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

on his face and put his claw on its shoulder. The new kobold looked at him warily. “Tomlin names you Wylie, new friend.”

“Wylie? I don’t know what I expected, but not that,” I said.

“Wylie was a littermate in the academy. Best littermate. But Wylie is now in another core dungeon.”

“At least you have a friend, now,” I said. Then I turned to Wylie. “Welcome to your new home. A few things you should know. You are a miner, and Tomlin is your boss. There are worms in the larder just over there, and there is a door in room four that should stay locked at all times. If a girl enters the dungeon, she is not to be attacked. Oh, and whistling is allowed here.”

Kobold created: Wylie [Miner Lvl 1]

“Greetings!” said Wylie, more comfortable now. His voice was much higher than Tomlin’s, and he seemed to have a smile permanently fixed on his face now that he had been properly introduced to his surroundings.

“Come on, Wylie, Tomlin will show you where to dig.”

The two kobolds trudged off together, and not long after, I heard the reassuring sound of pickaxes hitting mud.

It was a full eight hours later when the sounds of mining stopped, and a message appeared in front of me.

A beautiful, beautiful message.

You have received: Iron deposits x150!

Now it was time to make some traps.

CHAPTER 19

Construction and placement of dungeon traps is an art form. Some people might not think so, but they aren’t dungeon cores, so I completely understand. To a gem like myself, it is as fulfilling an activity as I can think of, and I couldn’t wait to get started.

While Tomlin and Wylie re-built part of the wall they’d excavated to get to the iron - with Wylie doing most of the work now that Tomlin was a kobold of authority - I went to room two.

This was the most northern of my dungeon rooms, and it was here where I had planned to construct an entrance.

Now, though, floating there, I realized that there wasn’t enough distance between it and the loot room. Seriously, it would have taken even the most pathetic bunch of heroes twenty minutes to battle their way to the prize.

That wouldn’t do. No use making it easy for them. In fact, you might say it went against every dungeon core principle to do so.

Considering that, I had my kobolds friends dig another tunnel going north-west, and they then dug out another room, another tunnel, and yet another room. This expanded the reach of my dungeon greatly.

But…it still wasn’t enough. It was all too much of a straight path from the dungeon entrance to the loot room.

So, I had my kobolds place a door in the furthest room. From here, they dug out a circular tunnel that left the door, looped around for about five minutes’ walk, and then ended up back at the same door. Great stuff!

But, since it was completely against rules to cut the entrance room off from the rest of my dungeon, I constructed a separate disguised door. It looked like part of the mud wall, but if a rogue or mage dispelled it, they would see it. Then, after picking the lock, they would find the real tunnel that led to the rest of the dungeon.

My dungeon had hit its room capacity now, and I would have to level again before I could add more. That didn’t matter though, because it was time to create traps.

So, I thought about this for a while. I remembered all of the things I had learned in Overseer Tarnbuckle’s trap theory class, and the myriad of trap strategies I had read about in the academy library.

There were thousands of combinations of traps and ways to place them, but I was a little hampered by being a level two core, which meant my trap crafting list was pathetic. I checked it now.

 

      Traps:

Beartrap [Cost 50]

Pitfall [Cost 100]

Pressure Switch [Cost 50]

Poisoned darts [Cost 250]

Not too great at first glance, but these simple devices were the bread and butter of dungeon traps, and it was time to come up with a way to use them to slaughter heroes. It was time to get diabolical.

The word diabolical, I had learned, comes from diabolus, one of the demons in an underworld. I forget which one. Anyway, I met him once, he gave a talk at the academy. Nice guy.

But enough of that. Let’s see what I was dealing with.

A bear trap was something most people would know about. A beautiful construction of metal teeth that, when stepped on, slams shut and bites through the ankle of the poor person or creature. Rather painful, I am told.

Pitfalls are simpler, but can be quite gruesome. All you need to do is dig a hole in the ground, and then cover it so that it looks like it isn’t there. It sounds rather basic, but you need to be creative.

For instance, you could place metal spikes at the bottom, creating a delightful impaling trap for would-be looters.

You could dig the hole fifty feet deep so that the hero falls into the pit and dies when he hits the bottom. Or, if you are especially cruel, you might dig it only thirty feet so that he or she breaks their legs, and then has to lie there and pathetically call for help that won’t come.

Maybe you fill the pitfall with water and lace it with malicious little piranhas that eat the hero alive.

Even with a simple pitfall, there were lots of fun things a person could do. They could even try it at home! Though, they’d be advised not to.

A pressure switch on its own isn’t a trap. A trap, defined by the overseers in the academy, is ‘a construction designed to trick