As the party reached the dungeon entrance, they quickly understood how it worked, as a separate system appeared before all of them.
[Slumbering Graveyard, Rare Rank, 50 Floors]
[A mysterious pile of bones has bathed in a pool of spirit power and awoken to become an Arch Lich. Crawl through it's floors to reach the Lich, destroy it and let it slumber yet again!]
[Any number of parties can enter the dungeon and gain their own version of it. However, if the end boss is killed, the dungeon will become empty for all until the next reset.]
[Dungeons reset every 50 days, even if the Lich is killed or not]
[Do you wish to enter the Dungeon? State your team name, your progressed will be saved to your team only]
"Let's call us 'Empires finest!" Xena was the first to speak up, loudly and very happy she danced around Jack as a true daughter around her father.
"Hahaha that's so bad Xena! What about 'The party of Dragon Masters!" Goran laughed and gave his suggestion.
Angelica, icy silent with her firm and royally beautiful face, finally broke her lips into a small smile.
"You're both onto something. But I think we should be Etal Frontier! As our party will be the absolute front of not only our heroes and empire, but also largely the front of the entire human race."
Jack though about this.
'I want to let Angelica choose our name, if only to keep that smile on her face a little longer. It's so mesmerising to look at her, and when she smiles like this... I can barely breathe. But it doesn't seem right.. somehow it's lacking. Missing something vital.'
[Party name accepted]
[Angelicas Otherworldly Beauty can now enter the dungeon]
Everyone just stared at this.
Cochi and Ramises didn't say anything at all. This was between the royal family and they would have no part in it.
Goran looked like he had been stung by something very painful, and Xena was crying in laughter.
Angelica was just staring at the words, completely frozen and her cheeks turning red.
"Ahahahba that's so cringe Jack! How could you do this to Angelica! And to the rest of us! Hahaha!"
Xena had already sat down, clasping her stomach and now even rolled in the grass without being able to controle her laughing ceasure.
"Just say AOB for short. That's our name. Now go inside!"
Jack rushed them all inside, barely daring to look at Angelica.
Once they had all entered, they checked their steel forged gear and rations.
They all had a sack with troop rations and water. A new item had been created from the healing cocoas.
A small vial of extracted and concentrated juices from the pressed cocoa nuts.
If one were to even drink a single mouthful, they would be very intoxicated and see funny things running around.
However the buzz only lasted for an hour or two and the side effects had proven to be an extreme wave of regeneration.
Civilians had experimented with this and found it could even cure common colds and various other ailments.
Even broken bones could be mended in an hour, a drunken dwarf had tested this himself, boasting and putting silver down in a wager, he had broken his own arm, drinking the drinking a mouthful of concentrated liqueur juice, and won the wager when his arm restored completely.
Jack wore his crazed armour, the dilato's tooth, a steel helmet forged into a crown with a black feather, a steel-wrought tower shield and a thick wolf cloak.
The others had received high quality and uniquely made steel armour and weapons.
They all had steel spears, shields and strong swords. Angelica and Xena also had new shortbows with steel arrows as Jack didn't want them in the front.
It was night as they began to move forward.
The graveyard was larger now that they stood inside. However, just a single wooden hut still stood amidst the graves in the earth.
"Let's check out that hut. There doesn't seem to be anything else of interest here."
Xena spoke seriously, and they all drew their weapons and advanced.
As they began to walk, the earth around the graves suddenly moved.
Bony hands pierced the earth and around 20 skeletons, pure humanoid bones, appeared and slowly approached them.
"Goran, show me how strong you are. Take care of these walking bones."
Jack's order was actually bored.
He had sensed the auras from these enemies and found them weaker than even trash troops.
'Angry civilians can kill these if they wanted to.'
Jack scoffed as Goran went to slice their spinal cords in half, effectively reducing them to a pile of bones.
Inside the hut, a single stairway with many torches appeared.
"Let's take the torches father. It might be dark down there." Xena said and grabbed one herself.
As they came out into the tunnel beneath the hut, a couple more of those skeletons greeted them and Ramises cut them down quickly.
As they continued through the tunnels and found a new stairway down, they quickly understood that these first floors were extreme easy to travel.
It wasn't before they reached a large cellar-room in the fifth floor, that Jack told them to slow down and wait.
Before them, a skeleton with armour appeared.
[Slumbering Graveyards first boss, Armoured Boneman, common rank]
[Fortitude: 50]
[Spirit Power: 25]
[Ability: Bonestorm]
"Let me try this one. Stand back."
Jack went forward and the armoured boneman boss immediately began to move.
Everywhere on the 'cellar' floor was littered with broken bones, and the boss knew that the challenger was far stronger than itself, so it began to use it's ability.
Bones rushed towards it and created a storm of bones around it.
However it was futile. This amount of power wouldn't even make a dent on Jacks armour or his flesh.
Besides the beast leaders and bosses his empire had slain, he had also bought additional cores in the trade system.
[Emperor Jack]
[Fortitude: 420]
[Spirit power: 435]
[Abilities: Aura sense. Matter control(earth control, uncommon - water control, uncommon unlocked)]
Jack simply drew his steel-sword, walked throught the bonestorm and slashed the boss in the middle.
[First boss has been defeated. This dungeon is now unable to overflow into the world until the next reset]
They all gained this announcement as it was not a lords system announcement, but a message from the dungeon itself.
"Look father, it dropped something!"
Xena quickly ran over and picked up a scroll and a core.
"A fortitude essence core! And this scroll... An advancement scroll? What does it mean?"
Xena handed the scroll to Jack, and was allowed to eat the fortitude core herself.
[Common advancement scroll. Advance a single common ability into the next rank. Single use]
"Does any of you have a common ability? This scroll can advance it." Jack simply stated the facts.
Goran didn't... He actually the most and currently strongest abilities.
Xena had her Administrator ability, but it was already epic.
Cochi's ability was uncommon, but potential for legendary.
Ramises had an uncommon ability to increase production speed and resource gathering. But it was limited to an area around himself.
That left Angelica.
[Empress Angelica]
[Fortitude: 55]
[Spirit Power: 50]
[Ability: Strong Offspring]
Jack naturally already knew this about her, but had never dared to ask her about it.
But now she brought it up herself.
"My ability is Strong Offspring. It's normal Rank." She let the sentence hang a bit before she smiled.
"I guess my children will be strong..." She casually moves her shoulders up and down in indifference while looking at Xena.
This made Xena giggle again and look at Jack.
"Well! Give it to your wife! My brother's and sisters will be even stronger yet!"
Xena enjoyed this while the rest simply didn't dare to interrupt.
Jack just threw the scroll while Xena laughed. Even Angelica couldn't help but smile as they watched Jack move to the new descending stairs.
His neck had blushed to a deep red colour.
As the floors were actually easy for Jack, he began to let the others practise their fighting skills.
They moved swiftly through the floors, saw areas with materials of genuine worth.
Sections with different kinds of ores and veins of metal and gold.
Moist caves with special fungus and other rare herbs.
They gained more power cores from bosses and even some of the 'normal' dungeon creatures had old pouches of gold and silver.
They faced mostly skeletons, but even occasional cloth-bearing skeletons with an fire control ability had appeared and shot balls of fire at them.
Luckily, their steel shields could withstand these attacks, only becoming suddenly and warmer for a while. Jack and Goran killed these enemies fast to prevent more damage to their gear.
The bosses came at each fifth floor and became much stronger each time.
The last boss on floor 30 had given them a proper fight, and Goran had burned his right arm in a fire manipulated attack.
They had made a small break for two hours, letting Goran come back from is drunken stage with a healed arm.
The next floors proved much more dangerous.
They faced an iron golem boss on floor 35. As Jack didn't want to waste time and possible injuries to his family, he had killed it himself. Being made of iron made it easy for him to deal with.
40th floor boss was a bat-reptile with no eyes.
It's screeches blew our their torches and everything else in its past.
Even Jack had been thrown back from these sonic screeches.
But they had Gorans night vision, and as soon as he began to shout out locations and attack patterns, they had overcome it.
Yet, it was no longer a walk in the park.
The floors truly began to become dangerous.
However this boss has dropped something new.
A shiny book floated in the air above it's corpse and they found it to be an uncommon ability book.
Jack, being the Emperor, had complete authority to dictate what would happen to it.
And he had given it to his Empress. He would strengthen her all he could, and the rest of his family, so no-one would take them from him again.
She had tried it outoving down the next floors.
At uncommon rank and with her spirit power not hitting 85, she just had to open her mouth for a deadly stream of compressed and silent air to emerge.
A sonic wave, too high noted to be heard by a normal human ear, simply crushed everything in its path.
She could keep it going for about 5 second before she had to stop and breathe.
The next boss that appeared on floor 45 was a skeleton knight mounted on a skeletal warhorse.
[Slumbering Graveyard 45th floor, Skeletal Knight, Boss, Rare]
[Fortitude: 450]
[Spirit Power: 450]
[Abilities: Skeleton Charge. Bone Armour. Reanimation. Shadow Bone.]
"It looks dangerous Jack." The Empress simply stated, moving a single step closer to him.
"Xena and Angelica, keep your distance and use your steel arrows. Even bones break under steel. Ramises and Cochi, protect them. Goran with me!"
Jack advanced quickly, holding nothing back and Goran was right after him.
The boss was quick to counter charge on its horse and they both barely evaded it.
Jack used his earth control to manipulate the rocks littering the area between the bones.
A line of rocks appeared before the horse, making it crash into the ground.
Goran was quick to slize the horse apart, however the Skeleton Knight arose and used its ability to remake the horse and many normal skeletons from the piles of bones.
Xena, Angelica and the rest fought all these while Jack and Goran was going all out on the boss.
It's armour was destroyed but new bones flew to it and replaced it with bone armour while sharp bones, seemingling coming from the shadows themselves, began to slash at both of them.
In a battle of attrition and a well placed boulder on its head, the boss finally died.