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

who had already leveled his mining skill to six thanks to Tomlin’s tutelage, made quick work of the tunnel. I was more than happy with his labors.

Now, I placed a riddle door next to the door that was already in front of the tunnel. The riddle door looked just like my others, except with a face on it, set in metal. It was a bloated, ponderous face. It looked like a lion that had been too successful in hunting over the years and had let himself go.

This sapped my essence to just 10 points, so I passed a little time in my core room and mentored Tomlin, while Wylie listened and tried to understand, bless him.

When I felt full of essence once again, I made another riddle door and I placed it next to the other after removing the standard door.

Okay. Now I had two riddle doors guarding the tunnel that led to my loot room. So, what’s so special about a riddle door? Why was I feeling so satisfied about my work? After all, if rogues can lockpick other doors, and mages can cast lockpick spells, why can’t they do the same for a riddle door?

It’s all in the construction.

Standard, lockable doors are made from wood. Riddle doors have essence woven deep into them, right into the grains. Not just any essence, either. Essence that has been treated so that it hardens and becomes extremely tough.

Yes, a riddle door is hard as hell to force or trick your way through. Sure, there were parties of heroes out there who would breeze through them. But for the level of heroes that my dungeon would attract, these doors would pose a decent challenge.

Just one problem; I had to set the riddle.

I faced my two riddle doors now. One had a bloated lion face, and the other had the face of a skinny monkey.

“Hello, riddle doors.”

“Tell us a riddle, make us giggle.”

“Give us a rhyme, do it in time.”

“Ah, I forgot about the rather annoying way of speaking that you have. You know, you probably make heroes want to bash your heads in.”

“They’ll never get by, unless they solve our lie.”

“Give us a conundrum, so that we may…we may…”

“Aha!” I said. “You can’t think of a rhyme for conundrum, can you? That proves it, you ridiculous doors. Your rhyming way of talking is just an act. I already told my kobolds not to conform to dungeon stereotypes, and I expect you to do the same. Okay?”

The skinny monkey door sighed. “Fine. Can we please have a riddle so that we can sleep?”

That was the thing with riddle doors. They only craved two things: riddles and sleep. Once they had a riddle given to them, they would sleep until heroes came.

“Okay. Let me think,” I said.

I needed to get this right. Overseer Bolton had taught a module on riddles, but it was only three classes. He covered classic riddles, constructing your own riddles, and do’s and don’ts. A big don’t was making an unsolvable riddle, or a nonsensical one. I had to play fair.

Gah, why can’t you think of a riddle when you really need one? I didn’t want to waste any more time making my own, so I went with a couple of dungeon core classics.

“Monkey,” I said. “This is your riddle; The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?”

“Easy. Footsteps.”

“Well yes. By being a riddle door, it’s in your nature to know the answer to riddles. Don’t show off. Lion, your riddle is thus: you carry it everywhere you go, and it does not get heavy. What is it?”

“Mud!” shouted Wylie.

“Your name,” said Tomlin.

“Ah, very good, Tomlin. Doors, your riddles are set. Neither of you can open until both riddles are solved, okay? Unless it’s my kobold friends trying to pass through, of course.”

“Yes. Now we sleep.”

With that, not only were my riddle doors sleeping, but I was done with puzzles.

CHAPTER 20

Bill waited until midnight. He got out of bed, checked that Lisle, his mother, and Vedetta were sleeping, and he left the house.

It was a cold, dark evening. Bats flew overhead, and the breeze sneaked down his collar and chilled him. It wasn’t the kind of evening to be prowling around, but he was worried.

Vedetta had been acting strange lately. She’d changed over the last few years, become more…mature, he guessed he’d call it. Then again, losing their father had affected them all differently. His mother, she…well, he hated to think about what this had done to her.

Bill knew that his sister thought he was lazy and that he didn’t care, but it wasn’t true. He’d just been trying to deal with things in his own way, and he was struggling. Above it all, he was still her big brother, and he was worried about her.

Vedetta had been sneaking off somewhere and doing something in secret, and Bill was anxious that she was putting herself in danger. It was his job as her big brother to protect her, and he’d made miserable work of it. It was time to pull himself together and start looking out for her.

He’d watched her sneaking off somewhere for a few days now, and now he walked away from town and over the muddy fields, to the place where she’d been digging.

Here, he found a hole. Actually, a hole with a ladder going down into the ground. Hmm. She really had been busy.

Holding his mana lamp in one hand, he carefully climbed down the ladder until he was completely underground. There, he found a tunnel, and yet another hole with a ladder.

Then another. And another.

Soon, he didn’t even know how far underground he was, and it started to feel a little creepy. Before long he reached the end of his sister’s strange