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

horror of a cake might have taken me all morning, but I will try again until I have something that at least appears edible.”

“For a new baker, settling for something that does not poison the whole fort is acceptable,” grinned Fontaine.

For a second, just a brief second, Duke Smit laughed, and that one laugh cleared his mind of his debts, his grief, his failures.

And then the door opened.

Berneen, his clerk, was in the doorway. She looked worried. “Duke, there is a visitor. Lord Dryden.”

Smit tried his best to put a brave face on it. “Thank you, Berneen. How close to an apoplectic stroke does he look this morning?”

“His temple veins are throbbing, Duke.”

“Excellent. He can wait just a while longer. Might as well exercise what little power I have, no?”

Leaving Lord Dresden waiting, Duke Smit went to a cellar deep within the fort. There, he walked by a row of cages, inspecting them until he stopped in front of one of them. Inside was a kobold monster, a hideous blend of lizard and wolf.

He unlocked the cage. When the kobold scampered out, Smit grabbed it and bit a hole in its neck and drained it dry.

When he was full of kobold blood, he went back to the kitchen. His belly felt full of the unspent life that he’d drained from the monster. He let this seep out of him as raw time now, watching it settle on his cake and wind back the effects of time, separating each ingredient until it was like they’d never been mixed together at all. Now, there was a mound of flour, a knob of butter, some milk, and some uncracked eggs. This use of his epochian powers wouldn’t affect the world in general, of course, but at least it had unmade his disaster of a cake.

“Let’s see what the Lord wants, and then I’ll try again.”

A demon-spined chair cost ten thousand gold, which was more than most peasants would earn in five years. This one had been a gift to the Smit dukedom from the Fiber family, one of their old vassals that had since been wiped out. It had been in the fort for two hundred and six years, and although wear and tear had driven its value down, it was still worth a lot of gold. Smit would be forced to sell it before long, of course, but hoped to avoid peddling family heirlooms for as long as possible.

This particular demon-spined chair was being covered by the spit flying from Lord’s Dresden’s mouth.

“And you will find me the gold, you hear me, Smit?” he yelled. Smit’s manor staff, the guards waiting outside the doors, and the servants milling around in the halls would hear almost every word but would be wise enough to pretend their ears were clogged. “You are so far indebted to me, Smit, that were you suddenly able to crap out gold coins, you would spend the rest of your miserable life crouched above a chamber pot on my estate. Of course, I would need a bigger pot for your flabby arse.”

Smit’s pride stung at the insinuation that his bottom was overly large. He had exercised a lot lately. Shayna dying had been the catalyst for him to get in shape, because he would not allow himself to suffer an attack of the heart like his own father had, and leave his children alone. Having a flabby arse was a charge that could not be leveled at him anymore.

Still, he knew better than to answer Dresden back. It never, ever helped.

“Mark me,” said Dresden, only pausing his rant to swallow air, doing so open-mouthed like a fish. “Mark me, my patience is more worn than a whore in a dockside tavern. You are the only vassal who has been late in paying your tributes. Now, I understand that your peasants’ farmlands were scourged by blight and completely missed a harvest. But the world doesn’t stop to let a man get to his feet, does it? No, the man needs to force his way up! To punch the world in the face, force it back a step, and drag himself upright! You’re wallowing, Smit. Your father wasn’t a wallower. His father wasn’t. So why are you? I mean, come on, man. Shayna died, what, a year ago? It’s time to stop moping around!”

Blood rushed to Smit’s face.

His temples throbbed and he could barely breathe. He felt his fists clenching, found himself staring at Lord Dresden’s face with a terrible intensity.

Lord Dresden. Master of the Aegis province and all the dukes and nobles within it. Not just Smit’s master, but a man who commanded a seat on the king’s council. A man with a reputation for ferocity when called for.

The urge to swing his fist was so tremendous that resisting it made him sick to his stomach.

Think of the children, he told himself. He said it again and again like a mantra, the words repeating in his mind over and over and over.

Air sneaked down his throat. His mind began to unclog. With the utmost relief, he relaxed his fingers.

“What in all hells is the matter with you?” said Dresden. “Are you drunk? You look as though you’re going to pass out.”

Smit took a sip of water. “I’m fine,” he said, his tone barely in control.

Dresden seemed to have taken just a hint of a note of his fury.

“Well, take it from me - you should watch your levels of stress. Now, Smit, I hope you understand the significance of me visiting you personally. The king wants all members of his council to pay a tribute that will go toward the building of a new prison. A voluntary tribute, he says, but one that means grave consequences for any of us who are not feeling generous. As such, I am recalling all bonds forthwith. Smit, I need