The cat was already out of the bag. I hadn’t told Renfry not to tell Irwin or other people about the dungeon master thing. He had just grabbed all the titles he knew of me when he started to administer the oath to Irwin. It was time to deal with that issue so that Irwin didn’t make the same mistake.

As Irwin started to get off the floor, I said. “Renfry, you used titles that I didn’t want others to know. Irwin didn’t know about the dungeons in that way. We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Then I turned and looked at Irwin. “Don’t tell anyone about me being the Keeper of the Eternal Tower, or the Lord of dungeons. And on top of that don’t say anything about being the chosen of Bartholomew.”

Both men bowed, and Renfry said. “I am sorry, my lord. When I stood to administer the oath as the job of your champion, it kicked into using the words. I will see if there is a way to stop that from happening.”

I sighed and nodded. “Irwin I am not sure what all my titles may cause people to do. But, I fear at least some might think of attacking me because of them. Now both of you sit we have things to talk about for a few moments.”

They both nodded; as we sat, Dave brought over meat and cheese and more beer. I flagged him back over. “Dave, until we can figure out what to do about Irwin’s buzz ability, I need you to keep me drinking water or beer that has been laced with something to keep me from being a drunk.”

I watched as Irwin’s shoulder sagged a little when I said that. “Irwin, don’t worry. We are going to figure that out. Do you know at all how it works?”

“No, it is a passive ability. As long as I can remember I have had it. I it keeps going up because I am always using it. Or I had been.”

I nodded slowly. “So you ability has been going up the longer you are around people that trigger it?”

He nodded. “Yes, my lord. I understand if that means you don’t want to dine with me. Many don’t.”

“No, that’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is that we need to figure out how to live with it and work with it if we can’t figure out how to get rid of it.”

Renfry nodded toward’s Dave. “Might the dungeon know how to fix it?”

I looked over my shoulder toward’s Dave as he came back with water. He shook his head and said. “No, well yes you can buy the right things from here to get rid of your ability. However, I can’t tell you how to. Also this is the Tower. Not ‘the dungeon’ this one is special.”

I smiled at him, reminding us that we were in the Eternal Tower and not just some dungeon. Then Renfry asked. “But, didn’t you sell us the book on Irwin’s class? Isn’t that the same?”

I cut Dave off as he was about to speak. “Not the same at all. When we bought the book we were still in trade for the scrolls. However, we lost trade resources with the dungeon, I mean Tower. Now that the trade is complete the only way we could get something that great again is if we had something the Tower wanted.”

Irwin looked confused. “Lord Arn, what did you trade?”

I steepled my fingers in front of my face. “All of those were master works scrolls. For the book and the page of options that you got I traded the master works for normal on most of the scrolls.”

Renfry didn’t react, as he must not have known what I said. Irwin, on the other side, looked like he was about to pass out. He tried to get his brain to understand the massive investment that he saw me making in him. What he didn’t understand, however, was that I also was investing in the Tower and my dungeons. So while he might see a huge loss, I saw a huge gain.

I gave him a moment longer to gather his thoughts, and then I said. “Irwin, focus; you have Twelve spells that you need to learn. The masterwork scrolls return to me once you are done with them. Then read over that book. We need our healer up and running quickly. Let me know if you need to heal something or if just casting a heal at a target works.”

He nodded, stood, and bowed. Then he grabbed the scrolls and book and headed back upstairs. Once he was out of the room, I grabbed the pitcher of beer and poured a mug. Renfry laughed and grabbed some cheese.

Once I took a long pull, I asked. “Okay, so I know you have been your new race for just a few days. Fill me in though. Do you sleep as much as you used to and do you need to eat? How undead are you?”

Renfry shrugged. “Honestly my… Arn. I don’t know how undead I am. I like food and it seems to react like normal so far and for sleep I don’t know how to judge that. Most of my life before this was as the Haunting. I didn’t sleep like that but I also wasn’t active for most of the time. When I first was a Haunting I was but then after the first while. I don’t know twenty years or so I kind of just went inactive and only woke up when people came in. Then that almost stopped too. I don’t know when people stopped coming in or how long I asked for help.”

I nodded slowly. “So do you sleep now?”

He smiled. “Yes I sleep! Just before I was a Haunting I was a Lancer! We never slept, well not long. I would only do 4 hours of sleep a night. Now that’s all I can sleep. I haven’t gotten a debuff but I also haven’t gotten a rested buff.”

I laughed and took another draw on my mug. “So what you are telling me is you bed sucks and you can’t sleep through the night.”

He leaned back and laughed with me. “It’s at least a thousand years old. I need a new one but my boss won’t come off the coin!”

I smiled and grabbed some food. “Yeah, he won’t spend money on anyone unless he thinks they need it. Speaking of which how is your gear holding up?”

“It’s fine the durability is maxed. It’s just normal steal medium armor, nothing great but serviceable nonetheless. My sword is the same a general issued blade. Now if we could find out what happened to armory that would be nice.”

“Yeah, on that we agree. The tower core said that it provided common weapons for those in side and within 10 miles. I am hoping that those lances you talked about are around somewhere.”

Renfry nodded slowly and then stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “There was talk that our lances could be recalled to the armory so that people couldn’t steal them. It might not be the armory here but the one in the main castle. Which would explain where they are.”

“Wouldn’t they have gone on the patrol anyway?”

He shook his head. “Not all of them… We always had a few extra here as we weren’t fully staffed.”

“How many would this tower have had if staffed?”

“When last it was fully staffed a full company of 112 lancers were based out of here. The rooms were bunks three high and we also had a second building close by. Now this is the only building and single beds.”

I sighed. “Okay so next thing. We are heading to Cloudia, I have someone there that I need to see. However, we have several problems between here and there. First I have a boy lich, then I have a land with people that I am not sure want to be ruled by me. I can’t deploy my best weapon for fighting undead for a few reasons. The greatest of them being you.”

He leaned his head to one side. “What’s your best weapon?”

I smiled. “A forest. I can make it so that undead are drawn to trees that also are self powering lay-to-rest. In fact large parts of my southern claimed area I would suggest you not go near as I have overlapping on going spells.”

Renfry looked surprised. “Truly you have turned a forest into a safe spot from undead?”

I shook my head and grinned. “Not the whole thing. Around where I met Kasidy I have one grove that I would say is completely safe from them. Then I built a perimeter around much of it that also will kill them. All the way south however, I have a section that is drawing the undead by the thousands and killing them. That area I wouldn’t call safe at all since they were coming after me as I left.”

“You have laid to rest thousands of undead? That would make any necromancer hate you, the amount of work….”

I nodded and sighed. “Yeah, so it turns out the reason that Kasidy is here is because I pissed off the wrong person. Her god did send her to help. She wasn’t much help in the forest but was a huge help in town.”

We sat for a few minutes in silence, just nursing our mugs and eating. Then Renfry asked. “Okay, who was it that you made mad?”

I grinned. “The god of war… At least that’s what I was told.”

Renfry looked like he was trying to process things. Then he nodded slowly and smiled. “So you are a champion like Kasidy said?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have that title or class or whatever it would be.”

He nodded. “I serve a hero then who’s actions anger some gods and please others. I always wanted adventure.”

We both laughed for a bit, and then he pointed to the empty beer. “More?”

I nodded. “Dave more beer and join us for a drink we have things we have to plan.”

Dave came over with a tray and sat it all down. As he did, he turned and said. “No, I don’t have to carry it all over here. I just do to make most people feel more at ease. You could just ask for everything yourself, too, and it would show up. No, not everyone can do that as the Tower would charge them. Yes, if they bought the food they could take it out. No that’s not cost effective as a mug of ale costs a gold. Yes, even for you.”

I shook my head, and he said. “See why people don’t like me doing that?”

I nodded, and Renfry laughed. “So it’s true dungeons read our minds. So we are better to not going in the safe rooms and just rush through the whole place?”

I laughed. “No only surface thoughts. It’s almost always better to take a break in a safe room just to recover before moving on. Perhaps the first few floors it isn’t needed but I would suggest it in most cases. Now onto planning.”

Dave smiled. “How can I help?”

“You can be you and help us out in knowing what’s to be expected in the Tower that’s different than a dungeon. Also if we say something dumb about lichs in general you can correct it as you have them in the dungeon correct?”

Our barkeep nodded and motioned for me to keep going. “Alright so right now Blink it chasing down The Boy Lich. She is either going to find where he is going or kill him herself. Depending on how sturdy he is and if she can get past his guards. If she can’t then I feel like we need to take him out.”

I took a drink and ran my hand through my beard. “Okay Renfry, if we have to fight him are you good with doing that or would you rather not since you knew him?”

Renfry glared for a moment. “No I don’t have a problem putting him down. I know that I am here living undead but lichs are just undead. He might sound like Eric and look mostly like him but he is just a powerful zombie. Lichs are always tormented as they are locked here while removing their need for a body.”

“Right so we can just roll up and kill the guy and his undead will?”

Dave shook his head. “Can’t just kill a lich. You should know that. Nope you can break the body that they are using but after that they just reform. You have to destroy their phylactery.”

I shot Dave a quizzical look. “A what?”

Renfry laughed. “A phylactery. It’s what anchor’s their soul to this plain and keeps them from moving on. It also let’s them store power.”

I nodded slowly. “Their soul anchor?”

Dave slowly shook his head. “Almost but not the same. A soul anchor is something that necromancers use to make wraiths. However, the phylactery lets the lich restructure a close by undead and possess that creature with it’s own soul. It acts kind of like a mana stone as well drawing in power from around them slowly. Unless it is broken it will at some point have enough power to become the lich again.”

“Can they do anything else while in the phylactery? Like move themselves anything like that?”

Renfry nodded. “It is said they a fully there so have access to all their magic that they had.”

I sighed. “I take it this thing would be hidden someplace?”

Both men nodded, and Renfry said. “Likely…”

“Okay so Eric has had about a thousand years to build up his undead army. Why hasn’t he expanded out of the pass?”

Dave shrugged. “I can’t tell motives or anything like that. I only can fill you in on what the dungeon knows about them.”

Renfry thought for a while. “My guess is his level. It’s unlikely that he is a high level being in the body of a boy. Which means that he likely can’t make or control high level undead.”

I held up my hand to slow Renfry down. “Tell me more about that? What do you mean he can’t make high level undead?”

Dave answered. “Oh that’s easy. The undead can only be up to two levels higher than the caster. If they are higher then they drop in level down to that the necromancer’s level.”

I nodded my thanks. “If that necromancer levels up do the undead rise in power?”

Dave held up a hand and did the whole so-so thing. “It depends; the necromancer had to raise each one up to the next level one at a time.”

I nodded and smiled. “So if he were say level 20 the highest we would be looking at was a level 22?”

I slowly shook my head. “So how are we going to do this?”

* * *