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

“Impressive,” said Gulliver, as we approached. “I have never understood why you insist on telling me that Core Jahn the worst core in your academy.”

“Put him in a dungeon and you wouldn’t doubt it. He failed his Dungeon Core Academy graduation class, and he managed to completely collapse his dungeon here in Yondersun.”

“Looks like he’s working well enough up here.”

“Jahn has a talent for using his essence on the surface. Building things like houses and shops and other boring, non-lethal things. A waste of time.”

“It sounds like a certain core is jealous that he cannot use his essence on the surface as well as his friend.”

“Gull, when a horde of barbarians appears on the horizon, the Yondersunians won’t be begging for Jahn to build them a fancy shack. They’ll want monsters. An army. I’m not jealous of the town he’s built.”

“Or the well systems, the beginnings of crop systems and farmland, the Yondersun town walls…”

“Yes, all that impressive, useful stuff. I’m not jealous in the slightest.”

Jahn was floating on a surface pedestal point, overseeing four goblin workers who were using a pulley and rope to life a roof beam into place.

“A little to the left, please! To the left! To the left, I said! Oh…yes. You are correct. I meant to the right, of course. My apologies. Ah, Beno! What a delight! My old chum, here to visit!”

Though a core cannot smile, lacking the prerequisite mouth, lips, and muscles with which to use them, it is possible to tell when flickers of our old human emotions are upon us. Jahn had retained more of his human emotional range than any core I had ever met, and he was beaming at me now.

“Things are really coming along,” I said.

“All of this? A trifle.”

“Really, Jahn, you’re not the slightest bit proud of yourself?”

“Well, it’s not for me to say…”

“You’ve done a great job, Jahn. Well done.”

Waves of happiness came from Jahn now. Enough that it was sickening.

“I need to talk to you about something,” I said. “There’s a-”

Jahn turned away from us and began yelling at a pack of gnomish laborers who were pushing wheelbarrows full of stone chippings and then dumping them in piles. “No! Not there! We need them by the new well!”

The gnomes, without a single word of objection, began piling the stones back in the wheelbarrows.

“Incredible,” I said.

“What?” asked Jahn.

“Not a single word of complaint from your gnomes. No backchat. No moaning. I’m astounded, Jahn. I never had you down as such a disciplinarian. How do you do it?”

“Remember the thunderstorm months ago, Beno? When I first got started on town building?”

“It’s hard to forget the only time this hellhole has seen water,” said Gulliver.

“Well, one of the gnome laborers was refusing to accept me as head of the Yondersun construction team,” said Jahn. “He was saying he wouldn’t listen to me. That I’m a self-important chunk of flint, and that nobody should do what I say. I didn’t know how to deal with him. I thought what would Beno do? And I imagined that you’d have him whipped or something.”

“I’m not a tyrant,” I said.

“Nor am I. I couldn’t even bring myself to rebuke him when it came down to it. But then, just as the other workers started to listen to him, he was struck by lightning. Completely fried.”

“Lovely,” said Gulliver.

“They all thought that I had summoned the lightning. They don’t fully understand us cores, Beno. But it was okay, because after that, nobody questioned my orders.”

“Interesting. So all we need is to be able to wield the weather itself, and we could cow this whole town into submission.”

“Exactly. If only, eh? Did you need something, Beno? It’s great to see you. Really. But I have lots to do…”

“It’s funny you mention whining townsfolk because that’s what I need to speak to you about. You know about the No-Cores, yes?”

“Galatee said to ignore them and concentrate on construction.”

“Ignore a rat problem for long enough and soon they’ll be so many you won’t be able to move without stepping on a tail. We need to do something about them.”

“Something? I don’t like your somethings, Beno. Your somethings will get people killed.”

“I wish. We can’t hurt them, because then we’d have worse problems. But there might be a way to stop them.”

“Why should I want to? They hold nasty signs and they crowd around my construction sites and sing hurtful songs sometimes, yes, but Galatee’s guards usually disperse them. She doesn’t let them stop me from building things.”

“Galatee is losing control of them. If we don’t help her, this problem might go beyond you and me, and then we’ll wish we could go back in time and act before the movement grew too large. We need to seize this chance, Jahn. If you do what I say, perhaps we can.”

“I don’t know, Beno…”

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And who is your best friend from the academy? Who is the only core you have seen since we left?”

“You.”

“Exactly. It’s me and you, Jahn. The unstoppable pair.”

Gulliver coughed. “Ahem.”

“Feeling left out?”

“An itch in my throat, is all.”

“What do you say, Jahn?” I asked. “Will you help me?”

Jahn sighed. “What do you need, Beno?”

“It’s simple, really…”

We were in the ruins of Jahn’s dungeon, one that he hadn’t done any work on in months. Light streamed in through the hole in the ceiling, the result of Jahn accidentally triggering one of his own explosive traps. While I described my own dungeon aesthetic as practical, the most generous label I could give Jahn’s was disaster. Half-finished tunnels that didn’t lead anywhere. Chambers not fully excavated. Tile puzzles which, by the merest glance, I could tell had no sensical solution nor deadly consequences. There was no