Meanwhile ….

The queen of all vampires sits upon a throne of compressed blood. High in the artificial sky of the eighth greatest dungeon in the world. Below her rotates thousands of disks, made from the blood of the innocent and magically treated to be as solid as steel. They rotate like the gears of a great clock connected only by thin strands of blood rope. It was a dungeon meant to play to the strength of vampires. Endless supply of life-giving food. Vampires whom can sprout wings to fly around. Not many adventurers would stand a chance of defeating a dungeon of this caliber. They’d need a high powered mage who could maintain the flight spell. If at any time it was to waver or if they were to fall off of the platform then the wannabe adventurer would plummet to an almost bottomless pit.

“My queen, the report from the dungeon war has come in.”

“Oh yes, how quickly did we stomp that weakling?” She holds a hand up to her mouth and laughs into the back of it. “Arararara.”

“They were wiped out in the first room.”

“What does that mean?!” She screams.

“It means they were wiped out in the first room.” The lesser vampire repeats. The queen screams again. Tearing out the blood from her minions and adding it to the floor below her.

“That was half my army. No way a dungeon that was a blip on the map until three days ago could wipe out my army. It was a fluke.” It put the Queen in a hard situation. Does she send more minions to deal with it? That would put her dungeon in a dire situation if she was attacked.

Elsewhere… In the world. Somewhere next to a human settlement.

“Keep killing them!”

“They just keep coming!”

Baroon Marquise sits atop his white horse giving orders to an army of men as they fight the skeleton horde. A terrifying display, curse the wicked necromancer who unleashed it upon this world. Wave after wave sent out in random patterns. Always giving the sign of their dark lord as they march by.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Another casualty, baron”

“What was it this time?”

“Umm…. It’s rather embarrassing.” Each casualty is.

“Spit it out, captain.”

“A foot soldier stabbed at a skeleton with his spear. He expects the normal resistance you feel when stabbing into a body.”

“Met with none?”

“Went right through the skeleton. Didn't hit a single bone. He fell forward. Like when it’s dark and you forget about the bottom step. He fell right into their ranks. Broke his wrist in the fall.”

“And the skeletons.”

“One walked over him before they noticed he was lying there. The flashed the hand sign of their evil god then diverted their walking path around him. Recovery was quick and painless. He is in a medical tent right now getting his wrist splinted.”

“Good, stick him with a one-handed weapon for a while. Tell him to go easy on the arm.”

In another place…..

“Think he’ll keep payin fur des ‘ere bags o’ bones.”

“Indubitably my esteemed comrade. See where the skeletons are coming from? I’ve astuted that some of these corpses may be the very ones we sold to our undead acquaintance. Now push with your legs.”

The donkey had fled at the sight of the skeletons. It was a setback for the two graverobbers. Brain the brawn and Brawn the brains. Brains pulled the cart in the donkey’s stead Brawn sat in the cart surrounded by piles of bones. Skeletons defeated outside of the dungeon don’t get back up. Their bodies lay on the ground until someone picks them up. “Truly this is a public service. We should send an invoice to the Baroon. No aspiring lord would ever wish for his fair countryside to be littered with the remains of the dearly departed.”

“Wood knot he ask were we put the bones?” Brain asks.

“We will engage in a scheme of dishonesty. Tell him that we sold it to a fertilizer shop.” Brawn supplies.

Finally back at the dungeon…

“Out of stock? Lillia! How could skeletons be out of stock?”

“They aren’t magically generated, they come from other worlds.”

“Well, they need to restock. What else am I supposed to summon?”

Her eyes glaze over as she gave me a matter of fact answer. “At your current power level, you would have complete control on intelligent monsters up to the second tier.”

I pull open the store system. There is nothing indicating what tier a monster is or if it is intelligent. “How do I tell?”

“Use your brain, uwu.”

I’ll give her candy until she talks.

“Orks and below.”

That doesn’t give me very many options. There are of course many unintelligent creatures I can summon, but unleashing a plague of beasts on the world doesn’t help me win a dungeon war. The only intelligent creatures are goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, and orks.

Ork as in big green men with tusks. Not ork, as in pork, as in the pig faced orcs normally depicted in eastern stories.