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

“If I saw that, Dark Lord, I would assist the poor thing. I may live in a dungeon, but I’m not a monster.”

“Quite right, yup. I was only kidding. Anyway, you can start scouting tomorrow. I don’t need a report on everything you find; unless it’s urgent, just give me an update once per week. And don’t spend too much time near the clansmen above. You know how touchy they get.”

“Righto.”

“Thanks. Now, follow me. We have work to do.”

CHAPTER 6

Shadow, the jelly, and I left the alchemy chamber and headed east through the dungeon. I hopped from pedestal to pedestal, arriving in the most eastern cavern where the ominous hole in the wall waited.

Brecht was there as well as Wylie, Tarius, and Karson. They hadn’t moved an inch since I had gone to see Reginal and Galatee earlier in the day. That’s the thing with kobolds; they aren’t great at acting on their initiative. With their mining delayed, and lacking orders from me, they had simply stayed put, picking their noses and chatting in their kobold squeaks.

As well as the mining crew, Brecht was sitting against a wall with his tambourine on his lap, and Maginhart was loitering nearby with a grain sack in his hand and three giant mirrors propped up against the wall next to him.

“Ah, Maginhart. Good job getting the mirrors,” I said.

“Thanksss, Dark Lord. Tinker Cynthia was pleasssed to make them; ssshe sssaid it wasss a welcome break from her dutiesss.”

So we had jelly, mirrors, and a grain sack. I guessed there was nothing else for it.

“Time to stare death in the eye and give him a wink,” I told the kobolds.

Wylie’s eyes widened. He looked at the hole, then me. “We go in now?”

“Unless you think you can coax the narkleer into climbing through the hole to greet us?”

“Dark Lord…Wylie is scared.”

Tarius and Karson tittered.

“I suppose you two chumps are volunteering to go through,” I said, “Since you’re so brave.”

Karson rubbed his foot. “My foot, Dark Lord. From where the rock fell on it. I will need a rest to recover.”

“Nice try. The rock fell on your other foot. All three of you will go in. Brecht, you too. Shadow? I need you as well.”

The kobolds stared at each other, eyes shining with panic, willing one another to find a viable excuse to spare them. It’s easy to know when a kobold is desperately trying to think of something because you can almost see the smoke emitting from their overworked brains.

I had expected this kind of reaction.

“Shadow,” I said, sensing the stealthy kobold lurking behind me. “The dust.”

She slunk fully into the room, her confidence dwarfing the rest of the kobolds put together. She opened her hands and let a pile of dust fall onto the ground.

“This is to boost your confidence,” I told them. “It is distilled anger, and it will burn the fear from your cowardly bones. There’s nothing more fearless than displaced fury.”

The kobolds gathered around the dust.

“Only take a pinch of it,” I said.

Tarius and Karson both ate a smidgeon of the dust. But to Wylie, a ‘pinch’ meant something different than to the rest of us. He scooped a full handful of it and threw it into his mouth before I could stop him.

While Tarius and Karson stood a little taller now, their posture that of faint anger mixed with new-found confidence, Wylie’s face changed. His expression became hideous, holding a fury as I have never seen before. He looked like an underworld demon who’d just been relegated from torture duties and told to knit a wooly scarf.

“Narkleer!” he boomed. “Wylie is coming for you. He smash you! He eat soul and drink marrow from bones!”

With that, he dashed toward the hole.

“Shadow, stop him!” I said.

Utilizing her great speed, Shadow darted ahead of Wylie, stuck her foot out, and tripped him, sending him crashing to the ground.

“You could have been gentler,” I said. “Help him up.” Then I faced the others. Okay, gentlemen kobolds, we are ready. I have a plan, and you must follow it to the letter…”

Shadow, Wylie, Karson, Tarius, and Brecht headed through the hole in the wall, clambering through one at a time, with Shadow taking the lead. The jelly followed them, floating through the hall and changing shape as it squeezed into the next room. I watched through Brecht’s eyes using my core vision, and I spoke to them using my telepathic core voice.

“We’re clear,” said Shadow. “I sense the narkleer, but no other dangers.”

As Brecht emerged through the hole and into this unexplored terrain, I was surprised at what I saw.

I’d already considered the possibility that there was another dungeon right next to mine, given the narkleer’s presence. But as dungeons went, the workmanship of this one made my lair look like a mole’s burrow.

My dungeon was a practical one. My miners dug tunnels under my direction, and there was little decoration unless you counted the tiles near the surface door, but those were a trap. I hadn’t placed them there to spruce the place up.

But this dungeon, the little of it I saw as Brecht took tentative steps inside, was a marvel. With a vaulted ceiling and tunnels made from ice-blue stone and decorated with a dazzle of masonic carvings and sculptures, it was hard to know which part to focus on first.

So many things caught my eye; a great statue of Aedina, the blind, one-winged demoness. Stone archways marking a tunnel at the end of the room, the curves geometrically perfect and adorned with runemarks.

I used my core vision and smell now, experiencing the dungeon as Brecht did. I smelled dust and age. An odor that brought a flash of memory to