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

dispatched a party of heroes without losing a single creature. All because they had failed a rather simple riddle. A trick riddle, sure, but the answer was fair and logical in its way.

“How was it, being a warscribe?” I asked. “Even if the armies aren’t swinging swords at you in particular, it must be scary.”

“Beno, I live by a simple rule, one that doesn’t allow me to show fear. Before I do anything, I pause for a second. If my future self doesn't travel on time to prevent me, then it can't be a bad thing, can it?”

“That's an incredibly poor way to make decision.”

“Excuse me if I don't take advice from someone who already died and had to be resurrected.”

“Hey! A fair point, but a low blow nonetheless.”

With the heroes dead, now I just had to wait for the poison to dissipate, and then I could send Wylie and his boys to retrieve the corpses and…

“I wouldn’t start planning your victory parade yet,” said Gulliver, finished with his writing. He nodded at the core-image of the poison chamber.

I glanced at it.

“Oh, buggering goblin balls.”

“Buggering goblin balls indeed.”

This wasn’t good. This was good’s worst enemy - bad.

Two of the heroes were slumped on the poison chamber floor, sure. They looked to be as dead as the patients in a necromancer’s waiting room.

But the other three heroes were gone. Or rather, they were there but they had changed. Now, in their places, were three werewolves.

A trio of seven-feet-tall beasts whose fur coats didn’t disguise their rippling muscles. Pieces of their shirts and trousers clung to them while other shredded bits were on the ground. I couldn’t help but think that these guys must get through a lot of clothes.

More important than their clothing bill, was the danger they posed. The blue and yellow lanterns illuminated their great tusk-like teeth and the look of ferocity in their eyes.

“They’re werewolves?” said Gulliver. “But…how? Werewolves murder children! They eat sheep and dogs and cats after they turn, to keep up their energy so I hear. I thought these were heroes?”

“A little saying we had at the academy; heroes aren’t heroic. It’s a business, Gulliver. Maybe years ago, there was a moralistic attachment to the label of hero, but that was long ago in the time when bunny rabbits could prance through forests without stepping on a snare, and when pretty little fairies roamed the skies. We’re in a new age, Gull, and these chumps are new-age heroes.”

“But how? It isn’t a full moon. The way I understood it, their change is tied to the lunar schedule.”

“See those pendants around their necks? Something was nagging at me about them, but now I know what it is. The stone they’re made from is called blaudy stone, named after the mage fella who discovered them. Blaudies are rarer than an honest second-hand cart salesman. Blaudy stone absorbs the essence of things if you leave it for long enough. They must have stored light from a full moon in their pendants, and now they’ve released it to activate their transformation.”

“Ah, so they can change at will. Amazing. I never heard of a werewolf who can transform when he wants. The world really is a marvelous place.”

“And a big pain in my core backside, because I don’t have anything that can take on three damned werewolves.”

Gulliver scribbled in his book, his tongue poking out of the corner of his lips and his hand whizzing over the page in a flurry. When he was done, he shrugged. “They’re trapped. That gives you some time. The poison will get them eventually.”

“No, Gull. My poison hurt them when they were human, but their werewolf condition overrides that.”

“Oh. And I see what you mean now; this is quite a problem. As the drowning man said when he saw a shark; things are getting worse. Look.”

The werewolves were digging at the stone that blocked the tunnel they’d used to enter the room, tearing away mud and rock and flinging it behind them. Their claws were making light work of the bolder, ripping chunks away at a worrying rate.

For a second, I felt envious. Gods, what I’d give for magnificent creatures like that on my side.

But they weren’t on my side, and soon they’d escape the chamber and would rampage through my dungeon like drunk minotaurs lost in their own labyrinth. There’d be no stopping them.

Damn it. If I’d known I’d have to deal with werewolves, I would have shut the dungeon doors and pretended I wasn’t home. I simply wasn’t ready for a challenge like that.

So, how did I get through this with my dungeon intact?

First, I could use essence. A couple of days ago I had been left with 85 essence points after creating Rusty, Peach the jelly, and Death the fire beetle. Enough time hadn’t passed for my essence to regenerate fully, but I was back to 498/615 points. What could I make with that?

A couple of bogbadugs. A bone guy and a sinister owl. Three sinister owls, if I was feeling in an especially aviary mood.

But nothing that was especially effective against werewolves.

“Wylie,” I said, casting out my core voice.

“Wylie busy,” came the reply from across the dungeon.

“Wylie is going to be fed to the werewolves currently rampaging through the dungeon unless he listens to me.”

I used my core vision to see him now. Wylie opened his mouth to say something but stopped. He gestured to Karson, who was hitting a nearby wall with a pickaxe. Wylie soundlessly traced a sort of diamond shape in the air with his finger, which was clearly meant to symbolize me. Then, he pointed to his forehead and made a sort of weird gurning face.

“I can see you, you scoundrel,” I said. “I see everything. I even see the gesture