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

by Jonathan Smidt

  “Don’t,” Erin warned.

  The threat in her voice was enough to stifle his laughter as she dusted herself off. Well, that and the creature that now stood before Erin.

  “Oh, my.” Ryan let out a breathless whisper as he took in the new mob, pride and awe filling him.

  The creature was terrifying. Magnificent. And perfectly suited to become his boss mob.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  From head to foot, the creature was roughly four feet tall. From nose to tail, perhaps six feet in length. Its body was long and lanky, similar to a wolf, and even ended in a wolf-like boney tail.

  However, its leg had the structure of a deer, giving it the added height, and each leg ended in a hoof. The head was comprised of a wolf’s skull, but sprouting from it was a massive set of curved antlers. Those antlers had to have been close to two feet in height and sprouted a foot in either direction. Ryan loved this new mob.

  “Welp, I just found a new hobby,” Ryan said carelessly, drawing Erin’s attention away from his new mob.

  “A new hobby? What was your old hobby?”

  Oh, crap.

  “Uh. Bone collecting?” Ryan had almost given away skeletal fight club once again. He really was terrible at keeping secrets when he got excited.

  “Gross,” Erin huffed as she continued looking over the new mob.

  Despite her reaction, he knew she secretly had a soft spot for his bone collection. After all, it was the reason he’d been able to create the amazing mob that stood before them.

  “So, what should we name it?” Erin asked as she landed gently atop one of the antlers.

  “We aren’t done yet.”

  A quick glance at his level triangle, which he had summoned to confirm a suspicion, showed 190. The combined mob still counted as a single medium beast, meaning it only cost him ten points.

  “What do you—“

  “We’re turning this into a boss mob.”

  Ryan quickly absorbed the skeletal creature, gaining its bone pattern and mentally setting a reminder to name it later on. Ryan figured he had time, because he had already decided he was going to populate his second floor with human skeletons, not beasts.

  Well, mostly humans. He still had an idea for his bone pillars that called for a certain skeletal beast.

  “Hey,” Erin called out. She flapped her wings, finding she suddenly no longer had a seat as the mob disappeared.

  “Sorry, hun, but trust me, this is going to be amazing.”

  Ryan summoned a new copy of his skeletal hybrid and quickly animated it. Then, with his eyes on his level triangle, he calmed his nerves. He was so excited.

  “You might want to get a little distance, hun,” Ryan said. “Who knows what’s about to happen?”

  That was what made being a dungeon so much fun. Ever since he created Steve, Ryan had wanted to see what would happen if he tried to make another boss mob. Now, he had gotten that chance.

  “I’ve created a monster,” Erin called out, laughing as she flew closer to the ceiling. She could clearly feel his nearly uncontainable level of excitement.

  “Nope, I’m creating a monster,” Ryan said.

  And with that, he flooded his dark mana into his creation. The dark energy rushed around his hybrid, creating a dark egg once again, which grew larger and denser until Ryan’s level triangle showed 150. His new boss mob was going to cost twice as much as Steve, but he felt that was fitting for his second floor. He was, after all, twice as strong as he had been.

  The wait was nearly unbearable, and if Ryan could, he would have been bouncing around his room. His attention was fully fixed on the dark egg.

  “Come on, hatch already,” he whispered, and he could tell Erin was just as impatient.

  Already, Ryan was planning out an addition to skeletal fight club. He decided he would keep the matches going when he had the mana. But he would also create a combination room, where he could see just what exactly he could create with this new technique.

  Oh, the possibilities.

  “Here it comes,” Erin called out, her wings flapping excitedly.

  The dark egg was cracking, the tell-tale silver lines and white light appearing.

  “Don’t fall, hun,” Ryan replied, earning him a dark look from the fairy.

  Worth it.

  Before Erin could respond, the egg erupted once again, and for the second time in roughly an hour, Ryan got to see a new mob be born.

  If his previous hybrid had been perfect, this new mob transcended even that. The creature that stood in the room was amazing. It had grown to nearly six feet in height, and nine feet in length. Its antlers had widened and grown even more, making it stand closer to a magnificent eight foot. In addition, dark mana seemed to cling and swirl around its antlers, very similar to how the necromancer had shrouded himself in mana.

  To Ryan’s eyes, he had just created a god. This was a creature to be worshipped and feared. The adventurers would run in—

  “Buttercup.” Erin’s voice pulled him from his thoughts before he could even fully admire his new creation.

  “What?” Ryan asked.

  “Its name is Buttercup.”

  Oh, no.

  “I don’t think—“ Ryan began.

  “You promised I could name him.” Erin had a pout on her face, and he could see her eyes starting to tear up.

  Oh, no, you don’t.

  “Come on, Rin,” Ryan pleaded. “Can’t you think of something a little more boss-like? That name sounds like something you would name a pet.”

  Seriously, his boss needed to be feared. With a name like Buttercup, he could already hear Jack laughing.

  “You promised I could name him.” Erin crossed her arms, glaring at him as tears filled her eyes. “And I’m naming him Buttercup.”

  Ryan could tell she was on the verge of breaking down. He let out a sigh, defeated.

  “Just Buttercup?” he asked.

  “Nope, you can choose the second part of the name,” Erin said, placated. “I want us both to have a part in naming Buttercup.”

  Ryan resigned himself to the ridicule he would receive over the name and took a long look at his boss. How could he help make the name a little better? He needed to see what the creature could do.

  “Erin, back away from—“ Ryan sighed before he spoke the next word. “—Buttercup.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” she asked, flying back even as she spoke. Ugh, she didn’t trust him at all.

  “Just going to test something,” he mumbled as he grew a stalactite above Buttercup’s head. Without warning, he dropped the missile on it.

  “RYAN!“ Erin’s scream filled the room, but quickly died as Ryan’s suspicions were confirmed. Before the stalactite could crush Buttercup’s skull, the dark mana pulled the antlers from the wolf’s skull, spinning them rapidly, creating a swirling blockade of bones that easily blocked the rock. The moment the threat was gone, the antlers returned to Buttercup’s head. Oh, how he loved Buttercup.

  Aside from that impressive feature, Ryan took in the two additional changes that had taken place on his hybrid. Buttercup’s bones had grown larger and denser, while also growing plate-like bone armor, similar to the plated skrat.

  A fine layer of dark mana covered Buttercup from head to hoof, almost like black fur. In fact, the mana seemed to create a full wolf tail out of darkness. In that dark mana tail, the wolf-tail bones floated lazily, just like Steve’s arm.

  With a mental command to Buttercup, the boss mob’s tail flicked to the side, shooting a bone spike out at a rapid speed.

  Oh yes, Buttercup could sling bones as well. Ryan watched lovingly as Buttercup opened its wolf-like maw, revealing rows of sharp bone teeth, and let out a long, monstrous howl. His heart swelled at his amazing creation.

  “All right, I think I’ve come up with the rest of Buttercup’s name.” Ryan knew he couldn’t change the first part, but he could sure make the second part reflected just how dangerous Buttercup was.
r />   “Let’s hear it.” Erin’s voice was filled with excitement as she admired Buttercup’s form.

  “Buttercup: Adventurer’s Doom.”

  Maybe it was a bit too ominous, but given what Ryan had just seen, it seemed fitting. Buttercup was bound to give the adventurers a challenge, and he hoped for their sake they were ready for it.

  “I love it,” Erin said, flying down to look Buttercup over as Ryan assigned the name to his new boss mob.

  “Good. Now, let’s send Buttercup away and get the rest of the mobs sorted out.” Ryan absorbed Buttercup and quickly closed off Erin’s tunnel, leaving her cut off from the core room.

  “What?!” she shrieked, staring at the entrance that had just closed before her.

  “You stay right there, hun,” Ryan said. “I want this to be a surprise.”

  And with that, Ryan blocked out her sputtering outrage as he turned his attention to his second floor. Hopefully, Erin would be so impressed with his second floor – once it was fully filled with mobs – to forgive him.

  If not, well, he did tell her he was going to get her back for those “magic” comments.

  Chapter Fifty

  Following the excitement of Buttercup’s creation and the construction of his second floor, Ryan was drained. His mind just wasn’t working, and he couldn’t figure out how he wanted to fill his second floor.

  “I have no idea what to do,” Ryan said out loud to no one. It had been roughly an hour since he locked Erin out of his core room, and he was still staring blankly at his second floor.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have locked her out.

  Ryan checked in on Erin, noting the fairy was angrily kicking apart the plants. On second thought, he couldn’t ask her for help now. If he didn’t impress her with his new floor, he was going to have to deal with her anger for a while. Ryan did not want to go through that.

  He had a basic idea but couldn’t work out how to make it fit.

  “You can do this,” he told himself. “You’re a strong, independent darkness dungeon core.”

  Saying the words made him feel a little better, and he started to calm himself.

  “First, Buttercup.” He summoned his glorious, though ill-named, boss mob into its new room. The creature stamped a dark hoof against the ground and let out an annoyed snort.

  “All right, that’s fifty points.”

  Ryan pulled up his level triangle, confirming his thought. A ‘150’ greeted him, showing him his math was correct.

  “Perhaps I should fill the first floor again, so I know what I’m working with.”

  He summoned Steve, watching his count drop to 125. Then, his two infested ratbies, eight skuirrels, eight skrats, two victorious skuirrels, and two champion skrats in his second room. His mob points dropped to eighty-five, making him wince.

  Even though his mob points had doubled from Bronze One to Silver Nine, he knew eighty-five points wouldn’t go a long way. And he still had to fill the first room on his first floor.

  “Well, guess I’ll just need to level up even more,” Ryan whispered, summoning the six skuirrels and four victorious skuirrels into his first room. He had seventy-one mob points left to spread across four rooms on his second level.

  That’s not going to do.

  Ryan scanned his first floor, mind racing. He really wanted one hundred points to spread across the four rooms, but he knew he couldn’t weaken his first floor too much. Sighing, he settled on removing a few mobs from his second room. It had the largest amount of points allotted to it on the first floor, after all.

  “So, if I take away one infested ratbie, three skuirrels, and three skrats, that will give me...” He mentally started counting, then stopped.

  There was an easier way to do this math. Without a second thought, he reabsorbed an infested ratbie, three skuirrels, and three skrats from his second room. His mob points jumped up to eighty-five. It wasn’t perfect, but he could work with that.

  His second room now had one infested ratbie, five skuirrels, five skrats, two victorious skuirrels, and two champion skrats, for a total of twenty-six mob points. Now, his first room cost fourteen points, his second room cost twenty-six, and his third, with Steve, cost twenty-five. That was a total of sixty-five points spread across his first floor. Ryan was okay with that.

  Now, what do I do with these mobs for my second floor?

  Since creating his second floor, Ryan had known he wanted to use his human skeletons. However, he had never actually summoned any, other than Steve, so had no idea how to implement them.

  Looking at his mob collection, Ryan technically had three options for his human skeletons. Basic, which cost five points; hardened, which cost fifteen; and then the skeletal mage, at fifty.

  Who thought of giving me a mob at Silver Nine that costs a quarter of my points? That’s just rude.

  Considering he only had eighty-five points to spread across four rooms, the skeletal mage was out of the question. Ryan had to wonder if there had been any dungeons that just used their most expensive mob on the second floor right at Silver Nine. He did remember Erin mentioned most darkness dungeons didn’t really rely on their mob points, instead reanimating adventurers and anything else foolish enough to enter the dungeon.

  Did that mean those dungeons could reanimate mages upon death, and instantly use them at Silver Nine? That was definitely a way around the high cost, albeit a way Ryan would never use. He was again reminded of just how powerful darkness dungeons could become if they didn’t worry about etiquette.

  Back to mob summoning. He chased such thoughts from his mind and turned back to his task at hand. He would never cross that line, so no use thinking about it.

  Ryan could use a mixture of the hardened and basic skeletons. He flipped through his mobs one more time, doing a little mental math. He knew he still had one more mob to summon on his second floor for his surprise and needed to make sure his math was correct. This floor was going to be much more challenging than his first, but it was meant to be.

  “Now, let’s see what these human skeletons can do.”

  To test them, he summoned two human skeletons in the first room on his second floor. He grinned as he did. Nothing like an impromptu skeletal fight club match to help him destress.

  Round one. Fight!

  The two skeletons turned and faced each other. The red light from above cast an eerie glow on them, as if their bones were stained with blood. Upon receiving Ryan’s mental command, the two creatures lunged at each other, quickly meeting in a clatter of bone on bone.

  They scratched, they punched, they tore at each other. Entertaining, but Ryan doubted they would prove much of a challenge against the adventurers. Adventurers had swords, and shields, and armor, and—

  Oh.

  Ryan stopped the two mobs, deciding the round was a draw, and healed them both.

  I wonder…

  He quickly summoned a set of bone swords and shields on the ground, mentally instructing the skeletons to pick them up. The two mobs grabbed the weapons and turned to face each other again.

  Round two. Fight!

  The first skeleton went on the offense, while the second skeleton watched the first one warily, shield raised. It seemed, just like Ryan’s other mobs, these mobs could quickly learn and develop different habits. The aggressor swung his bone sword down in a slash that the second easily blocked. Having blocked the sword, he swung his own blade, only to be met by the shield.

  They may have been developing different fighting tendencies, but they were both still new to fighting with sword and shield. Neither was going to overpower the other in such a short amount of time, and Ryan wanted to try one more thing before he committed to his dungeon mobs.

  “Good fight, guys. This next one will be to the death.” He ordered the aggressive mob to drop its sword and shield. Ryan had one last test that might give his mobs an even larger edge against adventurers.

  The moment he absorbed the bone weapons, Ryan summoned a bow for his mob, giving it a q
uiver full of arrows. To keep the theme, everything was made from bone, except the string. That Ryan formed from sinew.

  Let’s see how this goes.

  He ordered the mob to pick up the weapons, and then sent each skeleton to a different corner of the room.

  Round three. Fight!

  The aggressive skeleton, now armed with a bow, tried to launch the first attack. However, as it nocked its arrow and tried to let it fly, the bone missile fell after a few feet of flight. Its second arrow had a similar result, and the defensive skeleton was slowly approaching, shield raised protectively.

  Maybe that weapon is too complex?

  The skeleton was pulling back on his bow for a third time, arrow nocked, and this time, when he released, the missile flew true. It clattered against the bone shield, causing the defensive skeleton to stop for a second.

  Oh, they learn quickly.

  Ryan had noticed his skrats and skuirrels developed new tactics the longer they lived and fought, which was what made skeletal fight club so beneficial. Watching these two skeletons fight, countless thoughts and plans started to fill his mind.

  Could he make his mobs masters in the countless weapons he had collected? It would definitely create a challenge for adventurers if he could.

  The sound of bones crunching pulled him from his thoughts, and he watched as the defensive skeleton smashed his shield into the aggressive one’s face.

  Welp, this fight is over.

  But even as the thought crossed Ryan’s mind, the skeleton armed with the bow did the unexpected. Even as the shield came towards its face again, the aggressive skeleton pulled an arrow from his quiver and smashed it into the skull of the defensive one.

  Fatality.

  Ryan cheered as the defensive skeleton’s skull cracked and it collapsed into a pile of bones. He was really looking forward to Silver skeletal fight club.

  A sudden wave of anger washed over Ryan, drowning out his joy.