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

Shadow

Race: Kobold

Class: Scout Lvl7

Skills:

Scout Tippy-toes

[The most basic form of sneaking available to a scout. Allows them to pass by most people undetected, except when in the presence of a fellow scout-like class who are at a higher level.]

Backstab

[Cause 3x as much pain and injury when attacking something from behind.]

This gave me a millisecond of pause.

Would a backstab from Shadow, using a silver blade, be enough to kill a werewolf? Risky, but it could work. Then again, even if she killed a wolf, she’d give herself away and then she’d have two angry beasts to deal with. Was sacrificing a scout to kill a werewolf a good bargain? Nope, that was a no-goer. Not while I had other options.

“Shadow, I need you to sneak into the poison chamber and put this silver dust into the poison convertor.”

“Sneak into a small room filled with werewolves with only one way in? I told you that reading too much bloody Soul Bard will muddle your head.”

“There’s a hidden entryway, Miss I’m-So-Clever-That-I-Think-That-I-Am…forget it. There’s a hidden hatch just here, see?”

Shadow stared at the projection of the poison chamber, where the werewolves were still smashing against the stone. Damn it, not long now. On my core vision projection, a secret hatch, which looked like the rest of the walls, glowed yellow.

“Isn’t that room full of poison?” she asked.

“I’ll flush some of it before you get there,” I said. “There’s a vent leading to the surface. Get in, add the silver to the converter, then get out.”

“I won’t be poisoned. Okay, I’m sufficiently reassured on that point, my Dark Lord Duke of Mischief or whatever moniker you go by these days. But what about the werewolves? If one spots me…”

“Would I leave you completely unprotected? Brecht,” I said, casting my core voice. “I want you in the tunnel outside the poison chamber. The tunnel on the opposite side of the poison convertor.”

“My songs won’t affect werewolves, I don’t think,” he replied. “Too tough.”

“Just bang your cymbal really, really loud.”

“Tambourine,” he corrected.

“I swear the next kobold to correct me will be roasted over a…Anyway, make a loud racket and draw their attention to that side of the chamber. Shadow will only need a second or two. When the converter starts pumping out poison laced with silver, it won’t be long before the werewolves drop. It’ll be like the mass fainting at a duke’s ball when someone announces that the caviar has run out. Even if the converter runs out of poison before that, they’ll at least be as weak as kittens. Big, muscled, seven-feet, kobold-eating tall kittens.”

“Got it,” said Brecht.

“Rusty?” I said.

“Yip yip. Ready for your orders. Ready to kill, maim, punish, slaughter or just hurt a little bit. Whichever the Dark Lord prefers.”

“See, everyone? Here’s a kobold with class. Rusty, I want you to get over to the other side of the tunnel that the werewolves are trying to claw through. We need a totem setting up…”

*

The werewolves were too busy to notice the noise of the secret hatch opening. As quiet as it was, it sounded louder than the footsteps of a thousand elephants to Shadow, who was trying to sneak out of it.

With her tippy-toes skill activated, it took just a few minutes for her to set the silver essence dust in the poison converter. Then she began to sneak back toward the hatch, satisfied with how easy it had been.

A chunk of rock suddenly dislodged from the ceiling and crashed onto the ground.

The sound was loud enough to alert the werewolves, who all turned as one.

They focussed on the noise but quickly saw that the fallen rock was of no consequence. More important was the female kobold now backing toward the wall.

A kobold made of meat, one that would taste amazing and perhaps even regenerate the werewolves more than a puppy would.

*

“Peach,” I said, my core instincts flaring. “You’re poison resistant. I need you in the poison room right now. Draw their attention away from Shadow.”

The jelly, I saw, was floating by himself in a tunnel in the east of my dungeon. Peach was the nasty jelly, which is their default state to be fair to him. I had a more pleasant jelly, one rendered docile by using the alchemy chamber to take his anger from him, but he was too far away right now.

Peach continued floating through the tunnel. “You need me to help, huh? I suppose I should just give up all my plans for the day and do whatever you want. Drop everything because King Beno needs an itch scratching or his pillow fluffing. Is that it?”

“That’s exactly it. I need you in the poison chamber right now,” I said, wishing that all angry elemental jelly cubes were just elementals jelly cubes. “And you’re a jelly, so the poison won’t hurt you, before you start crying to me about that.”

“If the glutinous blob is impervious to poison, why didn’t you send him to put silver in the converter, instead of Shadow?” asked Gulliver, with his quill in his hand and poised to write down whatever I said.

“Simple. Blobs of jelly don’t have hands. Next question? No? Brecht, make a noise. Bang your drum. Sing stuff. Sing anything, sing about your favorite side accompaniment to a baked potato for all I care, just sing!”

In the poison chamber, the three werewolves had dropped to their haunches and they faced Shadow in a triangle formation, with one ready to pounce and the other two defending it.

The air filled with the sound of tambourine beats, and a kobold voice rose above it.

“Hush, little dog, it’s time for sleep.

Quiet, little dog, don’t make a peep.”

One wolf growled, while another edged forward. Watching them keenly, I saw their thigh muscles twitch. They were ready to leap.