Beginning

In a dark, evergreen forest blanketed by mist, a small stone tower with a circular outer stone wall pokes out above the trees. Every stone of it's construction covered in green moss.

In the upper parts of the ancient stone tower, a Lich converses with a prisoner.

Floating next to this Lich is a glowing quill and scroll; every time the Lich spoke a word, it was scribbled onto the magic parchment.

"I am a lich, Vlad - The natural enemy of all living things, or so they say.. This is the story of how I made it this far." Vlad smiled, speaking to a glowing woman tied up before him. She was currently being held still by black arcane chains wrapping around her body.

"And after hearing my story, you're going to help me. In fact, you'll be more than happy to" he smiled.

The woman struggled and squirmed for a moment, but Vlad twisted his finger, the chains squeezing a little tighter until she stopped moving.

"Just sit still and listen to my story, hero." Vlad mocked her.

- - -

Today I woke up in darkness.

"What is this place…? Who built it?" I ask myself periodically during each day.

"At least I have a throne. Though it is cracked all over, it's probably very old… like me"

My fingers are nothing but bones - literally.

I could see perfectly in the darkness, and wasn't fearful at all - In fact, I felt quite comfortable, though it wasn't long before I realized this was a horrible prison.

Every day I ask myself the same gnawing questions - with no reasonable answer.

"What is this hell I've been brought into?"

"...why do none of the other liches or tomb knights remember anything after they die?"

"Can I even escape? Is this some sort of joke? Perhaps it's a punishment…" I purse my lips as I prop up my chin with my hand.

"Every few days, those… Adventurers" I spat, "they enter this tomb and slaughter us with their strange and wild abilities.. eugh" a shiver went up my spine as I sat on my throne, I just remembered the time I died from a blossoming flower exploding my body from the inside.

That was probably the worst way to die.

I did try to leave the tomb, but some invisible, strange force stopped me from taking a single step outside. It was like there was a wall there.

I would like to be like the others, and forget each time I die. Perhaps that would make my existence less painful. I don't know how much longer I can deal with this torment…

Don't get me wrong, I tried to tell the others about what was happening, however, they simply thought I was mad, they mocked me and laughed.

"No one has stepped foot in this tomb for over a millennia!" they said.

They laughed and laughed and laughed at me - until more adventurers came, then they all died and forgot again. I decided not to bring up this topic again since they would just mock me further.

"I suppose there are some advantages to their amnesia." I smiled as I thought to myself, swirling a glowing red orb around my bone fingers, playing with it as I sat on my throne.

Every time an adventurer enters the tomb, the others all act so serious and frazzled, rushing about while preparing the exact same traps they always do. Heh heh...

It's always hilarious when the others look at me with shock, wondering why I simply sit on my throne instead of preparing those silly little traps like the rest of them.

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a few things about these adventurers, too.

It seems like the adventurers are allowed the luxury to remember after death, since they know exactly where the traps are each time.

This one time, I killed an adventurer with my usual attack combination - they died and turned into sparkling light before disappearing, leaving behind a black stone.

To my surprise, this exact same adventurer came back a week later - yet with upgraded weapons and armour. To my demise, they countered every single ability and attack combination I had before ending me.

He defeated this dungeon about three more times before he was satisfied.

That creepy bastard…

Anyway, here I sit, on my small stone throne in the third-last room of the dungeon.

That's right - I'm not even the dungeon boss. Pretty sad huh?

Oh well, I have to look on the bright side. My room is quite large and spacious, about the size of a small park. It's filled with deteriorated memories and monuments to ancient pursuits.

Empty and cracked fountains, crumbled pillars, and broken, long-forgotten statues of warriors and wizards are scattered throughout the room.

Those pesky adventurers sometimes even use these as cover from my onslaught.

In my free time I may stroll around, I always feel some sort of emotion when looking at the statues - yet I don't even recall their names.

"Perhaps I knew them once? Who knows." I shrugged.

Symbols made up an ancient language which line the walls - though even I have started to forget most of this archaic language. I can only make out some of the words.

Burnt out torches dot the room, some mounted on pillars but most on walls. The fuel for them has long since evaporated, causing those pesky adventurers to bring their own torches - but to my advantage since they can't see in the dark.

"Oh? What's this?"

A Flicker of a light started to appear at the steps leading up to the room above, it was getting brighter too.

*Sigh*

"Here we go again."

The light coming from the stairs is growing brighter…

"Better get this over with." I thought as I took a step off the throne, starting to charge my attack.

"I'll use one of my more powerful spells."

Channelling a large red orb, crackling with static bolts of black lightning as it formed in my palm, I then leisurely tossed it at the bottom of the stairs - with a smirk on my face of course.

It takes a moment for the spell to fly through the air - just wait a second.

…

*BOOM*

The attack landed squarely on the adventurer's chest, right after they took their first step onto my dungeon floor.

"Ha! A one hit kill!

"Their expression just before they died was hilarious! They looked so hopeless just then."

"Heh. They should've healed before coming down."

"Another black stone for me" I walked over to their death location.

"Why do they always drop a single black stone anyway? It's weird."

I still haven't worked out what these black stones do, but nevertheless, I keep collecting them.

It is quite odd though, whenever one of the other undead die, they drop items they didn't initially have - such as gold, weapons, and armour.

The adventurers sometimes look happy when they hold some armour in front of their eyes - as if they're reading or something; while other times they toss it, though the armour pieces appear the same to me.

"I just don't get it. I'll never understand these weird adventurers."

I'm sure I drop these items when I die too, though I never drop any of these black stones. When I eventually reanimate, I still have the same number of them.

Today, out of curiosity, I stared into the black stone - the one the adventurer dropped.

"You're the only thing here that changes…"