You are Gamma the Lich. The Order of the Sun usually keeps you sealed into a catacomb specially prepared to trap you forever, since they can't figure out a way to get to your phylactery to destroy you, but right now you feel just A-mazinn.

You look around, your awareness of your surroundings starting to become less numb as the many wards the paladins put on you start to fade. You feel a strong tinnitus and can't really hear anything currently, but you see a cultist on top of you babbling something before a sword punctures through his gut. This one will be a close call, it seems. Just the way you're used to.

The paladins love to be flashy so they chained you to the sarcophagus with mithril chains. These chains alone could finance your operations for a decade, let alone the several enfeeblement traps that kept your massive intellect dormant, at below animal level so you can't even cast a spell.

You extend your bony hand as far as manacles allow it, hoping to be able to touch something. The pierced cultist is not quite dead yet, so you manage to touch him and snuff out his lifeforce, consumed in an instant.

With this boost of energy, you negate the enfeeblement traps and your intellect returns, and with it the ability to cast spells, twice as fast as any mortal magician.

So of course you cast Haste, allowing you to cast four spells in the time an ordinary wizard would cast one.

In a split second, you cast your usual suite: Mind Blank, Globe of Invulnerability, Flight and, taking advantage of the spilled stomach acid your dying cultist so graciously provided, you cast a fully maximized corrosion spell on the mithril chain, weakening it enough to bend it and liberate one arm.

The nearest paladin notices your arm is free and hit you with his holy sword. Were you a lesser undead, the merest touch of it would be enough to destroy you. But as you are, it only gives you a mild nuisance.

Confident that you're unkillable, you detach your arm and shoot it away in an arc, pretending the paladin lopped it off.

As the paladins rush to reseal the chamber, your self severed arm explodes, killing and maiming several people, cultists and holy men alike.

You can sense a tiny fragment hitting the invisible wall that keeps you locked there.

You focus your magical power on a fully maximized Breach spell, focuses on a point the size of a pin. With ten thousand tons of magical pressure, you squeeze a needle-like fragment of your exploded limb outside the catacomb. You won.

>>6275574 (OP)


Once outside, the fragment pulverizes and is carried by a magical wind. You cast your best spell, the feared Orb of Disintegration, centered on yourself and allow yourself to be disintegrated fully. As you "die", your invulnerability dispels and the orb contained within expands with full force, the fragments of your exploded arm disintegrating as well, alongside everyone and everything within the force field protecting the catacomb.

Your largest part will regenerate later, and now it is just some powder being carried by magical wind... if you had been fully disintegrated, you'd reappear next to your phylactery in a few years. Making your way back to the human world could take several more years.

But regenerating from powder? A few short weeks.

As you start to regrow, you feel wracked by holy magic.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy...

The paladins put a ward against regeneration on you. If you recall correctly, it is a curse called Warp Regeneration, that you invented to dispatch some annoying trolls and backfired horribly at you, because it also works on undead. Instead of regenerating you take damage every few seconds. In your current powder form, you have no way of undoing the ward.

So... Possession it is!

Your tomb is right in the center of a frozen continent, deep underground, only reachable through teleportation portals, no sentient being within way over forty miles, which is the range of your fully optimized possession ability.

Your Flight spell will only last about nine more minutes. You can't make it somewhere with people.

"But ah! Your cultists managed to sneak someone in! You sense right at the edge of the spell range a fresh body, preserved with a preserve corpse trap and protected against scrying! The cultists must have marked it with your personal sigil that you can sense through the aether. It only requires the sacrifice of a handful of babies to create it.

But as you were awaking in your new body ready to gloat, some human female or another, you sense something gone horribly wrong.

Oh no... a Warp Possession ward! Why did you have to invent this one? Damnit. Your consciousness will fade and be repressed, the mind of the goddamn human taking charge.

It doesn't matter. You've escaped worst prisons than the mind of a deeply traumatized woman. It is just a matter of time...

>>6275575

You wake up alone in a cave, dimly lit by some magical glow emanating from the walls.

You hear a loud scream and a flying skull comes into view.

"Heelloo there lady. Name is Gamma. Mind if I ask who the fuck are you?"

"I... I don't remember..."

"Good, good... now, we must get the hell out of here. A bunch of paladins are trying to kill you."

"Trying to... kill... me?"

"Yes, yes, you. If they catch you, they will do horrific things to you, worst than death."

"Am I... evil?"

"Well... it is more complicated than that. Suffice to say you are now immortal. If you let me, I can teach you how to cast powerful magic. What do you think?"

"B-but... where am I?"

"That I'd like to know as well. There are some undeads nearby. See if you can control them with your mind."

"I can't do that!"

"Not with that attitude, you can't. Now focus on the nearest moaning corpse and try to command it!"

"How?"

"Ugh... just... just do it, you know? Trust me. Give it an order in your mind."

"It... doesn't work."

"What did you tell it to do?"

"I told the undead to walk towards me."

"To walk towards... holy fucking shit..."

You hear loud moaning.

"Goddamnit lady, now the entire horde is coming your way. I suppose being a LEVEL ONE NECROMANCER means you can't really cast anything else other than the only spell you know, CONTROL UNDEAD. You can't even spam it either, you can only cast it once or twice a day. It will be very... complicated. C'mon, let's get out of here before this place becomes swarmed with undead."

"H-hold on... there are other people around..."

"Those are just corpses, leave them!"

"But they look so fresh..."

"It is magic preserving them, but I assure you, they are very dead. Though... I wonder why are there only female bodies here... shit... this isn't where I thought we were..."

"What do you mean?"

"I think we are in the lab of a mad sorcerer. I thought this place was controlled by our allies."

"Our... allies?"

"Yeah, but at least it isn't the damn paladins. Come on now... oh shit... a zombie noticed you! Quick, grab something to defend yourself!"

You see a zombies moving towards you, hunger in his face.

"Brains...", it says mindlessly.

You try to get up, but you simply fall on the opposite side of the weird altar you were placed in. You notice there are six other naked females placed in other altars, disposed in a circle around a big central heptagram. The bodies of all of you are shaved bare, not a single hair anywhere.

"Look! Over there! A dagger! Grab it and kill that zombie."

You see a dagger resting atop of an altar further away. You stumble towards it and grab it. The zombie keeps following you.

>>6275576


"I... I think I can outrun it. It is slow."

"Sure, sure, whatever, just make sure you don't get trapped with something worse. Now get out of here, I see an archway over there, maybe it is an exit."

You walk outside the sacrifice chamber and you see hordes of zombies... carrying... boxes?

There seems to be a big confusion as a large group of them is heading your way and stumbling upon the others and toppling them. The boxes fall and break and reveal all kinds of random objects.

"I see a cloak over there, grab it!"

You run to it and grab the cloak, though a zombie grabs the edge of it and it ends up getting a little ripped. You cover yourself and run amongst the zombies, more and more of them noticing you and moving in your direction.

You hear a distant loud voice saying.

"Commotion on the Maintenance Tunnels of the Sacrifice Area B, dispatch some goblins to check it."

"Those damn zombies, can't do anything right...", you hear, a different voice.

"C'mon, let's get the hell out of here! There! A trash chute! Jump in there!"

"B-but..."

"Fast, we don't have time!"

"I see a door over there, I could open it!"

"Goddamnit, what if it is locked? What if it is has a trap? Jump in the damn chute."

You hear a bunch of goblins approaching.

"Alright, ye worthless shambling corpses, you better behave or else!", they say, using long rods to prod and redirect the zombies from a distance.

You then hear screams, coming from the room you just left.

"Oh damn, one of the sacrifices must have woken up. Let's give it breakfast on the bed hehehehe..."

The goblins drop all the stuff they were carrying and rush towards the room.

"You told me they were dead!"

"As good as dead anyway. C'mon, we gotta hurry out of here!"

> Jump into the trash chute
> Enter through the door you saw
> Go grab one of those long rods
> Return to the sacrifice room
> Write in

>>6275578
>Jump in the chute

>>6275578
> Enter through the door you saw
Fuck you floating skull

>>6275578
>Jump in the chute

>>6275578
> Go grab one of those long rods

>>6275578
>Jump into the trash chute

>>6275618
>>6275661
>>6275685
>>6275732
>>6275749


You jump into the trash chute, it is a vertical fall, which you slow down every few meters with your hands and feet to avoid a catastrophic fall.

"Careful there, darling! You might break a leg.", says the floating skull, before screaming pretending to slip and fall.

Once you finally arrive at the bottom, you see a giant worm rummaging through the trash. Upon noticing you, it starts waving its tentacles and screeching.

"It is a carrion crawler! These things are ugly but innofensive. Almost. They are a bit territorial, so don't rummage Their trash. Although... maybe there is something useful down here."

"Now we just need a way out. There's always a maintenance tunnel in places like this... Oh, over there! See that small tunnel behind the crawler? I want you to run straight past the crawler. Don't fall into her piles of trash, she might get offended and bite you. The tunnel is made for a goblin but you're thin, you will fit. Now go!"

"There's no other way out?"

"Well, genius, if you can figure out a way to open that big door over there then we're game. But as far as I can tell it only opens from the outside."

You could make a lot of noise until a goblin shows up and open it.

It is then that you see, right under the crawler, a skeleton with a shiny sword. You could grab it and swing it at the creature.

On the opposite side of the dump, you see the glint of a ring with a big red ruby in it. It is amidst thick pile of refuse, as if the creature shat it.

There are also many gold coins scattered around amidst the piles of trash. I wouldn't hurt to fill your pockets with them, would it? For when you're out of... wherever you are.

> Fill your pockets with gold coins before deciding
> Grab the ring with the big ruby from the crawler refuse
> Run straight at the crawler, grab the sword and swing it
> Make a lot of noise to draw attention and get the door open
> Run straight past the crawler and squeeze into the goblin tunnel
> Write in

>>6275768
> Run straight past the crawler and squeeze into the goblin tunnel
If baldurs gate taught me anything it’s that these things are frustrating and have a nasty paralyzing bite

>>6275768
> Run straight at the crawler, grab the sword and swing it

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6275795
>>6275811


1 - tunnel
2 - sword

>>6275795
>>6275811
>>6275854


You run straight past the crawler as it squirms and screeches and flails its tentacles wildly.
Then you dive in into the goblin maintenance tunnels.

"Hold on, let me scout ahead!", says the flying skull.

"All nice and good, maybe put your hand in the left wall and follow it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yea, yeah, go for it, we'll find the exit sooner or later."

You wander through the cramped tunnels for what seems like hours, only occasionally being harassed by some fat rats, which you shoo away with your dagger. Then you find a room that doesn't smell like trash. It smells good, actually.

Looks like the bedroom of a princess, full of all kinds of weird perfumes and make ups, and a large wardrobe undoubtedly filled with dresses.

You enter the room and snoop around.

"These dresses are too impractical for you, plus whoever wears them is like six sizes smaller than you. Must be a little girl."

Then you hear noises. You hide under the bed.

You see a woman wearing a black hood enter the room with a little girl in a frilly dress.

"...why not?", she asks.

"Because he is busy. Important wizard work!"

"He is always busy!"

"He's an important man!"

The minute the door is closed the girl gets rid of her dress and snucks out through the goblin tunnels.

The skeleton whispers to you.

"Looks like she's the daughter of the boss man of this place. Search the room for something useful."

You start looking around, but there are no weapons nor clothes that fit. You do wear some clothes that are way too small for you anyway, they look like they are going to burst at any second. Better than being butt naked.

Then you find something odd.

Underneath her panties drawer, there is a big heptagram etched on the floor. You saw the tip of it and pushed the thing out of the way carefully not to make too much noise.

"Oh! What a find! It is an emergency teleportation circle. I think it needs blood to activate. Quick, cut the palm of your hand with your dagger and get some blood in the circle! We're closer to getting out of here than ever before!"

You decide to do as the skull says. The circle begins to glow once the blood drops on it.

"Now step on it, we don't have much time, alarms are surely ringing now."

You reappear in a large cave, you can hear coursing water. There are several small ships in there. All of them rowboats.

>>6275867


But chance! They all have skeleton crews. A bunch of literal skeletons chained to the oars.

"Get into one of the ships! Command the skeletons to Row!"

You jump into one of the ships and concentrate in your mind. Row, row, Row, ROW!

The skeletons spring into motion and begin rowing!

Could it be... you truly are a necromancer?

Once outside the cave you realize you are in a very cold region. Luckily, the ocean isn't frozen and the ship can move freely.

"Hahaha, so long, suckers!", says the flying skull.

You discover there are several crates of supplies aboard the ship. You eat and drink your fill. There isn't much to do other than chat with the flying skull.

It starts teaching you necromancy. You learn to animate piles of bones. Besides Command Undead, you can now Create Lesser Undead.

You stay the course, the skeletons rowing nonstop day and night, until you quite literally crash into the rocks of an island because you can't make the skeletons stop rowing.

You salvage a crate of supplies.

"I hope this island isn't deserted.", says the skull.

You have enough supplies for about a month.

Climbing a tree, you look around the island and see a small settlement on the far side. You see some fishing boats.

A few of the skeletons emerge from the waters. You tell them "Follow." and they start following you. There are six of them total. The rest must be trapped underwater.

What will you do?

> Approach the settlement, you need to have a closer look
> Find a cave, a hideout, somewhere you can stay out of sight
> Send your minions to terrorize the village and steal more supplies
> Write in

>>6275868
>Approach the settlement, you need to have a closer look
Try to keep the skeletons back, though.

>>6275868
>>6275925 +1

>>6275868
> Approach the settlement, you need to have a closer look

>>6275868
> Send your minions to terrorize the village and steal more supplies
Muahaha

You decide to approach the settlement. You tell your skeletons "Stay!", and they stop following you.

As you get closer and closer to the settlement, it becomes clear it is a human fishing village. You feel bold enough to approach them.

"Who are you? It is rare to get visitors here.", a local elder asks you when you get close enough.

"My ship crashed."

"Oh! One of the boys reported seeing a ship approaching yesterday. We thought it had passed through, for we didn't see it anymore after awhile."

"It sank."

"I see. Well, you can stay if you want. We don't have many amenities, we just fish for a living. Most of the men are out there fishing. I'm a bit too old to go to the high seas now, so I just stay here and teach the children. Come, let me show you around. My name is Zerko."

The elder introduces you to all the women and children in the village. The women are all busy carrying firewood, cooking, sewing, making pottery and mending fishnets. The children get curious about you and ask lots and lots of questions.

Finally, Zerko the elder asks you. "So, where did your ship capsize? We could try to salvage some supplies..."

Well, if they did that, they would find the skeletons.

"I don't recall. It was in the high seas.", you lie.

Zerko lifts an eyebrow. "Hmmm... alright. Let's get you some food then."

They give you some fish soup. It doesn't taste bad at all, but you're sure this is going to get old fast.

The village has at most a hundred people.

By the day's end, the men return with fish. A cooking spree ensues. You find yourself helping in cooking all the fish as well.

By the end of the night everyone ate their fill of fish, some soup was prepared for later, and what was left was salted and stored in clay jars.

Only when people go to sleep you find a way to leave the village. You go for a stroll on the beach.

"So, you enjoying the fisherman's wife life?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You should take your skeletons, bring these fishermen into submission, have them make you a new ship and go conquer some land."

"And why would I do that?"

"What else there is to do? Are you going to hide here until you die?"

> Hide here until you die
> Bring your skeletons, conquer the village
> Write in

>>6276719
>Hide here until you die
Time to tradwife our way to success.

>>6276732

You decide this little village is a good place to spend the rest of your life. Beats some horrible dungeon filled with monsters and crazy people that do human sacrifice, anyway.

You adopt the name Kailani, find a good husband, a strong and capable fisherman name Ikaika and have seven children, four die of illnesses in childhood.

The surviving three grow to adulthood.

Their names are Malia, Keanu and Koa.

Throughout your life, the flying skull kept appearing and telling you to conquer the damn village already so you can get out of here. But you always ignored it.

The little village grew to about 1,200 people. Every few years, ships pass on by.

When your children became old enough, one of them decided to board one of the ships!

Which one?

> Malia, the bravest one, decided to live in the big city
> Keanu, the smart one, decided to become some sort of scholar
> Koa, the strongest one, decided to become a soldier or mercenary
> Write in

>>6276737
>Keanu, the smart one, decided to become some sort of scholar
I reckon we’d need smart people for this.

>>6276797

You manage to get aboard one of the ships.

The captain asks what are your skills.

You tell him you know how to navigate by the stars.

He gets you to study with the ship's navigator.

He teaches you very complex formulas to make navigation precise, and how to use equipment to measure the relative star positions.

You spend your days doing lots and lots of calculations for the navigator.

Then after a few weeks, you arrive at a large city in a major continent.

You decide to leave the ship there and go find somewhere where you can further your knowledge. You heard this city has a large library, and even a guild of sages.

It is then that the weird floating skull appears.

"Yo! You're Keanu, right? Your mother must have told you about me. I'm Gamma, your friendly floating skull. I'm gonna show you how to become powerful and unstoppable! Just come with me into these backalleys and I'll show you how to start..."

You get a bit spooked, but your mother told you that she is haunted by some kind of death spirit, and it might pass on to one of her children.

Guess you're the chosen one.

> Follow the floating skull into the backalleys
> Head to the library and read some books
> Find a job so you can live in this city
> Head to the sage's guild and see if you can find a mentor
> Write in

>>6276807
> Head to the sage's guild and see if you can find a mentor

>>6276807
>Find a job so you can live in this city

>>6276807
>Head to the church so you can get exorcised

>>6277036
Changing my vote to this.

>>6276807
> Head to the library and read some books
> Head to the sage's guild and see if you can find a mentor
We should find out if we even want to stay here