《Esoteric Skeleton Dungeon Master》Chapter 14
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One Gun Son and Nine Nifes Ned watch as a demon enters the cave. Two humans tall, massive black wings. Horns the size of trees. They recognize that imposing figure. It’s the legendary demon king. While he’s distracted they attempt to leg it for the exit.
“Not so fast.” With a wave of his hand a barrier is erected at the dungeon entrance.
“I wish to keep all the insects contained.” The demon king matches eyes with everyone in the room. Brain, Brawn, Son, Ned, Hiro, his harem. He finally looks towards the magical dungeon camera that Anon is observing the scene on.
“This dungeon has countless rule violations. Not to mention the possibility of a hero working with you.”
Anon gets on the comms. “Yeah, I don’t know who you are, but fuck off please.” The demon lord responds with a large laugh that shakes the cave.
“You dare talk to me like that. Your insolence will be your downfall. How dare a mere skeleton make a sham of everything that I’ve built.”
Hiro speaks up on behalf of Anon. “Anon isn’t making a sham of a dungeon. It’s the best dungeon in the world!”
The demon lord pauses. “Best in the world? Too bad it won’t be here long.” The demon lord begins to charge a black sphere. It gains power gradually sucking in more matter. A vortex of wind speeds into it picking up small debris as it gains power. If given enough time & power the black hole will devour everything inside the dungeon.
“E’s tryna suck us off.”
“Phrasing, my idiotic companion, but yes. He intends to destroy this entire dungeon. Us in it.”
The sound of a gunshot bounces off the cave walls.
“Fucking hell, I told you to warn me before you did that.” Ned covers his ear. The EEEEEE sound still ringing in them. The demon lord stops pouring power into the black hole. He turns towards Son. “An irradiated weapon? Cute.” He reaches his thick black claws into the bullet hole. Pulling out the bullet and flicking it to the ground. Tendrils of purple flesh close the hole. It heals instantly. Brain and Brawn take fighting stances in front of Ned and Son.
The demon lord's eyes glow purple. “Ha! You may be strong adventurers but you are nothing before me.” He extends a hand sending a giant rock flying out towards the group of malcontents. Brain jump forward, headbutting the boulder. It shatters in two parts, each flying to the left and right side of the group. Brain stumbles around as if drunk. “Dat all ye gut?”
“Warning you.” Son shots. Ned has barely enough time to cuff his ears before Son sends six shots into the demon lord’s massive chest. The demon lord doesn’t dodge. “Those are always such a pain to get out. I’ll take care of you first.” The demon makes a small hand motion. “d̵̤̦̮̲̬̟̞̏̆ì̶̲͖̣́̐͋̀̑͜ͅe̸̡̛̱͉̙̰͓͑̄͜.” He commands. Son stands stock still and then falls to the ground. Ned takes out two knives. He chucks them at the demon lord who merely holds up a hand. The knives collide into the demon lord’s palm. They vibrate rapidly and dig themselves into the palm of the demon king.
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“Ow? These aren’t regular knives are they?”
“So you noticed!” Ned smirks.
“I miscalculated. To think that a mage with telekinesis would be stupid enough to waste himself with knife tricks.” The demon lords flesh pushes the knives out of the wounds then repairs itself.
“Either way,d̵̤̦̮̲̬̟̞̏̆ì̶̲͖̣́̐͋̀̑͜ͅe̸̡̛̱͉̙̰͓͑̄͜”
Ned clutches at his chest as he falls to the ground. “As for you two peons. d̵̤̦̮̲̬̟̞̏̆ì̶̲͖̣́̐͋̀̑͜ͅe̸̡̛̱͉̙̰͓͑̄͜ d̵̤̦̮̲̬̟̞̏̆ì̶̲͖̣́̐͋̀̑͜ͅe̸̡̛̱͉̙̰͓͑̄͜.” Brain and Brawn fall to the ground. The demon lord turns around. “Now for the rest of you insec---” He pauses, looking into Hiro’s uncaring eyes.
“Aren’t you?"
Hiro nods.
"From that one time?”
Hiro nods.
“Well, I suppose that I could give this puny dungeon some time to become compliant in the rules.” The demon lord takes the black hole and crushes it inside his hand. “Dungeon master. You hear that. You have twenty moons to make your dungeon inline with the rules.”
Who the fuck is that and how much time is a moon? I open my mouth to tell him that I don’t care who he is, this is my property and I will treat it how I like. Along with a string of insults to his masculinity. As every true American has the right to do, but by the time I think of the first swear word he has disappeared. I watch Hiro get down and offer a prayer to the fallen adventurers.
“Did you know them?”
Hiro shrugs. “They were highly ranked, but not hero material.”
“You wanna take the corpses with you?”
“Nah, absorb them, they can be used for points. I just prayed for them to look good in front of my girls.”
Feels kind of dirty to absorb them for just fifty points. I look over to Lillia, she’s sitting in a plush chair eating chocolate. “Oi! Lillia can you resurrect them.”
“Only as skeletons. But there should be a spell in the Store System.”
“Alright, I’ll buy it for you.”
Lillia rolls her eyes. She’s in a tsundere mood today. I scroll through the magic portion of the store. There are so many useful spells here. I should buy Lillia all of them!
Oh, here we go, Animate dead. You inject a corpse with a foul mimicry of life. It either becomes a skeleton or a zombie. Nope, that is not what I want. I want them to retain their memories but be enslaved to me. I scroll through the spellbook pages. There are no skills that jump out so I scroll through again. Resurrection just returns them to life, Raise Undead turns them into a skeleton.
Oh, here we go. Raise death knight. Raises them with corrupted memory and binds them to my will. It can only raise corpses that were a high level of life. Two of them are unviable. The spell is pricey, but it’ll improve Lillia’s usefulness. I buy the spell, but instead of it going into Lillia it goes into me. “Lillia. It didn’t go to you.”
“You can’t buy spells for other people.”
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Now she tells me! I’ll just try it myself.
I stand above the fourth one and call out the spell “Raise Deathknight!” Nothing happens. I even try the whole feel the magic inside you and channel it through your body to form the shape of your will. Doesn’t work. I return to Lillia with tears in my eye sockets. “Lillia! I spend two hundred thousand points on a spell and it doesn’t work!”
“You have no innate magic.”
“How do I get that?” I grab her shoulders. “Tell me please.”
“You can't, you weren’t gifted with magic.”
“I wasted all those points for nothing.” I actually want to cry right now. She sees my desiccated state and comes to my aid.
“Fine, I’ll transfer my magic into you so you can cast the spell. We teleport to the corpses. She places a tiny hand on my leg bone and I can feel her magic pouring into me. I go through the steps to cast the spell.
Son begins to get up… “Muh fucking head. What happened?”
Meanwhile…..
“They just keep coming!” It has been two days since the skeletons have begun to fill the Air Dungeon. The vampires began by just sweeping them off the blood platforms and into what was once thought to be a bottomless pit, but the bottomless pit has been filled. Filled with skeletons they shamble over each other like lobsters in a tank. They have reached the highest platform in the dungeon. The vampire queen sits on her throne. Defending the core in front of her with any spell she can imagine. It’s a losing battle. Even if you defeat the skeleton you don’t impact their height as more skeletons just climb over their bones and come for you. The queen’s magic is low. The endless stream has deleted her stamina. Never in her days did she think that she would be done in by only skeletons. The weakest of all monsters. This new dungeon master. He has thoroughly humiliated her. She sighs and sits down on her throne.
“So this is the end. I’m excited.” She offered herself as tribute for an insane amount of DP. It was her overconfidence that got her into this situation. A chill runs down her spine. Watching as the skeletons picked up and carried away her dungeon core. This was the first time she had ever felt such humiliation it was an awakening moment for her.
In the dungeon, I sat at a round table with my most trusted compatriots. Myself. I soon realized that just myself would not make for a very interesting discussion so I teleported Son, Ned, Lillia, and the black poodle lady. She had taken the role of the spiritual leader of the demihumans. They are a part of the dungeon so they deserve a seat at the table.
Son teleports in and immediately starts howling at me. He’s making more noise than when he found out that he didn't have a pulse anymore. He was cool with being undead, but not having a heartbeat meant his body couldn't pump blood to a specific organ. Truly I feel for his pain.
He attempts to stand but falls over. The chair falls over with him. “C'mon buddy.” Ned helps him to his feet. “Forgotten how to stand already?” Son stands up, the chair comes up with him. His standing posture resembles that of a bent forward L.
“Get this damn chair off me!” He yells. Ned tries to pry the chair away. “I can't, it's like it’s fused into you.”
“Anon what did you do to me?” He screams at me. I shrug. I didn’t intend for this to happen. I just teleported them all in at once.
“A teleportation misfire. They are common and highly dangerous.” Lillia supplies.
“What do you mean?”
“When you teleport something you imagine the person appearing in that place. You must maintain focus on both of those things, but teleporting multiple objects leads to a loss of focus. Things blink into existence slightly off of where they were supposed to be. In his case. Two inches into the chair.”
“So what?”
“He has become half chair, half death knight.”
We cut away what parts of the chair we can and then get back to business.
“So I’m going to kill that guy.” I open with that.
“Sir you can’t be serious that’s the Dem-”“Intruder Alert!” an intruder alert interrupted him mid-sentence. I check the screen. It’s some big titted broad in a red dress.
“Can’t you read? We’re closed.” I had placed a ‘sorry we’re closed’ sign in front of the dungeon. It was supposed to prevent any adventurers from wandering in while I was preparing to kill that big guy.
“You've won.”
What an odd thing to lead with. Is she some kind of pop-up ad. “Go away.”
She reacts as if struck. “My lord, how could you possibly throw me away after winning me over.”
“Who are you?”
Her face takes on a lewd expression. “To not even know who I am! I haven't felt like this since I challenged the demon lord.”
“Why are you here?”
“Against all odds, you defeated me in the dungeon war. I offered myself in the bet.”
Oh, now I know why she is here. “That’s cool. Guard the entrance.” I don’t have time to think of a better job for her.
“Anon! You can’t be serious, do you know who that is?”
“The dungeon master of the Air dungeon.”
“No, she’s the demon lord’s eighth general. The queen of all vampires. She is strong enough to defeat an entire city.” He says this like I should respect her or something.
“She will make a good entrance guard then.”
I can feel my death knights holding back facepalms.
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