While his weak mobs clashed with each other, he created a small tunnel connecting the two occupied rooms to the empty third room. Then he simply waited.
The skuirrels finished their fight first, surprisingly enough, with one finally tearing the other’s head off with its little bony claws. Ryan absorbed the fallen skuirrel and opened an entrance to the tunnel he had created.
He pushed his victorious skuirrel into that tunnel and towards the empty third room. The moment the skuirrel reached the third room, Ryan resealed the entrances to his connecting tunnel, and summoned two new skuirrels into the now empty skuirrel pit.
Once his skrats finished fighting, he did the same, sending the champion skrat towards the pit that held the victorious skuirrel, and quickly summoning two more skrats for battle in the now empty skrat pit.
Sealing the skrats in, Ryan ordered all the newly summoned mobs to begin fighting each other and turned his attention to the third room. There, he ordered the skrat and skuirrel to fight, and watched in slight awe as they began their battle.
It was immediately evident that they had learned a little from their previous battle, as instead of jumping into combat at once, they held back and circled each other.
The skuirrel was the first to strike, leaping high at the skrat. Bones clashed against bones, but the skrat, though slower, had a thicker bone structure. The tough little guy absorbed the skuirrel’s impact and then bit down against the skuirrel’s bony leg, tearing it off.
The skuirrel clattered to the ground but wasn’t done. He spun and smashed his bony tail into the skrat, knocking him backwards. However, the loss of the skuirrel’s leg cost him, and as he completed his tail whip, he fell, off balance, to the side.
The skrat took advantage of this and leapt atop the skuirrel, body slamming the smaller mob. With its skeleton having suffered from the last fight, it shattered easily, bones skittering around the room. The skrat stood victorious.
Ryan sent a small amount of dark mana into the room, watching as it repaired his skrat, making him ready for another battle. It wouldn’t do to let it fight again while injured.
Ryan found himself chuckling as the skrat paced around the room, seeming anxious for another fight. Ryan checked the other rooms, and found his two skuirrels were again done fighting, so he sent the next challenger to the champion skrat.
He had, for all intents and purposes, just created a skeletal fight club. He focused his attention back to Erin, noting that she was awake and was looking down at him. She could tell he was doing something, but he knew she wasn’t sure what. Rule number one of skeletal fight club: never talk about skeletal fight club.
“My sleeping beauty has awoken,” he said with a warm smile. Her inquisitive, questioning look quickly left her face and was replaced by a bright red blush.
“Oh, stop it.” She covered her face and flew off of him. He watched, with some amusement, as her foot got tangled in her silk cloth.
“It’s true, Rin, you are beautiful.”
She wrapped herself in the silk and stared at him. He could tell her emotions were in turmoil, and she was no longer wondering what he had been doing. Ryan sent a small part of his mind back to his fight club, making sure it was operating smoothly, and turned the rest of his attention back to Erin. Rule number two of skeletal fight club: never talk about skeletal fight club.
Between Erin and skeletal fight club, Ryan was almost able to completely keep his mind away from dark thoughts of Josh’s group. In fact, for two whole days he simply watched skeletal fight after skeletal fight take place and chatted with Erin when she wasn’t taking her naps. It seemed she was handling her own turmoil by sleeping it away. Part of Ryan was jealous that she could sleep and he couldn’t.
Oh, well. He lazily dropped a stalactite on a skuirrel, another way he enjoyed passing time. There was something cathartic about trying to hit an object with a rock.
“Seriously, Ryan? Again?”
Skuirrel bones scattered on the ground as rock shards went flying. He quickly reabsorbed them and summoned another skuirrel. A bonus of having his extra points was that he could summon a new mob instantly after he killed one.
If Erin was still upset about his skuirrel target practice, she would be really mad if she knew what he had been doing in skeletal fight club for the past two days. Speaking of, his skeletal fight club was showing some results.
Ryan’s original champion skrat had finally fallen after Ryan sent both a skrat and a skuirrel to fight him at the same time. Upon absorbing the champion, Ryan had discovered a new mob. He was going to keep that a secret from Erin for now, though. Rule number three of skeletal fight club: never talk about skeletal fight club.
“What? It’s not like there’s anything else to do,” Ryan said. He turned his attention outwards. “See, once again there’s—” He stopped as he took note of a large group of adventurers heading their way from the town. It seemed they were finally going to have more adventurers dungeon diving.
Ryan quickly made a mental change to the fight club, changing it to only skuirrels, before he focused all of his attention on the group advancing. Ryan may not have liked it, but he was going to make sure that when the time came to change his mobs up to make it harder on the adventurers, he would have new skrats and skuirrels to surprise them. He was also looking forward to the day he could surprise Erin with his proactiveness.
“There are so many of them,” Ryan whispered.
He was so unsettled by the large group – at least twenty adventurers in all – that he missed a skuirrel with a stalactite. He hadn’t missed a skuirrel since before Josh’s team had arrived.
“Things are about to get interesting,” Erin said. She huddled against him, her excitement garnished by a touch of fear. Ryan was more anxious than excited, but his emotions were high, especially as his latest victorious skuirrel finished off another.
Huzzah for skeletal fight club!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It’s about time,” Jack whispered as he stood next to Blake.
They were waiting outside the dungeon with four other teams. Marcus, the rogue chosen by Guildmaster Alice to head the dungeon town, stood before the twenty-five adventurers, who were all anxious to finally go on a dungeon dive.
“Well, we would have been here two days earlier if not for a selfish thief,” Karan whispered loudly from behind Jack, making the thief wince.
The venom in Karan’s voice was evident. Two days ago, they were supposed to have started the dungeon dives. However, a thief named Josh had apparently snuck into the dungeon with his team, and all but their lowest ranked member, Todd, had perished.
The poor survivor had been found collapsed and crying outside of the town’s makeshift gate, and after reporting his story to Marcus, the dungeon dives had been postponed for two days. Todd had remained permanently drunk in a corner of the tavern ever since, fixing all that came near with a thousand-yard stare. He had seen things.
“Yeah, well, Josh was an ass. No one liked him,” Jack muttered back, and Blake couldn’t help but agree with him.
No one liked Josh and his gang. He really had been a deplorable person; the only nice guy of the group had been Todd. Blake couldn’t help but wonder how Todd had survived while the others had perished. A part of him wondered if the dungeon had let Todd go. It had, after all, saved Blake when he was in trouble.
“Still, I can’t believe their whole team was defeated,” Emily whispered.
“It just means we need to be careful,” Matt said, adjusting the bow over his shoulder. “But don’t worry, Emily, I’ll keep you safe.”
He offered his sister a smile, and she smiled back. Matt was Bronze Two, closest of the three Bronze members to getting Silver. Emily was Bronze Eight. As much as he hated to admit it, Blake was the weakest at Bronze Eleven. Hopefully he wouldn’t slow them down too much.
“Just leave it to me, Matt, I’ll make sure nothing harms her pretty—“ Jack was cut off as Matt swiped his bow at the thief. Before
it could connect, a gust of wind pushed it aside. Matt glared at Jack, who simply flashed a wide smile.
“Close, buddy, but remember, I’m just a tad stronger than you are.” The thief laughed as the winds around him picked up. His smile was quickly replaced by a wince as Karan’s hand clamped down on the thief’s shoulder.
“And remember, Jack, I’m a lot stronger than you are.” She squeezed his arm tightly before letting go.
Karan offered them all a smile, and Blake felt the tension in the air fade.
“I do love a strong woman,” Jack commented before shifting back to Blake’s side, noticeably out of Karan’s reach. The thief shot the cleric a wink, but even as she opened her mouth to respond, Marcus began to speak.
“I know you are all anxious to enter the dungeon,” Marcus said, his voice booming over all of them. “But before we start, I’m going to lay down a few rules.”
The rogue was standing in front of the skeletal wolf’s maw that was the entrance to the dungeon. From Blake’s point of view, it almost seemed like it was watching them, preparing to consume them. He shivered even as everyone else around him cheered at Marcus’s words.
“We need to avoid,” Marcus paused, eying the adventurers before him, “further unnecessary casualties.”
The mood suddenly turned somber.
“First, as per guild rules, every team must have a Silver or Gold leader. Since today is the first day, I will personally be inspecting each team’s levels. After today, one of my seconds will be standing guard at the front of the dungeon.”
He motioned, and two figures appeared at his side. They were both clad from head to toe in dark cloth, and it almost seemed as if the shadows of the dungeon clung to them.
“These are my seconds.”
As they removed their hoods, Blake couldn’t help but let out a light gasp. The warriors on either side shared an eerie similarity – they were almost identical, save for their gender.
Blake had heard whispers of these twins. Gold One assassins that specialized as necromancer hunters. The Guildmaster seemed to have carried out her promise to his father.
“Meet Rasha and Sasha,” Marcus said. “I trust you will make them feel welcome.”
“They ain’t human,” Jack whispered next to Blake.
“What are they?” Blake asked.
“They’re wolfkin,” Jack replied.
Both warriors turned their deep emerald eyes towards Jack as the thief spoke. Sasha, the female, smirked, while Rasha’s eyes seemed to blaze with anger.
“How can you tell?” As far as Blake knew, wolfkin appeared human, yet could take on a bipedal, wolf-like form at will. They were seen as a neutral race and very rarely interacted with the rest of the world.
“Maybe I’ll tell ya sometime.” Jack’s eyes were still locked on the two wolfkin before him, who continued to hold his gaze.
If Marcus had noticed the tension there, he didn’t show it.
“Each day, five teams will be allowed to enter the dungeon,” the rogue went on. “Before entering, each team member will touch their pendant to this.”
He held up a circular disk, about the size of a plate, for all to see. It was segmented into five pieces, and each piece held a small crystal.
“This disk will allow us to monitor the condition of each team member. If you die in the dungeon, the crystal corresponding to your pendant will turn dark. If all five go dark, we will know your team has fallen. We will then wait thirty minutes before sending the next team in.”
Marcus’s eyes turned hard as he looked at all the adventurers.
“While the Adventurers’ Guild cares for its members, we will not come to your rescue in the dungeon. The strong survive, while the weak perish. If your team is foolish enough to get itself killed in a low-ranked dungeon, it means you would likely have become a hindrance to the guild in the future, and potentially cost the lives of others.”
“Wow, that’s harsh,” Blake whispered to Jack, but the thief didn’t respond. His eyes were still locked on the twins.
“Okay, good talk,” Blake muttered. He rubbed his hands over his arms, calming the goosebumps that were starting to appear. Marcus wasn’t exactly filling him with confidence.
“When you complete your dungeon run, you will meet with the appointed guild representative outside of the dungeon. We will have a cleric on hand to heal any injuries for a discounted price, as well as to collect the twenty percent guild tax on each dive.”
“Wait…they tax us?” Blake looked at Karan for confirmation.
“How else do you think the guild can afford all this?” Karan whispered back, motioning at the encampment behind them. “The guild takes a twenty percent cut from every profit adventurers make, be it from tasks around the city, quests for the guild, or dungeon dives. In return, guild members get discounted rates from healers and stores, as well as free class training. It’s really quite fair.”
Blake figured she was right, but he couldn’t believe no one had mentioned there was a tax. Though the more he thought on it, it really wasn’t that bad. Besides, the discounts, as well as free training, were worth it.
“Now, then, if there are no questions, we will allow the first team to begin the dive,” Marcus said.
Even as he spoke, Rasha and Sasha vanished into darkness from Marcus’s side. Unperturbed, the rogue motioned to the first team. Back at camp, all twenty of the adventurer groups had been given the opportunity to select a number from a basket. That number decided their order for dungeon dives.
Blake’s team had drawn number five, so while they would get to go the first day, it meant they would be the last team of the evening.
As the first team stepped forward, each member touching their pendant to Marcus’s disk, Blake couldn’t help but feel excited and nervous.
Waiting for the first four teams to go was going to feel like an eternity.
Chapter Thirty
“Looks like there’s just one team left,” Ryan called out to Erin as he watched the most recent group of adventurers exit.
Four groups of five had entered his dungeon since the morning, and four groups of five had exited. Now, only a single group of five remained waiting outside.
“Are you going to let this one walk all over you, too?” Erin’s voice dripped with sarcasm, making Ryan wince. She had mentioned he shouldn’t make the dungeon any harder, but secretly he had made it even easier. He had disabled most of his traps, leaving only one or two, and those were far out of the path of the adventurers. He also may have been holding back his mobs, ordering their attacks in ones or twos to make them easier to pick off.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Surely she hadn’t figured out that he—
“Really?” Erin said, casting a withering look at him. “Then why have they not only reached Steve with minimal damage, but also managed to defeat him with relative ease? Steve has never once missed with his bone shots before, and yet today, somehow, he has missed every shot.”
Oops, guess she noticed that as well.
Ryan had ordered every version of Steve to miss his shots. It was his strongest, most deadly attack, and, well, Ryan really wasn’t over the carnage of Josh’s team.
“Listen, Ryan, I understand, I really do.” Erin’s voice had taken on a soft, tender tone. “I don’t like killing any more than you do, but I’ve explained it before. This is the way being a dungeon works, and you need to get stronger. I’m not telling you to go out of your way to kill these adventurers, but you can’t keep making it easier on them. You heard that man’s speech.”
It was true. Even the Adventurers’ Guild apparently had no qualms about adventurers dying in the dungeon. The way their leader made it sound, Ryan would be doing the guild a favor by taking out those weak enough to fall for his traps and mobs.
“I know, but… I just don’t think I can handle more innocent blood on my hands.”
“Well, it would be Steve’s hands, not yours,” Erin retorted. She offered him a swee
t smile, likely feeling his invisible glare. “Besides, Ryan, I’m here to go through it all with you. Don’t you trust me? You know I wouldn’t lead you down the wrong path. I’m a celestial fairy, for goodness’ sake.”
She had a very good point. She was probably the last being in the world that would try to lead him astray or hurt him. He let out a sigh, letting her know she had won.
“Fine, I won’t go easy on this next group.”
He pushed his mind throughout his dungeon, reactivating his traps and taking away Steve’s previous orders. All of his mobs grew excited as he took away his control over them, allowing them to attack at will the next adventurers that entered. He hoped the next group was stronger than the four before, because if they weren’t, he knew someone would be dying.
The fifth group of adventurers stepped inside, and Ryan’s heart sank the moment he saw who the first member was. Blake, Bronze Eleven adventurer.
“Oh, his luck really hasn’t improved, has it?” Erin whispered as she watched the rest of the group enter. “Hopefully he has some strong friends.”
They both held their breath as the rest of Blake’s team entered.
“Let’s see… Emily, Bronze Eight adept,” Ryan said. That’s the first adept I’ve ever seen. I wonder what she does.
“Matt, Bronze Two archer,” Erin said.
Two of the other teams had archers, and Ryan hadn’t been too impressed with them. Their weapons were really weak against Steve.
“Jack, Silver Seven thief, air affinity,” Erin observed.
Well, that’s impressive. Though the last thief Ryan had seen was Josh, and he secretly hated that class.
“And finally, Karan, Gold Four cleric, celestial.” Erin’s voice seemed to raise an octave in excitement. “Blake’s got a chance.”
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG Page 12