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

The door opened. Tumbold, a girthy half-troll, appeared in the doorway.

“Get thee gone, scamp! Get thee gone!”

The boy, startled, retreated a few steps. “I was only lookin’, Mister Tumbold.”

“Get thee gone!”

Gulliver had half a mind to tell Tumbold that he may have accidentally sat on a stick at some point in his life and it was subsequently wedged firmly up his arse, but he didn’t have time for the argument. He never did. Every morning Gulliver saw this little street show, and every morning he didn’t just as he did right then – walked away.

He squeezed into Crooked Pass, an alleyway barely wide enough for a man to walk through, yet one which allowed Gulliver to completely avoid the beggar square and reach his office without having to walk by the panhandlers. It always made him feel bad to refuse to give any of them a coin.

Halfway through the pass, he heard footsteps. A curious prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck told him that someone had entered Crooked Pass behind him. It was unusual, to be sure. The alleyway smelled of burned oil and rotting vegetables from the adjoining grilled meat restaurant, and nobody ever took this short cut.

Without turning, Gulliver stopped. He kneeled and pretended to tie his winkle pickers.

The footsteps also stopped.

It wasn’t the first time he’d suspected he was being followed since coming to Hogsfeate. This was just the most obvious. He didn’t know who was following him, either; until now, he’d only had vague suspicions, he’d only thought to himself that certain men or women seemed to have been walking in the same direction as him for too long.

But now? In Crooked Pass? Yep, he was being followed.

Still kneeling, he quickly took his book and quill from his inside coat pocket and scribbled a message.

If you have a stove at home, you have left it on. If you do not have a stove, you now that believe you do. 

Such a blunt lie, one that didn’t befit a master scribe or the head of Hogsfeate public communications. Gull’s old master, the underworlds take his soul, would have literally vomited because of its lack of flair. But such unsubtle lies would work on a single person. They weren’t strong enough for more than one or two folks to believe them - for mass communications, Gulliver had to be clever than that. For a lone stalker though? They were plenty enough.

He tore the paper from his book and left the slip on the ground, before straightening up and hurrying on. He took twelve strides and heard the footsteps behind him begin walking too.

Gulliver stopped. He began patting his coat, feigning that he had forgotten something.

Turning around, he saw his pursuer; an old woman wearing a flour-dusted apron.

“You dropped something, lovie,” she said.

She picked up the note, read it, and her eyes widened. She slapped her head. “Oh! I left my bloody stove on!” Before Gulliver could stop her, she turned and left Crooked Pass.

Damn it. Just an old baker going to work. He was really getting paranoid.

Well, too late to do anything now.

He turned around.

A man was staring at him from the opposite end of Crooked Pass. A thin man, almost impossibly so. He wore a black coat that seemed to hang off him like clothes on a washing line. His face was pale, his eyes dark.

His heart beating, Gulliver turned and left Crooked Pass the way he had come, emerging back onto the street where the boy was standing outside Tumbold’s Tales and Tomes.

Gulliver strode over and patted the lad on the back.

“Inside,” he said.

“What?”

“Get inside.”

The shop bell trilled. Tumbold saw the boy. “I thought I said get thee gone, you grubby little rat?”

“Tumbold, your kindness is surpassed only by your sensitivity,” said Gulliver, as he and the boy stepped into the shop.

“I know you work for Sir Dullbright, Mister Scribe, but I will not have-”

Gulliver glanced behind him. Through the shop window, he saw the thin man leave the alleyway and look in one direction and then another.

The thin man walked away, leaving Gulliver feeling only slightly relieved. The fact was that although he’d slipped away from him for today, the man would be back. Either him or another shadowy fellow. Someone was taking it upon themselves to watch Gulliver closely, but who? And why?

The only explanation Gulliver could come up with was that it was something to do with the local Heroes’ Guild. Gulliver had been present when Beno had a run-in with Pvat, the head of the Hogsfeate heroes’ guild. Perhaps the old swordsman was suspicious of Gulliver.

Whatever the answer, he would just have to be careful for the time being. Stop using Crooked Pass, because they must have studied his usual habits. From now on, he would become completely unpredictable. He’d take new routes to work, drink in a different tavern every night, entertain a new lady each evening instead of spending all his time with Kathryn. Gods, the sacrifices he had to make.

 Taking his coin purse from his pocket, Gulliver said, “Tumbold, you beacon of kindness, this boy is going to buy however many books he likes.”

The boy’s face lit up in a way that Gulliver had thought impossible on anything but a puppy. “Really?”

“Really, lad. Get whatever you want. Take your time. Take all morning, if you have to.”

Morphant woke up in his mimic form in Sir Dullbright’s bed. In his slug-like natural state the bed was too big for him, like a giant silk beast trying to swallow him whole. With a mental command, he felt himself begin to change. He felt his body growing, spreading, taking on size, shape, color. Before long he was