Chapter 11

-Core Room-

“Awesome. I’m passively getting as much Animus as I did from that bear from each of these guys. No wonder dungeons spend their time and effort to lure these guys in, at this rate I’ll have my other floors up and running in no time!” Steve said rather excitedly.

“Don’t forget though Steve, you will have to replace the minions, traps that get destroyed and the loot they take. While the higher ranked adventurers will provide more Animus, particularly if you are able to kill them, you will have to spend a chunk of it in upkeep.” Nova cautioned Steve.

“True but it sure beats waiting for wild animals to wander in.”

Azrael who had also been watching with the progress of this first team of adventurers thanks to Steve projection did not speak up. While not much of a talker at the best of times it seemed to Steve that Azrael had begun to get even quieter, only really talking when it concerned his duties for the dungeon or when he felt compelled to offer advice. However since Steve isn’t what anybody would call a ‘people person’ he just took this as normal and didn’t say anything about it. Nova on the other hand had begun to grow slightly concerned however again she did not speak up about it because at the end of the day, the Celestial had bonded to Steve and that was that.

The adventurers, or as Steve had begun to think of them, test subjects, were just about to reach the next room. While leaving things mostly the same, Steve had decided to make a couple of changes to the next two rooms on the first floor. The skeletons here were not waiting on either side of the doorway, since let's face it even the wild animals that made it this far knew enough to check the sides of the door before blindly walking in, and were instead hidden behind sliding panels within the walls. Taking the same formation as last time, Steve watched the group enter the room and split to either side once again before stopping in surprise when they found no enemies. Looking around in confusion they spoke amongst themselves for a moment before shrugging and moving towards the quartz that was growing from the wall to either side of the exit to the room.

The moment one of them crossed the middle of the room they unknowingly stepped onto the hidden pressure release causing the six hidden doors to slide open. A door on either side of the room revealed a skeletal mage, one an air magic user and the other an earth user. Doors to either side of the entrance and exit also opened to reveal the concealed skeleton warriors. The moment the doors were open the mages began casting their spells aiming towards to closest enemies while the warriors moved to attack the party from all sides.

Steve was quite pleased with this setup as so far none of the wild animals that had entered his dungeon had been able to move farther than this room, even the large bear was quickly surrounded and put down by his minions. Unfortunately it seemed the adventurers were a bit smarter than your average bear and were apparently expecting a trap like this. The lizardkin with the long spear immediately sprang forwards towards the fire mage, moving across the room very quickly and bringing her spear down in an overhead cross swing, smashing into the collarbone of the mage and severing one of its arms. Interrupted from its casting the mage stumbled back before preparing to cast its spell again. Unfortunately the spear armed warrior did not give it the opportunity to prepare it’s spell and continued its attack, repeatedly jabbing the blunt end of it’s staff into the skeletons head keeping it off balance.

Elsewhere in the room Steve’s other minions were not faring much better. The mace wielding human and the intriguing looking metal construct had separated and were systematically breaking apart his precious minions with powerful swings while taking little to no damage from the skeletons in return. The other mage, although able to cast it’s spell and send a chunk of stone hurtling towards the gnome, she was able to jump to the side avoiding the spell. Before being able to cast again the mage was hit by the same light spell the lizard mage used last time. The skeletal mage was able to withstand the spell for very slightly longer than its compatriot, however it could not stand up to the spell for long and it was soon cut in half. As it did last time the mage then approached the downed skeleton before crushing its skull with its staff, finishing it off. Meanwhile the gnome, now not under fire was able to use her strange contraption to help the others to finish off the rest of the skeletal warriors.

All in all Steve was a little disappointed. At least in the first room they were able to wound the human, even if it was just a simple cut. Here, with an extra mage they didn’t inflict any damage at all.

“That light mage is too strong! I thought they were supposed to be limiting the strength of these guys?” Steve said, more than a little grumpy that his minions were being soundly defeated.

“I do not think any of them are above Uncommon ranked, though perhaps the gnome with her clockwork friend could be considered scarce ranked since they are effectively two people.” Nova remarked. “The spell the light mage is using is not a particularly powerful one, however as the undead are naturally weak to light magic, even a simple spell like this one can inflict a great deal of damage.”

Having something to add for once Azrael spoke up. “If you want to counteract such weaknesses I would suggest diversifying the minions you have within your dungeon at the earliest opportunity. While I am no expert on the subject I believe it is possible to have more than one race of creatures present within a dungeon.”

“I haven’t had an option like that so far.” Steve said with a small metaphysical frown. “But then again it did say the undead were my ‘starting race’. Nova, do you know anything about this?”

Nova paused for a few moments before replying. “Yes, as you have worked out for yourself that additional races are available I should be able to discuss the topic with you. As I previously mentioned, when you reach level 25 you will be able to unlock certain evolutions. While I can not discuss what options you will have ahead of time, I can confirm that one of them should be the option to add an additional race to your dungeon.” Having not received a warning from the Evermind she continued. “You should be able to choose any of the races you had as an initial starting choice and others may also be available to you. As Azrael mentioned if you are worried about adventurers taking advantage of a particular weakness, mixing in creatures from other races can be a way to mitigate this. Having said that I would not overly worry too much as while light magic isn’t exactly rare, it isn’t particularly common either. It is just a little unfortunate that the first team to enter the dungeon has one in the group.”

Having no real idea what other options would be available to him and correctly guessing that Nova wouldn’t be able to tell him ahead of time, Steve put it out of this mind and decided to just enjoy the show.

Having successfully avoided the ‘trap’ in the next corridor by simply walking around it, the adventurers approached the last room before the boss. Unlike in previous rooms the enemies here were visible from the outset as Steve had given them specific instructions. The warriors in this room were all wearing a set of iron armor and all had tall shields to protect themselves. Steve had them stand in a line around two thirds of the way into the room and hunch down behind their shields. They were given orders to cover themselves and the three mages behind them and only make attacks when the opportunity presented itself. The three mages, a fire, earth and water mage, were each given a simple wooden staff to help direct their spells and were ordered to cast over and around the skeletal warriors in front of them. Since giving these instructions nothing had gotten this far into his dungeon so Steve was curious to see how they would fair.

As the adventurers came within line of sight the skeletal mages began casting their spells forcing the group of would be heroes to make a quick decision on whether to advance and fight them at melee or to try and assault them at range. However as the group only had two ranged attacks this wasn’t a particularly tricky choice to make. The human, whom Steve assumed to be the leader of the group said a few words while making gestures to either side of the room before moving forwards with his shield ready. The mechanical creature moved alongside him and the spear armed warrior followed closely behind the golem for protection. The mage and gnome split apart to either side of the doorway and began moving around the room in an obvious effort to outflank the skeletons. But what is obvious for one person is very much not obvious for a skeleton that has little to no mind of it’s own.

The earth and fire mages sent their projectiles flying towards the two closest targets, in this case the human warrior with the shield, who would either evade the spells by leaping to one side or blocked them with his shield as he got closer. The mechanical golem on the other hand just barged headlong shrugging off the damage inflicted to his metal frame. The water mage tried to use it’s spell to create an icy surface that the human would fall when crossing but the human would just jump over or go around such obstacles.

With the mages firmly distracted the lizardkin mage and the gnome were able to continue moving around the sides and were now almost in a position where they would have a clear line of sight past the shield wall. Although the skeletons in the centre were not reacting to this, Steve had planned for it. As they passed the halfway point the floor in front of the two flankers was studded in pressure plates as in the previous rooms. It was not long before they stepped on them and doors to either side of the room opened revealing skeletal air mages. As their doors opened they too began to prepare their spells while advancing towards the enemies that triggered their release, intending to stun them.

While a good plan in theory it ultimately proved to be mostly ineffective. While it did distract the two flanking adventurers, they both reacted much too quickly for the skeletons to reach them. The time they provided however was put to good use by the force of skeletons in the centre of the room. The other group of adventurers had reached the shield wall and were now attempting to break their way through it. Unlike the previous skeletons they had faced these ones were given explicit orders not to simply attack without regard for safety. This meant that although they weren’t inflicting much damage with the occasional jabs from their short swords, the adventurers were having a tough time damaging them given their shields and armour. The mages behind them however were quite capable, and were they capable of the emotion, quite happy to continue casting their spells from the safety of the back lines.

The humans shield was now mostly wrecked and had since been discarded, apparently wooden shields do not mix well when combined with balls of fire, and the golem was noticeably slowing down, likely due to the large number of dents in its central segment. Seeing that their flanking support had been delayed, the spear wielder then made a rather surprising move. Bending its legs so it was almost squatting on the ground it held it’s position for a few moments and then launched itself up and over both its comrades and the skeletal warriors and landed amongst the skeletal mages. Showing the reaction speeds they were known for, that is to say very little at all, the mages slowly turned towards this new threat and began preparing their spells. Had they a bit more initiative they likely could have killed the lizard by simply spreading out and attacking from multiple directions. Regrettably they did not do this and stayed closely packed together allowing the lizardkin to rush forwards with its spear held horizontally across its chest knocking them all to the ground.

After that the rest were quickly subdued as having dealt with the air mages, the two flanking adventurers were finally able to move into position to attack the skeletal warriors from the sides while the spear wielder kept the mages distracted and unable to cast their spells.

“At least that went better than the last room. It looks like a few of them are wounded and that golem seems to be quite beat up.” Steve said once the fight was finished.

“A good effort if I do say so myself.” Nova added. “I do wonder though if they will continue to fight the boss or retire having taken some injuries.”

“The light mage will heal the living ones.” Said Azrael, who was proven correct as moments later a glowing light could be seen coming from his hands as he held them over the human's chest. The human had suffered the most, apart from the golem, of the adventurers, though nothing too life threatening. “I think it unlikely however that the gnome will be able to sufficiently repair her construct so if they do continue, I imagine it will just be the four of them facing the boss, unless they are willing to sacrifice the golem.”

They continued to watch Steve’s projection, curious what would happen next.

-Dungeon-

“Well.” Francis panted. “The information did say the skeletons in here were better equipped.”

“Better equipped maybe. But they didn’t mention they would be in a bloody shield wall, or the mages, or the hidden air mages! That one would have electrocuted me if I was any slower!” Sardel shouted back, though she looked more upset over the amount of damage Hunk had taken over something as trivial as being electrocuted. “I’ve a good mind to go back to those bastards and ask for a bloody refund.”

“The dungeon does seem to be surprisingly difficult for a first floor.” Zask agreed. “Using tactics such as a shield wall should be beyond such simple creatures.”

“Well they aren’t that smart. If they were then a couple of those warriors would have peeled off to intercept me when I jumped over them. Letting me attack those mages at close range was idiotic.” Zeza offered. She was sporting a huge grin on her face, obviously pleased with her efforts in the fight.

“Quick thinking that. I knew you could jump but I had no idea you could make it over all of us!” Francis said giving Zeza a thumbs up.

Zask groaned out loud at this. “Great, now I get to listen to her boast about this for the next few weeks.”

“Cheer up little brother.” Zeza said with a grin. “We can’t all be incredible paragons of might. I’m sure your little contribution was also appreciated.”

The entire team rolled their eyes at this, but didn’t bother replying knowing she would just continue if they did. Instead they went about looting the room, gathering all of the quartz, some of which was infused with Celestial energy this time and gathering the weapons and armour of the defeated skeletons together into a pile.

“It looks like your Hunk o’ Junk is on it’s last legs.” Francis said to Sardel once the looting had finished. “Do you think it will hold up for the boss fight or should we leave it here for today?”

The two lizardkin frowned at this line of questioning, neither keen on the idea of going back but opting to keep their mouths shut. After all, it wasn’t their golem and it had been quite helpful so far.

Sardel gave the golem one more look before sighing. “With the amount of damage he took in that last fight, if we take him to fight the boss he will just end up being destroyed. If you think we can take the boss with just the four of us, we can carry on, but I think Hunk is done for today.”

Francis thought it over for a short time before continuing. “I think we should call it there for today.” The two lizardkin let out sighs of disappointment at this. “I know, I know. I want to fight the boss just as much as you do, but with all the changes that have been made since it first opened, I’d rather play it safe for the time being. Besides with the quartz we gathered and the weapons and armourer we recovered from this last fight we should make a decent sum even without the loot from the boss.”

“Plus we can charge those bastards at the guild for OUR information this time!” Sardel said with a vindictive gleam in her eye.

Chuckling at her reaction, they gathered up the loot and turned to leave the dungeon.