Chapter 70 - [Bonus ] The Haunted Mansion (2/2)

"Don't you dare touch me with those grubby hands of yours!" Professor Kal yelled out as he took a step back, not in fear of the undead monsters encroaching his personal space, but out of anger.

He was very particular when it came to his possessions and his personal space, had had been alone for multiple centuries, only his summons kept him company deep inside his underground lair. To have someone, let alone dungeon monsters, dare to touch his body irked him to no end.

He lashed out with his gnarled staff, aiming for the monster closest to him. The head of the staff phased through the undead spirit, unable to damage its corporeal form. The ghost took another step forward, the others mimicking its movements. Abandoning physical attacks, Professor Kal waved his hand, manifesting a wall of hungry flames that engulfed the area around him. Before the outcome of his attack could be determined, he used a short distance warp spell to bend space, allowing him to appear on the other side of the room directly next to Trist.

"I think it's time for a tactical retreat, don't you agree?" He said as he reached out to the dog, ensuring that she would be within the sphere of influence of his teleportation spell.

Much to his dismay, as he cast the spell, he could feel a great deal of resistance. The short-range warp spell worked just as advertised, but his Warp Gate failed to activate. He knew that being inside the dungeon would restrict dimensional magic, as he had learned from the first dungeon he and Ryan had entered. In that instance, although it took a monumental amount of mana, in the end he was still able to successfully cast it. Something was different this time around, maybe it was the depth they were at, or something about the room itself, he didn't know.

Even after pouring many times the mana into the spell than he had in the first dungeon, his spell still refused to cooperate. He was forced to use another short-range warp spell, bringing Trist along with him as the specters had begun to close in on him once again. He had no idea what affects, if any, their touch would have, and he wasn't very eager to find out either. As his mind whirred, seeking out a solution to his predicament, another, much stronger itch assaulted his mind.

There was some mysterious force at work within the room, something capable of strong psychic attacks capable of even affecting his mind. The more he observed, the more he came to understand that he wasn't completely immune from whatever was taking place inside the room. The specters shambling towards him were at least partial illusions, this fact alone told him that he was being affected.

He knew this from the spell that he had used before, Nullification, it was the basic spell that radiated the neon green light. It worked by overloading any spells, such as illusions, with the user's own mana and short circuiting them. It had worked just fine up until the point it touched the black, shimmering chandelier hanging in the middle of the dance hall.

Putting two and two together, Professor Kal conjured a six-foot-long spear of ice. Gripping it tightly in his dominate hand, he reared back and threw the frozen projectile at the chandelier. He was definitely not the most physically adept existence on the planet, still, his undead body that was boosted by mana, could still outperform most.

The spear rocketed toward its target in a straight line, spinning rapidly like a drill. The roomful of illusionary spirits ignored the projectile as it sailed overhead, they never ceased their slow and steady march. Striking true, the spear shattered against the murky crystal, and much to his consternation, caused no damage. What's more, the remnants of the spear never made it to the ground.

Like a ravenous black hole, the chandelier pulled in the mana formed spear, taking on a blue tinge for itself. The atmosphere inside the room dropped suddenly, ice crystals began to form on the walls as the precipitation in the air froze and fell to the floor as a light snow. Professor Kal wasn't affected in the sudden frigid temperatures in any way, but the implications of the phenomenon were concerning.

"Huh." Professor Kal said in bereft amusement as he looked out across the room.

The malignant illusions were almost upon him and Trist, and so far, he had yet to come up with a solution. He was trapped in the dance hall and could only teleport around, with Trist in tow, avoiding the now icy clutches of the ghosts. He'd deduced that the portentous chandelier worked to not only nullify magic but could also absorb it and use it as its own.

Thinking up a solution, Professor Kal shot a super-heated fireball at the chandelier, immediately followed by another large ice spear. His theory was quite sound, he was hoping to thermally shock whatever made up the black crystal. The glass greedily gulped down the almost white-hot ball of flame, making the room as hot as an over for a split second before the man length spear of ice slammed into it.

Professor Kal watched with anticipation as the chandelier visibly shook and swung side to side. Its hundreds of distinct pendeloques quivered and rattled in their gilded holders. The candles that had remained unlit since the end of the warped music suddenly erupted with the same white flame that he had sent toward it. Prisms hanging below the candles halted their trembling before beams of blue light fired out in every direction, freezing anything they touched.

Out of reflex, Professor Kal summoned a wall of bone in front of him and Trist, who had long been put into a coma by him to keep her from running around. The bone wall was made of hundreds of human and beast skeletons hobbled together, sealing up any openings between them. Absorbing the chilly rays of light, the bones froze over quickly before deep cracks began to form, forewarning of its imminent collapse.

"Give me a break!" Professor Kal groaned as he scooped up the large, comatose zombie dog before diving out of the way as the massive wall of bone crumpled and the rays of ice impacted the area behind it.

Relieved to see that the amount of mana the chandelier could use wasn't infinite, Professor Kal stood up as he brushed himself off. He noticed that his left leg had been frozen solid and as he put some weight on it, long cracks ran up and down his ice-covered bones. Cursing his rotten luck, he thawed out his limb before his natural regeneration took over and mended his wounds.

Injuries did not concern him in the slightest, no matter how grievous of a condition his body was in, he would never truly die. That was the greatest benefit of becoming a Lich, your soul would always survive. His body was merely a vessel that his soul was using to interact with the material world. Even if his body was broken down into a pile of ashes, as long as his phylactery remained, he could regenerate his body.

Currently, his phylactery was off wreaking havoc in another plane, siphoning off the infinite energy residing there. What he had done was not a new idea, several liches in the past had attempted the same as he had. Sending their phylacteries off to other planes in order to protect them from being destroyed. The problem was that once the gateway to the other plane was shut, it cut off all links between the two. Not being in contact with their phylactery severely weakened a lich, and if their body happened to be destroyed while being out of contact, their souls would be lost forever.

That was the entire purpose of a phylactery, it gave the lich a separate vessel to house their soul should their body be destroyed. It was also capable of rebuilding their bodies over a significant period of time. Should someone destroy the phylactery along with the liches body, then the lich would truly die. The same thing occurred if the liches body was cut off from their phylactery while its soul was inside of it. If the soul could not make it back to the phylactery, then it would simply dissipate into nothingness as it endlessly searched for it.

That's what made what Professor Kal had achieved so significant. He had been able to open up a corridor interlinking time, space, and dimensions, establishing an uninterruptible connection between his soul, body, and phylactery. Even though the dungeons seemed capable of interfering with his dimensional magic, he was relieved to discover that his connection with his phylactery had remained unaffected.

Teleporting once again, Professor Kal was forced to come up with another plan of attack. Magic, no matter how powerful, seemed to be useless against what he thought to be the center of his problems. In fact, it was capable of using his own mana against him, which as a mage, was an enormous issue.

For some reason, the spirits seemed unable to move any faster than a crisp walk, granting him more than enough time to test out another theory. Reciting a short chant, a summoning circle appeared on the ground, interlocking circles of tightly packed runes rotated within the dimly glowing construct. With a burst of light, a hulking figure crouched in the center of the fading summoning circle stood to its full height, its twisted horns nearly scraping the paint off the ceiling.

Thorny scales, muddy brown in color and the size of a man's palm, protected the entirety of the summon's body. Muscular legs the size of building columns supported its twelve-foot-tall frame. Its tail was just as long as it was tall and ended in a club of spikes made of bone. Thick claws tipped its three fingers that nearly drug on the ground due to its abnormally long arms. High pitched clicking noises came from an inflated organ just below its lizard like jaw that protruded a mess of crooked teeth. It moved its head in jerking motions as it continued to issue the clicking noises, its small, clouded eyes useless to it as it scanned the room with sound alone.

Pleased to see his fighter had arrived without any issues, Professor Kal issued his command. "Rip that fucking thing out of the ceiling!"