《Infernal Bones: Book 2 in the Elemental Dungeon Series》Chapter 6
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Chapter 6
“So, what do you think?”
Erin had told him her plan for setting up the mobs in his four rooms, and it wasn’t a bad one. He’d been stuck trying to figure out how to use his advanced mobs. Obviously, because he was only Gold 7, he didn’t have as many mob points as he wanted to make the third-floor shine.
The fairy had a simple solution for him that alleviated his reluctance to only put three mobs in the room, which would seem a tad underwhelming. Adventuring parties normally had five members, and they could make short work of two or three mobs. A somewhat effective trick Ryan had learned was to overwhelm them with numbers. Their tanks, after all, could usually only aggro one or two mobs at a time.
Erin convinced him to use two armored skeletal mobs, along with two hardened ones. He had already been using the latter on his second floor, and they had shown themselves to be formidable. Because their bones were reinforced with dark mana, they were more resilient than regular old skeletons, which meant they took parties a little longer to bring down. This gave his mobs more opportunities to land attacks, and also caused adventurers to burn through more of their own mana in order to win.
The armored skeletal mobs were a step above that. Ryan had, of course, seen an armored zombie once, courtesy of Viktor and his use of Squeaker’s body. The creature by itself had nearly overwhelmed Blake. Granted, Blake had been Silver at the time, and the zombie was a Gold-level enemy. But with his dual affinities, Blake would have been roughly equal in strength to a low Gold-level adventurer. Based on this example, Ryan felt a room with armored skeletal mobs would definitely be a challenge for parties on Ryan’s third floor.
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He summoned four sets of skeletons in each of his four rooms, and then mentally assigned the appropriate amount of mana to each. He watched as two hardened skeletons, costing 15 points each, and two armored skeletons, costing 25 points each, came to unlife for a total of 80 mob points. The hardened skeletons had dark mana swirling around them, empowering them, strengthening them. The armored skeletons were so much more.
As they first animated, the skeletal mobs seemed extremely similar to the hardened mobs. Black tendrils snaked around the softly glowing bones, imbuing them with darkness mana, hardening them. Ryan knew the mana also increased the physical stats of the skeletal mobs, making them faster and stronger.
Once the skeletons’ bones had been infused with darkness, the mana that poured into them from Ryan began to intensify. Tendrils spread and grew, flowing over the bodies of the skeletons, seeming to consume them, until they were clad in what appeared to be shadow armor. The mana even condensed enough that if you didn’t know better, you might question if you were fighting skeletons or living beings. From skull to toe bones, the skeletons were covered in swirling dark armor.
“All right, those look awesome.” Seriously, it was almost as if his skeletons had been upgraded to knight status. Ryan noticed a lot of adventurers took to wearing heavier armor that fully covered their bodies as they got stronger, and that was exactly what the shadows on his skeletons seemed to mimic.
“Are you just going with fighters for all of them?” Erin’s comment pulled him from his admiration of the mobs and made him realize he had overlooked one thing. In his haste to populate the rooms, he had chosen a simple skeletal fighter armed with a bone sword and shield to summon, harden, and armor.
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Ryan absorbed one of the skeletal fighters, and this time summoned a skeletal archer. The mob rose, bone bow in hand, even as the dark mana swirled about it, repeating the hardening and armoring process.
“All right, that’s awesome.” This time, when the mana spread over the skeletal archer, it took on a slightly different form. The armor, mimicking that of a marksman Ryan had seen enter the dungeon, appeared to be lighter, and did not cover the skeleton’s skull. The armor was less bulky, and he could tell it partially traded protection for increased mobility – perfect for skeletal archers.
“It seems the mana takes on armor appropriate for the type of skeleton you summon.” Erin’s gaze was fixated on his core, clearly inspecting his new mob.
“Well, whatever is causing it to do that, I’m a fan,” Ryan said, unable to stop admiring his awesome new mobs. He’d definitely noticed his mana took on a mind of its own whenever he was summoning or upgrading mobs. Following this new armored breakthrough, he realized there was a lot about mana – and overall dungeon core powers – that he didn’t quite understand. What was the driving factor behind how his mana worked, and the forms it created?
Ever since he had ascended to Gold, he felt as if a part of his mind was hidden from him. Or rather, he felt as if he was missing out on something. Granted, he wasn’t sure if he was lacking knowledge, or if Erin had forgotten to explain some things to him. Either way, Ryan figured it probably had to do with how new of a dungeon he was. All in good time.
He pulled himself from his thoughts and glanced at his mobs and then at his level triangle, noting he had exactly 100 mob points remaining. Just as planned. With those points, he would be able to not only continue his first and second-level skeletal fight clubs, but also start on skeletal fight club level 3.
First, though, he had one last task at hand.
“So, Rin, shall we get to naming our new mobs before we open up for business?”
The fairy beamed with excitement, and her wings fluttered happily. “Let’s do this.” Her burst of positive emotions nearly overwhelmed Ryan as they flowed into him through the bond. Wow, she was really looking forward to this.
“All right, all right.” Maybe she does have some good names planned. “Just give me a second to send a message, and then we can start.” If they were nearly ready for adventurers to return, Ryan figured he would let a certain somebody know. Because if there was ever a group Ryan wanted to test-run his dungeon, it was Blake’s. Plus, Ryan really wanted to know what the Specter of Balance could do.
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A (Not So) Simple Fetch Quest
Oh great hero! The evil Demon Lord has once again arisen to terrorise our lands, and we have summoned you to save our people! No, we don't want you to fight the demon lord! Of course not; we're the good guys! What sort of good guys kidnap people from other worlds and force them to take part in wars that have nothing to do with them? That would just be plain evil! We'd be no better than the demons! Katie, after her summoning by an excessively loud mage suddenly takes an unexpected twist, is sent off on a simple fetch quest, with a promise that she'll be back home in five minutes at most. She doesn't even need to leave the building. Alas, when a goddess' blessing causes her wish for an actual adventure to be taken rather more literally than she expected, she finds herself lost in a dark cave, far away from the sword she was supposed to acquire and far too close to a population of giant bugs. Still, at least she wished her life wasn't in any danger. Among other things. Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it. This is a dark litRPG adventure, both in terms of Katie accidentally wishing all the lights out, and also in that she loses as often as she wins, often with horrific and disturbing consequences. Luckily, Katie isn’t the sort of person to let a mere grizzly death or two get her down, and is prepared to try, try and try again to get her hands on the holy sword and finally complete her ‘simple’ fetch quest. Or perhaps—with a few resistance skills under her nightie—she might even come to enjoy losing. Not that she’d ever consider forgoing revenge, even if she did. I’ve ticked all the content warning checkboxes for this one. There’s no explicit sexual content, but there are enough references to justify the warning. Profanity happens rarely, but Katie isn’t averse to swearing when she gets particularly angry. As for gore/trauma, it doesn’t get much worse than the first few chapters, but there will be occasional chapters that have extra content warnings.
8 177The tribal queen and the Medic
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8 75DEMON KING IN MAKING
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8 161Quantum Rip: Welcome to Ethos
A special day has come, a day that Earth has awaited for oh so long. The day where they are finally going to try and run the reactor. This had been long-awaited and everyone dropped off their kids with a hint of dread. Hoping that nothing would go wrong, we know it did. Since else there would not be a story. I won't go into too much detail, but only simply explain what happened. Due to some malfunctioning and incorrect assumptions, the reactor overproduced energy. Something which should have been impossible according to all the known knowledge of a really advanced Earth. I mean, they have even started colonizing planets. Have done countless simulations and even built test stations in space. Yet now, something had gone when they did the same on earth. Bizarre, right? This malfunctioning and imploding of the reactor caused a massive explosion due to the instability of space itself. This is also what allowed the story to exist, as our main characters were all transported. The method is not known, nor why they survived. We can say it is for the story, for now... They all now find themselves on Ethos, eating a mouthful of dirt as they struggled for breath. Some find their situation horrible, others find it relaxing and peaceful. Some see death, others see life. Despair and hope, madness and sanity on an edge. What has fate given you? Welcome to Ethos, a planet of magic.Welcome to Ethos, a planet orbiting an exotic star.Ethos wishes you luck in surviving. Maybe, just maybe... You can someday go back, or not. -----------------Release rate: 3 chapters(1200-1400 words) a week.
8 82Universal Tampering Considered Harmful
Not so far in the future, in our very own galaxy... nothing much has changed. No robot apocalypse, no flying cars. Orion and his group of hackers and thieves live a simple life: do jobs that are fun, don't get caught. It would be quite easy if there wasn't that one friend that disappeared five years ago. The friend that worked on some top secret research on brain activity for the government. The friend that they've been looking for, without avail. As Orion and his friends finally pick up on a trail, they quickly find themselves involved in something much larger than one missing person. WARNING: This work contains explicit violence, mentions of abuse, and other potentially disturbing content. Reader discretion is advised.
8 219Short Poems
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