Deciding to let fate decide for him, Skuggir stopped wearying about the matter of his evolution, and while He had been ignoring it, he had a loan to pay off. The first week of the lone was approaching and Skuggir had gained very little in the ways of money.
Looking at the [Shop] tab within his menu, Skuggir quickly noticed that he could now sell items in addition to the ore he could already sell! this meant that the more people who stumbled in the more money he would get. seeing this as a jackpot, Skuggir immediately sold all of his excess gear.
[Sold - 20 weapons + 20 armor for 400 gold]
After selling his excess gear, Skuggir checked what new things he could buy to improve his dungeon. Looking through the now far more extensive list of traps, minions, weapons, and prebuilt rooms Skuggir was overwhelmed.
The amount was not what was overwhelming, but the price! some of the minions costed ten times a regular skeleton, and even the most basic of traps starting at roughly two hundred gold coins.
While looking into this another group of adventurers popped into the dungeon but this time instead of dashing forward, they brought out some pickaxes and stared to mine out a portion of the walls in the first room.
Interested in their plan, Skuggir dismissed his menu and watched them throng his new 3D map.
While watching the group, Skuggir started to question some things now that he had time to think.
'Why don't I care about their lives? They are human right? Are there elves? Maybe because I'm a skeleton. I guess I have no brain to have instinctual reactions with. But that still does not make sense. I should probably stop them from mining my dungeon.' And with this thought, skuggir and all his skeletons, even the archers, marched into the first room.
Commanding the ten skeleton soldiers to attack, Skuggir prepared one speed in each hand. In his left hand he prepared [breeze] which did as its name suggested and in his right hand he prepared [flame] which ignited a flame in his palm.
Giving the [flame] spell a constant supply of mana he channeled the [breeze] spell behind it, scatting the flames from his palm into long lashes of fire that licked the skeletons and humans who where battleing in front of him.
Skuggir didn't know it, but a minor Lich was a D rank monster, as its superior intelligence and spell where a deadly combo for any party. But even the best minor Lich didn't combine their spells and merely was able to notice that fire would melt armor and frost would slow opponents!
Seeing the spell combo, a human with large bulky armor spat "RETREAT" before backing out in an organized formation, only one person failing to escape with the rest of the group.
Having left their supplies behind, Skuggir gained another three pickaxes. unfortunately these pickaxes would not see much use, as the mining crew was already filled out and would not need any more addition any time soon.
Walking back to the second room and making sure everyone got back into positions, Skuggir sold the pickaxes instead.
[Sold - 3 pickaxes for 30 gold]
After this most recent invasion, Suggir noticed a fatal flaw with his current layout, dead space. There was too much space in the beginning where Adventurers could do whatever they wanted with little to no danger to them an their party.
The easiest way to fix this would be with more minions, which he would stations in the first room. Maybe some gargoyles that would act as statues atop some stone pedestals he could mould with [Mould Earth]. The other option he could pick was wait till he had enough money and setup traps within the room, such as pitfalls, large swinging objects, and even darts or lava. Either way Skuggir needed to pay off his thousand gold loan fist.
Noting he had just over 500 gold coins, Skuggir dumped the majority into his loan, and he now owed just 500 coins to the menu.
Closing his menu because another group had entered just a few minutes after the last, Skuggir noticed that this group was different. Every member had dark blue bordering black cloaks on, with silver notes and symbols sown into the fabric. Other than their cloaks not much could be seen of this group.
They didn't stop their steady steps for a moment, their approach of the second room imminent. Just before they where to step in, one members hand reached out from beneath their cloak with a golden astrolabe.
With this action, the astrolabe glowed a dull gold. the astrolabe erected a barrier of black dotted with stars and other astral phenomena. Skuggir saw this display of beautiful power and instantly knew this must be a treasure!
But how could he get his hand on it. Calling for a miner skeleton, Skuggir told it to touch the wall of starlight. The minor walked up to the barrier of space and after touching it vanished, turned into a constellation within the barrier!
Seeing the skeletons constellation, Skuggir had another skeleton throw a arrow into the barrier and sure enough, a constellation of an arrow appeared.
After a few minutes of thinking, Skuggir thought of a simple solution, go around the barrier. With his knew idea come goal in mind, Skuggir prepared for his group of skeletons to rush forward once he opened a hole into the wall.
With his two squad of skeletons at the ready, Skuggir used the [Mold Earth] spell too peel the 2 foot stone wall. Between room down. after opening the hole, the barrier did not reach and the group of five star-cloaked individuals turned around to meet the group of ten skeletons lead by Skuggir.
Immediately running for the entrance, Skuggir blocked their only way to escape as soon as he realized problem. With their only way to escape cut off, a fight was imminent.