My first intruders are certainly an interesting bunch. A band of paladins and a lich. I didn't expect those things to be the first ones to step foot here. But hey, I'm not complaining; I had captured a lich adept at a completely unfamiliar branch of magic. Looted a plethora of armor and weapons made of rare metals and the corpses of fresh humans. I'd say it was a steal.

Though it did seem that one of the paladins that accompanied the band was left behind once they entered the cave and retreated far away from my sight, That may or may not be a good thing, as they will most probably report my location to their higher-ups and destroy any future plans I may have had to keep my secrecy. But might deliver knowledge I may not have been able to reach within the confines of my dungeon.

I gather the corpses of the paladins and place them within a stone coffin I have enchanted with life and water mana. To freeze them and stave off decomposition, retaining their freshness for longer periods. With the bodies prepped for later use, I turn my attention to my decimated first floor. I'll have to appoint a new boss and grow more basilisks. Some of them had survived the intruder's onslaught, but not the majority. So I took the eggs that they had laid beforehand and began to imbue them with mana until they hatched.

Aww, these little basilisks are pretty cute, but unfortunately, I'll have to get rid of their childhoods if I want to prepare for any future assaults. So I forcibly grow them into fully-fledged adults. Strangely, it seems these artificially grown ones are weaker than those that have been born and grown naturally. Oh well, since I expect a lot of people to try to infiltrate my dungeon, the monsters on the first floor will have to repopulate quickly, so any advantages of having a natural childhood would quickly fade here.

Maybe I could spare some time to naturally grow some monsters on some future lower floors. But for now, this will have to do. Ordering a surveillance bat to travel to the human city to access the damage there, I begin to turn my attention to this fabled 'Lich of Muoninsk'. The quickly made sealing Vase wasn't my best work, but for something I thought of on the spot, it works fine. I'll have to replace it later, though.

I speak to the Lich in a domineering tone,

"What is your name, Lich?"

The skull lit up hearing my inquiry and said in an agitated tone,

"You, who are you? What have you done to me!"

I said once more,

"Answer my question, lich, and I will do the same. What is your name?"

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After a few seconds of eerie silence, the lich spoke,

"I am Munoc. Since I have answered your question, I will ask a question of my own. Who are you?"

Keeping my persona as an unknown ancient dungeon I say

"I am a creator but I am a historian by trade. That is all you need to know. now tell me Munoc what magics do you possess."

The lich confused by my question spoke once more

"My magics? Why don't you release me and I can teach you firsthand?"

Turning my head over the obvious attempt at coercion I speak

"Why don't you tell me of it and then I will release you?"

The lich laughed at my retort

"You why should I tell you anything? From what I can tell you are but an adult-class dungeon are you not? A surprisingly intelligent and knowledgeable one but only an adult. Your illusions of grandeur do not fool me, you have nothing to offer me, and I have no guarantee of your honesty."

I find this argument humorous

"It seems you do not understand your predicament. I hold the keys to your chains I do not care if you are unwilling to divulge any information. I will wait and wait, time is forever on my side lich and unfortunately, it is also on yours. I can torture you for eternity, I can purify you, I can hide you away deep within this mountain so that even if I do die you will spend the rest of your undead life forgotten, frozen in time never to see the light of day ever again."

The lich grew silent so I spoke once more

"I will give you three days to contemplate your position I can only hope you are wise enough to make the right choice"

Leaving the lich to think about his decision I begin to construct a better more reliable seal. I suspect the lich might devise a way to escape his bindings soon with his vast suaves of magical knowledge. Anticipating his future attempts to escape, I intricately molded a silver vase as the material seemed to possess 'anti-spirit' properties. I fill the intricate silver vase with water imbued with null attribute mana that belongs to me.

This will serve to impede any attempts at spell casting, as all the mana the lich could ever access would belong to me, and it seemed much harder to use the mana that belonged to another spellcaster. On the inside of the vase, I enchanted it with ever-present light mana, which would further dampen the lich's power, prevent him from regenerating with any spells, torture the lich, and inflict immense pain. On the outside, I enchanted it with sturdy earth mana, as silver wasn't the strongest of metals and it would be wise to prevent anything from breaking the seal from the outside. After fiddling around with the enchantments, I now possessed an incredibly durable, glowing anti-spirit silver vase seal.

With the seal finished, I turned my attention to the lich once more.

"Have you made your decision, Munoc?"

The lich glanced at me, fury in his eyes, and said,

"I shall not divulge my secrets to the likes of you 'historian'. My armies will rise once more and return, shattering your decrepit core into dust."

Oh well, it looks like it will take much longer than expected to extract information from him. I looked at him with disappointment and said,

"So be it. It would help if you enjoyed an eternity of torture anyway that should serve to make you more docile. I can only hope that by the time you are willing to talk, your mind will not have broken."

Lifting the skull from the previous vase, I transferred it over to the newly made silver seal and left him there to suffer.