Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG

by Jonathan Smidt

  Internally sighing, both at his inability to share skeletal fight club with Erin and at the fact one of the adventurers had just eaten a paralysis mushroom by mistake, meaning they were going to waste his time even longer, Ryan turned back to his precious mobs.

  He waited for each one to finish off its opponent, but mentally stopped the process that would summon another. He had an idea on how to get his next evolution before he ascended into the Silver ranks.

  “Oh, look, Ryan.” Erin’s voice pulled him away from his task, sending a slight hint of irritation through Ryan.

  What now?

  “Huh? What is it, hun?” he asked, trying to hide his irritation. He was so close to an evolution; what could she possibly be pulling him away for?

  “They’re harvesting your plants,” she said.

  Wait, what?

  Even though Ryan had implemented the plants as drops a rotation ago, no one had shown much interest in them. A few had tried the mushrooms, which occasionally resulted in rather amusing events. Ryan’s favorite was when one of the adventurers ate a toxic mushroom that made him hallucinate. His team had to drag him out of the dungeon, as he was sobbing about how a dingo – whatever that was – had eaten his baby. Otherwise, though, most adventurers just shoved the drops in their packs and moved on to fight Steve.

  “That is interesting,” Ryan said. His irritation faded by a fraction, and he was mildly intrigued. Still, he really wanted to get back to skeletal fight club.

  “Looks like you finally made them realize how important those plants of yours are,” Erin said.

  Ryan could feel that she was happy and proud of him. Normally, he would be thrilled. Now, though, he had mobs to evolve.

  “Let’s see if the next group shows an interest in them as well. Maybe this group is just strange,” Ryan chuckled. Seeing Erin nod and go back to watching the group, he let out an internal sigh. He was finally able to get back to his task at hand.

  Ryan created small tunnels leading from each of the evolution chambers into a single, much larger pit. The pit had a small haze of dark mana floating in the room and was where Ryan generally held his most exciting battles.

  It was here that he had pitted so many victorious skuirrels against the skrat that finally became his plated skrat. And now, in the grandest spectacle to date for skeletal fight club, ten victorious skuirrels, all on the brink of evolution, would fight. Ten would enter, and only one – hopefully evolved – would remain.

  Ryan was practically shaking with excitement as he finished carving out the tunnels and opened them up to the victorious skuirrels. With a mental push, each victorious skuirrel, now fully healed, marched into the tunnel and towards their final fight.

  He watched as their little forms scampered through the tunnel, admiring their sharp boney protrusions. This evolution had proven to be quite dangerous for adventurers, especially those with only leather armor. He couldn’t wait to see what the skuirrels’ next form brought.

  “Hey, Ryan?”

  Again?

  “Yes, hun?” She flinched, sensing his irritation.

  “Did I… did I upset you?” she asked. Her emotions started on a downward spiral, and Ryan knew he had to fix this, fast.

  “No… I just… well, you see,” Ryan scrambled, trying to find an answer. He glanced through his dungeon, noting the fourth adventurer group had beaten Steve, and was nearing the exit. Ryan watched for a split second as the group easily maneuvered around one of the traps he had laid in the first room.

  That’s it!

  “I’m sorry, hun,” he ventured. “It’s just I’ve been secretly trying to plan out new traps.”

  New mobs, new traps. Same thing, right?

  “And you interrupted me as I was working on one.”

  He waited silently, praying to the Goddess that Erin believed him.

  The fairy looked down at him, her emotions unreadable for a moment, before she broke into a large smile and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Oh Ryan, I’m so proud of you.”

  Crisis averted.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, sweetheart,” he lied, feeling only a little guilty. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

  Erin pulled away, shaking her head as she stared at him. He could feel through their bond just how proud she was. Now he felt a little worse about lying to her.

  “Don’t be sorry, Ryan,” Erin said. “Every dungeon fairy dreams of the day their dungeon becomes more engrossed in bettering themselves. I’m really excited to see what new traps you’ve made. What have you been working on?”

  Crap.

  “Uh, well, I want it to be a surprise. After I reach Silver.”

  “Oh.” Erin’s eager demeanor dimmed by a small degree, but she offered him a smile. “That’s okay.”

  Her mood was slowly evening out, and Ryan could detect a touch of sadness. Did she feel left out? Ryan made a mental note to try and include her in the future. Especially since now he apparently needed to plan out some new traps for his dungeon.

  “Don’t worry, hun,” Ryan said. “Maybe we can come up with a trap together after I finish what I’m working on?”

  “Deal.”

  She zipped around the room excitedly, and Ryan couldn’t help but smile. Her mood was infectious, and he really did like making her happy. However, he also wanted to get back to what was going to make him happy: evolving his mobs.

  “All right, well, I’m going to go back to my experimenting,” Ryan said. “Will you let me know when the final group finishes?”

  His victorious skuirrels were all at the end of their tunnels, just waiting for Ryan to open them up into the fighting pit.

  “Sure thing, hun.” She gave him another hug, and then turned her attention to the group preparing to dive.

  With that, Ryan threw his full attention back to his fighting pit, and with a silent cry of glee, opened up the tunnels. In a rush, ten boney forms clashed against each other in the center of the large pit, and Ryan knew he would have a new mob at the end of it all.

  Oh, how he loved skeletal fight club.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Erin sat atop Ryan, guiding him.

  “All right, now that you’ve sealed off the dungeon, absorb all your mobs,” she said.

  The final group of adventurers had departed, Ryan’s victorious skuirrel had evolved, and now it was time to break into Silver. The first task Erin had for him was to seal his dungeon.

  “As you wish.”

  He could have simply blocked the entrance, but Ryan liked to be a little more… theatrical. As such, he had lowered the top part of his wolf skull entrance onto itself, given the appearance that the dungeon had closed its mouth.

  Ryan absorbed all of his mobs, smiling as he absorbed his new skuirrel. He was going to call it a bladed skuirrel.

  “Next, call forth your triangles,” Erin instructed.

  Ryan complied, and the two triangles appeared. His level triangle showed the entire bottom covered in darkness, with a ‘100’ showing. His experience triangle shimmered, with the bottom triangle filled and ready.

  Erin flew down to look at both triangles before nodding to herself.

  “Now, push the two triangles together.”

  Ryan did as he was told, interlaying the two triangles on each other. The golden shapes flashed with light as they neared, and then suddenly combined, creating a six-sided star. The star began to spin as dark mana swirled around it.

  He could feel energy crackling in the air around him, and the spinning star seemed to be growing in size. Dark mana condensed around it, creating a dark, swirling void of pure energy. Ryan couldn’t help but stare into it, a black abyss that seemed infinite.

  “Get ready,” Erin whispered, but Ryan, so enthralled with the darkness, barely heard her.

  Suddenly, a single light seemed to grow from within the darkness, and Ryan felt himself being pulled towards it. Like a moth to a flame, Ryan’s consciousness reached out, and as he touched t
hat light, it was as if he had unleashed a dam.

  Dark energy blasted into him from the spinning star, attacking him, rushing over him. He fought against the torrential energy, his mind swimming upon tumultuous waves of energy. Images flashed through his mind, faster than he could comprehend, and he felt something within him unlock. The mass of energy continued to pour into him, until all the darkness surrounding the six-sided star had faded, absorbed by Ryan. Then, as the star came to a stop, the triangles once again separated.

  As his mind stopped spinning and he got over the intoxicating new levels of power he could feel, he looked at his experience triangle. The line that had signaled a Bronze level worth of experience was gone, and now the amount of experience needed for a single level seemed to have increased fourfold. That was going to take a while.

  Next, his level triangle. The entire bottom was black, and the next row showed a single triangle, on the far left, filled in. Within it, the number ‘200.’

  “My mob points doubled?” Ryan exclaimed.

  Even if Erin couldn’t feel his excitement, his voice practically crackled with the emotion.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said. “And from now on, each level you gain will give you many more mob points than before. And that’s not all.”

  Erin hovered in front of Ryan, a wide smile on her face.

  “Look at yourself,” she said with a smile.

  Ryan pulled up a mental image of his core room, and nearly lost it. His diamond core was now the size of a human skull.

  Guess it’s time to make the core room bigger.

  “Every time you climb a tier, your core will grow larger,” Erin said, “to accommodate the amount of mana you can hold.”

  “This. Is. Awesome!”

  He hadn’t noticed it before, but at Bronze One, he had felt full. Now, at Silver Nine, with double the mob points and mana capacity he had previously had, he felt empty. Ryan couldn’t wait to begin climbing the Silver ranks, wondering just what powers he might unlock.

  “Also—“ Erin began.

  There’s an also?

  “—now that you have reached Silver tier, you should have the ability to summon new types of mobs.”

  New mobs? I like the sound of that!

  Ryan mentally pulled up his list of mobs, only pausing for a second to admire his bladed skuirrel, before flipping towards his wolf skeleton. Before, the mob had been out of his ability to summon, but now, he could tell, he would be able to utilize it.

  Medium beasts had been unlocked. But that wasn’t all. As he flipped through to his human skeletons, he nearly gasped in surprise. He mentally looked at his first full skeleton, the fire mage he had killed to save Blake, and noted two things.

  First, the bones now had an affinity. Second, his newfound knowledge told him he could summon a hardened skeleton out of these bones, or a skeletal mage.

  “What’s a skeletal mage?” Ryan asked.

  He was really curious, but even as he spoke, he nearly choked.

  “It costs fifty mob points?” he exclaimed.

  Erin broke into a fit of laughter, obviously enjoying his reaction to becoming Silver.

  “Skeletal mages are a powerful mob type that can utilize basic spells depending on the affinity of the individual whose bones are used,” she said. “A fire affinity skeletal mage can use basic fire spells, a water mage, water spells, and so on.”

  Ryan’s mind immediately rushed through his human skeletons. He had fire, water, earth, and wind affinities. Not bad, but the collector in him wanted to get them all. He had to pause, though, as a thought crossed his mind.

  “So, would a celestial set of bones allow my mobs to heal each other?” he asked.

  Erin grimaced at his question and shook her head.

  “As a darkness dungeon, it is against nature for you to be able to create a celestial skeletal mage. There are stories of necromancers attempting to resurrect clerics and paladins, which resulted in an explosion of celestial energy. So please, don’t try.”

  Okay, note to self: never try that. Ryan really didn’t want to blow up his own dungeon.

  “Besides,” Erin went on. “As a darkness dungeon, you can naturally create dark skeletal mages, which will have the ability to heal your other mobs with dark mana.”

  Oh, that’s neat. That only covers six of the seven mana types, though.

  “What about—“

  “If you’re going to ask about chaos, don’t,” Erin interrupted. “While you could summon a chaos skeletal mage, as a celestial being, I could not allow such an atrocity to ever take place.”

  Oh, right. Celestial and chaos are apparently lifelong enemies.

  “It’s like you read my mind,” Ryan chuckled as he spoke. He knew she could feel his emotions, but luckily, she couldn’t read his mind. Otherwise, she would have found out about skeletal fight club long ago.

  “So, anything else new with Silver?” he asked. He wanted to make sure he thoroughly understood what came with his new tier. He also wanted to give Erin a chance to explain anything she could to him. He knew she really enjoyed teaching him.

  Erin tapped her chin. “Hmm. I think as a Silver darkness dungeon, you can combine skeletons to create new types of creatures.”

  “I can what?” Ryan was surprised.

  The level of possibilities that fact opened up! What if he combined a human and a beast? Could he combine his skuirrels’ and skrats’ evolutions to create something even more powerful? Ryan might have just found something new to do during his long nights.

  Erin thought for a moment.

  “From my understanding, you can try and create new skeletal… creations. I’m not sure how it works, so that’s up to you to figure out,” she said. “I just know you can combine different skeletons together to try and create new combinations. Whether or not they work comes down to magic.”

  She smiled slyly at her last statement. So, they were back to making those terrible, magic being vague, jokes.

  “You know you’re going to regret opening that line of jokes back up,” Ryan warned, only half-jokingly.

  “I’m looking forward to it.” She landed easily atop his now much larger core. “But first, I think I’m going to take a nap while you create the next floor of your dungeon.” She pulled her silk cloth around herself like a blanket.

  “Any suggestions?” Ryan asked.

  Erin stifled a yawn as she snuggled into her blanket.

  “Generally, the second floor has at least five rooms,” she said, stretching her arms. “Four basic rooms with mobs, and a boss room. Other than that, surprise me.”

  Ryan sent her a mental grin as she closed her eyes.

  “Oh, you know I love surprising you.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “Now, where to start?” Ryan thought out loud, turning his focus away from the quietly snoring Erin to the task at hand.

  When it came to dungeon design, he was still rather inexperienced. He wasn’t unhappy with his first floor, but he definitely felt he could do much better.

  First, I suppose I should find out what’s underneath us. He spread his mind to every corner of his current dungeon, and slowly pushed his influence downward.

  When he had last built out his dungeon, he had been Bronze Eleven. Immediately, the capacity difference from Bronze Eleven to Silver Nine made itself evident. Ryan was able to quickly excavate the earth beneath him, spreading his influence, gaining more ground. It was simple enough to eat away at the rock, and he did have practice in quickly filling the areas he excavated.

  It was monotonous, and even with his increased capacity, he was certain the task would take him quite some time. As he went to work, Ryan made the mental note to begin spreading his influence more, even when he wasn’t building. It would make this a much quicker process in the future.

  The first two rooms on Ryan’s first floor were nearly thirty feet high, while his boss room was fifteen feet. For his second floor, Ryan wanted to do something different.

  A fe
w of the adventurers Ryan had killed had been carrying books, and once absorbed, Ryan had gained all the knowledge in these books. One in particular detailed a variety of different types of architecture, and Ryan wanted to begin creating an underground castle of sorts. As such, his second floor was going to be much more uniform. He really felt it would help elevate adventurers’ perception of him.

  Ryan let his influence spread thirty feet below his first floor before he started getting serious. At thirty feet, he sent his influence down another ten feet, but as he did, he absorbed all the rock and material he could, completely hollowing the area out.

  This labor came with the added bonus of netting him a few more skeletons for his collection. Always a plus, and another reason he should be continually spreading his influence, even when he wasn’t building new floors.

  Now to begin building.

  Below his first floor, Ryan had created an expanse twice the size of his first floor, not only in length, but also in width. Erin had told him to create five rooms with mobs, and he intended to do so. However, he also felt he should make his dungeon a little more complex. A straight path from start to finish seemed rather boring. His second floor was going to surprise Erin. She was going to be proud of him.

  First, he created his starting room. He decided this room was going to be directly under the first room on his first floor. It made things easier in his mind. This room, just like all the other rooms on the second floor, was going to be fifteen feet wide, and fifteen feet long, with a ten-foot ceiling.

  He also decided this would be the first room to have new mobs on his second floor. He wasn’t sure what type yet, but he wanted to welcome the adventurers to his second floor with not only new architecture, but new challenges.

  Once the expanse was created to his desired shape, Ryan created an arched doorway leading down a single hallway. This hall led to his next room, which he quickly crafted. He paused after his second room, smiling. Oh, how proud Erin was going to be.