The Lich's Master

Prologue

“You filthy imposter!” The Knight shouted, pointing at the young man with his sword. “I will cut you down here and now!” 

The person being shouted at sighed and rolled his golden eyes. “You’re taking the roleplay too far.” He unsheathed his sword as the fully armoured Knight dashed at him. “And you’re running right into the…” His soft voice faded as the Knight stepped on the painfully obvious pitfall trap on the ground.

His shout echoed and then was abruptly cut short as his body hit the pikes below.

‘Player killed’ A blue interface panel popped up. The young man swiped the panel away before more text could appear. “Yeah, yeah…” He mumbled as the corpse below emitted some particles, then disappeared. “How stupid can you be?” He ran his hand through his hair.

He glanced around as the chilly wind pulled at his clothes. “That was today’s raiding party, I guess.”

He rearmed the trap, then slowly headed up the mountain path. He couldn’t wait to see who would be dumb enough to kill themselves on such obvious traps tomorrow. Seriously, who would step on a massive leaf in the middle of a dirt and cobble path? Especially when said leaf belonged to a tree from another region?

He shook his head, giving up whatever hope he had. It hadn’t taken him too much time to realise that most players were idiots. He had, however, underestimated their idiocy.

As he arrived at the small house at a midway point to the summit, he breathed a sigh of boredom. He took in the view of the fields stretching all the way to the far away city, then shook his head.

Exactly one month had passed since he’d gotten stuck in this game. He remembered that day clearly still – a sharp pain in his chest, a momentary lack of consciousness, and then nothing. Except for the disappeared log out button.

He had tried a lot of things – asking other players for help, trying to contact moderators… Everything he could think of, really. And all that effort had amounted to nothing. After about one week, he gave up – his life wasn’t fun or ‘good’ to begin with – he had accepted his fate and chosen to live in this game.

After buying this plot of land with what gold he had, he had built this small, cosy home here. All seemed to be going well – he was levelling up, discovering new places… It was fun. Until some idiot stumbled across his home and mistook it for a dungeon and him for a secret boss.

That was two weeks ago.

Which brought him to his current situation – players ‘raiding’ his base daily, only to die without even getting to see the house. Bored, he had played along for a while. It’s not like killing those people had any real consequence – their bodies would vanish, only for them to respawn back in the city.

He, on the other hand, didn’t know what would happen if he died. So far, he had avoided anything too dangerous, and he was planning to continue doing so until he had a better idea.

“This is dull,” He mumbled as he glanced at the far away city. “I should go do something fun tomorrow.”  He turned his back to the stunning view and entered the small, wooden house. It was mostly empty inside – a bed, a table with a chair and a stove with a couple of cupboards was all there was to it.

He didn’t need much anyways – he wasn’t planning to spend too much time in this place.

He laid down on the bed and summoned the System Interface.

‘Kyle – Lv. 15 Unclassed

INT 10 | WIS 10 | DEX 10 | STR 10 | CON 10’

He sighed. Level 15 was way too low considering everything. Though, it wasn’t really all that surprising. Last time he checked the leaderboard in the city, the most powerful player was at Level 25. Though, she was a professional esports player – it was her job to be the best.

Unlike her, Kyle’s main goal in playing was, up until a month ago, to escape the grim reality of life. Not in a thousand years would he imagine he’s escape permanently, with no way of going back. He chuckled, while he didn’t feel very lucky, he didn’t really mind. Life hadn’t dealt him the best hand, and, in all honesty, he had never valued his life too much to be too bothered to be stuck in this game.

At least here he could succeed in some things.

Five more levels and he could choose a class. Then, the real fun would begin. After choosing a class, the game opened up. The base building, recruiting and domain features would unlock.       

“Well then,” He mumbled as he closed the interface and sighed. “Good night, me.” He chuckled, the closed his eyes.

Tomorrow was going to be an eventful day.

…

And so, it was!

“Die, imposter!” Yesterday’s Knight once again stood before him as they faced off each other by the entrance of a rather remote cave. “There is no place for secret bosses on my watch!”

Kyle hesitated. “What?” He asked. “That’s not how either of those phrases work-“ He had to stop talking as the Knight charged at him. The young man ducked under the longsword swinging at his neck, then kicked the knight in the stomach.

A thud sounded as the Knight lost his balance and crumbled under his heavy plate armour. “Can you stop chasing me please?” Kyle asked, right before slitting the Knight’ throat with his shortsword. “Seriously, how many times have I killed this guy in this last week?”

Naturally, the disappearing body of the Knight didn’t respond. Kyle sighed and sheathed his shortsword. How many times had he killed this guy? Four? Five?

He shook his head and headed into the cave. This was the best place to grind levels for him. It wasn’t one of the popular spots, so he didn’t have to share the mobs with anyone, and he could get some ores, herbs, and gems while he was at it.

If he dared, he could even try to take on the boss at the deepest part of the cave. He wasn’t too keen on trying that since he didn’t have any skills yet, but depending on how lucky he felt, he did consider it.

Inside the cave was dark, damp and eerily quiet. Kyle didn’t mind it though – he was quite fine with the silence.

“Let’s see,” He mumbled as the first set of mobs came into view. They were, unsurprisingly, skeletons. Easy to deal with on their own, but quite formidable when in large groups. Or, well, they would have been if their pathing didn’t get constantly bugged.

Kyle took a deep breath as he approached the first one. Only once he was within a few meters of it did the skeleton start moving. It was slow, clumsy, and inaccurate. Holding a large, rusty battle axe, it slowly approached Kyle.

The young man held the hilt of his sword tightly. Two strikes should be enough for this, he thought as he stepped forward and swung his blade, aiming for its left wrist. The fragile bones of the skeleton’s arm cracked and shattered under the weight of his blade.

It’s rusty battle axe hit the ground with a clang as Kyle swung his blade again, hitting the skeleton’s neck and shattering it’s spine. The skeleton crumbled quickly, leaving him free to go and attack the next one. He tightened his grasp around the hilt of his simple blade and prepared to attack the next closest one.

By the time he was done with clearing the cave, several hours had passed. This place wasn’t meant to be soloed after all, and since he had no idea on what would happen if he died, he was playing on the safer side of things.

Now, all that remained was the boss room. The door was just ahead, at the end of the narrow tunnel. He opened his stats screen to take a look at how much he had levelled up.

‘Kyle – Lv. 17 Unclassed

INT 10 | WIS 10 | DEX 10 | STR 10 | CON 10’

He sighed. Just two levels for hours of work. It wasn’t really surprising, playing an MMO solo naturally had its caveats. And the slow progression was one of the more obvious ones.

His gaze lingered on the tunnel leading to the boss room. He knew enough about the boss to be more than a little hesitant on fighting it. It was a lich, had minions assist it during the fight and it was level 20. Long story short, Kyle was not taking it on just yet. He’d have to be about as dumb as that Knight to attempt that boss fight.

Kyle considered himself smarter than that heap of muscles, so he turned around and walked away.

“Die!” A shout startled him as soon as he left the cavern. The same Knight as before rushed out of the woods, blade in hand. His face was red with anger as he swung his blade towards Kyle. The young man turned back and rushed right back inside as soon as he realised the danger he was in.

Nope, he was not going to die just yet! Especially not to the hulking mass of muscles chasing him in his heavy plate armour. How he ran so fast despite all the weight he carried was beyond Kyle, but at least he couldn’t turn the corners quite fast enough, allowing the young man to put some distance between them.

Now, that was all and good, but this dungeon had only a single entrance, and no forking paths, or loops. Which meant that the only way Kyle could run to was forward: To the boss room.

“So, uh.” He shouted. “Any chance of putting that sword down?” He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. The Knight’s response was a very loud and disturbing ‘GAAAAAAAAH’.

“I’ll take that as a no.” He muttered, deciding this person either had to be mentally struggling, very heavily leaning into roleplay, or a five year old who didn’t quite understand how communication worked yet.

His mad dash away from the Knight brought him to the tunnel leading to the boss room.

The Knight did not take long to catch up. He promptly ignored, or straight up failed to notice the boss room door, and just charged at Kyle.

The young man raised his blade to stop the madman’s strike.

“DIE!” The Knight shouted in his face as their weapons met. He raised his leg and kicked Kyle in the stomach, sending him flying.

Yep, Kyle thought to himself as he crashed into the door and shot right through it. Definitely a high level player. 20, maybe even 21. He had his class skills already, and his boosted strength was proof enough.

He hit the floor, rolled a couple of times, and then finally regained enough control of his body to try and get up on his knees.

“YOU DARE ENTER THE TOMB OF ME, THE GREAT LICH CACOPHUS?” A voice echoed as Kyle pushed himself up to his hands and knees.

“DIE!” Another voice joined the fray as the not so brilliant knight dashed inside, and promptly crashed into a skeleton that the lich Cacophus had just begun to summon. “What is this?” The Knight shouted after tumbling into the ground and crushing the skeleton with his own weight. “You dare summon vile skeletons to stop me?” His glare was terrifying, but for all the wrong reasons.

Kyle sighed and pointed at the throne made of bones behind him. “Are you so stupid that you don’t see the lich standing on a throne made of human bones?” He asked with an almost desperate voice. “Really? Like, seriously?”