Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) by Alex Oakchest (book suggestions txt) 📕

Light spread out on the ground, thin lines of it that formed a rectangle. And there it was. The door.

No time for words now. No more rousing speeches. Only blood and battle awaited, and by the end, Reginal will have claimed back their home.

Deep underground, far west of the Eternals, First-Leaf Godwin led a procession of Wrotuns through the cavern and toward the tunnels. He could already smell the spring, even so far away. His body ached for it, and this ache tore at him. He gritted his teeth and forced the pain back.

“Remember,” he said, without turning back to look at his people. “The core is a trickster. Galatee has given the order to disarm his traps, but he is still dangerous. He will find a way to surprise us, mark my words. Stay strong. Remember, this is your home you are fighting for.”

He had only been able to muster ten men and women worthy of a blade. They were not fighting people, not anymore. Maybe they had been once, back when they had first taken this land, but now they were older than they had any right to be, and though the springs extended their life, it didn’t make them stronger.

It didn’t matter. Godwin was their only mage, and he was powerful enough. He already knew his staff and spells could destroy the core, and now it was only a case of finding their way to him and ridding the world of his gem foulness.

Yet, a small part of him was sad. Or perhaps not sad, but guilty. He knew that the core was a conscious being, and he knew that he had brought the core here, just so he could destroy it and convince his people there was no hope in staying.

He was a liar, yes. But a liar with his people’s interests at heart. That is what he needed to focus on.

“Here we are,” he said, as he approached the opening that led to the tunnels. He didn’t dare turn around, because he knew the rest of the Wrotun, those who couldn’t fight and instead had placed their faith in him, were watching. Their hope would only weigh him down now.

And so, Godwin stepped into the tunnels.

Reginal was the first to reach the bottom of the slope. He emerged into a much wider space than he had expected. Until recently, the surface door had led to only a series of tunnels, but now there was a room.

A room with decapitated goblin heads strewn around it. Reginal felt sick, but he couldn’t let his fear show in front of his people.

“The core has been busy,” he said.

“They generally are,” answered Tavia.

It was a strange room. Dominating it was a series of multi-colored floor tiles. Some blue, others red, yellow, green.

“He’s been decorating the place,” he said, forcing good humor.

“A trap,” answered Tavia. “Let me go first.”

The rest of the Eternals filed in now, but they all stayed by the wall nearest the slope opening, and they watched as the Wrotun girl walked cautiously forward.

She kneeled beside the first tile. This was colored crimson, with no markings.

“There will be a pattern,” she said. “And false tiles, I’m guessing. Ones that produced a pretty bad effect when you step on them.”

“Pretty bad? Please, Wrotun trapper, define pretty bad.”

“You know. A gruesome death.”

It was then that Reginal heard something.

It sounded like water dripping from the cavern ceiling. Soon, he realized that not only were the sounds too rhymical to be just dewdrops, but they were getting louder and louder.

Within seconds he realized that it was a drumbeat. The volume rose until it became a furious pounding.

A stench reached his nostrils. Spent mana. A spell had been cast!

Before he could react, an overwhelming sense of fear shook him. A feeling of hopelessness that rushed through his body, filling him, creeping into his soul where it rested as a darkness.

His men murmured. One of them gasped, and he heard them all talk now, and the fear in Reginal grew stronger.

He heard a kobold voice speak in his head.

You should leave. This is no place for you.

And he almost follow their advice. His terror was so strong that he wanted to drop his sword and run.

What was happening? He was a goblin chief. A warrior by blood and training. Reginal hadn’t become chief through running from battle, so why did every part of his mind scream at him to flee?

It was then that a figure stepped out of the shadows from the far side of the room. A kobold with a tambourine strapped around his chest.

“Don’t you like my song?” it said.

“A bard!” shouted one of Reginal’s men.

The chief understood it then. The bard had used his magic, playing a song of fear.

Luckily, the goblins had brought their own bard. He stepped forward now, a portly goblin with a lute in his hands.

“I know music of my own. We could have a duet.”

The twang of his lute met with the pounding of a tambourine, filling the deathly cavern with a ridiculous song, jarring lute notes and beating drums, the noises echoing off every wall.

A new energy filled Reginal. A sense of hope. Courage. Now, this was a bard song he liked.

It filled him with just enough bravery to raise his sword again. “Kill the little drummer!”

Tavia shot to her feet. “The tiles! Stop, you idiots.”

Reginal saw sense and was about to order his men to halt, when more kobolds stepped out from the shadows.

Warriors with iron swords. A much larger kobold with a warhammer, a hammer that Reginal recognized used to belong to one of his men. A ranger kobold with mice scurrying across his shoulders.

The