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

before we leave,” said their leader, a half-orc with a balding head and a great buckler shield on his back.

The smallest of the group, clearly a rogue, crossed the room. In any other dungeon, he would have been the one they sent ahead to check for traps, creeping along and inspecting every inch of ground. Today, you’d think he was strolling into a tavern.

“Empty,” he said. “Someone’s cleared it out.”

The heroes behind him all sighed as one. “Waste of our feckin’ time!”

“Hang on…there’s something glinting at the bottom of the chest! Might be a ruby or an emerald or something. Let me just see…”

The rogue reached inside the chest. He had to really stretch to reach the bottom until soon half of him was inside it completely.

“Now!” I said.

The heroes heard me, since I had purposefully used my core voice. Before they could draw their weapons, Razensen stomped into the loot room and brought both his fists down on the loot chest lid with full force, smashing it down onto the rogue’s back as the chest were a set of teeth, almost severing him in half.

The resulting crack of spinal bones was delightfully sickening, and I began to find myself in the best mood I had enjoyed in a while.

Arrows shot from tunnel archways, peppering the heroes who scrambled for their shields. Shamanic fire blasted out, scorching their armor and setting their hair alight. Beetles charged out with flames washing over their black husks and pincers.

Although three of the heroes managed to draw their swords, none managed to actually swing them before they died clutching their necks or bellies, depending on the aim of my kobold shaman and crossbowmen.

After checking my core post-battle information and seeing that I hadn’t leveled up yet, and I dismissed it and concentrated on enjoying the best mood I had been in for a very long time.

“Remember what you saw today,” I said, using my core voice so that it projected into every tunnel, every passageway, every chamber. “Let’s not have any questions about my prowess again. Now, strip those chumps of their stuff, drag their corpses to the alchemy chamber, and then take the rest of the evening off.”

My dungeon filled with the sounds of miners getting back to work. Of kobolds huffing as they worked together to drag hero cadavers from the loot room. Of Gary singing to himself a song of his own composition, the lyrics of which concerned how much he enjoyed eating hero flesh.

“Dark Lord? Got a minute for me?”

It was Shadow and her canine protectors. “Shadow,” I said.

“I should not have doubted you.”

“Correct.”

“Not publicly, at least. But this doesn’t heal all the wounds, Dark Lord. The defeats from Cael still sting.”

“On that we can agree. I have a plan for Cael, don’t you worry.”

“I hope so, Dark Lord, because it may be even more dangerous to build morale with victories like this, only to let it crash down again. Regardless, I will not bring up such concerns in public in the future.”

“Thank you, Shadow. See that you don’t.”

“Arcas, Tentri, Mossgrove, Fenroy. Up! Come on!” she said, clicking her fingers at her dogs.

Shadow left, with her pack skulking alongside her.

CHAPTER 9

Power is such a temptation, always enticing you to use it in ways you shouldn’t. There I was, relaxing in my core room, and I began wondering about things. Strange thoughts about conspiracies and insurrection, irrational thoughts about dungeon mutinies.

I had always believed in the idea of treating my dungeon creatures as if they could be trusted. Thus, I rarely exercised a particular one of my powers, unless heroes were raiding my home.

Now, though, I felt I had no choice. The meeting in the remembrance chamber was the first time I had faced dungeon-wide complaints, and I couldn’t afford for the rot to spread.

I activated my core vision, and I cast images in the room around me, each rectangle of light showing a different chamber in my dungeon. I checked each one to see who was working, who wasn’t, and who might look like they were whispering certain complaints about a certain dungeon core.

Tarius heaved one last chunk of granite from the wall and then set his pickaxe down.

Wylie was in front of him in an instant. “Getting lazy, Tarius? Still have eight feet of new tunnel before time for break!”

Tarius pinched his shirt so that Wylie could see the words Hed of Dungeon Yunion. “I think you’ll find, Supervisor Wylie, that as union leader I negotiated with Core Beno for breaks every four hours.”

“Tarius calls him Core Beno, now? Wylie surprised that Tarius on first name terms with master.”

“Dark Lord, then. What’s the point in new tunnels now, supervisor Wylie? Our dungeon should be concentrating on defenses.”

“How Tarius think we get new defenses? With new chambers, idiot! Places to hide traps, places for heroes to stumble and meet monsters. Dungeon must always expand and evolve.”

The other three miners, Jopvitz, Klok, and Redjack, dropped their pickaxes with a clang. “Tarius is right,” said Redjack. “New tunnels? No sense. Dark Lord is just keeping us busy so we don’t complain.”

“We should strike,” said Tarius.

“Strike?” thundered Wylie. “Strike?”

There was something different about Wylie now. He seemed more than his usual self. Taller, without growing. Bigger, but physically unchanged. It was his Tongue Lashing skill at work, one he’d earned after leveling up his supervisor class enough.

His miners stared back at him, unblinking, as he carried on.

“Wylie should beat arses for that! Strike, when Dark Lord has given orders? Make Wylie sick. Tarius is here long enough to know better. But new miners shouldn’t follow example. Need to realize that when dungeon fails, it is not Dark Lord failing. It is all of dungeon. Me. Tarius. Gary. Shadow, Peach, Kainhelm, Tomlin. Everyone! Do