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

Now, just minutes after his murder, Dullbright was alive again.

Eric chopped Dullbright’s and the guard’s bodies to pieces with the speed and practice of a man who’d had to butcher his own kills plenty of times. He put them in a bag that Core Beno provided him, magically artificed to easily hold half a dozen corpses if needed, and slung it around his shoulder.

“I’ll go dispose of our friend. You’ll be alright, little wolf?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yer lookin’ mighty pale.”

“I’m absolutely fine. Never better.”

“What about when his lordship’s guards come back?”

Shadow nodded at the mimic version of Dullbright. “When the guards come back, get into the bed. Tell them that you’re ill, and that you want peace. You are not to be disturbed for any reason, and you do not want any guards posted inside the house. Got it?”

“Clear as the purest crystal,” said Mimic Dullbright. Shadow was amazed at how incredible a copy he was of the dead governor, in all ways except one. It seemed that Eric had noticed that one difference too.

“What’s with the smell?” he said. “I’ve met dung trolls with a better fragrance.”

“Core Beno said that all mimics have a tell. Usually an aroma they give off. The longer the mimic spends as Dullbright the better he’ll get at mimicking him, and the weaker the tell will get. As well, he’ll be able to spend longer in his mimicked form.”

“So he can’t stay lookin’ like that forever? Might get tricky if any guards burst in and see him in his little blobby form.”

“He’ll have to take breaks from being Dullbright and let his power recover. It’s easily dealt with. He can just tell the guards he doesn’t want to be disturbed, and lock the door from the inside and change into a mimic.”

“Seems you’ve got everything covered. I’ll dispose of this mess and then make sure I’m seen helping out with the fire. You need to get rid of the blood in here. Just in case.”

Shadow patted her satchel. “Core Beno gave me an alchemical solution. Thank you, Eric. Good luck.”

“Good luck? Them’s parting words, Little Wolf. I’m friends with the governor now,” he said, grinning at the mimic. “I expect I’ll be getting lots more invites to this palace.”

With Eric gone, Shadow took a jar out of her bag. Inside it was little shavings of crystal, no more than half an inch long and barely millimeters thick. Strange to think that these were pieces of the Dark Lord.

So now it was time to tell him that Dullbright was dead. Beno had promised not to try and initiate communication with her, in case he interrupted her during the job and caused her to lose concentration. She needed to speak to him first and let him know that it was done.

Now that it was time, she found herself staring at the core shavings. She found herself wondering things.

What if she just disposed of the jar of shavings? What if she hid it on one of the trader wagons outside of town and let the horses carry it far away? Without the shavings to amplify his core voice, the Dark Lord couldn’t talk to her over this distance.

If he couldn’t talk to her, could he issue orders? Could he command her to do anything at all?

She put the jar back in the bag and stood up, her heart pounding so fast that she felt dizzy.

“Are you going to speak to the Dark Lord?” asked Mimic Dullbright.

“The job isn’t finished. I said I wouldn’t contact him until it is done.”

“I was there when he issued orders. You were to kill Dullbright and let me mimic him. That was all.”

“There were other things he asked me to do, you blob of snot. Now stay here and let me do them in peace.”

The first thing she needed to do was to leave Dullbright’s bedroom and go down the spiral stairs. After checking that no guards had returned, she entered the dining room. There, she decided, Core Beno had ordered her to dispose of all the half-eaten food.

She carried the food back up to the bedroom and gorged herself on garlic fried potatoes, fried pork chops, honey glazed carrots and parsnips. It was a change from the dungeon shrooms and grubs that Beno provided. At first, the tastes exploded on her tongue so strongly she thought her brain was having a turn. Soon, though, her belly ached.

To remedy this, the next order she decided that Core Beno had issued her was to lie on the governor’s incredibly soft bed until she felt better. This she did, flopping backward onto it while Mimic Dullbright watched. She spread her arms out and let herself melt into the bed.

 Soon, though, it began to feel strange. Uncomfortable, somehow. Her back and her thighs hurt. As fancy as it looked, this thing was useless for sleeping on. It simply couldn’t match up to a nice, rocky ground.

“How do people live like this?” she said.

Feeling sick from the food, her back in knots after merely an hour on the bed, Shadow looked out of the window to the gaggle of townsfolk on the far side of Hogsfeate where, though the flames were smaller, they were still going. Eric certainly knew how to start a fire, nobody could deny that.

She looked out at the town itself and the houses a little further down the hill. Well-made ones, pleasing to the eye if fanciness was your preference. The quality of home declined as steeply as the hill until the vast majority of homes in the town itself were little more than wooden lodges that even Core Jahn would be ashamed of making.

Yes, Dullbright lived up here in his king’s palace, eating his disgustingly rich food, cushioning his rump on his horrible bed. There was little chance