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

If I wanted to gauge how well my persuasive skills were faring, I need only look at the color of its eyes. Judging by their blood-red glow, I wasn’t doing very well.

I needed to take another tack. Use logic? Flattery? Offer a bargain of some sort?

“You look too warm, friend. What are you doing all the way out here?”

Its eyes glowed like hot coals and its voice the timbre of two icebergs sliding against each other. “I will send you to the ice, little stone.”

“I’m not here to hurt you. I may be able to help you find a cooler place. Somewhere not so warm.”

Its eyes glowed redder still. “Hurt me? Your jokes are amusing, if ill-timed. I will send you to the ice!”

Flattery and friendliness weren’t working at all. I decided to settle on one of my more familiar paths; honesty.

“I am a dungeon core,” I said. “I don’t actually care much for you or your wellbeing at all, but I have a use for you. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement.”

“We have nothing in common, floating stone.”

“As it happens, we have a mutual enemy.”

“Who?”

“The sun. I hate it as much as you do. I hate the way it sits so proudly in the sky, as though butter wouldn’t melt. I hate how bright it is. How it spits its horrible rays of disgustingness everywhere.”

“So we do have the same enemy. Congratulations, stone. Now leave me be, or I swear by the ice I will grind you into gravel.”

“It’s your ability to grind things into smaller pieces that makes you valuable to me. What if I could offer you a place underground where the sun couldn’t reach? Somewhere cool, somewhere safe from the disgusting yellow sphere.”

Its eyes glowed amber. “Is there ice?”

“No ice, I’m afraid. I do have a pool of water, and I’m sure my miners could excavate a chamber suitable for your needs.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Simple. I need you to grind a hero into gravel.”

The monster stared at me for a while, before lowering itself to the ground and sitting on its arse and letting out a deflated sigh. Its eyes faded from orange to yellow, before settling on white.

“Name, stone?”

“Core Beno. The Dark Lord. His Evil Eminence, The Ruler of Rot.”

“I will call you Stone.”

Most cores wouldn’t have liked getting nicknamed, but I was beyond needing to have my ego stroked. The fact was, I wasn’t this monster’s creator. I would never have the kind of control over it that I had with creatures like Tomlin, Gary, or Brecht. The dynamics of our relationship would always be different.

“I’ve had worse names,” I said. “And yours?”

“My father named me Razensen when I came out of the ice. I will be Razensen when I return to it. Very well, Stone. I will serve your needs, as long as they benefit me. Lead me to your dungeon.”

Razensen added to dungeon monster roster!

The sun had gone to rest and night had descended over the wasteland when Gulliver, Razensen, and I headed toward Hogsfeate. The walls were still a quarter of a mile away, and from this distance, the houses and shops were covered in a sheet of black, broken only by the night lamps glowing from windows and the streetlamps towering high above.

While the retreat of the sun had little effect on me save sparing me from its annoying brightness, Razensen seemed greatly restored, and he walked with much more of a strut. Gulliver, meanwhile, blew into his hands and tried to cover his fingers with his frilly shirt cuffs.

Gulliver walked on one side of me, Razensen on the other. Gull whistled as we walked, and he babbled on and on about lots of places he’d been over the years, telling story after story without caring how deeply we listened. His manner was so relaxed that it became obvious how forced it was, and it didn’t escape my attention that he flinched whenever Razensen spoke.

“Ask him where he lives,” Gulliver said to me.

I repeated this to Razensen, who answered in his native tongue.

“Razensen says his home is in the ice,” I said.

“And what does he do there? What are his hobbies?”

“He says he enjoys sending things to the ice.”

“Right.”

The monster’s feet pounded on the ground and made it sound like we were traveling with half a dozen stallions all clomping at the same time. When I used him to fight Cael, there would be no pretense of stealth. He was so loud that I worried he might draw the attention of the Hogsfeate guards, even so far away. They might have been lazy and incompetent, but I didn’t need the annoyance.

“This is it then, Gull,” I said. “Razensen and I will wait here and make sure you don’t run into any problems. Once you’ve found a wagon that will give you passage back to Yondersun and we see you set off, Razensen and I will head back.”

Gulliver glanced at the monster, then at me. He spoke in a quieter voice, even though Razensen would have no idea what he was saying.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you here with him, Beno.”

“Worried about me?”

“This thing could smash you into dust.”

“It takes more than brute force to smash a gem, Gull. Besides, we have a deal, and it isn’t as if we will find a wagon willing to transport poor old Razensen, is it?”

“Still, you could always come on the wagon with me, and the beast can meet us there.”

“He doesn’t know the way.”

“I don’t trust him,” said Gull.

Razensen laughed. It was the strangest laugh I had ever heard, like the squeak of snow when it is squeezed into a ball.

“Well-dressed human thinks I will send his stone friend