The First Lich Lord

Chapter 78

By the time we made it back onto the street, the sky was beginning to lighten. As we walked towards Joness place, Maxwell looked over the treasure map and I glanced over the tracking map. The ritual wed done on it worked, and it showed us farther to the north than we actually were, but even as I watched I saw that the dot flickered occasionally. Once I thought I even saw a whisper of it appear inside Maltis.

I put the map away. Something wasnt right, after only one day it was starting to glitch. We would need to do the ritual again.

This treasure appears to be kind of on the course were taking, Maxwell said excitedly. We should try and stop and get it on our way past. With nearly five and a half cubic meters of storage in that bag, we could haul away a huge treasure without needing any kind of support.

We shall see, I agreed.

The gleam in his eyes at the idea of treasure was something I understood. And when I looked down at Raven, she held the same hunger. Treasure drew the adventurous no matter what. My thoughts trailed back to the warehouse and what we fought there. Those were what true monsters were. Maybe Talkaks analogy was right that I was the snake to hunt out the vermin.

When we made it to the inn, Jones waved us into the back and we gave him a report of what we found. If thats the entrance into Tehomal, we need to get a guard on it.

Hold on that for now. I explained the creature I left behind. At this point you know what I am, or you have your guesses. Im hoping that my pursuers will be distracted by such a powerful death creature below the city on their way through, thinking its me. Wait till they deal with it.

The families wont be happy about that, Jones said. The church will know about that entrance, and they will have a hard time accessing it.

Honestly they should probably just seal it off, Maxwell said. Nothing good ever comes out of that place.

I hear you, Jones agreed. But there are some valuable materials that can only be found there, so no one will willingly give up easy access. In fact, depending on who ends up controlling it, I could see quite the fortress being built where that warehouse is.

I agreed with the point, knowing the power of the creature I left behind. Even if the crime families tried to take control, it was likely they would fail at first and the creature would still be there when the priests came looking. It would take a concerted effort on anyones part to kill it, especially if it had time to establish itself.

I went up to my room and spent the rest of the daylight hours meditating. Id used a lot of mana and energy through the course of the night. Maxwell chatted with Jones, and Raven joined me. I later found out Maxwell spent time doing some shopping, having told Jones we found a minor storage item, so the pile of goods he was collecting would go into it.

In the room I took the time to examine the items I looted, having just tossed them into a cloth bag. I wanted to make sure I got whatever protection barrier theyd had, if in fact it wasnt a spell they cast.

Studying each item carefully, I pulled up descriptions one after another. There were multiple duplicates of some of the rings, even though they looked different.

Ring of Vitality

Increases the vitality of the wearer by twenty points.

There were two of these rings. I sighed, tossing them aside. I didnt even have to test to see if they would work with me, I didnt have a vitality score. Maxwell or Raven would like them.

Ring of Intelligence

Increases the intelligence of the wearer by twenty points.

These ones I equippedintelligence was always useful. Except nothing happened. When I looked down, all I saw was my bony fingers and the loosely fitting rings hung there, jingling every time I moved my hand. That was a problem I hadnt expected. I didnt know if the reason why the rings were having no effect was that they werent really being worn correctly by me, or if it was some other reason.

I had no idea what to do. Normally size adjustments for magical items could be made by enchanters, and really good items would adjust themselves. From my understanding, that seemed like a waste of enchantment space on the item. And I couldnt very well go into an enchantment shop and asked them to adjust a ring down to skeletal finger size. I wished I knew more about enchantments. Setting them aside with the hope that maybe I could ask Damien about them in my Mindscape, the next four rings all but guaranteed I would be making that trip.

Ring of the Tranquil Mind

Increases spell stability, focus, and magic control. Though emotion can be used for powerful casting, it must be controlled and mastered. The tranquil mind is the true power of casting.

A base level increase to those three properties of spell casting could not be understated. As you no doubt know, magic is both incredibly powerful and can be incredibly dangerous. If disrupted while casting a spell, it can backlash and literally kill you on the spot.

Ring of Spell Amplification

Greatly amplifies the power of one spell once per day.

This ring was deceptive. I had seen something similar before, heck Id even had a more powerful version. Once a day activation items were truly awesome if used correctly. They took time to recharge, yes, but their effects were spectacular. I personally think is better to have a once use overcharge ability than just a baseline increase in power. That is, unless it was a truly massive baseline increase.

The final two rings were the same, but I didnt care. They were a ring that any wizard type caster would love to have.

Ring of Minor Spell Storage

Allows the storage of one spell cast upon the ring to be cast at the wearers discretion.

Requirements: High proficiency with spell craft.

They were the only rings with requirements, but it made sense. It would be strange if a warrior could somehow store a magical spell in a ring, and then later use it, you could get some truly overpowered people if you could do that. All spells I had access to at this point were classified as minor spells, though they might seem powerful, in the scale of this world, they were nothing.

Then I came to the amulets, and there it was.

Amulet of the Force Barrier

This amulet projects a force barrier around the wearer that can be powered up to the equivalent of 1000 health, subject to normal weaknesses and critical damage.

Amulets like this are truly useful for casters. It makes them go from being super squishy easy to kill targets to slightly less squishy easy to kill targets. With me and my high health and armor, it would just turn me more into a tank. I elected to give the other amulet to either Raven or Maxwell, who ever thought they could use it more. I was honestly leaning toward Maxwell, since Raven was constantly hiding in the shadows and very rarely seemed to take any direct attacks.

When I slipped the amulet over my head, I sighed in satisfaction as I could feel the connection to it. I channeled some of my mana into it and connected it to my being, then proceeded to fill the capacitors inside of the amulet to give me the force barrier.

Once satisfied with my examination of the items, I let myself drift back into meditation. My goal wasnt to fully enter the Mindscape. Id found that there was a state in which I could enter where I could somewhat communicate with Damien without having to actually be there. Though I was already feeling somewhat restored, I needed to spend some time in pure meditation, not distracted by anything in the physical or the mental world. Once we left the city, wed have a long few days ahead of us.

My mind floated in that place between awake and asleep, where the world you saw around you kind of quit making sense and your thoughts became jumbled with nonsensical ideas. The jumbled land of my mind faded from sight as I felt Damiens connection. I projected my questions to him, not even needing to speak them out loud.

His voice came back a few moments later. Its not your lack of flesh that is preventing you from equipping the rings, though that is an issue by itself. To address that, you just need to resize the rings. But as you thought, you probably shouldnt go to the enchanter in this kingdom. The reason why you cant use those rings is that theyre meant for living creatures not undead. You should try using the spell storage rings, just like the amulet, they should work.

My jumbled thoughts communicated my next question.

There was a long pause before Damien sighed through the mental communicationthat literally meant he had to take the effort of sending that to me. You know I hate when we talk like this, its sometimes so hard to understand what you want to know. This last thought included questions about why unicorns and rhinoceroses cant crossbreedwhy would I know that? But I think that wasnt your actual question, you want to know what you can do to equip the rings. I would suggest try channeling death energy into them, it should adjust the attunement of the ring to the undead.

I shot what I hoped was a thank you to Damien before I cut off the communication and my body and mind sank further into meditation.

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