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

Finally, Cael felt it, and the look of surprise on his face was delicious. The suddenness of the feeling of added mass was enough to make him trip up. He put his hands out as he hit the ground, sparing his face but grunting at the pain in his wrists.

Straining with effort, he unhooked his satchel strap from his shoulder.

“What’s this now?” he said, abandoning his loot sack.

The giant boulder rolled toward them, the sound deafening. Cael was the first to his feet. He dashed to his brothers and tried to help them as the boulder loomed ever closer, struggling frantically to unhook their satchels from their shoulders and get them to their feet.

“Up! Run!” he shouted. “Come on! Come on, for gods’ sake!”

But the boulder was picking up speed. His younger brother was unconscious, and the elder had twisted his ankle. Though he tried to run, he winced with every step.

In that second, with a giant boulder rolling their way, the brothers’ fates unlinked. They adopted a mindset almost every person takes when faced with death; survival of the fittest.

Cael made it to the loot room before his brothers, and there he collapsed onto his knees and took deep breaths.

“Gods,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The core tricked us…”

A scream of agony echoed out from the passageway, joined by another. Two voices squealing inhumanely, only for the sound to be silenced seconds later with a dull splat.

The boulder rolled to the end of the passageway, where it came to a stop at the entrance to the loot room and wedged itself in the archway, completely blocking it. The side of the boulder facing Cael was covered in blood and bits of flesh.

Cael’s face was a picture as the truth dawned on him. The color left his cheeks, and his breaths were ragged.

I gave a great, throaty laugh. One that I had practiced over and over for occasions such as this.

“It was your little trick with the stones and the pressure plate,” I said. “Your stones were magically altered so that you could carry them easily, even though they weigh as much as you. It meant they could trick my pressure plate, and yet were light enough to haul around. Yes, it was a good trick. Maybe too good, because it got me thinking that the opposite might be just as fun, too. Those trinkets you took from my chest?”

Cael heaved until there was nothing left inside him. I patiently waited for him to finish.

“I had a tinker mess with the loot. You’ll like this, Cael. You see, first, she used artificery to make the loot weigh ten times more than it should. More than even the greediest of heroes could carry. After that, she used a temporary finishing solution to make them weigh ten times less. After all, I needed you to be able to walk out of my loot room with the treasure in your bag. And when the boulder emerged, the solution wore off, and you found that it is difficult to run with the equivalent of twenty cannonballs in your bag. Isn’t it fun, playing with the rules of nature? There’s a lesson here, Cael. Don’t be greedy.”

Cael’s face twisted in fury. “You killed my brothers!”

“You can save your praise for later.”

“You monster!” he shouted, spit flying from his lips, tears streaming from his eyes and mixing with the blood on his cuts.

“And you’ve murdered plenty of my creatures,” I said. “Let’s not pretend either of us has clean hands. Dungeoneering is a contract between a hero and core. Everyone knows the risks. Did you come into my lair expecting a picnic? Did you think you could raid my dungeon again and again, injuring and killing my creatures and giving us no time to recover?”

Cael couldn’t take his eyes off the blood-spattered boulder. He gripped his sword tighter. “I’ll destroy you, core.”

“The time for that has long gone. You might say it has rolled by.”

Footsteps sounded the arrival of my creatures now, blocking the other three passageways out of the tunnel. Most of them were injured and tired from our busy hero battling schedule, but that didn’t matter. Cael was alone, and he was hurt. Not only that, but he was so furious and upset that he couldn’t think straight, robbing him of even his wits. We had him.

I held myself back from gloating for now. I needed to finish this, and then I could revel in my triumph all night.

“Gary,” I began. Noticing something, I stopped talking.

The anger had left Cael’s face as quickly as it had come, until he looked perfectly calm. A smile crept across his lips.

“Core Beno,” he said. “It’s been good getting to know you. But you are aware that I am duty-bound to avenge my brothers?”

“You don’t seem too upset about them,” I said, puzzled.

“Truth be told, core, we were never all that close. We raided dungeons together, we spent gold together, but our bond wasn’t any greater than with other heroes. They were half-brothers, at any rate, products of our scoundrel of a father’s flings with trollops all the way across Xynnar. We worked together, supped together, but affection? Beno…you judged me all wrong.”

I didn’t like the sound of this, nor did I enjoy the strange look on Cael’s face. A twisted one, as though some foreign presence had assumed control of his features.

“Beno,” he said his voice cold. “My entire family could die in this pathetic pit, and I wouldn’t have a tear to shed. I’m too strong for things like that.”

“Really? You looked like you were crying to me.”

Cael rubbed his eyes. “My eye was watering.”

“A pretty coincidental time for your eye to water, right after your brothers get flattened by a boulder.”

“It was a watering eye, damn you! I