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

for the day, and that he was both tired and irritated. Which isn’t that unusual, for an orc.

So, feeling hot and tired and grumpy because he was working overtime for the fifth day in a row, Tegump wasn’t ecstatic to be hailed by a strange, pale man wearing clothes that belonged in a duke’s ballroom.

“My good orc,” said Gulliver, flashing a smile. “A’Santa Cym.”

His use of the orcish greeting, which few people knew and even fewer would ever use, disarmed the laborer a little.

“Hmph. You aren’t from around here, are you?”

“What? Did my clean face, free from dust and ravages of the sun, give it away? Or was it because my skin has the suppleness of a forest fairy bathing in ambrosia?”

“It was your poncy clothes.”

“All the fashion in Tutenborg, let me tell you. You look thirsty, my good orc. Your skin is like the desert around us; cracked, mistreated by the sun.”

“Ain’t my time for rations yet,” grunted Tegump.

Gulliver covered his mouth in an exaggerated gesture. “What? They ration water around here? The elixir of Xynnar, plentiful in places, treasured in others yet free to all who wander under Xynnar’s watchful sky? What’s next? Charge a copper coin to take a breath?”

“Cut the fancy words, scribe.”

Gulliver gave him a kind smile. “Wait a second.”

He took a book from his satchel. It was thick and bound with some kind of animal hide, and the pages made a pronounced rustling when he turned them. He next produced a peacock feather quill, and began writing in the book, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his lips as he wrote.

Finally, he presented the book to Tegump. “Feast your peepers on this.” Then he considered something. “Unless you need me to read it for you?”

Tegump snatched the book. “I wasn’t born in this arse end of nowhere. I got’s an education.”

The orc read the book, using his index finger to guide his eyes over each word. He read aloud. “The fine specimen of orc, suddenly felt amazingly refreshed, as if he had just sipped the clearest water from the finest spring in the land.”

He looked at the scribe quizzically. “I don’t underst…”

And then, a smile crept across his face. His skin, cracked from working in the sun, became soft and supple. His eyes sparkled with life.

“I feel like…”

“Like you just had the best drink in your miserable life,” said Gulliver, nodding. “Better?”

“Thank you, scribe.”

Gulliver waved his hand. “Pah, it was nothing. Though if repayment is on your mind, directions to a tavern and some easy-to-please wenches wouldn’t go amiss. Extremely easy to please, mind you; I had a long journey here, and I’m not at my best.”

“None a’ that round here,” said Tegump.

“Are you sure?”

“You won’t find what you want in these folks. An’ I ain’t got time to waste gabbing here with you.”

Gulliver took back his book and scribbled another line in it. “Are you sure about that, esteemed orc mason? Read, if you please.”

The orc read what Gulliver had written. “The orc wore a shirt of the finest silk, with frilly sleeves that were sure to be the envy of all those around him. He looked grand and proud, like an orc plucked from the gutters and turned into a lord.”

With barely a blink of an eye, Tegump’s stained laborer shirt transformed into a ridiculous garment that wouldn’t have look out of place in the king’s court. Silky and puffy and frilly, with colors brighter than the wasteland sun.

A group of fellow laborers, two orcs and a gemloid, walked past. One of them nudged the other, and they laughed at Tegump.

“Hmph,” said Tegump, pinching the fabric of his new shirt. “What in all hells is this?”

Gulliver wiped sweat from his brow. “Not your style? I can furnish you with other, almost as fashionable ones, my good orc. But not now; my essence is quite low.”

“Can I have my old shirt back?” asked Tegump, aware of the laborers mocking him.

Gulliver scratched his goatee beard. “I’m…uh…afraid not. Bestowing you with such refinement, such classy garb, means your old tat is lost in the process. You aren’t as pleased as I had expected. Did I offend?”

“I look like a duke’s bloody jester, all dolled up like this.”

Gulliver looked genuinely saddened. “I was merely trying to give you a kindness, my man.”

“Well, I thank you. I s’pose a kindness misplaced is still a kindness. Are you lost, my lord?” he said. “Don’t get many travelers here, much less a scribe.”

“We’re all lost, are we not? You, working with your proud orc flesh burning under the unrelenting sun. Me, Gulliver the master scribe, burning callouses into my once-dainty feet as I traverse our grand land of Xynnar searching for the stories that bear it life. We’re all but ants, lost upon this vast plane we call life, searching endlessly for…”

“I mean, are you geographically displaced?”

“May I have your name, sweet orc of the wasteland?”

The orc wiped sweat from his brow and spat on the ground. “Tegump.”

“Te-gump. The sounds follow each other like children chasing butterflies, or like dew drops falling from a chestnut tree. Te-gump. If you are happy to help me, Tegump, I am looking for three things; a glass of ale to blast the dust from my throat; a strumpet with soft skin who isn’t shy about showing it; and an introduction to your dungeon core, as I have it on good authority that one dwells here. But first; I should make a mark.”

Gulliver scribbled in his book once again, before snapping it shut.

“What did you write?” asked Tegump.

Gulliver opened it back to the page he had scrawled on, and Tegump read the words aloud.

“Proud Tegump toils on the wasteland, drenched in sweat, every bead of which represents his