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

But anyway, something made of bones…something made of bones.

Hmm. It could be plenty of creatures. I had a whole encyclopedia of them in my head, since I had studied hard at the academy. Not only did I pay attention in Creature Lore class, but I had borrowed every book on monsters from the academy library, and I had soaked in as much as I could.

My mind started racing like a horse pulling a nobleman’s carriage after getting its bottom whipped. A multitude of creature names flashed through my head; bone golems, skull devils, reaper wraiths…

The thing is, it’s easy to overcomplicate things. Always start with the simplest solution.

“Was it a skeleton?” I asked.

“Worse than a skeleton.”

“It sounded much bloody worse,” added Karson. “We’d never have this kind of thing if we were in a union.”

“You aren’t in one right now,” I said. “And if there’s any more talk of unions, I’ll send you through the hole first. What else can you tell me about this thing?”

“Ssskin,” said Maginhart.

“Skin. Right. As descriptive as ever, Maginhart. I thought you said was made of bones?”

“It had ssskin over itsss back. Almossst like a ssshawl.”

This got my attention.

“Long fingers?” I asked.

“Yesss.”

“Long toes?”

He nodded.

“Big, empty eye sockets and a gaping hole where its mouth should be?”

Tarius and Karson both shuddered.

“You know the creature?” Maginhart asked.

“It sounds like a narkleer,” I said, gravely. Seriously, I really tried to make my voice sound as grave as possible, as befits any mention of a narkleer.

The effect was lost on my miners. One thing kobolds lack is fear. It just isn’t written into the fiber of their being. The only fearful kobold I ever met was Tomlin, my first ever kobold who I had promoted to the role of Lead Essence Cultivator.

“Narkleer?” asked Maginhart.

“Horrible things,” I said. “Years ago, and we’re talking around two centuries ago, the League of Necromancers owned a settlement in the distant west. This was a different west, not like the one today. It was before the Blue Baron built his pleasure city and made it so popular.

Anyway, nobody was ever allowed within ten miles of the settlement, and the necromancers never spoke of it. As you can imagine, that made everyone at the time extremely curious about what the necromancers were doing in their secretive settlement.”

“Raising corpses,” said Wylie.

Tarius nodded. “Yes…that is a necromancer’s job.”

“But which corpses? And why?” asked Karson.

“I’m getting to that. So we have our secretive necromancers in their secret little lair. Unluckily for them, the king of Xynnar at the time was Alkrick, notoriously the most paranoid and jealous monarch to ever wedge his fat rump on a throne. Alkrick, learning about the necromancers, sent a battalion of his best men to their underground settlement.”

“What did they find?” asked Tarius, enraptured by my tale. Another thing about kobolds; they are genetically predisposed to getting really wrapped up in stories. It makes them an easy audience, and I often try out my made up stories on them. I’m told that Bard colleges have their first-year bard apprentices sing their early tales to kobolds, to build their confidence.

Enjoying their attention, I continued. “Tarius, my friend, when the king’s men visited the necromancers’ settlement, they discovered a lesson waiting for them; don’t stick your nose in other people’s business. They managed to overcome the necromancers, and when they did, Alkrick’s soldiers discovered a necromancy chamber deep underground.

In it, the necromancers had been reanimating dead noblemen and women whose corpses they had stolen from family graveyards. They were resurrecting these rich people and then interrogating them to learn the nasty little secrets of all the great families in Xynnar. Why else do you think that so many lords and ladies sponsor the league of necromancers these days?”

“Blackmail,” said Maginhart.

“Yes, he’s got it! Blackmail, my friends. The king put a stop to the whole resurrection side of it, but not before the damage was done. And of course, this settlement of necromancers was just a subset of the League of Necromancers itself, which is flourishing these days.”

“Excellent idea!” said Karson, punching the air.

“Yeah, pretty good,” I admitted. “Fifty seasoned dungeoneers and soldiers died trying to get into the underground prison, meeting their end because of just two creatures guarding it. Guess what those creatures were?”

“Gnomes?” asked Wylie.

“Narkleers. The necromancers had built a tunnel around the underground prison, and the narkleers patrolled it.”

“Not good,” said Wylie.

“If you look into a narkleer’s eyes, it can infect your mind. If you get too close to one, they can tear out your guts without even touching you. That’s right – telekinetic disembowelment. Then, right before your petrified eyes, your guts slop onto the floor and float across the room, where narkleer gobbles them up.

They absorb whatever nutrients they need from the body parts, and the excess grows on their backs, like a flap of skin. The more flappy skin a narkleer has on its back, the more things it has killed. This is a defense system from when narkleers used to live in the wild; their back skin served as a warning to predators.”

“Delightful,” said Maginhart.

“Doesn’t end there,” I said. “A dark kind of energy surrounds a narkleer. To even get close to them, is to breath in this invisible energy. It soaks into a man’s skin, infecting him from the inside. Spend a minute in the same room as one, and sure, you might feel nauseated for a just a little while and then recover. But spend an hour with a narkleer, and it won’t be long until your hair falls out and your organs liquefy.”

The kobolds all rushed away from the hole now, until they were on the opposite side of the room.

“Relax,” I told them. “The narkleer isn’t close enough to