Skeleton
Elizabeth had this expression when life gives you lemons make lemonade. When life gives me lemons I throw them away. Or possible stuff them up the ass of prissy Angels like Rue. I am a undead killer stuck in a hole with a bunch of angels trying to kill me and a pissed off ex angel as my only intelligent source of conservation. I would go down and see about raising my luck status my spanking her but that might give me a bad reputation so time to get down to business.
I order my skeletons to start digging and get down to it. Time to design a dungeon I will tunnel down a few hundred feet into a hole I have marked on my internal map. I summon up a couple of skeleton mages and have them start to summon skeleton miners. I cast the dust spell on the rocks that have been dug out of the ground. A simple teleport spell moves the dust somewhere. It is random so it is possible the dust has just appeared in someone body causing them to suffocate. I really hoped so. Those idiots who followed the goddess of light deserved a lot more. Time to dig a escape tunnel. the skeletons can really keep digging we are digging almost nine feet a day.
I strolled back to see how Rue was getting on. She was not amused. “I am going to grind your bones up and stuff then into a sewer. It has been a year you asshead.” I shrugged
Rue started to scream at me "Asshat I am gong to kill you." I nodded
Rue shut up and I nodded
Rue
I look over the mental image the skeleton and stare. this can not be right it looks like single corridor stretching for miles. I check no mistake there are no floors no traps no spawning pools. No it is just a long twisting tunnel. I check the notations he ha actually had his skeletons and rock golem tunnel for miles and miles. I check the details again he has actually already dug out a massive road close to a mile long it has lots of lesser tunnels branching off it.
Then I check the final design and am shocked. It will be a road constructed over the whole land what looks like side tunnels branching out to go everywhere. I check the calculations he is planning on creating underground rivers to pull barges. There are plans for webs of roads spreading out over the land
I shake my head "Why are there no levels and why does the road slant up and down and twist like that" The skeletons looks puzzled
I nod "Listen you need a certain amount of levels and traps to upgrade your dungeon to the next level you also have got to put in living matter so adventurers can breath. Otherwise you can not level up your dungeon."
"You can generate dark points. You can increase your infamy. Once you have a stable dungeon you can breed an army to be unleashed upon the world" the skeleton nodded I nodded "But the mana would be weak per mile. I am betting you can only have one or two active before they begin to slow down. You might also feel a problem right?"
A mental image appears in my mind. Crystals he was planing to use crystals to move mana into focused areas where is was stored and used to power the godems. I looked over the mental map i had in my head> "Your going to need more mana than a lesser dungeon can provide. Your going to need outposts on the surface to channel mana down into your road. With that it will be easier to trade for skeletons you can animate then create golems from scratch"
I looked over the mental map in my mind. "But this is the stupidest dungeon I have ever seen it is merely a giant road. Why not put in a underground lair or two?" the skeleton looked at me his eyes glowing with black flames
I looked over the mental image of the map again. the air ducts i had thought were for ventilation were actually all half finished escape tunnels. Easy enough to crawl half way to safety collapsing the tunnel behind you. Then finish by digging up to escape.
The mini boss rooms were not on the map. Neither was any kind of inter dimensional rift. The skeleton clearly had no plans to summon down demons or trade with them. The mental map was detailed with notations and plans for expansion. It was the product of either a insane genius or a demented child with genius levels of planing. That skeleton was still a child compared to me but it showed real genius in the design of its dungeon.
It was a road nothing else no spawning pits no temples to the dark gods. Just a long road with thousands of escape routes and massive round boulder traps ready to be left roll onto anyone foolish enough to try to attack. Even the traps were not really there to kill the enemy but slow them down while the section of road they were attacking was destroyed. But what purpose would the road serve?
Skeleton pov
Rue does not get it the road is underground and will allow monsters to trade freely. I will take a cut of there trade. A small profit over a thousand years is a lot. I am immortal I will last well hundreds of thousands of years minimum. So i can link the monster races with a trading network. I can gain experience slowly while building up a decent treasury My skeletons can create a vast array of cheap goods. I will level up and build a horde once I have enough gold ready I will show that goddess of peace how far a skeletons foot can travel up her arse.
Even if Roland fails i will have established a network that will not be easy to destroy. the gods of goodness can try to dig me out of the ground by the time I am finished in will take a crusade and a half just to take a quarter of my new kingdom. It will just not make sense for anyone to launch a attack upon the network i am about to create.
Rue has only seen a small part of the plans i have. put together. I am going to have her show me and a bunch of skeletons how to administer a dungeon. I will construct a number of standard dungeon's and then link them together. Once the roads begin to trade i will take a percent of the trade plus as many corpses as I can handle.
I have a hidden entrance to my dungeon ready. it comes out in near a river. Smugglers are waiting with item bags full of corpses. It turns out you can not put a human into one of these bags but corpses are fine for a week or so. Even corpses that have been brought back to life by a necromancer can be moved as the bag treats them as constructs.
A couple of hundred goblin corpses await me. Into the skeletons in good condition I will turn as many into skeleton mages as possible. There are twenty or thirty Orc bodies i decide to turn them into skeletons as well. Zombies would dig four or five times faster but would fall apart after a year or so. I might get twenty years of good work out of the orcs. Once i have my giant worms ready then i can have them turned into orc skeleton guards.
Year 0-10 skeletons pov
Rue has been a great help. I have given the necromancers twenty crystals which allow the owner to become a litch. Twenty mage litches have joined me underground. Rue has given them basic training on founding a dungeon.I sent them off with 20 to thirty undead servants they will be sent to meet cultists who will hide them while they create a dungeon. There they will raise a dungeon which will breed giant worms and form the basic building block of my road.
Roland has managed to block the forces of light and goodness in a series of massive battles and a amazing amount of small skirmishes. The price is still one my head so meeting up with Laura would be impossible but i am still in contact with her.
Year 10-100
Laura has gotten married to stone. They have had a bunch of children Laura and stone are using magic to stay young so they may live for 500 years or so. Good for them. That goddess of light has increased my bounty so i will not be able to meet up with them any time soon.
Adventures are annoying me a lot. they attack every year or so. I have developed a system for dealing with them. Once they attack a dungeon i will have my lower level troops try and mob them. If they over come that i will allow them access to the underground road. I wait until they are a mile or so in and spring my next trap. The road stops travelling down and starts to travel up. I have archers and ballista ready they fire a barrage of magic resistant arrows and bolts Part of the ceiling is fake and can be opened up burning oil is dropped on the adventurers heads.
The next part is my favourite and has only been used twice is the u bend attack. Basically the road is like a valley between two hills it goes down and then comes up. So you take a twenty ton boulder and put it on one side of the u bend and then you push it. It rolls down one side of the bend and up part of the next. Then like a pendulum it rolls backwards. I love it because it leaves only a stain on the wall where those adventurers used to be. Or it is suppose to apparently if there are a few thousand then it can get clogged with the bodies actually forming a plug. One of my litches notices the boulder got stuck then he cast a fire wall over the boulder. The fire wall flames sucked all the oxygen out of the air. We still got the bodies a lot of them in near perfect condition and on one has tried to enter my dungeon again since. Next time i will have the first boulder covered in oil and then set on fire. What's more destructive than a twenty ton boulder A twenty ton boulder set on fire and enchanted with gravity magic to speed up a lot faster than a standard boulder
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Year 100 - 461
My Road network has expanded and I am constructing a underground city. The goblins have taken control of the lesser networks they can breed giant worms with greater ease than my 50 litchs can. They have established three underground cities which are actually bigger than the one i will be building. They have also done a amazing job on there dungeons. They have spawn points and nests for creatures that even Roland did not know existed.
Laura has given me a lot of pictures of her grand children i have them on the wall. She has extended her life and Rolands again be levelling up and massive use of potions. She still can not visit mostly until Joe ascends to demi godhood
year 461
Mia apparently cut a deal with three older gods. Apparently she agreed to become there consort. As there are two males and one female this has caused a bit of stir among the human moralists. Roland killed Mia and all three of the other Gods which caused a problem. Apparently mounting there corpses in a indecent pose in there main church was considered a bit much. The other pantheons have declared a holy war and are marching on Roland
Year 462
Laura and Stone are dead killed by poison i have started a rebirth ritual for them they will be summoned back as greater litches. Perhaps they can find a way to be reborn into a standard body maybe not. Joe is nearly evolved however I have sent him and Rue to the underground cavern with Laura and stone. With the numbers of I have sealed the dungeon where they are being summoned in the ground. Time to show these gods the meaning of terror.
Point of view Grant year 463
This is hell we have been summoned to kill a skeleton what a laugh 50,000 died the first day of fighting crushed by boulders. What kind of skeleton has command over thousands of other skeletons hundreds of litchs legions of undead. This is crazy i would prey to my gods but three of them were already killed by the dreaded u bend defence on the first day.
I turn to Maura the dwarf "Any News?" "Plenty all of it bad these goblin tunnels do not run near the skeletons capital. So you might be assigned back into one of the regular units if we are spotted." Swearing helps me forget walking along the slime that was left by friends after a boulder had rolled over them "Shit lets say we got lost no need to bother the higher ups with this. Lets just stay near this escape tunnel and wait for orders."
Maura laughed "Its a good thing for a human your tiny otherwise you would not have been sent into the goblin tunnels" Thomas our cleric dropped down and began to pray "Oh Gods of courage and righteousness show us the path to victory"
A image of the desecrater Skeleton the last line of defence sprang into all of our squads mind. It was surrounded by demi gods and full Gods. Most of them i recognise they were the gods of my childhood. Some were gods of light and peace from foreign countries. One of them i did not recognise stepped forward "Blasted Skeleton you cost me ten years of offering. Not to mention the price of my soldiers armour. I have to pay there lords for that. So we are going to torture you to death. Now normally a skeleton can not feel pain but here is a spell that will make you feel it."
The skeleton stepped forward and his war hammer shot out smashing between the demi gods legs. The demi Gods defences stopped 99 percent of the damage but 1 percent got threw. He fell to the ground his face a mask of agony and the skeleton stepped forward and stuck a dagger in his eye. The skeleton twisted the dagger and jumped backwards avoiding spear thrown by one of the other demi gods.
A god named Apollo laughed "Good Good less riff raff you really are a treasure how about coming to work for me. Just let me know where Laura and Stone are" The skeleton looked at Apollo
Apollo grinned "Of course they will need to be signed in my servants blood but you will find my offer decent" the Skeleton nodded
Apollo lept forward he appeared in front of the skeleton. His hand which seemed to have the power to destroy the world swept forward and crushed the skeletons head. The skeleton head vanished not even dust remaining. Apollo laughed and spat on the skeletons remains which slowly fell to the ground "Insect do you have any idea what coming out to crush Roland has cost me. If you were this hard to defeat now how much harder when you got going "
A gorgeous blond Demi god ran over to Apollo. She grabbed her toga to stop the other gods getting a good look at the bouncing flesh that had almost spilled out. "Er your oracle has bad news the skeleton released boulders before he died. They have special what's it called gravity magic on them they will travel up the underground road we got here and kill most of our troops." Apollo nodded "Well that just doubled the cost of this invasion. The armour alone will take me years to build up again. Wait you what is that you are doing sending the image of this fight out? Are you nuts we were trying to cheat this skeleton we do not want it getting around that you can not trust us. We are the gods of light and goodness people need to trust us. And what you think it is a good idea to let people know that we are all lieing thieving bastards?"
A demi god ran up "Big trouble boss the road to here collapsed all of it. I am also sensing a massive amount of water on its way here. We are to far below the surface to teleport out with the effect of the concrete surrounding us. Also that inter dimension portal we sensed earlier is a illusion." Apollo turned red "That skeleton i am going to resurrect him so i can kill him again. It was a trap a giant trap he has some nerve alright no need to panic we can all breath under water worst comes to worst we get stuck for a month while we dig ourselves out."
A pillar of brown appeared near to Apollo a wave of sludge spread out from the bottom in a massive circle. Apollo swore "Concrete oh shit " the gorgeous blonde shrugged "But boss wont the other gods dig us out" Apollo swore "I am never going to let a bimbo become a demi god just because she has a nice arse and mouth again. Of course they are not going to dig us out. With us stuck down here they can steal our followers and loot our temples. Listen we can freeze some of the concrete and form a shelter and then" A bang as boulders began to fall from the roof cut off the transmission.
Grant grinned "Payday came early boys. Well looks like the Gods are dead or as good as them lets tunnel out of here and head to one of those temples I want to loot them before anybody else gets there."
Rue pov
Holy crap that skeleton has just killed another couple of gods. It looks like Roland's master plan has worked. I can sense the concrete forming a massive bunker like structure nearby. I stare over at Joe who will ascend to demi godhood soon. He has been placed on a throne under which are the coffins holding the corpses of what will be Laura's and Stones new bodies. There are dozens of lesser coffins which will hold there children's spirits.
What a disaster i am stuck here for at least five hundred years. Roland will soon be casting the magic that allows him to reincarnate. That skeleton will have to be reincarnated as well. Only in his case most of his memory will be gone and he will randomly spawn somewhere on the surface once he regains his memory he can start down the road to finding Laura and me and meeting up.
I am freaking out thinking about it Roland was not happy about the whole having to reincarnate business. I swear that when he returns blood is going to flow and i am betting a lot of it will be gods blood. I am just glad I am not one of those poor fools that killed him.
God of Pure evil pov
Wow that was amazing there are a lot of so called Gods of light trapped underground where they can not stop me and the other gods of darkness taking there stuff. Even better Roland is pissed. He was in that i am going to murder everyone and there grandmother mood for the past year. That man can fight and carry a grudge and that was before he had to use magic to reincarnate.
Turning my senses from the place where the gods are buried i notice Anubis a fairly high up god. Guess he is here to ambush the gods trying to dig up Apollo. No he is to far back he wants to ambush the Gods who ambush the gods digging up Apollo. Sure enough the Diana goddess of honour and chivalry launches a sneak attack against her so called allies. Wow that was nasty a poisoned exploding arrow. It looks like things are heating up now. Anubis hits Diana with a dagger to the back and gets hit by a giant rock. The Gods of goodness open up on each other in a orgy of destruction and back stabbing.
HeHEHE time to let them know where the gods of Evil is hiding. After all the Gods of evil are suppose to oppose the gods of Godness. I release a flare magic from my safe dimension and light up the location of the gods of evil. The fighting gets bloody real fast as no one wants to be shot it the back while retreating. Ha Ha this is excellent half my competition are going to be dead by morning.
That was enjoyable unfortunately now I going to have to create a body to hold that skeletons form once he reincarnates. As he will reincarnate basically in a random spot somewhere on the earth I am going to have to put a lot of thought into this new body. Especially as made me swear a blood oath before he agreed to reincarnate instead of coming back as a Litch.
End of current book i will restart with skeleton not knowing who hs is and roland reincarnated as child.
any thoughts roland as merchant king kid or corrupt priest of goodness?