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

“You bogans are full of wisdom.”

“You mock me?”

“Sorry, I’m getting a little stressed out. I need to think.”

“Aye. Well, I know too well the ills of frustration. You have seen what happens to me when my anger levels reach their peak. Back home, if I ever got frustrated, I would swim in the Bogonis sea until my arms were exhausted. When I came out, my eyes would be their natural blue and I would feel at peace once again.”

“Natural blue? I’ve never seen your eyes that color.”

“Because in all my time in this hellish desert, I have never felt calm. This is no place for a bogan. The sooner I kill my brother, the better.”

“An understandable feeling.”

“You have been fair to me, Stone. You had your little frog-dog miners make a pool for me. In return, I will teach you a breathing exercise, if you wish. It helps me retain my calm when I am away from home.”

I didn’t really need to learn breathing exercises. It was rare that I ever felt what could be described as a feeling or an emotion, though occurrences seemed to be increasing. Even so, it was easy for me to dismiss the little twinges of feelings I sometimes had.

Then again, I had learned one thing. Sometimes, when a person wants to do you a kindness, it is not to help you. It is instead to help themselves, because the act of being kind makes the kind person feel better. It was an opportunity to tighten my bond with Razensen.

“That would be excellent, Razensen. Thank you.”

“Okay,” said the giant monster. He settled to the ground, making an almighty thump when his rump hit the stone. He crossed his legs and placed his big paws on his thighs.

“First, Stone, take a deep breath through your nostrils.”

I didn’t bother to point out that I didn’t breathe or have nostrils.

Thirty minutes later, Razensen let out a sigh. I had barely felt any change in my mind…or so I thought. Then, I realized that the last thirty minutes had passed by without recognition. Razensen had helped me settle my mind utterly and completely.

Skill gained: Bogan Mind-Settle

[With focused contemplation, you can settle your mind and stop thoughts racing through it.]

All around us, cross-legged kobolds yawned and stretched out their arms. Gary, over in the corner of the chamber, stretched out all seven leech legs.

“Ah,” he said, his voice sleepy. “I haven’t felt as relaxed in years.”

“Razensen make Wylie sleep!” said my enforcer.

The only activity came from the demented bone guys and kobolds who struggled against their ropes to no avail.

“Alright,” I said. “Come on, back to work. Thank you, Razensen.”

“Did it help, Stone?”

“It did. It gave me some focus, and I think I know what to do about our afflicted friends. Wait here.”

Deciding not to introduce her to my dungeon mates yet, I visited Namantep in her chamber on the second level.

“Couldn’t get enough of me?” she said. “Or are you just as bored as I am?”

“I have a question, Namantep. If a person was afflicted with a mind spell and were attacking their friends, could you heal them somehow?”

“I could.”

Relief washed through me. “Then I would like to ask a favor of you.”

“I could, Beno,” she said. “once upon a day. But as you can see, I am not even half the core I used to be. I was within a fraction of destruction. I had to lie dormant for decades to even restore myself to consciousness and be able to speak. To recover my powers…it would take the same number of years, and then some.”

“There must be something we can do. An alchemical paste we can buy, an artificed solution of some kind…”

“Beno, I suspect that even the Dungeon Core Academy forgers would struggle to re-forge me. That wouldn’t stop them trying, and perhaps by combining me with another damaged core they would manage it. But even so, it would take resources and expertise only the academy forgers possess. Dullbright used a scaleedge sword on me, Beno.”

A scaleedge sword. Words nasty enough to send a shiver through any core, if we were actually capable of shivering.

“Damn it.”

“There’s really nothing that can be done to restore me. In fact…”

“Yes?”

Her voice sounded a little weaker now. “I know you said you would help me hide, but it did occur to me that there’s no reason for you to keep me here. That perhaps, thinking of it from your point of view, the temptation might be there to sell me to the academy and claim a reward of some sort.”

The thought had occurred to me too. It would certainly rid me of my Overseer Bolton problem since he’d have no reason to sniff around Hogsfeate. I guessed that Bolton would even have a way of breaking whatever spell mage Hardere had cast to make sure I stuck to the deal.

But as I had thought about it, the strangest thing happened. Pictures began rearranging themselves in my mind. Instead of seeing myself handing Namantep to the academy for them to take her apart and reforge her with some other, poor dead core, I imagined that it was me. That I had lost my powers, and that the first core I had seen in decades had betrayed me instantly.

It occurred to me that I would not like that at all. Something else occurred to me, too. That such a chain of thoughts might be described as empathy. Not the pretend kind I tried to show when people whined about their problems to me, but something real.

“The academy won’t find out about you from me,” I said. “I promise.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Well…I should bloody hope not!”

“What?” I