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

A hidden pressure switch on its own is just a trick, but there are no consequences.

So, this is where you combine the switch with things like the last trap on my list – poisoned darts. A person who is at all familiar with dungeons, maybe if they have read Tomdarksy’s ‘Dungeon Making for Beginners’, would be nodding along with me now.

Everyone’s heard of a dungeon where someone stands on a hidden switch and poisoned darts shoot out of the wall. They’re a cliché. Sometimes, though, things become cliché for a reason.

Because they work.

Now, with 100 essence points, I had some choices to make. I could afford everything except the poisoned darts, which I’d have to level up to get.

That meant it would just be a matter of buying what I could, letting my essence regenerate, and then deciding where to place stuff.

And that...well, that took some planning. Oh, yeah, you couldn’t just throw traps around. A core’s setting of his traps could decide his whole evaluation.

That’s a lot of pressure.

Another thing to consider was that, as a level two core, I was limited to eight traps in total in my dungeon. I had to be really, really careful.

Over the next four days, I spent my time buying a trap or two, and then letting my essence recharge in my core room, while plotting where to place things to ensure maximum carnage.

In the evenings I tutored Tomlin in whatever subject he chose, though sometimes he picked something I didn’t have a clue about. I didn’t want to be all vain like an overseer, so if I didn’t know something, I admitted it and we moved on. This was something Bolton had drummed into me, and I fully believed it. Don’t ever be afraid to admit you don’t know something; it’s much better to admit, than wing it and be wrong.

Wylie sat with us and listened with a smile on his face, but there wasn’t much going on behind his eyes. Good worker, though. Very pleasant to have around.

We settled into a routine, and it was strange how much this felt like home for all of us. Many a time I would see Wylie or Tomlin going into the worm larder to get a bunch of worms, like it was a normal, daily thing.

There was something to note about this routine. The larder worms came from the walls just outside of my dungeon boundaries. Even though I had bred more of them, I hadn’t created them.

This meant that when Tomlin and Wylie ate them, they were technically slaying monsters for me.

Which meant…

…experience points!

Yup, when my kobold lieutenant and miner chowed down, they were earning experience points for me. So, how much experience had they earned me from eating worms for five days?

Experience points [Filter: Worms] – 1.9

Not even two experience points! It turned out that killing worms wasn’t a great way to advance. It made sense when I thought about it.

You never hear about a famous barbarian getting legendary powers from digging into the soil on a rainy day. There are no tales about the worm-eating pigeons that found themselves leveling up into eagles or something.

After days of buying traps and recharging my essence, I was left with enough weaponry to turn my dungeon into a place where heroes had a really, really bad time.

Trap Inventory:

Bear-Trap x4

Pitfall x2

Pressure switch x2

The first idea I had was to play around with the heroes’ expectations a little. Manipulate their emotions, toy with their mental states. Fun stuff like that.

I crafted another chest in the loot room. I placed this one in the center, exactly where a hero would expect to find one. I also crafted not one, not two, but three locks onto it.

“Tomlin!” I called.

There was no answer.

“Tomlin!”

Damn it, I was too nice to my underlings if they were ignoring me!

“The next kobold to ignore me gets mashed up and fed to the beetles!” I shouted.

Still nothing.

“Wylie, I think it’s time to promote you. What rank is above lieutenant, anyway?”

Now I heard scampering, and Tomlin stumbled into the loot room, losing his balance and falling flat on his face. Wylie, his ever-cheerful friend, wasn’t far behind.

“Tomlin,” I said. “I need you to clean this loot chest. Make it look sparkling, if you can. It has to look enticing to a greedy hero.”

“Got it, Dark Lord,” said Tomlin. Then he turned to Wylie. “Wylie, Tomlin needs you to clean chest. Make it sparkle. Make it look enticing.”

Kobolds, I sighed. Always shirking work.

At any rate, whichever of them did it, they made a good job of it. The chest in the middle of the loot room was sealed with three locks, and it was as clean and sparkling as a pair of kobolds could make it. It looked fit for the finest loot. Gems, maybe. A precious emerald. A nice little reward for the heroes.

I put a bear trap inside it.

First, I had Tomlin pack two feet of mud onto the base so that the trap was closer to the top of the chest, and then he and Wylie worked together to set it. Neither kobold had the strength to open it by themselves.

Now the trap was set. It was close enough to the chest lid so that as soon as a hero stuck their hand in it, they’d get a toothy metal surprise.

After doing this, I practiced my dungeon cackle. This was something every core must develop. I hadn’t felt like I had earned one until now. Unfortunately, my stupid gem core made the cackle sound like a mouse gloating when it found some cheese.

Moving onto the other areas of my dungeon, it was time to think about what to do in the