Chapter 4

Because Ryan wasn’t a jerk, he decided his third-floor entrance from the spiraling staircase wouldn’t have any mobs in it. This logic was also partially an excuse to allow himself one less room to populate. And luckily for him, because of his plans for his boss room – mainly the part where he wouldn’t even summon the boss until the adventurers were at the door with their keys – he had another way to gain some more points for his third floor.

“So, what’s the plan, Ryan?” Erin was back in the core room, sitting atop his core. Her voice was calm but he could feel the excitement flowing through their bond. Yup, she definitely liked this part of dungeon building just as much as he did.

“Well, with what I have, I figure we’re going to need at least one hundred free points for the new and improved fight club level.” Skeletal fight club was broken down into levels, and each existed underneath the corresponding floor. Level one, beneath his first floor, was the brilliant brainchild that had given him his plated skrats and bladed skuirrels. Fight club level two, underneath his second floor, was a coliseum where he ‘trained’ his skeletal fighters and archers. So far, there hadn’t been much of an improvement with those, other than an increased proficiency with their weapons. Which was a plus, he supposed.

Skeletal fight club level three, he had no ideas for yet. Still, he figured he would want a decent amount of mob points for whatever it would become. Currently he’d set aside a combined total of 40 points for levels one and two, so an additional 60 points seemed safe for level three. That meant he actually had 580 mob points to use for his third floor, not 640 as he had previously figured. Goddess, why does being a Dungeon Core require so much math?

“Did you forget rule number one?” Erin held up a single finger, giggling.

“The only reason you even know about the rules is because I broke them.” Skeletal fight club had simple rules, the first being that you never talked about skeletal fight club. The main reason the rules had been created was to keep Erin from finding out, as Ryan had been sure she’d hate the idea. Surprisingly, when she did find out, she loved it. However, she now insisted on reminding him of the rules. Honestly though, who else was he going to tell? Blake?

“Well, that’s not my fault. I’m here to make sure you follow the rules, remember?”

How could I forget? The fairy happened to be a devout follower of the Goddess of Justice and her teachings. It was Erin’s sole duty to ensure Ryan grew up to be a proper dungeon, following ALL the rules of dungeon etiquette – which sadly had led to him not being able to dispose of a few choice targets he felt the world would be better off without.

I’ll get A-a-ron one of these days. Ryan had a special fate planned for that particularly nasty excuse for a human. One that would still comply with Erin’s etiquette rules. The fairy, of course, didn’t know about the plan.

“I know, Rin.” He turned his attention back to his mobs. To keep things simple, he decided to start with the fire room, which also led towards the boss room. Once he was done with the fire-related rooms, he would work on the wind rooms, water rooms, and then finally, the earth rooms.

I regret everything. Ryan internally groaned as he realized just how much extra work he had assigned to himself by separating his dungeon this way. Sure, being all witty and crafty had initially seemed like a fine idea, but now it was just making life even more difficult.

“Let’s start with this room.” He turned his attention fully to the fire room, pulling up the image of it in his core for Erin to observe. Because this room was essentially a trapped room, Ryan didn’t want to overload it with mobs, knowing he should save the bulk of his mob points for rooms without traps. It was important to maintain a proper difficulty balance for the adventurers. Erin had drilled that into him.

“Oh, I like this room.” The fairy had a thing for fire. Which was ironic, because the very first terrible human they had run into together, shortly after Ryan opened his dungeon to the world, was a corrupt fire mage. Ryan was pretty sure Erin’s fascination for fire came much later and was in part due to Emily, the summoner in Blake’s party.

“You only like this room because you think it will make Cynder happy.” Cynder was the name of Emily’s dragon. The little creature was small enough to climb atop Emily’s shoulders, and had an adorable habit of chewing on the bones of fallen skrats and skuirrels. And the way Cynder playfully hunted his mobs… All right, maybe I like Cynder too. At the very least, Ryan was sort of excited to see how the dragon reacted to his fire room.

“What’s wrong with that?” Erin huffed, though she was only able to feign anger for a moment. “You know you should throw in at least one or two skuirrels for her to play with.”

“I’m not going to waste mob points just for Cynder.” As much as he wanted to, he was certain that wouldn’t be the smartest use of points. Now, if he could justify the mobs in the room as being appropriate, and they just so happened to serve as entertainment for Cynder…

“Ah, come on,” Erin persisted. “A skuirrel only costs one point. You can spare a couple of points on making some for Cynder to chase.”

“One-point mobs are practically pointless against the adventurers who are going to be on this floor.” Seriously, his third floor would have to be challenging enough for Gold-level adventurers. A basic skuirrel was useless. “It would have to at least be a bladed skuirrel.” And that would cost five points.

“Well, if you don’t want to make Cynder happy, what are you going to do instead?”

“I never said—" Ryan stopped, knowing the fairy was just trying to bait him into arguing with her so she could convince him to give Cynder some mobs to play with. Well, the fairy was going to get her wish, regardless of any argument they had. So, Ryan figured it was best to just let the topic drop, and get to work.

Part of what made dungeon building so fun for Ryan was the ability to constantly add in new surprises. He felt it was important to offer new and unexpected challenges to adventurers, to keep it interesting for them. It would also occasionally lead to accidental deaths, which meant more experience for Ryan.

The current crop of adventurers were already used to fighting the old array of mobs on his first and second floor. Because of this, Ryan had made the decision to add in a few of his new beast-type mobs on the third floor, along with improved versions of his skeletons, if he had the points. As a Gold-tier dungeon, Ryan now had access to large beasts and below, as well as armored humanoid skeletons and zombies. There was also a new option for his skeletal mages, but considering they were already serving as bosses, there was no reason to summon that new variant as a basic mob – especially when it cost 100 mob points for the upgraded version. He did not have the points to blow on that. At least not yet.

From Ryan’s collection, the only large mob he had readily available was a bear. It appeared from the bones to be a hulking, fearsome beast, with large teeth and sharp-looking claws. He had already made the decision to summon them in his earth-related room, as they seemed rather tanky and likely tough for the adventurers to fight.

For his fire room, Ryan had been eying the fox skeletons. They seemed extremely agile based on their bone structures, and still had what appeared to be a useful set of teeth for attacking with. Additionally, they had a long bony tail structure, which Ryan knew could be utilized as a deadly weapon.

Annoyingly, though, the fox was classified as a medium skeleton, and had a base summon cost of 10 mob points. Ryan found this especially frustrating considering his bladed skuirrels and plated skrats were medium in size, but only cost him five points apiece. He really hated the dungeon mechanics at times.

However, because he’d seen how awesome the upgraded versions of his small mobs were, he was even more excited at the prospect of what medium mobs could evolve into. Foxes were definitely going on the list for skeletal fight club level three, along with badgers, his other new medium-sized mob.

Wanting to keep the cost low in his trap room, Ryan decided to summon four fox skeletons, figuring the agile creatures could launch various attacks at the adventurers and use their speed to dart in and out of the flames, making them even harder for adventurers to fight. It was going to cost him 40 points, but that was low, in Ryan’s mind, for a third-floor room.

“Ohhh, what are those?” Erin perked up as the four skeletons came to life. She generally didn’t show much interest in his bone collection, so he hadn’t shared his most recent finds with her. As such, the fairy had little idea of what exactly he could summon these days. Which was fine; Ryan liked surprising her.

“It’s a fox skeleton. Those little guys count as medium beasts.” All right, they weren’t exactly small if you compared them to a skuirrel or a skrat. However, when compared to a wolf, which was also classified as a medium beast, Ryan had to wonder what exactly these classifications denoted, because that fox definitely seemed like it was three sizes smaller than the wolf.

“What are you going to call it?” The fairy’s question pulled him from his musings, presenting him with a problem he had completely forgotten about. What was he going to name his new mobs? He knew what they were normally called, but he had no idea what he should call their skeletal counterparts. And he really didn’t think he was the greatest at naming mobs.

“Uhhh…”

“Can I name them?” Crap. While he wasn’t the best at naming mobs Erin was even worse at it. Divert, divert, divert.

“How about, after we summon all our mobs, we name them together?” It was the only way he could avoid having completely ridiculous names for his mobs. Erin was the reason he had a boss named Buttercup. Which, he had to give her credit, was at least better than her first naming effort, where she had planned to just call his skuirrels ‘skeletal squirrels’ and his skrats ‘skeletal rats’. Who knows – maybe she’s gotten a little more creative since then? Ryan doubted it, but that was a problem for the Ryan of the future.

“Deal.” The fairy’s beaming smile stirred something within Ryan, and he couldn’t help but send a warm smile back through their bond. Now, with the task of naming his mobs pushed off to the side and his fairy companion in an extremely happy mood, Ryan shifted his focus to the next room: air.