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

But if I had a scribe artificially inflating my dungeon’s renown…

Gulliver was right about something else. There are indeed things even a core needs to buy.

“We might be able to agree something. But you don’t look like a warscribe,” I said. “Won’t this be too dangerous for you?”

Gulliver pinched his frilly shirt. “Why, because I have style?”

“Hanging around in a dungeon during a hero raid is a dangerous business.”

“See how pale my skin is, Core Benodict?”

“Don’t ever call me that.”

“Beno, then. My skin isn’t this white through a maid’s powder. I am a nocturn, and as such can blend into the shadows with ease.”

“And you can wield essence, too.”

He shrugged. “Many scribes can do so.”

“Let’s say I was fighting heroes, and ran out of essence and needed a scribe to write a few lines in his fancy little book? You know, to give me an advantage?”

Gulliver gave an expression of greatly-exaggerated disgust. “What? What foul request is this? What do you take me for, some kind of ruffian with no integrity? Some backstreet scribe with no ethics?”

“Ethics?”

“I am an esteemed member of the scribes guild, master core. As such, I am bound by a pact of scribalistic neutrality. When observing a conflict of any kind, I cannot intervene. I am to remain neutral; not for one side nor the other. I simply record the facts…but with my own unique style.”

That was a pity. My own essence manipulation abilities were greater than Gulliver’s, no doubt, but it would have been useful if he could use his skills for me.

Even so, Gulliver could be valuable to me in spreading my dungeon’s reputation. As well as that, I had to admit that it would be nice to have him around. He had an easy manner to him, and I even sensed a kind of friendly sincerity, if I ignored his stupid way of speaking.

It’d be pleasant to have someone around who I could talk to. Someone who wasn’t a dungeon creature, who I hadn’t created and thus wouldn’t have to be subservient to me. That was the problem with the monsters I fashioned for my dungeon; they couldn’t disobey me, to a point, and as such were yes-men.

In other words, I wanted to be able to converse with a free-thinking person. It wouldn’t be so bad to have a friend around here would it? Call me a sentimental old core, but I sometimes thought it would be nice to have a pal.

“What’s in this for you?” I asked. “I can’t fill your purse, and I promise you, you’ll find no hot baths or supple maids down here. Unless you’re fond of kobolds wearing dresses.”

“My esteemed core, I have been a scribe in the royal courts where I learned that kings and queens whisper, worry, belch, and fart just like the rest of us. I was a warscribe during the Tettenioan campaign, where I watched General Julio play with his men like they were a child’s wooden figurines. I chronicled the grand elves while they built their treetop palaces in the ever-auburn forest. But for all my experiences, I have never had the honor of watching a dungeon core work.”

“You’re telling me you’re in this for the experience?” I asked.

“For a scribe, experiences are like gems in a king’s crown. Coins in a beggar’s hat. Beautiful maids in a gentleman’s club window…”

“What about your satchel?” I said.

“This thing? The finest West Bambou leather, taken from the hide of free-roaming cows who are treated like royalty, as this adds to the refinement of their skin. Or, a very close copy, at any rate. I don’t participate in the slaughter of non-aggressive beings, where I can help it.”

“Let’s see what’s inside.”

“Like that, is it?”

“My dungeon, my rules. Do you think I’ll let just anyone hang around? It doesn’t matter how useful you might be, if I can’t trust you.”

“If it suits you, fine, I’ll lay my life bare before your very eyes.”

Gulliver careful removed everything from his gentleman’s bag, placing each item on the floor. Soon, I saw two carefully folded shirts, a fishbone comb, several differently sized quills, five jars of squid ink, and six books bearing Gulliver’s name on the covers. There was nothing dangerous, nothing suspicious.

“You travel light.”

“I have been on the road since I was still weaned on my mother’s teat,” said Gulliver. “And I know enough about Xynnar and the people who walk its pastures that I leave anything valuable in a secure place that I can return to.”

“Okay,” I said. “A final point, then. You’re a scribe who can use essence with his words. I take it you can write and seal a mana-contract?”

“Can a bear climb a tree?”

“I don’t know, can it?”

“Of course it can, and of course I can write an unbreakable contract. What would you have it read?”

“That while you are in my dungeon or on the wasteland surface, you can’t act in a way as to cause harm – intentional or otherwise – to me, my creatures, my dungeon, or the clans living above. As well as that, you cannot spread writings of anything I would class as secret, or anything I wouldn’t want others to know. In fact, I want to read everything you scribble. Finally, you cannot publish anything about my dungeon building strategy or my battle tactics until ten years after the fact, unless I approve it.”

Gulliver sighed in mock disdain. “The imbalance, the injustice! Oh, such a suspicious mind you have. Intentional or not, I ask you? You might as well ask me to catch the moon in a fishing net. If I was to trip on a rock in your rather untidy dungeon, and as such found myself falling into a wall which in