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

him. Sage advice that would get him through this, words that would help him conquer his anxiety. “Don’t be scared, Gary,” Wylie had said. It was genius in its simplicity.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Gary, and this is a song I call ‘To Walk in Soft Skin.’”

And then, with a shaky leech leg, he strummed the harp and began the melody.

“Oh, ask me a question, about being a monster,” he began.

 He sang with everything he had. He played like never before. He tried to forget their watchful faces and he focused on the music. He missed a note, then recovered. A lyric jumbled in his mind, but he improvised.

On and on he went. Twelve verses, the crescendo building, every agonized lyric sung as well as he could.

And then he sang his last word and strummed the harp for a final time.

He waited.

The last note seemed to hang in the air.

Gary felt exhilarated and sick. Had they liked it? Is this what his friends had wanted when they asked him to write about being a person, and not a monster?

George was the first to laugh.

Then Fred and James, who always did everything together. Even laughing.

Clarabeth added a laugh of her own. A horrible, throaty laugh. Soon the whole tavern was guffawing at him. One man chuckled so hard he swept his beer glass off the table. It smashed and sprayed ale everywhere. The innkeeper, usually obsessive about keeping the place clean, was laughing too hard to notice.

A whole tavern of townsfolk laughing at him. Big, horrible belly laughs that built into a cacophony. Faces mutilated by mirth. Hands slapping tables. People taking big, wheezy breaths.

Gary’s cheeks burned so hotly he felt like he’d melt. He blinked. All eight eyes. Felt a tear fall from one.

It had all been a horrible trick. They weren’t his friends. They just wanted to laugh at the stupid monster trying to fit in.

His tears soon dried.

The heat in his cheeks turned to anger. A furious, boiling feeling that seeped through him, way down into the pit of his belly.

In the dungeon, he’d murder a man who laughed at him. He’d tear them apart. Rip their flesh from their bones. Did these people know what he was? Who they were laughing at?

He should kill them all!

But Gary swallowed his anger just enough to clear his mind a little, and he knew that in the dungeon, violence was called a battle. In the tavern, it would be called murder.

He threw his harp against the wall. It smashed. Pieces rained down on the seamstress’s hair. Scattered her pins.

People parted as he stomped through the tavern. He reached toward the innkeeper, who shrank back. He raised his glass of murky water as if throwing it on Gary would hurt him.

“I’m not going to touch you, idiot,” said Gary.

He grabbed a full barrel of ale and wrenched it free from its fixings. Ignoring the innkeeper’s protest, he left the tavern with the barrel.

He stepped out into the night. It was humid. Orange lamps glowed atop poles. The street was mostly quiet. A couple of gnomes, arms interlocked, were looking at the window display of the tailor’s shop. A watchman was trying to fix a flickering mana lamp.

Gary popped the cork of the barrel and began to drink. He stomped through the streets.

“Hey,” called a voice.

It was the old bard, straw hat and callouses and all. No lute, though. He must have left it in the bar.

“What do you want?” said Gary.

“It ain’t your job to control their reactions.”

“Sorry?”

“Your job is to play. Some folks will like it, some won’t. That’s why us bards travel around so much. Get a bad reception? There’s always another town. Screw ‘em.”

“It isn’t that,” said Gary.

In the dungeon, he’d been stabbed. Shot by an arcane bolt. All kinds of wounds and scars. But when he thought of Fred, James, George, Clarabeth…how they’d pretended to be his friend…

He started to shake with anger. “I should go.”

The old bard approached. He smelled of tobacco. He placed a hand on Gary’s shoulder. That was the most shocking thing. Most humans, gnomes, goblins, they couldn’t even bring themselves to be within a foot of Gary. Used to walk wide arcs around him on Jahn’s Row. That was what made it so special to have four new friends.

But he didn’t sense any trickery from the old bard. Only a world-weary kindness.

“You can’t force people to like what you sing about,” said the bard. “But you can make yourself like it. You do that by being true to what you believe, and to hell with anyone else. Tell me something. Is singing about being human and what it’d be like if you were different really what sets your heart going?”

The song had been their idea.

Gary’s throat felt so tight he couldn’t get his words out.

The bard carried on. “Don’t sing words you think they want to hear. Sing ones that sound true in your own head. You play well, friend. You’ve got a good voice. Wouldn’t think it, lookin’ at yer, that a brute like you sings so well. You just need to find yourself in your work. Listen, there’s a bard college out west. Get out of the desert, hit the glens, and you can’t miss it. Only bard college that accepts older folks, the ones who missed their boat and found it too late. If you’re serious about playing, you should enroll.”

The compliments missed their mark. Gary was too furious and sad for that. But he knew the bard hadn’t said them to be nice. He’d said them because it was right. He realized this old guy had principles, not like those four treacherous flesh sacks.

When Gary looked up to thank him, the bard was gone.

Soon, he found himself