The first adventurer paused, watching the group walk away.
“But how will anyone know if they don’t know we went diving tonight?”
How, indeed?
Ryan smiled to himself, watching the group venture in. His night had just gotten a lot more entertaining.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryan learned a couple of things as the group entered his first room. First, if he focused on adventurers like he did his mobs, he could pull basic information on them. He figured this was a similar skill to what Erin had mentioned the adventurers would have, allowing them to see his mobs’ names.
Second, a scared adventurer could jump surprisingly high in the air while screaming at a decibel Ryan hadn’t thought humanly possible. The latter part he had learned when the group of adventurers – four Bronze and one Silver – encountered his skuirrels.
“What are those things?” shrieked Todd, a Bronze Ten fighter, his voice still an octave or two too high.
Ryan decided to call this one Squeaker. One of Ryan’s skuirrels had flung itself straight at the poor man, managing to scratch his face before it was flung against the wall. The bones scattered from the impact, leaving a copper coin as Ryan absorbed the bones.
“Can I absorb the loot if they don’t get it in time?” he asked Erin as they watched the five adventurers. The copper coin was far enough away that their mana didn’t stop Ryan from absorbing it.
“Not while they are in the room. That’s just rude,” Erin said. “Wait until they head to the next room.”
“Fiiiine…”
“Don’t ‘fiiine’ me. There is proper etiquette to being a dungeon. It is what keeps dungeons alive. And I’m going to make sure you can grow and become the best dungeon around.” She gave him a hug. “Because you are mine.”
“Aww, Rin.” Ryan glowed a little brighter at her praise before turning back to the group. “So, dropping a stalactite right now...”
“Wouldn’t be proper.”
“Ugh.”
The group were moving cautiously towards the copper coin, their eyes darting around the low-lit cave. Ryan found himself laughing in anticipation before Squeaker even bent down to grab the coin.
“Argh!” There he went again, this time jumping backwards into an adventurer Ryan hadn’t examined yet. A quick glance at his stats informed Ryan his name was Adam, and he was a Bronze Five fighter.
“What the hell?” Adam growled as he climbed back to his feet.
Squeaker was on the ground, clutching at a skuirrel that had buried its teeth in his shoulder. Adam grabbed the skeleton and ripped it off the adventurer. Literally – the head was still attached to Squeaker’s shoulder.
“That thing leapt from a hole,” Squeaker said. He stood, wincing as he pulled the skuirrel’s head off and tossed it aside. The skuirrel dropped two copper coins this time.
“It’s called a skuirrel,” Josh, a Silver Eight thief, said as he scooped up the copper coins. “I’m guessing they’re the lowest ranked mobs in the dungeon.”
“A squirrel?”
“No, a skuirrel with a ‘k’”
Erin broke out into a fit of giggles as Josh spoke. She had said something very similar to Ryan when they had originally named the mobs.
“Whatever they are, they seem pretty easy to kill.” The next individual, Leeroy, Bronze Five fighter, had drawn a sword and was looking around.
“Leeroy’s right,” said Josh. “They have the element of surprise, but they don’t seem to do much damage.”
“Speak for yourself,” Squeaker whined, touching his own shoulder gently and curling the fingers of his other hand around his mace.
“Leeroy is right, they die rather easily,,” Josh said. He tossed a dagger towards the wall and the blade sunk into a skuirrel skull. The creature died and dropped three coins. Another dagger – and another dead skuirrel – caused another two coins to drop.
“Let’s kill all the mobs in here and keep going. I’m all for easy coin,” Josh laughed as he twirled another dagger, flames dancing from this one.
“Why do the fiery ones always insult my dungeon?” Ryan sulked as he watched the group of adventurers search the room for his mobs.
“Who knows. Maybe they’re just hot-headed?”
Yes. Ryan loved when Erin tried to make puns.
A scream stopped Ryan from replying. Eight of the skuirrels were dead, but Squeaker – apparently the unlucky one in the group – had gotten his ankle stuck in one of Ryan’s traps. Two skuirrels bit at his exposed calf as he frantically swung at them.
“I bet he dies first,” Ryan whispered as he watched the man struggle to free himself.
Squeaker’s ankle was definitely at least sprained, and the two skuirrels did some good damage before he managed to bat them away with his mace. The blunt weapon seemed rather effective against the skuirrels.
“Really? I was hoping it would be Leeroy. Something about his name.” Erin watched as the adventurers regrouped and headed towards the second room. “Though your trap also did some work on Todd.”
It seemed Erin was able to observe their names and information, just like Ryan was. Another fact she’d “forgotten” to mention to him, and one which could have been helpful during that first visit from Sean and the gang.
“Squeaker. I named him Squeaker.”
Erin raised her eyebrow at Ryan’s statement. “Squeaker does seem pretty injured. Good job on the trap.”
“Thank you. I let the others keep their actual names, but Squeaker just seemed more appropriate.”
“I’m not even going to ask.” Erin shook her head at Ryan and turned back to watching the adventurers just in time to see Squeaker land in a pile of bones. If Ryan had to guess, his ankle had given out as he walked along the narrow path, making him fall into one of the pits below.
“He has the worst luck,” Ryan said. He was starting to feel sorry for the poor guy now.
The rest of the adventurers paused to glance back at Squeaker, who was struggling to stand, his eyes white with panic.
“We’ll be back for you after we clear the dungeon,” Josh called to Squeaker, causing him to freeze in shock. “You’re probably safer down there anyway.”
The others nodded and turned to follow Josh towards the next room. Squeaker sat back on the ground and pulled his knees up to his chest, sobbing. Ryan wasn’t sure if the poor man was terrified of the dungeon or upset his friends had left him alone in the hole. Either way, Ryan’s psychological warfare was working, though perhaps a little too well. Poor Squeaker.
“Wow. That was just wrong.” Erin’s eyes were starting to tear up, and Ryan could tell she felt sorry for Squeaker as well.
Ryan couldn’t believe the young man’s team had just abandoned him. He was certain they would have been able to pull him up easily, but they hadn’t even tried.
As he watched the group near the second room, Ryan’s pity was replaced by anger, slowly starting to boil within. How could they do that to their friend?
“All right. I’m changing my bet. I want Josh to go first.”
“Agreed!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What the hell is all this?” Adam asked as he looked around the second room.
The others stood around him, staring at the mass of overgrown plants and fungi. Ryan knew his mobs were watching the adventurers, but the adventurers couldn’t see them. The mobs were hidden in the plants and tunnels, just like Ryan had planned.
“The report mentioned the dungeon has three rooms, so let’s clear this one quickly so we can get to the boss,” Josh called, tossing a burning dagger through the plant life. The blade burned easily through the greenery, leaving a clear path towards the door to the next tunnel.
“Lead the way, Leeroy,” Josh said.
Leeroy shot Josh a grin and started forward, sword raised as his eyes darted back and forth. Luke, a Bronze Six fighter, followed next, with Josh and Adam following close behind. If Ryan had to guess, Josh was using the others
to keep himself safe.
Not going to work. Ryan urged his mobs to attack, targeting Josh whenever they could. It probably wasn’t the proper way to handle the group, but given how they had treated Squeaker, Ryan was certain Erin wouldn’t be mad.
“Mobs!” Josh shouted as a skrat burst through a tunnel beside him.
The thief cut the mob down before it could even reach him. But the skrat was just the beginning of the assault, and suddenly the room burst into… Life? Unlife? Hmm. Ryan decided now wasn’t the proper time to wonder. He watched his mobs attack.
A group of skuirrels leapt at Josh, and though the man managed to cut three of them down, two found purchase on his hands. They sank their teeth deeply into his flesh, making him curse and drop his daggers.
“Yes!” Ryan and Erin cheered the mobs on, watching as more swarmed towards the Silver-ranked adventurer. Leeroy and Luke were busy fighting both skrats and poison ivy, their feet tangled in the vine as they tried to help Josh. Adam, was cursing up a storm as he swatted at skuirrels with his mace.
“What the hell is going on? Why are they rushing us?” Adam said, knocking a skrat into a skuirrel in an explosion of bones. Ryan hated to admit it, but skeletal beasts were rather fragile. Maybe that was why they only cost one point to create.
“Less yelling, more felling,” Luke called out, his fists smashing down onto a skuirrel. Ryan noticed he had metal covering his knuckles. Interesting.
“This just makes it easier for us to kill them all.” Leeroy laughed as he swung his sword downward, severing a skrat with ease.
Ryan winced as his mob died, but Leeroy’s cry a second later made the sacrifice worth it. While Leeroy had been focused on the skrat, one of Ryan’s ratbies had managed to sink its teeth into his ankle.
“What the—?”
Leeroy’s sword swung down, decapitating the ratbie, but the head stayed locked onto his ankle.
“Huh, just like Blake,” Ryan remarked as he watched, and soon enough, a fiery dagger burned the severed ratbie head off of Leeroy’s ankle.
“Yes, that was rather strange,” Erin said.
“But unlike Blake, they don’t have a healer,” Ryan mused. “And only Josh seems to have any special skills.”
Ryan had noticed all the Bronze adventurers were only classified as fighters and didn’t seem to have any unique skills.
“They won’t. Adventurers don’t get their affinity till they are Silver ranked.”
“So only Josh has an affinity.”
“Yes, fire. Seems a strange affinity for a thief,” Erin said, half to herself.
“Remind me to ask you about that later,” Ryan mumbled as his mind drifted back to the fight.
The adventurers managed to finish the mobs in the room without any further injuries, and Ryan tried to re-absorb them. However, because most of the mobs had died so close to the adventurers, he found he couldn’t just yet.
“Hurry up and go,” Ryan hissed as they finished picking up their loot. At first, it seemed like they were going to leave it, because most of it had fallen into the ivy, but Josh burned all the plants away with seemingly no effort. Ryan was really growing to hate fire affinity adventurers.
“All right, let’s go take out the boss,” Josh said.
He motioned towards the tunnel, and Leeroy once again took the lead. If the ratbie’s bite had done anything to him, it wasn’t showing.
Ryan sulked, watching the group casually stroll down the winding path towards the boss room. His mobs had managed to inflict some minor wounds on most of the adventurers, and they were definitely showing signs of weariness. But all that remained was Steve.
“Do you think this group is really going to clear the dungeon?” he asked.
“I really hope not,” Erin whispered. She wrapped herself in her silk cloth, huddling closer to Ryan’s crystal.
“Let’s do this.” Leeroy’s voice echoed through the crystal, the group having reached the boss room. “Leeeeerrrooooooyyyyyy!!!!”
He rushed in, sword raised, and the rest of the group followed him. However, the adventurer managed two steps into the room before he suddenly collapsed on the ground, his sword flying from nerveless fingers.
“Damn it, Leeroy,” Luke managed to shout as he tripped over the fallen adventurer. Josh and Adam paused, their eyes darting from their comrades to the eight-foot skeleton that stood watching the intruders.
Then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luke was fast, Ryan had to give him that. But Steve the Bone Slinger was faster. Even as Luke hopped back to his feet, sharpened bones punched through his chest, easily penetrating the leather armor he was wearing.
The attack happened so quickly, Josh and Adam didn’t even have time to react. They simply stood, eyes wide, as Ryan’s boss mob reeled in their friend.
“Leeroy, help me,” Luke whimpered as he was pulled past the fallen fighter. He struggled uselessly against the black strands of mana bringing him slowly closer to Steve. But the more Luke struggled, the more the bones dug into his flesh, inflicting even more damage. Judging from the placement of the spikes, the wounds weren’t immediately fatal. However, Steve’s spiked arm was.
Just as Luke came within range of the deadly boss mob, Josh and Adam seemed to remember where they were, and jumped into action. A fiery dagger cut through the black mana, severing Steve’s connection to the bones lodged in Luke. The fighter fell to the ground, gasping for air, while Adam rushed towards him.
“What the hell are you doing, Leeroy?” Josh kicked the downed fighter, but Leeroy didn’t respond.
“What is going on with Leeroy?” Erin asked.
Luke was crawling back toward the entrance while Adam held off the eight-foot boss. Josh continued trying to rouse Leeroy.
“Umm.” Ryan had just finished absorbing the mobs in his second room and had learned something interesting. “Remember how you mentioned monster evolution to me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, my ratbies evolved.”
“Really?”
“Yup. It seems the mushrooms in the room started to, well, grow on the ratbies, and they created a new mob.”
Ryan paused to admire a vicious slash from Steve, which knocked Adam’s mace from his hand. The group really wasn’t faring well.
“So the ratbie that bit Leeroy earlier—" Erin began
“—was one of the new ones. An infested ratbie,” Ryan finished. He liked that name, and mentally assigned it to his new mob. “It seems they have a slow-acting paralysis toxin which makes their bites rather dangerous. The paralysis kicked in just as they started the boss fight.”
“Wow, talk about bad luck.” Erin giggled as they turned their attention back to the fight. Adam had recovered his mace but was now bleeding profusely from a variety of cuts. Luke was gasping for air against the wall, his wounds taking their toll. As for Josh… Wait. Where is Josh?
“Hey Rin, where did Josh go?” Ryan scanned the room but couldn’t find the thief.
“He probably used one of his thief skills. Thieves specialize in stealth. It is possible he used mana to mask his presence.”
“Adventurers can use their mana like that?”
Erin let out a deep sigh and looked down at Ryan. “How else do you think he has been throwing flaming daggers around your dungeon?”
“Magic?”
It was a terrible joke, but Ryan couldn’t resist. His comment earned him a slap to his hard exterior, which, ironically, coincided with Adam landing a hit on Steve. The mace sent bone chips flying off the skeleton, but Steve’s reinforced bones were much stronger than the skeletal beasts.
“You’re not wrong. But it’s much more complex than that.” Erin opened her mouth to continue but stopped as she observed the fight underway. “We can talk more after the fight.”
Ryan sent her a mental nod and turned back to the battle at hand. A rush of euphoria filled him, signaling experience gain. One of the adventurers had just died. A quick check
on Luke’s collapsed form confirmed his suspicion.
For some reason, seeing the fallen adventurer made an unknown feeling arise. Guilt? Killing the mage hadn’t bothered him, so why did Luke’s death?
“One down.” Ryan’s voice sounded dull through their bond, and he realized that as much as he wanted Josh dead, he had no ill feelings towards the other adventurers in the dungeon. They hadn’t really done anything wrong. Perhaps that was why he was feeling guilty?
“Your boss really is formidable,” Erin said.
She had likely sensed his mood drop at the thought of Luke dying, and was trying her best to cheer him back up. Was he going to feel this way after every death? There seemed to be some part of him, perhaps linked with those strange visions he had, that didn’t agree with this. Perhaps he wasn’t a bad person after all.
“Thanks.” He paused and pushed his thoughts from his mind. Ryan knew he couldn’t deal with the problem at that moment, and besides, there was a boss fight to watch. With Luke’s death and Leeroy still paralyzed, only Adam and Josh remained to fight Steve. Ryan wondered just how long Leeroy’s toxin would last.
“Adam’s not going to last long.” Erin was watching intently, and sure enough, Adam seemed to be slowing down.
He was covered in countless cuts, and while he managed to block most of Steve’s attacks, the blocks were coming slower and slower. Clearly, he had given up striking back. He had probably realized that, in a battle of who could take more damage, the skeletal boss had an advantage over the fleshy Bronze adventurer. As such, Adam appeared to have made a new life choice. He was making his way towards Leeroy and the exit.
“He’s going to run for it,” Ryan guessed, just as Adam made one last block and turned to run.
The adventurer’s eyes were filled with fear, and he didn’t even glance at Leeroy’s motionless form as he ran. He managed three steps before bones suddenly sprouted from his chest. Steve pulled Adam’s struggling body closer while simultaneously approaching Leeroy. It seemed the mob planned to finish both adventurers off at the same time.
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG Page 10