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

not take a bed in the manor for tonight, and tomorrow, we will talk about something that I would like you to do for me in the wasteland.”

Far, far away from Duke Smit’s fort, there was an encampment of a much smaller scale. A bunch of seafaring pirates gathered around Endliver Pickering. Sitting apart from the group of trustworthy sea urchins were the boy and the girl. Endliver didn’t know why he kept them around, but it was the strangest thing. Whenever he thought about telling them to take their land-dried rumps elsewhere, he found himself instantly changing his mind.

“Alright, you tide-brained bunch of scabs,” he said. He took a swig of rum and fought against the urge to retch. He absolutely hated the stuff but had found out long ago that men like these inexplicably lost respect for a captain who didn’t drink rum. “The good ship Endliver is a week away from being her beautiful best. At that point, I will leave this sun-drenched, dung-filled hovel quicker than a rat fleeing a tavern fire. Until then, my lads, we have to keep ourselves busy. What becomes of an idle mind?”

A chorus answered. “It rots, captain.”

“Quite so. Now, it seems to me that little Anna’s idea of traipsing around that dungeon didn’t go all that well. Shan’t be doing that again, eh, boys and girls? I’d rather cover myself in blood and go make dirty with a shark.”

The girl put her hand in the air, as though this was a bloody classroom.

“What, lass?”

“I think you are being too dismissive of the dungeon, Captain Pickering,” she said. “You love loot, yes?”

“Booty, we calls it, lass. Not loot.”

“Dungeons are full of booty. It’s what they’re famous for.”

“Famous or not, we lost good men going down into that pit, and only you and Freckles there survived. How you got out when some tough, well-salted lads met their fate, I do not know. I do not care either, my pretty little pearl. All I know is this; Endliver Pickering learns from his mistakes.”

“Doesn’t it hurt your pride, Captain?” persisted the girl. “To know that whatever is in the dungeon beat you?”

“Pickerings do not concern ourselves with pride. We aren’t the vengeful types. No, I won’t be riskin’ my lads on tomfoolery like that. End of discussion. Any further raisings of the topic will be met with punishment as befits our types; a nice little walk off the plank. When the ship’s ready and we get back out to sea, that is.”

“I suppose if you’ve made your mind up,” said the girl, “I’ll shut up and stop pestering you.”

“Aye. Now, I hear tell of a village someway south, that’s-”

Endliver stopped talking. For a second his mind completely fogged. He couldn’t form words, couldn’t even finish a thought, as though his ideas were sea breams swimming away when they saw his shadow.

And then his mind cleared again, and he realized that he had a better plan.

“On second thought, lads,” he said. “We will visit the dungeon after all. All of us. There’s booty to be had, and we will take it, or my name ain’t Endliver Pickering.”

CHAPTER 11

The squawking of ravens filled my dungeon, four of them fluttering around my core chamber and talking at once so that it became just a cacophony of shrieking sounds. Errant feathers dislodged from their wings and twirled to the ground, while plops of dung fell from their arses like the beginnings of an autumn snow shower.

“Enough! Speak to me separately,” I said. “Poe, you first.”

The conversation took a long time, as conversations with ravens do, but the end result was that it gave me the best news I’d had in days.

“Tomlin,” I said, sending my core voice out through the dungeon.

When my kobold joined me, his apron was covered in sickly yellow stains. He pinched the material. “Tomlin asked Cynthia to mix special food for essence vines,” he said. “They grow quicker now.”

“Yes, I noticed that my essence had been replenishing quicker lately. Well done, Tomlin.”

“Thank you, Dark Lord. Need something?”

“When was the last time you saw Eric the barbarian?”

“He is looking for Shadow. Five days since he visited dungeon.”

“Hmm. He normally stays out for a week at a time, doesn’t he?”

“Need Eric, Dark Lord?”

“As it happens, I want to spare him a trip. We’ve found Shadow.”

“Alive?”

“Alive.”

Tomlin’s face was a picture at that moment. A look of surprise at first, before morphing into a grin that made the whites of his eyes stand out. And then a struggle appeared on his features as he fought desperately to avoid showing how happy he was.

“Where is she? Near? Far?”

“We know that a boy and a girl entered the dungeon with some heroes. Tragically…for nobody…the heroes died. Tragically for me, the young lad and lass escaped. Razensen also heard them talking about ships and got the impression they would normally be out at sea but were stuck on land for a while. Well, there is no coastline within hundreds of miles from the wasteland but, if you go far enough west, there’s a small oasis. Barely a puddle, actually, but these buggers are camping near it and must have journeyed to the dungeon on horseback. I don’t know what they were doing in the wasteland in the first place, though, unless they were actually looking for my dungeon.”

“What do we do, Dark Lord? What do we do?”

“Settle down, Tomlin. Poe?”

Squawk! “Shiny things?” said the bird.

“Tomlin is going to attach a note to your leg. Find Eric, wherever he is, and make sure he reads it. We need him here.”

Wylie, attending the strategy meeting as a representative for my kobolds, gagged on Eric’s stench and inched away from him. The barbarian swept his glorious, free-flowing hair back and slouched on a