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

“And scribes are annoying. I have good reason to be a little uptight.”

“Ah. Today’s the day.”

I thought about the hole in the wall in the southeast of my dungeon, and the narkleer and the other things that might wait beyond it.

“Yes, today is most certainly the day.”

Then, as a raven dropped the button and Gulliver scampered over to collect it only for another raven to beat him to it, a notification appeared in my inner core.

Monster melding complete.

Gulliver shook his fist in the air. “I’ll have you, you winged vermin! I’ll put you in a pie and feed it to a thousand cats!”

CHAPTER 23

For a core, waiting to see what kind of monster your melding room has created is like Year’s End for children, where they unwrap their presents brought to them by the Year’s End Golem. So, it was with a mix of curiosity and trepidation that I traveled to my melding room.

I couldn’t stop the questions swirling in my head. What would I find waiting for me, having mixed a mimic with two leeches?

A tiny little mimic who was only able to imitate slug-like creatures?

A leech who lacked the mimic’s ability to imitate, but inherited its ability to grow its form in defiance of science? I hoped not. The last thing I needed was a continuously-expanding leech whose growth couldn’t be checked. At least one core had died that way, I was sure of it.

Appearing on my pedestal in the melding room, I shut off my core vision and core hearing for a second. There, in darkness and silence, I told myself a few things.

Whatever the result here, I will put the boss monster to good use.

It isn’t the monster, but what you do with it.

Leeches are quite friendly when you get to know them.

And then I allowed my vision and hearing to return.

“Hello,” I said. “I am Core Beno. I go by many names: Dark Lord, Dark Magnificence, His Splendorous Maleficence, the Diabolical Diamanté. And what may I call you?”

“It has no name,” came the answer.

The voice was spoken by a creature on the floor in front of me. It was the size of a loaf of bread, shaped like an overgrown leech and with a hideous hole on its head, this filled with half a dozen spirals of jagged teeth. It’s leech-like appearance ended there, because this splodge of goo was transparent, with not a shred of color anywhere across its body.

“I can see the mimic and the leech part of you,” I said. “Very…fetching. But every creature in my dungeon must have a name.”

“It will take a name if it is offered, but it has no name of its own. It is a mimic, and as such must not own an identity.”

Poor little thing. Everything deserved a name, even disgusting blobs of leech-shaped mimic clay. And really, as loathsome as it was in appearance, I found it fascinating.

“I will call you Dolos,” I said.

“It will accept its name.”

“Don’t you want to know what it means?”

“Meaning will add to its identity, and a stronger identity will weaken its mimicry.”

“Fair point. It’s time to see what you can do.” I spoke across my dungeon now. “Maginhart, can you come here, please?”

“Yesss, Dark Lord,” came the reply.

Now, I knew that mimics could only imitate forms they had already seen. Dolos had only just been born, so he hadn’t seen much.

Note to self: Don’t associate leech-shaped blobs with normal birth. Disgusting image.

As such, I would need to supply new experiences for Dolos to mimic, and that was where Maginhart came in. And there was a reason it had to be Maginhart, and not anyone else.

Maginhart the kobold arrived shortly after. His lizard nails scratched on the stone floor, and his tongue hung from his lips and gave a gentle rattling sound when he breathed.

I quickly brought Maginhart’s information to mind.

Race: Kobold

Class: Miner 

Level: 22

Weapon proficiency: Crossbow 

Special Relationships:

Cynthia [Tinker]: Warm acquaintance

Maginhart had begun dungeon life as a miner, though he had done little mining for me lately and instead had drifted into the role of dungeon-surface go-between, getting whatever items I needed from the clans. This meant he had seen more of the surface clans than anyone else, and that was important for my mimic.

It was probably time for a new specialization if he wasn’t going to do any more mining, but that would have to wait. For now, I needed Maginhart’s memory, not his skills.

I just hoped this worked. I had taken the boss monster combination of a mimic and two leeches from a book I had read in the Dungeon Core Academy. This was an obscure one chronicling the life of a core named Tayla. I had used the same mix of monsters like her, but there was no guarantee that things had worked the same way. There was an element of unpredictability when using the melding room, after all.

“Now,” I said. “I don’t want you to worry, Maginhart, but this might hurt.”

“The promissse of pain and a requessst not to worry do not go hand in hand.”

“You’re too clever by half, Maginhart. Wylie wouldn’t have moaned at all. This won’t hurt much, I promise. Okay, just a little. Be brave, okay?”

“I sssupossse, Dark Lord…”

“Dolos; use your talents on Maginhart.”

Instead of just transforming into the kobold, Dolos slithered over to him. I had expected his leech-like body to squelch across the ground, but he was silent. Come to think of it, he didn’t have any sort of smell to him, either. It was as though, in his natural mimic form, Dolos barely existed when it came to any of the senses.

When it was beside Maginhart’s leg, Dolos latched onto the kobold’s ankle.

“Ow!” Maginhart hopped and