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

limp. His staff fell from his hands and clattered on the floor, and the light at its base dimmed.

And still, Gary slurped. Again and again, his leech teeth drinking the gnome’s blood.

It took quite a long time, actually. I got rather bored.

Finally, Gary unlatched himself and stood up, his legs covered in blood.

“Nothing quite quenches your thirst like gnome blood,” he said. “Ah, Dark Lord. What a delight it is to see you. You look ravishing.”

CHAPTER 30

Two Days Later

For the second time in my second life, I found myself locked in a darkened cell. Coils of metal rope were latched around me. It wasn’t to stop me moving, since cores aren’t known for their great range of movement.

No, after the battle, Chief Reginal had fetched the rest of his people to the cavern. He had brought a goblin mage with him. Acton, he said his name was. A friendly old goblin, actually, but he had these annoying metal ropes that, when latched around me, drained my essence. Without any essence vines, and being removed from my dungeon, there was nothing I could do to replenish them.

After that, Reginal had locked me in here while his people moved into the cavern.

So, I spent my time brooding in the darkness. That is something we cores are great at; we love a nice bit of brooding time.

At first, I ran my racing mind over Godwin’s last words. Over his treachery towards Jahn and I. Over the great risk he’d taken with his people and the lives that had been lost because of it.

As Galatee had once told me, Godwin had his people’s interests at heart. His plan was centered around saving them.

He’d just done it in an utterly moronic way.

After I had thought about the stupid gnome for as long as I could bear, I turned my attention to other things. First, my friends. Gary, Tomlin, Wylie, Brecht. All of those lovely creatures and kobolds who had stood by me. There, in the darkness, I missed them. I hoped that Chief Reginal had not hurt them.

To distract myself, I turned my attention to other things. Namely, to the Soul Bard story I had begun imagining in my head, a sequel to one I had written before. If I ever got a chance to meet the writer of the great Soul Bard series, I would share my ideas with him.

I was halfway through it when I heard a distant voice.

“Ah, what a nap,” it said.

That dopey voice. I knew it! How could I not?

“Jahn?”

“Beno?”

“Where are you, my friend?”

“I am here.”

“Well, yes, but where is here?”

“I believe I must be in the cell next to yours.”

“Then you survived,” I said. “The academy has a lot to answer for, selling us to those lunatics. Really, I’m thinking of lodging a complaint with the ethics board if I ever get out of here.”

“You should have seen me, Beno. You’d have been so proud. I cultivated my essence. I made traps. Bear traps and pitfalls and-”

The door to my cell opened.

A goblin stepped in. An old goblin wearing gold-trimmed metal armor, with a crown on his head. With him was a young goblin boy with a pale-green face. He was holding an orb that had traces of black smoke inside it.

“This is him?” asked the boy.

“This is him, Devry. The core.”

“He looks smaller than I imagined.”

“You’ve seen him now. So go along to your room.”

“I want to speak with him!”

“And you will, but not yet.”

The boy left, and then it was just the goblin and me. I recognized him as the leader of the Seekers, the one who had led his people through my dungeon and into the loot room.

“We have a lot to discuss, little core,” he said.

“Indeed,” said another voice.

And then I had a shock that would have stopped my heart, if it existed.

A man stepped into the room. A small man with a bald head.

“Overseer Bolton?”

“You have changed, Beno. I see it in your core.”

I couldn’t believe it. What the hell was an academy overseer doing here?

“I hope you brought a wordsmith,” I said. “One practiced in law. You have a lot to answer for, Bolton. Do you even do due diligence before you sell a core to someone? The old gnome was a lunatic.”

Bolton fixed me a kindly smile. “We owe you an explanation. And there is a lot to explain.”

And so, Bolton and the goblin chief, who introduced himself as Reginal, spoke to me. They explained things. Lots of things. Events that happened long before my second life. Things that the Wrotun had hidden from me.

I learned about the Eternals clan, and how this was their home. They weren’t the Seekers, that was just a name Godwin made up to rid the caverns of their true history. They weren’t invaders. They were people trying to win back what had been taken from them.

They told me about the battle; how the Wrotun warriors were killed, and how they found Godwin’s bloodless body in my core room.

With the Wrotun beaten, Reginal had led his goblin fighters into the caverns that were once their home. There, he met with the kind of hostility you’d expect from all the Wrotun leaves who had been told again and again that the goblins were their enemy.

But he addressed them with kindness. He let the adult leaves pull their children close to them. He told them that those who wished to leave could go without being harmed. Those who wished to stay in peace, could join the Eternals and help their clan prosper.

“That’s great,” I said. “A lovely tale. But what of me? Of my clanmates?”

“Clanmates?” said Reginal.

Bolton sighed. “He means his kobolds. Core Beno has quite