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

“A bogan,” said Pvat. “Dangerous, to be sure, but easily dealt with if you keep your wits. When you fight it, watch its eyes. The redder they turn, the worse things will get. When they turn a deep, blood red, it will unleash a quite unpleasant fit of berserker energy.”

“We should…” began the guard, while glancing at the town gates over his shoulder.

“You will do nothing except follow my instructions!” barked Dullbright. “You hear me, guard? You hear me, Prat?”

“Pvat, Sir.”

“I know your name, I was belittling you, damn it! You’re a hero, so act like one. Use your bloody brain. When the beast’s eyes glow blood red, back off. Avoid its clumsy strikes until the color dulls. Is that difficult to understand?”

Damn it. So Pvat and Dullbright knew what a bogan was, and they knew how to fight one. Given Pvat was the head of the heroes’ guild here, I should have expected as much.

There was no way out of this. Dullbright was set on a fight, set on destroying me. With him, Pvat, Claus, and the nine guards, we were heavily outnumbered. I didn’t have my dungeon creatures with me, and I couldn’t use my essence out here.

Not great.

Using my core voice, I spoke to Dolos. “Drain the fat one, Dolos. The one with the biggest sword.”

“As you wish, master.”

Gulliver’s satchel bulged, and a blob poked its head out from it and slithered down the scribe’s leg. Gulliver glanced at him, then the ground. Dolos slithered to Dullbright, crawled up his back, and leeched onto his naked neck.

It took Dullbright a few seconds to feel Dolos’s kiss, another two to process his surprise, and then another five to rip him off and fling him away.

“Eurgh! What in all hells? I swear, the disgusting creatures in this cursed pit of sand. Enough of this. Guard Tomkins! Deal with the others, if you please.”

The gate guard, Tomkins, gulped, then drew his sword. Eight schwing sounds followed as the rest of the guards did likewise.

They fanned out, leaving Gulliver and beginning to form around Razensen and me. Dullbright held his sword in a much more practiced grip than I expected. The man had let his body go to ruin, but he’d either kept practicing his swordplay, or perhaps his instincts had never faded.

Pvat, too, drew a sword. Though his blade didn’t worry me, I saw the danger he posed to Razensen. It’s said that the most dangerous hero is one in middle age; a young hero lacks experience, and an old hero lacks physique. But a hero in the middle of his life has seen enough action to earn wisdom while keeping his fitness.

This wasn’t great.

“Take the bogan!” cried Dullbright. “Leave the core for me.”

“Beno,” said Gulliver. “Watch out for-”

A guard slugged Gulliver in the face, knowing him out cold.

“To it!” shouted Guard Tomkins.

Five of the men sprinted toward Razensen, swords held high, faces showing a mixture of excitement and anger that to me suggested they had been fed a courage-enhancing alchemical potion. They advanced on him with the confidence of a rolling pin-wielding grandmother chasing down a rat.

“To the ice with you!” bellowed Razensen.

 He gave the nearest guard an uppercut so furious that it snapped his head back. He launched his other great fist into another’s belly, knocking the wind out of him and crushing his ribs. When the guard crumpled to the ground, Razensen stomped on his head.

The rest of the guards, including their boss Tomkins, had already seen enough. They turned to flee. Pvat stepped in and raised a sword that glowed orange, a sure sign of a hero ability of some sort.

“You…will…not…falter!” he shouted.

Orange light left his sword and washed over his guards. They stood taller up, gripped their swords tighter, and straightened their shoulders. They advanced on Razensen again, this time led by Pvat.

I had underestimated Pvat. Old, no doubt, A prat, obviously. But an old, heroic prat.

Dullbright rounded on me now, moving as slow as I had expected from his unathletic frame. I floated to my right, easily avoiding his first swing.

But it was a feint.

No sooner had I swerved away from his strike, did he sidestep and cut in. He swung his sword, missing me by millimeters.

He was another one who I had underestimated. This was what I had worried about, coming out here without my essence powers, without my monsters. When I was away from my dungeon, what was I? Just a lump of stone.

But I wasn’t done.

“Now, Dolos!” I said. “Use whatever memory you siphoned from him.”

Dolos used his mimic powers to transform into a copy of Sir Dullbright. Though calling him a copy was generous to Dullbright’s current state; using the memory he had leached from him, Dolos had become a younger, leaner, stronger version of the man. He even had the same sword.

Dullbright backed away a step, dropping his guard just a fraction. 

“By the gods…”

“They say a man is his own worst enemy,” I said.

As Dolos-Dullbright battled real Dullbright, Razensen was swarmed by the guards, taking hits to his waist, his arms, his back. He twisted this way and that under the assault of swords. Blood covered his fur, and the blows and stabs came so fast he couldn’t strike blows any of his own.

Pvat pirouetted, slashing Razensen’s thigh and leaving a great gash across his fur.

Razensen dropped to his knees. A guard grunted and swung a sword at his neck.

All I could do was float in its path, hearing a deafening chink as the metal struck me. The blow knocked me off course and sent me skittering away into the air.

Recovering myself, I saw that I’d only bought Razensen mere moments of safety, because the other guards were ready to finish him.

This had all been a mistake,