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

was gone in an instant, but it was still worrying. I hadn’t felt real sadness in years.

“Keep calm and keep quiet, and nothing will happen to you. I’ll have you out in a jiffy, long before the narkleer’s energy does any lasting harm.”

Now, the narkleer recovered its mobility and turned around. It was confused, but that was no surprise. It had just recovered from a trance, only to find itself in darkness.

I spoke through Brecht now, casting my voice through his vocal cords.

“I know you can understand me, narkleer,” I said. “Listen to me very carefully. The darkness you have woken to is an empty bag of grain we have placed over your head. All around you now are mirrors; surfaces that will show your reflection.”

The narkleer snorted.

“I am sure you know that your vision can cause madness and death. To remove the grain sack from your head now will only reveal your own reflection.”

It snorted again, louder and angrier this time.

“Good. You understand, then. You know that looking at your reflection casts your own vision upon yourself. To remove your sack now is to bring insanity upon your person.”

The narkleer turned in a circle, and then stopped moving, making horrible little grunts.

I knew I had it then. “With that established, we can talk.”

CHAPTER 7

“I see…I see. Curse your lineage! The old sack and mirror trick again, is it?”

The narkleer’s voice sounded husky, though I supposed it hadn’t used it in a long time. It wasn’t surprising to me to hear it speak my tongue; I had read about narkleers in the academy, after all. If I hadn’t known that I could bargain with it, I would never have contrived this ridiculous trap.

Even so, as much as its words didn’t surprise me, they saddened me a little.

 “Old sack and mirror trick?” I said. “This isn’t your first time being caught in such a way?”

“You have a strange voice. What are you? Tell me. Tell me. A hero?”

I laughed. “Couldn’t be more wrong.”

“I see…I see…fairy?”

“Nope.”

“Faun?”

“It isn’t your day, narkleer.”

“Curse your lineage! Tell me what you are.”

“As the one without a sack on their head and not trapped between mirrors, I’ll ask the questions.”

“You will speak with respect, and I will speak in turn. As a narkleer, I deserve that as much as any stranger would.”

Ah, yes. Narkleers had a thing about respect.

“Fair enough,” I said. “We’ll talk civilly. An answer for an answer. And to give you the first; I am a dungeon core.”

“Another one, eh?”

I was about to get him to clarify this, but I realized that I would only get an answer for an answer, and there was no use wasting a question. I needed to keep this as civil as I could. Despite the fact I had trapped him, for now, I needed to be hesitant in using force. I needed him to form a bond with me, and if I behaved like an ass he might very well choose to destroy himself rather than join me.

I had to be careful with my questions.

First, I spoke to Brecht using my core voice.

“Go and join the others,” I said. “This is going to take longer than I expected. I’ll use the jelly for my core vision. No sense you becoming sick.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you, Brecht. You did great today.”

The kobold smiled at my praise and then left. My core vision stayed with him for just a moment, before I switched to the jelly.

Now, looking through the eyes of the floating blob, I saw a different view of the room. There was a kind of ripple effect on my vision, making it difficult to focus on the narkleer.

Now, what should I ask? There were so many things I was desperate to know.

Who used to be the narkleer’s master?

What happened to them?

What was the narkleer guarding?

I decided that one question overruled all of the others because a negative answer made it moot.

“What factors, both external and your own, would prevent you from joining my dungeon and serving underneath me, were I to free you from your predicament?”

The narkleer shuffled toward the new sound of my voice.

“Interesting question, core…interesting…interesting…”

The way he said the word interesting and with the tone of voice he used, suggested this was anything but interesting to him.

“I suppose that one factor may be, to answer delicately…that I…oh, forget it! A curse on your lineage!”

He was rattled, that was for sure.

“An answer for an answer,” I said. “I’m waiting.”

“Curse you and your family line, core. Hex your descendants. Plague your ancestors.”

“Making threats to a bunch of dead guys won’t get you out of this, and if you don’t speak to me with the same respect that you requested for yourself, then you might have to take a look in the mirror.”

“A hex on…” began the narkleer, before letting his voice trail off. “Why should I want to bond with your dungeon, core?”

“You can’t answer a question with another question.”

“I can, and I have.”

“A question isn’t an answer.”

“If the question was, what’s the stupidest question you’ve ever been asked, and my answer was the question that you already asked me, then…”

“Narkleer…” I said.

The narkleer began to laugh now. And just like a kobold’s scream, a narkleer’s laugh is a sound you have to hear to really understand. It would make a spider’s skin itch, it was so creepy.

“You don’t understand, do you, core?” he said. “I’ve had enough of this game. I was enjoying a final few seconds of existence, seeing if I could convince myself of another way to escape. But no. Talking to you has made up my mind.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have no natural lifespan,” said the narkleer. “My