Her comment eased the tension in the dungeon core room, and both Erin and Ryan broke out in laughter.
“I was really worried for him for a moment,” Ryan said. He had saved Blake once before, and he really, really, really didn’t want to kill the poor guy.
“Me too.” Erin pressed her face against Ryan’s diamond core, intent on the group as they walked through the wolf’s maw and towards the first room. “Now I’m excited to see how his group does against your dungeon when you aren’t intentionally making it easier.”
She stressed the last part, stopping Ryan before he issued new orders to Steve. The fact she could sense his feelings really was problematic at times.
“Well, let’s get ready for a good show, then,” Ryan said.
He turned his attention back to Blake and his group as they prepared to enter the first room. Well, almost all of his attention, as he could tell the skuirrel in skeleton fight club was nearing its evolution. He just knew it.
Luckily, even if Erin could feel his excitement there, she would likely think it was because of Blake and his group. He did, after all, have to follow his self-imposed rules of skeletal fight club.
“Here we go,” Ryan said as the group of adventurers stepped into the first room.
Let’s do this.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Well, I’m glad he has a shield now,” Ryan commented as Blake blocked a flying skuirrel. The boney creature smashed against his shield but held on. At the same time, another launched itself at the boy. This time, with the added weight of the skuirrel, Blake wasn’t able to get his shield up in time. The attacker latched on to his chest in a flurry of boney claws.
“I hate these things,” Blake called out as he flailed at the offending skuirrel. All the while, the other skeletal rodent hung on to his wooden shield for dear unlife.
“At least you don’t have to try and shoot them,” Matt moaned, letting loose another arrow. The missile whistled harmlessly past a skittering skuirrel before snapping as it hit the wall.
“Annnnnd that’s a miss,” Ryan laughed, watching. “Keep, trying buddy, you’ll get the hang of it.”
The adventurers obviously couldn’t hear him, but he had taken to commenting on dungeon dives. It was an oddly entertaining habit, he found. And if Ryan could drop a rock on them, he was sure Matt would learn to hit one, eventually.
“That thief seems pretty skilled,” Erin commented, pulling Ryan’s attention away from the comedy duo.
Sure enough, Jack was walking calmly towards the exit of the first room, blasting away any skuirrel that launched itself at him with a gust of wind. The attacks easily tore Ryan’s skuirrels apart, leaving a rain of copper coins in their wake. Jack easily caught the coins before they hit the ground.
“What about the cleric?”
Ryan and Erin both glanced at Karan, but she simply stood back, watching the rest of her team fight. The skuirrels had left her alone, and Ryan had to wonder if they were scared of her.
“Well, it seems even skuirrels have brains.” Erin laughed at her own joke.
“Not really. There’s nothing there,” Ryan responded as dryly as possible, holding in a laugh.
“You know what I—“
Ryan laughed, cutting Erin off. “I really just wanted to see if I could get you to argue whether a skeleton has a brain,” he said, in that moment glad that he could still laugh, even telepathically, despite being a sentient rock.
“I wonder at times if you have a brain.”
Oh, that one hurt. It seemed he’d made Erin a little upset.
Oops.
He glanced at the group of adventurers. Blake had managed to shake free of his two attackers and was heading towards Jack and the exit. At the same time, Matt seemed to have given up trying to shoot the skuirrels and was instead using his bow like a staff. Ha, it’s a bow-staff.
“Has Emily done anything yet?”
She still stood by Karan, watching the fight intently. It seemed she was letting the others take all the aggro while she simply watched.
“Nope, nothing yet.”
“Darn. I’m curious about what an adept can do.” Ryan sighed, then started to chuckle. “I bet Blake finds a trap.”
“You’re on,” Erin giggled.
They both watched as Blake neared Ryan’s ankle traps. Sure enough, his foot landed on one, and stone crumbled beneath. He let out a less than manly scream, eliciting a ton of laughter not only from Ryan and Erin, but Matt and Jack as well.
“Shut up and help me,” the boy yelled.
Blake didn’t seem injured from the trap, just surprised, and with Matt’s help he had his foot free in no time. After looking around the room, he motioned towards Karan and Emily.
“It seems it’s all clear.”
“It’s not,” Ryan whispered as the two girls made their way across the room.
The men had slain eight skuirrels between them. That meant there were two left, and Ryan was just waiting for them spring into action. He really wanted to see what the adept could do.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Erin asked as the two girls neared the rest of the group. For some reason, Ryan’s skuirrels were refusing to attack. Maybe they really were terrified of Karan.
“Not sure. Let me, uh, motivate them.” He mentally sent an attack signal to them, and instantly they sprang from their holes. Two white skeletal figures scampered across the floor, flinging themselves at Emily.
Emily shrieked with surprise, then lifted a hand that appeared to be holding a wooden stick. Suddenly, his skuirrels burst into pieces.
“What the chaos was that?” Ryan asked.
“A simple force spell,” Erin replied.
“A what?”
“Adepts can use basic, neutral magic,” Erin explained. “A force spell is just that: mana condensed into a physical force, launched at an enemy.”
She paused as she eyed Emily.
“Given her level, she can probably only cast two spells at a time before her mana needs to recover.”
“Oh yeah?” Ryan’s interest was piqued, and he remembered this was a conversation that needed continuing from last time. “You’ve mentioned adventurer mana before. How exactly does it all work?”
Blake was leading his group through the tunnel to the next room. They were taking their time, a wise choice. One of the earlier groups had been rushing and had three members fall in the pits. That had been funny to watch.
“Hmm, the easiest way to explain it would be similar to how you summon mobs.”
“All right, explain.”
“Well, just like you have a certain amount of points to use on mobs, adventurers also have a set amount of mana to use based on their levels. The physical classes, such as the thief, paladin, fighter, and archer, pump eighty percent of their mana constantly into their body. This reinforces their forms physically, making them stronger, faster, and more durable.”
“How durable?”
“Well, if you had dropped a stalactite on Sean, it is likely the stalactite would have broken, and Sean wouldn’t even be bruised.”
Always back to Sean. I get it, he’s awesome.
“And the other twenty percent?”
“They can use that mana to actively utilize skills unique to their class, such as Josh’s flaming daggers and Jack’s wind gusts.”
“How about the magic classes?”
“They are the opposite. They pump twenty percent of their mana into their physical selves, while eighty percent is kept available for spells.”
“So does that mean Jack is physically stronger than Karan?” Jack was, after all, a physical class, while Karan was a cleric.
“If they were the same rank, yes. However, Karan is a Gold Four, meaning she has—" Erin started counting on her fingers “—six times as much mana as Jack. That means even at twenty percent of her mana, she can allot more mana to her physical traits than Jack has in his whole body.”
“Okay, maybe the skuirrels have a good reason t
o fear her,” Ryan admitted. She was definitely the strongest adventurer to have entered the dungeon since Sean’s team.
“Well, nothing says a mob has to have the same intelligence as its creator,” Erin said with a mischievous smile.
“Hey!”
“Kidding, hun.” Erin started giggling and snuggled closer to his surface. “You know I wouldn’t want any dungeon but you.”
“Aww. I’m so lucky to have you as my fairy, Rin.”
The fairy’s face turned red, but she smiled and drew closer to him.
“Enough flattery,” she whispered, though a little reluctantly. “They’re getting close to the fun room.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The fun room was another term for the dungeon’s second room, coined by Erin earlier in the day. Unlike Josh and Sean’s groups, no one who had come through the dungeon that day had a fire affinity.
As such, the plants in the room had made the fight much more amusing for Ryan and Erin, and much more difficult for the adventurers. Even with Ryan keeping the mobs reined in, many groups had sustained one or two decent injuries in that room.
“Well, here’s the room everyone was complaining about,” Blake said. He stood at the entrance to the room, shield raised as he looked around. Unconsciously, the adventurer reached down to his ankle, where the ratbie had gotten him the first time.
“Think he’ll get another bite to remember?” Ryan asked Erin, noting where his mobs were in the room. The foliage was doing a great job at keeping his ratbies hidden, and one of the two was even creeping closer to Blake as he shuffled into the room.
“Well, it would be awfully funny.”
As if the mob heard Erin’s comment – which in a way it did, because Ryan had sent it an order – the ratbie leapt out and struck, biting Blake’s ankle a second time.
“Seriously?” the adventurer cursed, driving his sword into the ratbie’s head.
“Oh, those things look gross,” Emily groaned as she stepped into the room, eyeing the oozing, rotting ratbie on the ground.
“Yeah, well, their bites aren’t the best either,” Blake complained as he looked back towards Karan. “Think you can heal this after we clear the room? Apparently, their bites can be rather dangerous if left unattended.”
Karan smiled at Blake, causing the adventurer to blush.
“Not your first time getting a zombie bite?” she asked.
“Guess he didn’t tell them about his last trip here,” mused Ryan.
“Aw, he’s embarrassed,” Erin cooed in a playful manner, and Ryan laughed at the poor boy’s misfortune.
As far as Ryan could tell, Blake and his group, even Jack, were a likeable sort. He really wished Erin hadn’t made him promise to go harder on this latest group. He was secretly cheering Blake’s team on. Oh, and he hadn’t forgotten his skuirrel in fight club, which was on the verge of evolving.
“Ugh, I hate this room already,” Jack, who was already halfway to the exit, called out. “This darned ivy is going to make us itch something fierce.”
The thief looked back at Karan, uncaring as a skuirrel came flying towards him. “Think you can lay some healing hands on me later, to stop the itching?”
“If I’m laying hands on you, it’s going to be unpleasant for you.” Her tone was icy, even as she answered the thief with a smile. “But if you insist.”
“No, that’s, uh, fine. I think I can buy some salve to cure it.”
“Enough for the team?” Karan asked the thief sweetly.
“Yup, salves on me, guys,” Jack joked. He turned and hurried towards the exit, easily blasting away any mobs foolish enough to attack him.
“That wind gust trick is really annoying,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, but he’s wasting a lot of mana doing those bursts,” Erin replied. “He’s not going to be able to regenerate it fully before Steve.”
“Do they regenerate mana just like I do mob points?” Ryan asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Oh, well, that’s going to suck for him.”
Two more skuirrels fell to wind gusts before Jack reached the exit.
The rest of the group took their time walking through the dense plant life, as they had to be more careful of where they stepped. Unlike Jack, they didn’t have wind protecting them from flying enemies. As such, by the time the group cleared the room, Blake had three new cuts, along with his ratbie bite, while Matt had a broken skrat fang in his leg. Emily and Karan were untouched.
“Well, that room was definitely not this difficult the last time I came through,” Blake moaned as he sat down, holding his leg towards Karan.
The cleric smiled softly at him as her hands glowed with a golden light. “The dungeon has had a good amount of time to make use of the experience it got from killing the mage. Plus, Josh was Silver ranked, so I’m going to guess the dungeon got another level from killing him and his team.”
“Oh, she’s a smart one,” Ryan said. “You know, Rin, I’ve decided clerics are unfair.”
“How so?” Erin asked, flying lazily around the room, bored from the lull in the action.
“She gets to just heal the entire team before they go to fight Steve. It completely undoes all the hard work my mobs put in.”
Sure enough, Karan had finished healing Blake, and was working the bone out of Matt’s ankle.
“Yes, but usually clerics aren’t as strong at fighting as the others,” Erin explained. “So, while she can heal the team, she won’t be able to aid in a fight as well as another class. That means the team has to trade off damage for healing.”
“Hmm, I suppose, but it still seems a bit unfair,” Ryan complained. “I’m sure if they were still injured going in to fight Steve, even if there were five of them, their damage would be lower.”
“Well, yes, but there are a few other factors at play here,” Erin said. “First, clerics are a rare class, so most teams won’t have one. Second, when you get stronger, you will start to see just how much of a difference there is. Third, even if she can fully heal a team, her mana reserves will drop lower the more damage they sustain. Spent mana might not be an issue right now for her, but as you get stronger, she will need to use larger spells to keep her team healed, and once she is out of mana, she is practically useless in a fight. She seems unfair right now, because you are Bronze, and she is Gold. Wait until you are a Gold dungeon going against Gold or below adventurers.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Ryan realized it was funny he was upset about Karan’s abilities. He wanted Blake’s team to survive, after all. So why was he upset she was giving them an edge? Was it just because of the unfairness of it all? He figured that was it. After all, if dungeons had proper etiquette, shouldn’t adventurers as well? Like, no healing until they’d beaten the boss?
“Just be happy all she is doing is healing the team,” Erin said, interrupting his thoughts. She had settled back atop him; Blake’s team had healed up and was making its way towards the boss room.
“She could probably clear the dungeon by herself,” Erin mused. “Yet she has chosen to stay back, and just watch the rest of the team.”
Ryan had a flashback of Sean waltzing through his dungeon with ease, and he found himself suddenly a lot less upset about Karan’s healing.
“Now, let’s see how they do against our fearsome Steve,” Erin said, patting his surface.
She pulled her silk cloth around herself and leaned in to watch the fight. Ryan mentally nodded in agreement and turned all of his attention to Steve’s room. Skeletal fight club could wait. Ryan wanted to see how Blake and his team fared against the Bone Slinger.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Blake was first into the room, shield raised. Unlike the other four groups, Blake’s team seemed to know exactly what to expect. Ryan figured that made sense, given that Blake had actually seen Steve before.
“Steve? His name is Steve?” Jack erupted in laughter as he followed Blake into the room. “I’ve got to say;
this dungeon has some amusing names for mobs.”
And just like that, Ryan decided he didn’t like the thief. Ryan was already self-conscious about Steve’s name. He didn’t need adventurers laughing at him.
“Don’t interfere,” Erin scolded even as Ryan prepared to order Steve to attack Jack.
Gah, thwarted by etiquette once again.
“You’re not allowed to make it easier – or harder – this time around,” she went on. “Just let Steve be Steve.”
“But—“
“No buts, Ryan.”
“Yes, dear.”
His comment earned him a slap, but it was playful in nature. Together, they turned their attention back to the boss room.
“Be careful of his spikes,” Blake reminded the team as he slowly began advancing on Steve, sword and shield raised.
Matt cocked an arrow and began walking in a wide circle away from Steve, staying on the side of his bladed arm.
“What, you mean he slings bones?” Jack laughed as he sauntered away from Blake and Matt.
Ryan suspected they had discussed a battle plan for Steve prior to entering the room. All the other teams had rushed in, screamed, and then gone into battle in a frantic scramble. Had Steve been fighting at full strength, none of the other teams would have likely survived.
“Yeah, they shoot out—“
At that moment, Steve decided to take action. Five spikes flew from the darkness that hung where his right arm should have been. The spikes flew past Blake’s shield and headed towards Emily. Nobody in the room seemed able to react in time, and Ryan was certain, and sad, that Emily was a goner.
“Nope.” Jack was suddenly in front of Emily, his daggers moving in a blur as wind whipped around him. He cut the tendrils holding the bones, and Ryan watched, both surprised and impressed, as the spikes fell harmlessly to the ground.
“Did the thief just—“ Ryan stuttered.
“Yup,” Erin said.
“Huh. Guess I can’t hate him now.”
Ryan couldn’t believe Jack had managed to not only get in front of Emily in time, but also deflect all of Steve’s spikes. He was also surprised Jack had put himself in danger; the last thief had simply hidden until the fight was almost over.
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG Page 13
