I spent a moment molding the pieces, making sure that the loose pieces were fully reconnected and that there were no blemishes or impurities.

The next step was to make sure that each piece of the armor could connect together. Currently, it was in a bunch of pieces, but I wanted to link them together, as if with magnets. Getting all the pieces to articulate had been difficult even with the references in the gear that had been left behind by the adventurers, but when I’d seen the way they connected it all I’d decided I could do better with runes. It was definitely functional, just not something I wanted to figure out, and I felt that Azrael would appreciate being able to get into and out of her armor without my direct intervention.

I started working on a prototype inscription… and then Azrael jumped through the floor.

“What’s up?” She met my confused eyes. “Oh, yeah, I can move through solid objects now. Takes more Absiete if it’s got more mass or is magical, but I can do it.”

I brought a gauntlet over to her and held it out. “Try it with this?”

Her hand went straight through the thing. She shrugged. “Yeah, it takes more than it looks like it should but it’s definitely doable. It’s one of my cheaper abilities. Anyways, how’s the gear going?”

I guess I could just merge everything with tough joints and then she could just walk through it when she was done? That was handy.

“Your timing is impeccable. I was just working on something that I’ve now realized I can just ignore. Anyways, the basic enchantments are done and I was about to work on some of the more complex stuff.” I explained the basic functions of her gear and some of the stuff I wanted. The laser beam eyes were rejected, sadly, but she was open to most of what I’d thought of adding.

“How are you even going to do all of that?” She asked quizzically. She’d never known much about runes or inscriptions. In her life, she’d been a village girl, and she could barely remember that time. After that, she was a guild grunt, and that position was like being a bottom-tier unskilled worker. Your bosses rarely told you anything, you just kinda did stuff.

“Well–” I pulled one of the aluminum plates towards myself by molding the stone beneath it– “This is an Ordinance rune. Their role is effectively to change the laws of reality within their area. They can drain a lot of power, though, so the goal for me is usually to affect a small area, and as little as possible.

“I also have what amounts to an attack rune and a defend rune, which can be edited to perform their functions in a different way. The more vague of an input I give them, the better they can carry out their role. On your armor, I gave the Defense runes pretty obscure instructions, so they should try to handle problems creatively and at lower costs. I also installed systems to help keep your armor intact for longer, so don’t worry about getting tossed around too much, at least in terms of the armor. It should be pretty tough, better than steel would be for the same weight.

“As for these extra utility bits, most should just be a matter of adding in some clever triggers paired with the right effect runes. I’ll figure it all out, don’t worry,” I explained.

We chatted for a while longer about more specific details and how her time alone had been spent. She’d managed to get the girls down below to accept her as their leader with less intimidation than either of us had been expecting, and everything– save for the dwindling food– was going smoothly.

She made me promise to fix the food crisis during my next break, and I agreed.

I should theoretically be able to get some normalish plant life to grow around my tower, if I controlled my influence well enough, put the right minerals in, and got some seeds over. I’d need to make sure to get some plants that weren’t carnivorous, though– they seemed to be in the majority around here.

In fact, I spent a moment right then cleaning up the surrounding area to make it more hospitable for plant growth. It wasn’t very difficult, though it was a little tedious, manually pulling the majority of the top-layer earthen minerals in my domain towards my tower and spreading them evenly across about a mile-radius of myself.

I’d still need to get some plants, and probably figure out a way to both make them edible and have them grow faster, but I was certain that some inscriptions could manage it.

Anyways, time for those extra bits.

The first thing I wanted to add was… double jump. Or more accurately, an air walk.

Basically, I wanted to make a way for her to form a platform of Forbodum beneath her feet, allowing her to walk or jump in mid-air.

Now, the first thing needed, as with other rituals, was a way to detect when it was needed. Obviously, I could just put it for when she was falling at a certain speed, but what if she wanted to fall? No, I needed something that she could use on command.

My plan for this enchantment– as well as many others– was to hook the input up to her hands, specifically her left gauntlet. Then, she could activate them on command with the right gesture, and it would be more difficult for her to accidentally trigger them than it otherwise might be.

The air walk runes themselves weren’t hard to work out: I used a simple Observe on her gauntlet, set to detect whenever she made the “hang loose” sign with her hand. I thought it was pretty funny. That was followed by a Process rune on her bracer, linking it to a Defense rune on the bottom of the boot.

I thought that a Defense rune might work to “protect her” from her own velocity, but I made sure to program it with a very specific image– a purple shield forming beneath the boot, and remaining locationally locked to the environment and not her foot. The inscription was finally linked up to the Forbodum energy cell in the armor’s waist, and it was complete.

Part of the issue with these specific runes is that because they’re so heavily based on their location– watch the hand, place a shield under the foot– I couldn’t just make a Reference, hide it in a seam, and call it a day. I had to lay them out individually. This method made them a bit more vulnerable to attack, as they took up more space and would be much easier to notice, but hopefully my self-repair function would work to combat that.

The next rune I was thinking of adding was basically just telekinesis. My idea for it was mostly based on my own ability to manipulate stuff within my influence, and the Ordinance rune I’d used on the palm was programmed to suffuse whatever it was pointed at with energy and lock it into the object, then manipulate said energy to keep it locked to the same relative position, dragging the object along with it.

The Observe rune was told to look for her to press her fingers together. There was also another Observe rune looking at the object she was aiming at. If she was making the “OK” symbol and was aiming at something that weighed less than a hundred pounds and was within a hundred feet, it would lock in. It also wouldn’t trigger if it was pointing at an object that was already being affected by the enchantment.

Hopefully, at least. I hadn’t tested any of this myself, so much of it was just guesswork.

I finalized the armor there. There was more I wanted to add, but I thought it best to have the current design tested first.

Next up, sword time.

For the creation of the sword, I basically just mimicked what I did for the armor, layering aluminum on top of itself multiple times and using bone for the handle.

I used the same enchantments to increase the blade’s durability and make it self-repair, putting the Forbodum gem in the blade’s pommel and an Absiete one in the crossguard.

As had been requested, the blade was pretty chonky by the end, looking something more like a longsword than anything else. The aluminum had made it weigh very little, but it ended up with more mass than it would have with steel anyways due to the way I’d put multiple swords in the same space.

Then came the fun bit.

I had two ideas for what to do for offensive enchantments. The first was pretty simple: I put an Observe rune together with a Process and Infliction rune. I could probably achieve the effect I wanted with an Ordinance rune, but using a more specialized rune was generally better in most situations. An Ordinance rune was fancy, and was the equivalent of running a game on Super-High Performance Mode when all it did was make your game lag more and look a little better. It could be really cool at times, sure, but it was inefficient as schnizz.

I could have most likely created platforms in the air for Azrael to walk on with Ordinances. Honestly, they might have even been better. They’d drain a ton of energy, though. No thank you.

In this case, I was using an Infliction rune to form a sheath of Absiete around the blade once it got moving at a high enough speed. All an Infliction rune really wanted to do was destroy stuff, and I gave it free reign to go crazy on anything in the path of the sword.

The next ritual enchantment used my own Forbodum energy. Once the sword was past a creature’s defenses and into the squishy bits, it would release a blast of the energy of Forbidden Knowledge. I gave this Infliction rune a very basic and simple command– disable the opponent. I figured that a stationary target wouldn’t be able to give Azrael much trouble, considering her magic and the other enchantment on the blade, so I felt it was appropriate.

Now, she wanted two swords, but I’m just gonna give her this one first to make sure she likes it. It would suck to have to make edits to two prototypes at the same time.

Hopefully she doesn't hate the gear.