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

break them. But this was for real, and Shadow and Gary and the ravens would be in trouble if we got it wrong.

Luckily, they had me.

“Fly a little higher,” I told Edgar. “Give me a better view of the room. But don’t go anywhere until I know what’s in here.”

“Shiny thing?”

“No,” I said, unsure of the meaning of both the question and my answer to it.

He flew up another five feet until he was close to the ceiling. The view wasn’t much better, and the only source of light was a mana lamp with a green light, indicating that it was fuelled from a renewable mana source.

Hmm. This made sense. There was a mana spring in my dungeon, and perhaps the spring ran through here, and the old core had connected his lamps to it. Clever. I would have done the same, but most of the spring on my side of the dungeon was deeper in the ground and digging that way would have compromised structural integrity.

As I studied the room, details emerged.

Walls free from the murals and decorative flourishes of the rest of the dungeon.

Nothing on the ground; no tiles, no suspicious-looking patches of dirt that might hide trick levers.

A giant hourglass was standing by the left-most wall. The sand was trickling from the top half and into the bottom, and it had started as soon as we entered here by the looks of it.

“See that?” said Shadow. “How long until it empties?”

Gary stroked his chin with one of his leech legs. “Ten minutes, perhaps?”

Shadow shook her head. She was beginning to look worried now, like she had with the werewolves. Had I made a mistake in creature-management by making her do this? Perhaps it was too soon after her scare to throw her into the action. If so, that was a dungeon management mistake on my part.

“We better hurry. What happens when the time’s up? Huh?” she said.

“By the gods, you are right, my girl! Beno, we have a problem.”

“Just relax,” I said. “It’s a common core trick. Nothing will happen when the hourglass empties; it’s just there to make you panic. The real trick is something else. You can’t think straight when you’re panicking, and that’s what we cores rely on. It’s like asking a man to empty a wagon of gunpowder using a shovel made of flint and then whispering, ‘tick-tock’ in his ear.”

Gary took a deep breath. “You are quite right. Of course. Let’s keep calm. Let’s keep bloody calm, for underworld’s sake!”

The trouble I had was that I couldn’t see any sign of traps or puzzles. There were none of the markings even the most well-hidden of traps would leave behind, and no hint of a puzzle to be solved.

“Shadow, use the anti-illusion dust.”

Shadow fumbled in a leather purse clasped to a belt on her waist and pulled out a jar containing the dust we had taken from the last heroes after we killed them. There was still plenty of their anti-illusion powder left. The idea of using hero items felt like wearing my worst enemy’s dirty pants, but I’m not too proud to use all my advantages.

“Scatter it through the room,” I told her. “Take one step, scatter some dust, then don’t take another until we are sure there is nothing hidden. This place is perfect for a bear trap or spike pit.”

It was all too strange for me, watching Shadow using the dust. In effect, I had just taught one of my creatures to become a hero. I was instructing them on how to raid a dungeon.

Maybe I should have just hired some heroes.

Then again, not a good look, is it? A dungeon core hiring heroes to raid another dungeon? It’s like a sardine paying a shark to go beat up a tuna fish. Maybe I should become a hero myself. After all, who knows dungeons better than me?

Ugh, I feel dirty.

“Only half the sand is left,” said Gary.

“Shiny thing,” squawked Edgar.

“I told you, Gary. Don’t worry about the hourglass, it’s a trick.”

Shadow went as quickly as she could, spreading anti-illusion dust everywhere but without uncovering any hidden puzzles. Soon she had covered all the ground. There was nothing at all, just a locked room.

“Hardly any sand left…” said Shadow.

“I told you, the sand doesn’t mean anything.”

“Shiny thing!” said Edgar.

“Yes, shiny thing.”

“Shiny thing!”

Shadow half-heartedly lobbed a pebble at Edgar, purposefully missing him. “Give it a rest, Feather Face.”

“Shiny th-”

“Wait!” I said.

I realized that Edgar wasn’t just using a catchphrase, nor repeating the same raven nonsense over and over.

There was, in fact, a shiny thing in the room, near one part of the ceiling.

“Shiny thing!” I said. “Edgar, flutter over to it.”

As the raven fly across the room and drew level with the shiny thing, two things happened.

“It’s empty!” Gary shouted as the last grain of sand in the hourglass fell onto the pile below it.

A great churning noise filled the room, and the ceiling began to move downwards. In just a second, it had reached the shiny thing. If that shiny thing was a button to get us out of here, it was useless now.

Gary ran in a circle, lifting four of his leech legs in the air and waving them in sheer panic. I had never, ever seen him like this.

Shadow sprinted to the steel door and banged on it. “Let us out! Let us out!”

“Shiny thing!” squawked Edgar.

The other ravens began a chorus as the room grew smaller and smaller. “Ceiling thing! Ceiling thing!”

Everyone was losing their heads. For the ravens it was understandable; they had pea brains. Shadow had just had a scare, so I supposed it was understandable. But Gary? I had never seen him so worried.

At least I could keep