Adventurers POV

In a luxurious room in a tall and unassailable castle, a beautiful red-haired woman with muscles toned to perfection sat with a party of eccentric adventurers. A dreary young mage with icy blue eyes and alabaster skin wielding a strange staff of ice speckled with countless shards of aquamarine, a middle-aged veteran armed with crossbows and a myriad of strange and unique weaponry on his belt, ankles, and battered cloak, and finally, a young priestess with eyes of hazel and long brown hair who was equipped with a golden staff that seemed to have a miniature sun floating on top of it.

Seated across from them was an old mage wearing a beige robe adorned with sapphires. The court mage offered the adventurers some local wine and spoke

"I never did expect a party as prestigious as the Shattered Star would accept a quest from us."

The red-haired girl who seemed to be the leader of the group replied

"Well, 500 gold coins is a very generous sum for a city-class quest."

The old mage chuckled "Well the lich is quite a formidable foe so Lord Notos could spare a few more gold coins for this particular quest.

" The middle-aged veteran that sat in the corner spoke"

For a sum this large the danger presented must be on the higher end of city class threats."

The old mage replied

"Ah yes for this quest you will need to venture into the lich's fortress that lies in the base of the Orusan mountains and slay the lich and his Entourage of undead and beasts. Of course, we will offer you a guide."

The veteran was suspicious of the court mage

"Was this city's designated force of paladins not sufficient to slay an undead? The thing they are so proficient in destroying."

The court mage sighed

"Well you see the Lich was able to gather quite the vile army by raiding village after village even killing all the inhabitants of the city of Muoninsk and turning them into undead. While Muoninsk was on the smaller end in population the lich still gathered a force strong enough to deal a heavy blow to Atarinsk. And our forces were depleted. Our paladins fought valiantly but still fell to that vile lich's clutches. Is that answer sufficient enough for you Butcher of Ethosi?"

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The veteran growled,

"Don't call me that."

Seeing the veteran's reaction the old mage offered his apologies

"My apologies mr Aroan I thought you would be more comfortable if I referred to you by your nickname."

The young red-haired woman placed her hand on the veteran's shoulder and said

"There is no need to apologize my friend here is just not very fond of that nickname that's all. Isn't that right, Aroan? "

The grizzly veteran silently nodded. The scholarly blue-eyed mage chimed in,

"Sir PerlIcus, do you know what kinds of undead monsters that Lich has in his horde? Depending on what kind of beasts we might encounter, we might need to make some different preparations."

The older mage nodded in agreement.

"Yes, we will offer you some documentation on the sorts of monsters we have encountered in and around his fortress."

Handing the party of adventurers three pages of parchments filled with detailed illustrations and descriptions of the monsters encountered in the fortress, the party looked a bit confused. The Scholarly mage asked,

"No undead? I presumed that our enemy was a lich, no? The monsters here are well alive. Not something a lich would normally keep. Let's see here... A swarm of darkness bats, a couple drake like monsters, and a suspected high drake? This is not something a lich would keep as a pet. The bats, maybe, but drakes? highly unlikely. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought this was a dungeon,"

the old mage sighed.

"I don't really understand it either, but my theory is that the lich found an abandoned fortress filled with drakes and subjugated them; however, why he didn't turn them into undead is unclear. So do you want to take the quest or not?"

After discussing the matter with themselves the party Shattered Star officially accepted the quest

Dungeon POV

With my defenses up to snuff I began to increase my surveillance on the city of Atarinsk. I wanted to know everything that happens in that city. Whether it be the lives of the most important nobles or the lives of the peasantry. In order to do that I would need something more discreet. Something commonly found in cities and towns, something small yet maneuverable. Looking through my catalogue of animals I found the perfect thing for the job a group of mice. taking them out of their stasis I began to alter their forms. I did not want to change too much as I wanted them to be as indistinguishable from common rodents. So I merely enhanced their sensory organs making them hear see taste and smell much better. I imbued them with null attribute mana and began to allow them to breed by the dozen. By the end of the week, I would have hundreds of stealth mice roaming the alleys and great halls of Atarinsk.