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

Morphant beamed. “Thank you, Kargot. And, how are you?”

She sniffed. “Ah, you know. Life’s just a big fat bladder, and I’m the chamber pot.”

Four taps sounded on the chamber door.

“Yes?” said Morphant.

The door opened a crack to reveal a guard’s face.

“Ah, Jerome. What is it?”

“No, sir, I’m Rufus. Jerome just finished his shift. Beg my intrusion, sir, but Pvat of the heroes’ guild is here to see you.”

The heroes’ guild. Though Morphant hadn’t spent as much time in the dungeon as some of the other creatures, an aversion to the heroes’ guild was woven deep into his being. The mere mention of the name made him want to fling Pvat out of the chamber windows. Alas, Core Beno had already warned him about doing this. And then Gulliver had repeated the warnings again and again.

Right now, Pvat and the heroes’ guild enjoyed popularity among the people of Hogsfeate. Until Gulliver’s lies had spread through the population, Pvat couldn’t be harmed. No flinging him from windows. Not even from ground-floor ones.

“Send Pvat in,” he said.

Rufus nodded at Kargot. “Would you like to come with me, miss?”

“She stays.”

“Sir, Pvat is here on town business and…”

“And what?” bellowed Morphant. “You’ve decided that as my chamber guard, you are now the expert in diplomatic affairs? Get out of here, Rufus, before I have you…”

He struggled to think of a threat. What would Beno say?

“…before I have you covered in boiling oil and torn apart by wolves.”

Kargot laughed. “An’ then thrown into the sewer for the rats to feast on.”

“Exactly. Thank you, Lady Kargot.”

“Shut up, you bloated turnip.”

Ah. More sweet honesty. Morphant could sit there and be insulted by her all day, as long as her insults stayed genuine. The second she began making them up for effect was when their relationship might sour.

A man strode in. Slightly on the older side of life but still trim, and with badly receding hair that he hadn’t yet built the courage to attack with a well-oiled razor. He had a tattoo around his right eye. Letters, of some sort, but Morphant didn’t recognize them, and he’d never bothered to ask Pvat what they meant. He half-thought the tattoo was for attention, and that Pvat actually wanted people to ask what the strange symbols meant. Morphant wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Take a seat, Pvat.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself.”

Kargot took an apple from a bowl and bit into it. She grimaced, walked to the window, and spat the chunks out.

“They are wax,” said Morphant. “I am told that hu…that they make a good decoration.”

“Get some real bloody fruit,” said Kargot, spitting.

Pvat could barely look at Kargot. As she spat apple from the window, his expression was so strained it was like two demons were competing for control of his facial features. Anyone would think she was riddled with the plague or something.

Morphant would have respected Pvat so much more if he’d said what he thought about Kargot instead of trying to hide it. If he had told him that he didn’t like the woman being here and that her mere presence brought him in danger of an irreversible facial spasm. But no. Pvat, despite his shiny armor and fancy sword, was like everyone else, hiding his true thoughts.

“What brings you here so early, Pvat? I have to say, you are nothing if not unpredictable. You keep turning up at my house at all hours. Morning, noon, night. You never come here at the same time twice. Anyone would think you are trying to catch me out or something.”

“I would not be so ungracious, Mayor. You have been kind to the heroes’ guild.”

“Pvat, lately I have stripped away all the heroes’ guild grants and begun taxing your heroes on the loot they earn in dungeons. I have removed your influence over the town guards, and I also banned your heroes from taking jobs at the men-at-arms boards so that you don’t rob mercenaries of work. I have not been kind to your guild in the slightest. Now, I don’t mind if you tell me so.”

“Well, if I can be honest…”

“Please. If you are capable.”

“I do find your change of heart toward my guild troubling, Mayor. Just months ago, we discussed replacing the town guards completely and having my heroes…secure…the town. It seemed we were singing the same ballad, but then you changed your mind.”

“How does it make you feel, Pvat?”

“…aggrieved.”

“Aggrieved? That’s all?”

“I’d be pissed off,” said Kargot, reaching for another apple and then remembering they were wax.

“A natural reaction,” said Pvat. “But the feeling of anger doesn’t change the situation that caused it. I was merely a regular hero before I became head of my guild. A man of action. I find that it’s better to do something about a problem, than stew on it.”

“Meaning?” said Morphant.

Pvat stared at him for the longest time. Morphant stared back but caught even less meaning in the look than he did in the strange symbols around Pvat’s eye.

This man is hard to read.

He wasn’t just hiding his thoughts because he was scared of voicing them. He was hiding them because he was good at it and because he knew they needed hiding.

Though he wouldn’t say it, he was suspicious of Morphant…and that was worrying.

I need to talk to Core Beno.

There came five taps on the chamber door.

Before Morphant could say anything, a man strode in. A man even older than Pvat, wearing a long robe that trailed to his ankles, dog-eaten at the hem and covered in stains all over. He wore nothing underneath it, evidenced by flashes of wrinkled chest skin that said hello from time to time as he moved.

“Mage Hardere?” said Morphant. He looked at the doorway. “Rufus? Why didn’t you tell me-”