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

by Jonathan Smidt

  “Well…“ Jack paused as he dodged away from three bone spikes Buttercup had launched at him. The thief lobbed a dagger back at Buttercup, only to have the blade blocked by the boss’s shield.

  “I have a date tonight,“ he shot a wink towards Karan, even as he dodged another set of spikes, “and I don’t want to wear myself out.”

  “Oh, are they dating?” Erin’s face filled with excitement, and Jack’s comment had piqued Ryan’s interest. He made a mental note to ask Blake later. How could the knight have failed to mention their blossoming relationship?

  Sheesh.

  “The sooner the fight is over, the sooner our date can start.” Karan shot a wink back at Jack, making the thief pause mid dodge. The distraction caused him to take a bone spike to the knee.

  “Nooooo, my adventuring days,” he cried out as he grasped at his knee.

  A moment later, he was grinning again, thanks to the golden healing light from Karan’s divine protection. That spell was way too strong.

  As the Silver members of Blake’s team grew stronger, they had begun to kill Buttercup before Karan even got close to running out of mana. Ryan had wondered why Karan wasn’t leveling up and had been informed by Blake that until they were all Gold, her share of the experience went to the team.

  The fact she had been adventuring with them for so long without any experience gain had increased Ryan’s opinion of the cleric. He still hated the class, but he held a good amount of respect for her.

  “You weren’t much of an adventurer,” Matt called back, and Jack flashed him a fake hurt look. “Now get out of my way and watch this.”

  The thief dropped to all fours and was quickly away from Buttercup. The boss turned towards the group and let out a roar.

  “Ice storm!” Matt bellowed, and he launched over a dozen arrows in a high arc towards Buttercup.

  The arrows, all glowing brightly with blue mana, shattered as they reached their peak. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of ice shards rained down on Buttercup, completely decimating the boss mob, and ending the fight.

  “How much mana did that cost you?” Jack called out as the thief returned to his human form.

  “Five mana per arrow. Plus another twenty to make them shatter.” He offered Jack a grin, then stumbled.

  “Yup, that’s what I thought.” Jack walked towards him, hand outstretched, grinning. “You nearly ran out of mana with that trick.”

  “Hey, I wanted to finish off the boss for once.” Matt smiled as he took Jack’s hand, steadying himself with his bow as he stood.

  “Well, be careful about mana expenditure,” Jack said. “There’s no need for us to be overly reckless.”

  He shot a small smile to Karan, who returned it with a warm smile of her own. Something was definitely going on between those two.

  “Says the guy who was just having a one-on-one with Buttercup,” Matt shot back.

  Jack’s grin faltered, and he let out an awkward laugh.

  “Well, you know. Do as I say, not as I do.”

  “Hypocrite.” Matt walked towards Buttercup’s form. His eyes widened at the loot it had dropped.

  “Hey, Jack, I think I see another Buttercup card.”

  “Dibs.” The thief’s body nearly blurred as he rushed towards Buttercup’s remains, his eyes darting over the loot drops. After a moment, he reached down and picked up another of Ryan’s mob cards.

  “I thought you were done with those,” Karan said.

  Jack paused, having already pulled out a leather journal and slid the card into it.

  “Well, I, uh—“

  “He lost his first Buttercup card in a game of Dungeon Mobs the other night,” Blake chuckled, pulling a Buttercup card from his own leather journal. “So his collection was no longer complete.”

  “I still want to know how you got a full set of infested snakies,” Jack complained. “There is no way we’ve killed that many.”

  Ryan laughed. He had given Blake a set of all the infested snakie cards in exchange for a few items from the dungeon town. He found Blake was willing to trade him quite a lot for those cards.

  Of course, Erin had informed him before he even started such trades that he couldn’t simply give Blake blatant valuables like gold and gear. That would, as she always nagged, breach etiquette.

  “I can’t believe how big of a game everyone has made of those cards,” Karan said, pulling out her pendant. “Everyone ready?”

  They all nodded, and a moment later, they were gone.

  “All right,” Ryan said. “Now we just wait till dark, and we can begin our ascension.”

  He scanned his dungeon. Since Blake’s team was the last one of the day, Ryan simply absorbed the remainder of his mobs, and didn’t summon any new ones.

  “Want to watch some special skeletal fight club matches while we wait?” Ryan asked. He had also absorbed the eight basic human skeletons that had inhabited the massive fighting arena.

  “Oh, what are we going to do?” Erin had taken a liking to skeletal fight club.

  “A super special fight. I plan on using the skeletal mages when I ascend to Gold, so I’m curious to see just what they can do. With 600 points, I was thinking we could have four teams of skeletal mages fight. Each team would have one dark skeletal mage, and then one of the four affinities.”

  Ryan knew from Erin that dark skeletal mages could heal other skeletal mobs, so he was curious which affinity would reign supreme in a free-for-all match. It was all going to be part of his experimentation for his next floor.

  “Let’s do it,” Erin cheered.

  Ryan flipped through his collection, deciding the easiest way to summon his skeletal mages was to mass-summon the dark ones first, then summon each individual element next. This was in part due to the requirement that the bones for the mage had to come from someone with the appropriate affinity.

  After a moment of searching, Ryan found a complete skeleton with a dark affinity, and summoned four sets of those in his fighting arena. As he animated them, dark mana swirled along their bones, and around their hands, globs of black energy glowed eerily. Where their eyes should have been, two void-like pits seemed to swirl. If these effects carried over to the other elements, Ryan was instantly going to fall in love with these mobs. They were just too cool.

  Excitedly, he rushed through his bone collections, finding the appropriate skeletal remains for the four affinities he was looking for. Instead of animating one at a time, he first summoned all four sets of bones into the arena, one in each corner, next to his dark mages. From there, he animated them.

  Sure enough, as his dark mana filled these mobs with unlife, a myriad of colors began to fill the arena. The fire affinity mage had a crimson glow around his hands, with wisps of fire mana tracing along its body. Its eyes were two floating flames.

  The water affinity mage had blue energy clinging to its form, with watery orbs encapsulating its bony hands. Its eyes were a pure, icy blue, which Ryan was sure would send shivers down any adventurer’s spine.

  His earth affinity skeletal mage had green energy, appearing almost as moss along its body, while its eyes shone with an emerald light. The mass of earth mana covering its hands seemed thicker, almost like dirt with grass atop it.

  Wind affinity, to Ryan’s surprise, was the coolest of the four. He had always been curious about wind affinity’s color, and now, as his skeletal mage came to life, wondered no more. The color appeared to be almost silvery, with tinges of blue and purple swirling around it in small gusts, and the energy around its hands was creating spiral-like patterns.

  Ryan mentally prepared himself for the fight, ensuring the mobs all had their commands and were in the correct position. He had secretly been looking forward to this fight for a while now, and he was glad he finally had the time to do it before ascending to Gold.

  With one last long breath to steady himself, he sent the order for his mobs to begin. It was time for the most epic skeletal fight club match to date.

  Viktor<
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  He teleported into the dungeon town unnoticed, thanks to the earring from the Exalted One. Quietly, he hurried past the adventurers that milled about the streets and alleyways. They were of little importance to him.

  In his excitement, he didn’t even take in the features of the adventurers he passed. Besides, soon they would all be dead. He had been waiting for this moment for almost a week but needed the right time to launch his attack. The Crown of Sorrows could only be activated during a new moon, a night of absolute darkness.

  His earring kept the guards from noticing him as he headed away from the town and dungeon. He needed the town’s attention to be as far from the dungeon as possible if he was to truly enjoy this.

  It was nearly night time, and all the adventurers had gone back to town for the night. Viktor used the shadows as dusk fell to search for any threats. The last thing he needed was for the twins to interrupt his use of the Crown of Sorrows. He wanted this moment to be perfect.

  After a moment, he confirmed there was no one with any mana around him. With hands shaking with excitement, he pulled a bone crown from his cloak. It was a beautiful sight: a crown formed from intertwined finger and toe bones, lashed together with tendons and dark mana. Laced throughout it were countless flawless opals.

  The Crown of Sorrows was a legendary artifact, last used by the greatest necromancer to walk the land. He was eventually defeated by the cursed Goddess of Justice’s forces, the church, and the crown was thought to have been destroyed. Viktor had no idea how the Exalted One had gotten his hands on the crown, but it didn’t matter.

  Viktor lowered the crown to the ground and stepped back. Then he pushed his dark mana into it, sending tendrils of mana flowing all around the crown.

  At first, nothing happened. Then the ground beneath the crown began to crack, and slowly a massive skeleton rose from the ground. Before Viktor stood a lich: A Diamond-tier skeleton mob.

  “What is your command?” the lich’s voice rasped into Viktor’s mind.

  “Destroy the town,” he said as he began to make his way, cloaked in shadows, towards the dungeon.

  The lich could destroy the town and its residents. The dungeon was Viktor’s. He had a bone to pick with it.

  Chapter Seventy

  Blake stood in his tent, looking at his gear. Slowly, he reached down, grasping the gauntlet that hid his left hand. With practiced ease, he slipped the piece of armor off, followed by the leather glove underneath it, revealing his skeletal hand.

  Dark energy wrapped around it, and with a thought, he flexed it. This hand was a reminder of his weakness. A reminder of his failure to save Todd. It was also a dark secret, as only Marcus knew the full extent of what went on in the dungeon. Blake hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell the others of his skeletal hand, and as Ryan had asked, he kept their link a secret.

  “Tomorrow, I will take the step to greater strength.” Ryan flexed the hand and slid his leather glove back over it, setting the gauntlet on the ground.

  The most recent run in the Bone Dungeon, Ryan’s dungeon, had given Blake and the others enough experience to ascend to Gold. According to Karan, they would be apart for roughly three months while they underwent their class training.

  He didn’t want to be away from his group that long, but he was brimming with excitement over the thought of becoming a paladin. Especially since he knew a certain dungeon that was going to become Gold, and which also had a dark and celestial connection, that he could pledge to. If he had been a paladin when that necromancer had attacked, he may have been able to save Todd.

  “We’re under attack!” A panicked cry pulled Blake from his thoughts, and he quickly grabbed his gauntlet, sliding it back over his hand as he grabbed his sword and shield.

  As he rushed out of his tent, all he saw was chaos.

  Dark fires burned all along the perimeter of the town, and as Blake turned his attention towards where the cry had come from, his blood froze. All along the street, cracks were forming in the ground, and from them, rising up, were countless undead forms.

  And then he heard it.

  “Despair as you face your death. Allow me to fill your hearts with sorrow as you fall to my army.”

  The voice filled Blake’s mind. All around him, adventurers froze, glancing around, and he could tell they had heard the same voice.

  “What’s going on?” he called out as he saw the familiar face of a Gold Six centurion he sparred with from time to time.

  But before the centurion could reply, the wall near their tent exploded, and from it, a horde of skeletons rushed in. The skeletal army filled Blake with dread. Such an attack could only mean one thing: the necromancer had returned.

  “Get the others to safety, Blake. I’ll hold the line.” The centurion turned to face the skeletons, his body instantly encased in solid stone armor.

  He sheathed his sword, knowing he couldn’t help the centurion. While Blake, as a Silver One, had the same amount of mana as a Gold Seven, he didn’t have access to the skills that would give him an edge in the battle.

  “Embrace sorrow as it washes over you.”

  The voice caused Blake to pause, and he felt a wave of despair rush over him. At the same time, he heard a cry of pain. He turned to see the centurion’s body lifted from the ground, impaled upon a massive sword made of bones. And holding it… was a monstrosity.

  “No!” The cry ripped out of Blake’s mouth, and his hand grasped his sword.

  In front of him was a massive skeleton, clad in robes of dark mana and wearing a strange crown made of bones. It was far more powerful than him. But he couldn’t – no, he wouldn’t – flee from the monster.

  “Let us handle this, Blake.” A gruff voice accompanied a strong hand that pushed down on Blake’s, sheathing his half-drawn sword. Marcus’s form materialized before him.

  “The Crown of Sorrows,” the rogue whispered, a touch of dread in his voice.

  “Viktor,” came another voice, and as Blake turned, he saw two massive wolfkin approach.

  While Jack only seemed to grow a few inches when he transformed into his wolfkin form, these two beasts had to stand nearly nine feet in height. One was covered from head to foot in brilliant silver fur, while the other was all black.

  “So, a Diamond-level boss mob,” the silver-furred wolfkin said. “A lich. That means his army is Gold and Platinum-level skeletons.”

  From the tone of the voice, Blake could tell it was Sasha, the female twin.

  “This shall be fun,” the black-furred wolfkin, Rasha, growled, as two wickedly curved daggers made of black mana appeared in his hands.

  “If we beat the lich, his army falls,” Marcus said, and his entire form became enveloped in wind.

  An instant later, his form flew forward, blades moving in a blur. The twins let out howls and joined in the fight, leaving Blake watching in awe.

  “Blake!” Jack’s cry pulled his attention away from the fight, and he jerked his head in its direction.

  “Jack,” Blake called back, watching as the thief, and the rest of his party, rushed towards him. The relief on their faces was palpable.

  “We need to get out of here, man.” Jack’s voice was panicked, and as he spoke, the ground around them began to split, with zombies and skeletons preparing to claw their way out of the earth.

  “Marcus ordered the evacuation of the town,” Karan said. “Everyone else is already fleeing. Let’s go, now.”

  She winced as she looked past Blake, and he turned to see the lich send a bone spike into Sasha’s side.

  “We have to help them.” Blake drew his sword.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Jack said. “Marcus is Platinum Two, and the twins are freaking wolfkin royalty. If they can’t handle that mob, we would die in a second.”

  Blake’s mind raced. He had no idea what being wolfkin royalty meant, but the way Jack said it, it must have meant they were extremely powerful. And he had a good point: Marcus was one of the strongest rogues in exist
ence. If he was struggling, what more could Blake’s group do? Besides, Sasha had mentioned the mobs that lich had summoned were Gold and Platinum level. The town was desperately outmatched.

  As his mind raced for a solution, a single name came to him.

  “Viktor”

  An idea formed. Maybe if they defeated Viktor, they would be able to stop the lich. And if they stopped the lich, the army would fall as well, saving the town.

  “The necromancer that showed up, killed Todd, and nearly killed you?” Jack stared at him in disbelief. “You think he’s here?”

  “He has to be. Who else would send a skeletal army after the town?” Blake scanned the area. There was no way he would miss the necromancer if he saw him. He had to be somewhere.

  “Yeah, but how are we supposed to find—" Jack began.

  “Hey, uhh, Blake?” Ryan’s voice silenced the thief, coming from one of the two pendants Blake wore around his neck.

  Every member of Blake’s party stared at him as he pulled the pendant from his neck.

  “Please tell me you’re contacting me about Viktor.” Blake’s voice was frantic, even as the wolfkin let out anguished howls. Marcus and the twins were barely holding their own.

  “Never thought I would hear you say those words,” Ryan said. “But yeah. He’s here, right now. He’s coming for me.”

  “We’re on our way,” Blake said, and looked to his team. “Viktor’s attacking the dungeon. We need to go help.”

  He put the pendant away and sprinted in the direction of the dungeon. He wasn’t sure his party could stop the necromancer, but he wasn’t going to let fear stop him, not now.

  “I’m sorry – help who?” Jack asked, running alongside Blake.

  “Ryan. He’s the dungeon,” Blake replied.

  This was not the time for secrets.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  “This is all your fault.” Erin sat atop Ryan’s core, covered completely by the silk cloth. “If you hadn’t insisted on that last fight club match—“