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

the temporary storage shacks constructed by the Wrotun. Nothing growing from the soil, yet. No trees, no streams. Just a land of nothingness that it was my job to cultivate.

What it lacked in beauty, the wasteland made up for in the number of people swarming over it. Members of the Wrotun and Eternals clans were busy up here, some of them tilling the soil over and over in the hopes they could finally make it useful. Others using the stone Wylie and the others and had mined in my dungeon, and beginning to construct houses from it.

They worked with purpose every single day, sweating into their shirts, toiling until they were tired and even the sun had called an end to its duties. That was something I admired about them. It wouldn’t be true to say I had affection for these people, but I always thought of myself as a hard worker, and I respected it in others. Every person in the Wrotun and Eternal clans labored under a shared dream of making this place livable, of carving out their own empire in the vast spread of wasteland they had claimed.

And why not? Most lands in Xynnar were owned by dukes and lords and earls and barons and every other stupid title nobles give themselves. They had taken it all, leaving nothing for anyone else. But this wasteland, due to its remoteness and dead soil, was left alone, and the clans had seized it. They had ambition, and that was something I couldn’t help but respect.

A few of the workers glanced my way. Some people were still suspicious of me, though most clan members realized that as I was technically their property, I was oath-bound not to hurt them.

Pah.

As I floated there on the surface world, sunlight hit me. It glinted off the edges and angles of my gem body so that I looked like a prop in a party-mage’s bag of tricks.

I could never get used to that; the sight of the sun vomiting its disgusting rays of yellow from the sky. I had no doubt that I probably loved sunlight when I was a man, but now I was a core, and I hated the sun so much that I always prayed for passing clouds to smother it to death.

Gulliver took an iron tin from his satchel, popped it open, and took a swab of cream from it. He spread this over the parts of his pale skin that weren’t covered by his frilly shirt.

“The curse of the nacturn half of my blood,” he said. “The sun doesn’t agree with me.”

“You and me both. The sun can go swivel. So, where’s Chief Reginal, and what the hell does he want from me?” I said.

As I swiveled on my pedestal to find the goblin chief, I heard an explosion.

It echoed through the wasteland, making horses throw off their riders, halting the cultivators who were on their hands and knees working the mud and soil.

Debris sprayed off in different directions, showering the area around with stone, wood, and an assortment of vegetables. The boom drowned out the sounds of anything else. That’s the thing about explosions; they’re loud.

The rain of carrots, potatoes, and parsnips meant the boom had come from the wagons.

“What in all hells?” shouted Gulliver. “We’re under attack!”

“Calm yourself, warscribe. It’s worse than that, actually.”

“How so?”

“Look.”

The Wrotun and Eternal clan merchants had just returned from a week-long journey to the nearest city, so they could trade for food. When the Wrotun people had lived alone in the cavern under the wasteland, they had fed themselves by systematic hunting and poaching of the creatures that lived below ground; moles, rats, mud-badgers.

They supplemented this protein supply by cultivating the rare vegetables that would grow down there. Mostly fungi-based, with a few kinds of carrots and vegetables and potatoes alchemically-treated to grow in darkness.

But now that the Wrotun and Eternals clans had joined together, this diet wasn’t sustainable. There wasn’t enough vermin or soil below ground to support two clans, so they needed to be self-sufficient.

They needed to make the wasteland soil fit for growing things. They had tried all sorts of methods, and purchased seeds of an incredible variety of vegetables and fruits, but even the toughest of plants wouldn’t take here. Reginal had brought in an artificer who claimed he could make any seed grow in any climate, but the only thing he could make was a dent in the clans’ treasury as his expenses mysteriously kept climbing.

And so First-Leaf Galatee had sent for a bog-witch, an old crone said to be able to whisper to the inner workings of plants and change them from the inside. The only thing she changed was Galatee’s attitude toward witches; she would never trust one again for as long as she lived.

They purchased instruction books on farming and cultivation. They paid for seasoned growers to visit the wasteland and help. They tried anything they could, such was their desire to not have to abandon this land. So far, nothing had worked, but it would. Everyone who lived here kept that belief.

Until then, both clans pooled resources to buy shipments of vegetables and preserves from the towns hundreds of miles away. Enough to last them until they made the wasteland bear fruit.

And now the carts, only recently-returned, had exploded somehow.

“Can vegetables explode?” asked Gulliver. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

“Moot question. They already have exploded.”

“I once saw a pumpkin that looked almost exactly like Duke Hogarth, you know. You’ve never heard of him? Well, no surprise there, his castle is more like a stables. It was early in my scribeship, you know, the time when the guild sends its young whelps to cover the most mundane of stories.”

“This is much worse than a noble pumpkin. See those carts? A week of travel and a