by Konrad Ryan
Konrad Ryan
The Dungeon Destroyer
A LitRPG Level-up Adventure
Copyright © 2020 by Konrad Ryan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Konrad Ryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Note from the Author
Glossary
About the Author
Chapter 1
For those climbing, there is nothing beyond the mountaintop; but at the peak, one can only gaze upward, and fly.
Tad stood on the tallest peak of a vast mountain range. A stone tower climbed endlessly upward into the blue sky, further than even his enhanced vision could see; below, clouds hugged the skyscape like a blanket, jagged black mountaintops pierced through the silky white clouds as far as he could see. The view was breathtaking and dazzling. This hadn’t been what he had expected when he gripped the key and teleported to the class tower.
The symbols scrawled across the key, writhing against his clenched fist, almost as if they were alive. Swords, bows, daggers, cloaks, crooks, and canes danced and twisted. They hadn’t done this before. Were they reacting to the tower? Plus, the symbols looked eerily similar to those etched on dungeon doors. Tad brought up the key’s description.
*Key to Class Tower: The keyword ‘Teleport’ will move you to the class tower and back again. Can only be used from your room. Earn classes by climbing the tower! You may enter and leave as many times as you wish.*
He studied the key. He searched for the symbol of a snake squeezing its victim to death, but it wasn’t there. Would this tower behave like a dungeon? It had to be a dungeon. How else could someone build an impossibly tall tower on the tallest peak, in a world filled with mountain ranges? He had to be on guard. Tad gripped the key once more.
“Teleport.”
He was back in his room, stealth vision activated in the darkness. The silhouettes of his bed and dirty laundry littered the floor in black and white.
“Teleport.”
Tad again stood on the peak of a majestic mountain range next to an impossibly tall tower. The air was thin and hard to breathe, his throat rough and tight. Gooseflesh crawled up his arms at the chill. With a thought, he banished the key in hand to one of his void slots he had earned with his equipment system. The key was his ticket out of here; he couldn’t afford to lose it.
His tongue slicked across his three missing teeth, where Kothar-wa-Khasis, the reptilian boss, had smashed his face with an enormous two-handed sledgehammer.
His friends were dead.
Tad’s wonderment dwindled and then died completely. Before, Tad might have hollered, yipped, or hooted at the sight, but things had changed. He had changed. Dark thoughts snuffed out antiquated cheer. He closed his eyes and clenched his fist to harden his resolve. He would become stronger. Powerful enough that he could protect not only himself but also everyone who went into dungeons with him. Until he could be a dungeon leader who wouldn’t lose a single member.
Unlike Gruff.
And this tower would facilitate that transformation.
Tad shook his head to clear his gloomy thoughts. He squinted to focus and examined the tower before him. Arches and pillars climbed up the entirety of its exterior. It reminded him of the Roman colosseum, as if someone had copied and pasted the structure on top of itself endlessly. A wooden door drew his eyes. As expected, it had the all too familiar wrought-iron rings for door handles. Tad approached carefully and traced the surface of the door with his fingertips. Belying its wooden appearance, the door was smooth to the touch, like frosted glass. He gripped the massive rings and pulled. The door swung open effortlessly.
Darkness loomed inside. Not the dark mist of the void, but regular darkness. Stealth vision activated and Tad stepped into the tower. Both the floors and walls of the tower were a uniform dusty white stone. The only feature that broke this convention was a brown pedestal, three feet high, in the center of the room.
Warily, Tad approached the pedestal. He didn’t think there were monster pedestals, but he wouldn’t be caught off guard if it grew a mouth and tried to bite off his head. The three-tiered pedestal was a murky brown. It reminded him of a wedding cake made of mud. Tad prodded the pedestal, and despite its polished marble-like appearance, it felt like sandstone to the touch. Nothing felt like it should. It made his skin crawl.
Tad circled the pedestal, studying it. What was he supposed to do here? He was supposed to earn a class, but there was nowhere to climb, no classes to earn. No stairs to reach the next floor. But no matter how you looked at it, this pedestal was way too suspicious. It had to be the key.
Gingerly at first, he pushed the pedestal. Then he pulled. Enhanced muscles groaned as he twisted and torqued, but the pedestal didn’t budge. Next, his fingers explored the rough surface, inch by inch, looking for a hidden switch, or maybe a button. From the base, he worked his way upward. His fingers explored and caressed every inch of the structure, a blind sculptor assessing his new stone block. Finally, the rough texture changed beneath his fingers. The center of the top tier opened up into an invisible hole. His eyes refused to believe it was even there, but his entire index finger disappeared inward. Various ridges and bumps scraped his finger. His stomach dropped a second later at the realization of what he’d discovered.
A keyhole.
And he had a key.
The very first level of the tower shouldn’t be a fatal challenge. In his rank
up trial, his first enemy had been ferocious, yet beatable. But… maybe the difficulty scaled to his current strength, like when an MMORPG expansion was released and the new content was balanced for max level characters. Tad paused at the thought. If he wanted to earn a class, to gain a potential power-up, there was no choice. He would have to stick the key inside and see what happened, but recklessness had not been his friend in the past.
Tad gritted his teeth. On the quest for greatness, you could not always avoid perilous paths, but you didn’t have to leap in with your eyes closed. But what about Zero? What choice would he have made? Instinctively, Tad knew exactly what Zero would have done. Anything. Zero would have done anything for power. He had seen it in the book ‘Path to Zero.’ The man had sacrificed his friends and killed party members, just to fulfill a quest. Tad would not become like him, no matter what. But sometimes you had to dive straight into danger or no progress could be made. This was one of those times. Tad summoned the class tower key, which appeared in a puff of black smoke.
He inserted the key into the invisible hole and held his breath. Nothing. He twisted. Hundreds of tiny clicks responded in the pillar beneath him, a series of clockwork mechanisms. Then, the earth beneath his feet trembled and escalated into a rumble, until the entire class tower groaned. Tad’s teeth chattered from the vibrations, so deep they shook his soul. Suddenly, the entire pedestal shot upward through the ceiling in an explosion of rock and dust. When the pedestal came to a stop, the base revealed an enclosed spiral staircase that twisted upward, the destination unseen above. Familiar black mist drifted lazily across its steps.
Cold sweat formed on his neck at the realization. His key was gone.
“You may enter and leave as many times as you wish.” Tad muttered to himself. “Yeah, if you live through the trial.”
His key was lodged in the pedestal’s top, waiting for him on the next floor. The message was simple. Complete this obstacle to return to your world. The tower had trapped him. This was a deadly game of knowing your limits. Like everything else his level-up program had required, he had to risk everything to grow stronger. It had always been this way. Why should it be any different now? The black misty steps of the tower taunted him. The swirling and lazy twisting of the mist almost seemed to ask ‘will you risk your life for power?’
That’s why he was here.
Tad strode through the mist and suddenly stood in a small dark cave, a pool of shallow water stood directly before him, damp earth and mud slicked the sides of the walls. The mist-covered stairs were gone. There were no exits. Great. Another dark cave. He was so tired of caves after the roach dungeon; he was ready for something new, something exciting. Why couldn’t he have a dungeon up in the sky? Why always dreary caves? Tad summoned his lightsphere into his hand and tossed it into the air casually.
“Illuminate.”
The lightsphere froze midair, spraying white light across the small cave walls. Was he supposed to dive into the water? Suddenly, almost in answer to his question, the pool bubbled. A dark shape glided toward the surface. Toward Tad. A shelled monstrosity rose from the dark frothy liquid, a huge hammer claw at the ready. Tad hopped back a step. Was the creature a water roach? Painfully slow, the creature emerged from the pool. It stood five feet tall, and ten feet wide, a smaller pincer snapped wildly like scissors in threat. It was not a water roach, just a huge armored crab. But… wasn’t a crab just a bug in the water? His guess of water roach hadn’t been far off.
The crab dragged itself forward in the mud, almost like it didn’t have the strength to lift its own body now that it was on land. It crawled forward. Its heavy chitinous armor must have weighed several tons. Despite its snail-like pace, Tad recognized the danger. The cave was tiny, and he didn’t have anywhere to retreat. The width of the crab’s body filled the entire cave from wall to wall. It made its sluggish approach and its shell almost touched the ceiling. Finally, the crab scuttled as far as it could, the walls of the cave narrowing to where it couldn’t progress further.
How embarrassing would it be to die to this thing? All he could imagine was the epithet on his tombstone. Tad Harrington - died to the slowest crab ever.
The crab sank its head into the dirt, covering up its soft face and underbelly, leaving only hard shell exposed. The huge crustacean swung its massive hammer claw back like a pendulum, its smaller claw snipped blindly. Its attacks were wildly inaccurate, hitting the cave walls and ceiling, only occasionally attacking Tad. It clearly couldn’t see with its head in the dirt like that.
Tad casually dodged and ducked over the twin claws. He summoned his daggers. A silver one he had bought at a store for slayers, the other he received as a quest reward, Raekast’s Fang. The same Raekast that had destroyed half the world.
With all his strength, Tad slammed the silver dagger into the top of the crab shell. It bounced off harmlessly, not even scratching the thick chitinous armor. Tad ducked under another snip with a grin. That his silver dagger didn’t work, wasn’t surprising. But unlike his silver dagger, his gleaming obsidian dagger ignored armor completely.
With a stab Raekast’s Fang sank effortlessly through the crab’s armor, it hissed in pain and mud bubbled from where its head was hidden beneath the earth. A huge puncture wound sent splinters of crab armor flying, blue blood and warm crab guts exploded across Tad’s hand. But the crab’s health bar barely dropped. A wave of incredulity flowed through Tad, just how much life did this thing have? Tad dodged the creature’s molasses attacks and carved up the crab systematically, stab after stab. Eighty-four stabs later and the crab’s health bar had finally dropped to twenty percent, Tad had counted out of sheer boredom, yet a sheen of sweat had formed on his brow from the exertion.
Ducking under another attack from the swinging hammer claw, he banished his daggers to the void and grabbed the top of the exposed shell and pulled with his might. The crab hissed, but Tad ripped the shell from the top of the crab, thick tendons snapping.
This thing’s armor was tough, but everything else about it was laughable. Raekast’s Fang appeared in hand once more, Tad viciously stabbed and stabbed. Finally, the creature collapsed to the ground, motionless.
Tad didn’t even blink, but found himself back in the tower. The black mist dissipated from the steps, without hesitation, he climbed the enclosed spiral staircase to the next level of the class tower.
He emerged from the staircase to a room identical to the first with one exception, a small marble table was pressed up against a far wall. Tad retrieved his key from the top of the pedestal, careful not to twist it, lest he start the next challenge by accident. A close inspection of the table revealed a small crab, identical to the one he had fought, it crawled slowly across the length of the table only to turn back the way it came. Like it was pacing. Tad poked one finger toward the crab, it went through the crab without resistance, but an electronic ping sounded in his ears.
*Do you wish to change your class to ‘Fat Crab?’*
*Fat Crab: Constitution increased by 300%. All other stats reduced by 50%. Your back becomes shelled.*
“Hey, Mom. Guess what I did today. I became a fat crab.”
Yeah, no. He would pass on this one. It could be good, if he had put every stat point into constitution. In fact, he would be a killer healer or tank that way. But he would also be as useful as that fat crab had been. Tad pressed ‘No.’
*You did not become ‘Fat Crab’*
Pity.
The top tier of the pedestal had changed color, it was now a brilliant gleaming red. He had seen that shade of red before, on every dungeon he had entered. For dungeons, their color determined their difficulty. From the top, the pedestal was now red-brown-brown. Brown meant civilian rank difficulty. Red was soldier.
That fight had seemed way too hard for a civilian, but to earn the key, he had needed to beat a dungeon as a sole survivor, so maybe the difficulty was somewhere in between.
If that’s the way the pedestal worked, then Tad should be able to
progress a few more levels. At least up to red-red-brown. Maybe even red-red-red. The higher he got, the more dangerous the fights would become, but the classes would most likely become more powerful. Despite the drawbacks, even ‘fat crab’ had potential to be useful. If this was the worst class, what amazing classes awaited him above? He couldn’t wait to find out.
Tad set the key once more into the gleaming red pedestal tier and twisted.
Chapter 2
Tad stepped up into the dark mist, this time teleported into what looked like a long torch-lit castle corridor, or maybe a crypt, perhaps a dungeon. It was hard to tell which. Shadows bounced and danced as he walked. At the end of the corridor, a creature stood chained to the wall by two iron manacles, huge painful-looking lumps covered its body. Was that a human? It couldn’t be. Where its legs and feet should be were reptilian legs with sharp looking claws, like some satyr-raptor hybrid.
Tad approached cautiously. If this floor was anything like the last, then it most likely wouldn’t be a challenge. But that didn’t mean there weren’t dangers. Any accumulated damage would continue to the next floor. That, or he would have to come back another day, and he didn’t know if Bunta would come calling to invite him to another dungeon. He had to be ready today.
“Hello?” Tad felt silly talking to the monster. But then, from what Gerald had said, humans might be monsters too.
“Ah… the next void finally arrives.” Pain filled the sore-ridden creature’s voice. Plain English poured from its throat, but the creature’s mouth didn’t match up with the words formed. There was some funny translation business going on, this time not only in his mind, but manifested out into the world. “The time of rest is upon me. Make it quick. Please.” The thing’s imploring yellow eyes bulged with pain.
Tad contemplated its request. Surely killing the thing would give him a new class, but he couldn’t let this chance go. He finally had a creature in front of him that potentially had some answers.
“I promise to make it quick, if you just answer me a few questions. Who are you?”
