Looting the Lich's Lair
Intimidated by the prospect of getting doused once more in liquid fire, the lich teleported back toward its throne, then dashed behind it to use as cover.
Manco unhurriedly approached the throne, keeping an eye on the lich's movements and another on the floor.
「Arcane Vision」
Since it made visible the traces of mana, Arcane Vision could be used in a limited capacity to detect magical traps.
Sure enough, the area around the throne was littered with a dozen glowing spots. On its way back to the throne the lich had secretly cast those spells.
Manco picked up several rocks and threw them at the glowing spots on the ground, revealing the traps. Those were either quicksand, vine traps or other movement restriction spells. The boss was just stalling to recover.
After neutralizing most of the traps, he dashed toward the throne.
The lich hissed, angry at having been seen through, and threw a Fireball at the ground in front of Manco.
Dashing to the side, he managed to avoid most of the damage. Shrugging off rock fragments and burning debris, he closed in on the lich.
"Your efforts are futile. I am IMMORTAL!" The lich bellowed and held its scepter in anticipation.
"Not for long!" Manco replied curtly.
「Arcane Surge」
He felt energy rushing throughout his body as his offensive spells were boosted. He held the gun at the ready. The lich only had a sliver of health left. This should be enough.
Dodging the swing of the scepter, he pointed his gun at its chest and pulled the trigger twice.
The first shot was a Mana Blast. The second was a barrage of all the offensive spells he had assigned to the gun: Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Ice Shard, Mana Bolt and Mana Blast.
With a loud "Bang!", the gun recoiled violently. A sizable chunk of his mana bar was instantly used up. At near point-blank range, the five spells hit the lich at roughly at the same time, and Manco took some damage from the two Area-Of-Effect spells.
Manco heard a loud "Thud!" in front of him. The force of the barrage had threw the lich backwards and slammed it on the wall.
He approached the boss' body. Two of its limbs had been broken. Most of its robe were burned off, revealing grey dessicated flesh filled with runes that had been tatooed on.
The undead spellcaster said nothing. It only made a few weak gasps then stopped moving.
〔Creature "Lich Count" (level 35) subdued〕
〔Creature information added to Beastiary〕
〔+22300 XP〕
〔Level cap reached! Visit the Mage's Guild for awakening quests.〕
〔Milestone unlocking requirement #1: 5% complete〕
〔Milestone unlocking requirement #2: 1% complete〕
〔Quest updated: The Undead Plague〕
〔Quest updated: Holy Wood〕
Resisting the urge to check the gun, he searched the lich's corpse.
〔Loot "Lich Count" corpse?〕
▢ Memory crystal: 'Vampiric Touch'
▢ Ring: Wight's Band
▢ Robe: Necromancer's Robe
▢ Staff: …
〔►Take All〕〔Cancel〕
"Nice!" Manco nodded in appreciation as he looted all the items. As the dungeon's difficulty and reward were adjusted based on the party's number and level, the drops were quite generous.
He turned to the small tombstones marking the spots where the four members of Morana's party were killed. There were only a few Ducats in each and a cheap pair of gauntlets in one tomb.
He shrugged. They had been doing this for a while, so they had to make sure they wouldn't drop any Beta Gears.
After a brief rounds to check the undead corpses which turned up nothing noteworthy, he opened the quest screen.
〔Quest: The Undead Plague〕
- Status: Ongoing
- A lich had set up its lair inside the forest at the south of Broken Hill. Destroy the lich to stop the undead attacks.
—.—
〔Quest: Holy Wood〕
- Status: Ongoing
- A lich had set up its lair underneath the Sacred Oak tree in the forest at the south of Broken Hill, causing the tree to wither. Destroy the lich and cleanse the lair to restore the tree. Then bring back a healthy branch to Broken Hill.
—.—
"Both quests given by the cleric were tied to this location. How convenient!" Chuckling, Manco climbed on the balcony and gave the room another once over with Arcane Vision.
"Now where's that altar?" He muttered.
There were only two spots left with some traces of mana. One was a leyline at the raised platform in the middle of the room. The other was behind the lich's throne.
Fiddling around the throne for a bit, Manco found a switch in the form of a fingerbone on the right armrest. He flicked it, and the throne moved, revealing a ladder.
Lighting a torch, Manco climbed down the ladder.
He found himself in a small room, filled with the damp smell of moss and rotted wood.
On either side of him were two support pillars, each with two torch holders in the shape of a skeletal hand. He lit four torches and put them in the holders.
As the orange glow fought away the darkness, Manco realized that the room was quite large and was furnished with fur carpet on the floor, tapestries hanging on the walls and a large chandelier. Everything looked expensive, but clashed horribly with each other. Whoever the lich used to be must have been someone with money but little aesthetic sense.
The room was densely packed with furnitures. Tables, cupboards, chairs of all shapes and were piled up on top of each other. All were covered with layers of dust and cobwebs. Some had rotted beyond recognition while the more expensive ones looked relatively intact.
"Seems to be a hoarder as well," shrugging, Manco cast his glance around the room.
He found a small door at the far side of the room and approached it. The door opened with a push and he was in the lich's study.
Ignoring the bookshelves and the tables, he approached a corner of the room, where traces of magic were leaking out of a small box on a pedestal.
The lich wasn't just bragging when it claimed it was immortal. Given time, it will slowly reform after a number of days. The only way to 'kill' a lich permanently was to find and destroy its phylactery - a vessel containing its life essence.
Manco opened the box. Inside was a crystal chalice decorated with gold and diamond.
A phylactery could be anything, from a charm to a human sized statue. More experienced liches would pick something that was relatively durable and didn't stand out. Lucky for him, this idiot picked one of the most expensive and eye catching thing possible for his phylactery.
"Amateur!" Snickering, he smashed the phylactery onto the floor. As the chalice shattered, hundreds of fragments flew in all directions and he heard a ghostly voice suddenly screeched and immediately fell silent.
"Okay. Cleansing time!" Taking out a vial of holy water, he poured it on the unholy pedestal, which glowed and turned to dust.
〔Quest Completed: The Undead Plague〕
〔Quest Updated: Holy Wood〕
Having done with the quests, Manco turned to the bookshelves. They were bare save for a few dozen books, some scrolls and loose sheets of paper. He glanced through the titles.
"Essays on the Battles of Doom Mountain"
"243 recipes using Horned Frog livers"
"The Gods of underworld"
"Anatomy of 111 Temperate Forest Creatures"
"Songs by the mermaids of Southern Sea"
…
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that one could spend their entire life reading the books within Epoch of liberty. There were already millions of books, and more were added with each update. The books' content could be useless background fluff, highly useful recipes and schematics for gear and consumables, and everything in between. Many of the game's hidden treasures and secrets could only be discovered by clues hidden within the pages.
Emptying out the cheap items and food, Manco loaded the books into his inventory then checked the rest of the room.
The writing table didn't have anything of note save for a letter with a peculiar wax seal. Inspecting it simply revealed the name as "Encrypted Letter" and he couldn't read any of the symbol on it.
The other table was unmistakably a combination of an operating and autopsy table. Leather straps were aplenty and dried brown blood crust caked the table surface. Looting it yielded several Empty Soul Jars and some vials containing various concoctions, and a notebook containing several recipes.
Manco checked the time. It had been about 40 minutes after Morana died.
"I should probably get out of here!" After briefly checking the room, he went back to the larger room and made his way up the ladder.