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

Gulliver’s birthday soon, and I have to get him something. What would your orb do if it worked?”

“The light that wassshesss out from thisss orb will cancel any mana in itsss proximity.”

“Ah. So it would nullify any spells cast against us?”

“Yesss.”

“Impressive. Very impressive.”

Maginhart grinned. It was a proud grin. One that he’d earned. He didn’t know this, but I had asked Cynthia to send me regular updates about his progress and his attitude. She usually told me his work ethic couldn’t be better. He was a little slow on the alchemy side of things, but he’d improved his artificery. And as a tinker, he was showing signs of being gifted. Course, he’d be embarrassed if he knew I was checking up on him. So I never told him.

“So you say this is a failed prototype,” I said. “How close are you to making a functioning one?”

“Clossse, Dark Lord. I am working hard. But I thought you may like proof of my ssstudiesss. To sssee the fruit.”

“Why would I need proof?”

He held his claws out, palms up. “Oh, I don’t know. In cassse you ever thought to asssk Cynthia about my progresss,” he said, and winked.

“Maginhart, you scamp. You’re more insightful than you look. Too much for your own good.”

“Part of artificery isss opening onessss eyesss to what isssnt there, Dark Lord.”

“Thank you for this, Maginhart. This is a great gift. I’m happy to see how far you’ve come.”

“Thank you for the opportunity.”

Eight successive knocks sounded on the core chamber door. There was a second of pause, then the knocking resumed. There was a definite sense of panic to the knocks. Usually, when people urgently wanted to see me, I liked to make them wait. No reason, really. Call it a core’s inner sense of fun.

 Using my core vision, I saw Tomlin on the other side of the door, his eyes wide.

“Calm down, Tomlin! You’ll break the bloody door!”

I willed the door to open. Tomlin scampered in, breathing heavily. He gave Maginhart a flicker of a smile. It was clear to see the difference in composure between the two kobolds. Tomlin looked like he’d just been hit with a pan. Swaying movements, a complete lack of calm. Maginhart had learned the art of self-control. Cynthia had drilled it into him, and it made sense; tinkers worked with explosives. Alchemists worked with corrosive chemicals. You needed to be calm.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Tomlin tried to catch his breath. “I was in…town,” he said, gulping air. “Getting…supplies. There is a crowd, Dark Lord.”

“So?”

“I heard…them…talking. Something about Gary.”

Jahn’s Row was the main mercantile street in Yondersun, lined side-to-side and back-to-back with shops and services. Armorers, bakers, tailors, botanists. It made for a strange mix of smells. Nut oil, leather, warm bread, herbs, flowers. The merchants usually stood outside their shops and catcalled the passersby, competing for attention. Tempting them to come to look at their wares. Some of them made puns about their products, some of them offered low prices, others just tried shouting the loudest. Those were the ones who usually won.

Today, Jahn’s Row was the busiest I’d ever seen it. It wasn’t even a sale day, as far as I knew. The crowd filling the street wasn’t a bunch of folks looking to spend money. Normally they’d be in pairs spread evenly over the Row, peering through shop windows. Maybe a group of three or four guys would stumble into or out of the tavern. Today, they were all together. Must have been thirty gnomes, orcs, goblins, and a few humans. They were at the far end of Jahn’s Row, outside George’s bakery.

Before anyone noticed me, I took a second to size everything up. Amplified my core senses all the way and let the sounds and smells float in.

Surface level sounds at first. An excited babble of gossip coming from the crowd. Then I went deeper. Heard sharp intakes of air. Picked up on the undercurrent of fear spreading through the people like a sickness.

I smelled sweat. Grubby skin. Oily hair. The pong of people who’d left their homes without even washing. Something had brought them all out early morning so they could stand here, scared and curious. And it was something involving Gary.

I used my core voice now.

“Gary?”

He didn’t answer.

Ever since leveling up my core voice, I could talk to my core creatures wherever they were. Gary wasn’t answering, and that couldn’t be good.

Getting closer, I saw four soldiers standing guard outside the bakery. It was way too hot a day to be wearing combat leathers, but that was a guard’s life for you, I guessed. At least they had an excuse for dressing so stupidly. Gulliver didn’t have a job that required him to wear stuff completely inappropriate for the wasteland, but he still did. Frilly shirts, heavy necklaces. It’s a wonder he didn’t sweat himself to death.

The guards blocked the doorway so I couldn’t see anything in the shop. Someone had drawn the curtain in the windows so we couldn’t see through them. Or maybe they’d been drawn the night before and not opened since then. Hmm. Something wasn’t right, and I didn’t think it hadn’t anything to do with the baker’s jam rolls.

When the crowd saw me, some of them hushed. Others whispered to each other. Ah, let ‘em whisper. I was used to it. Being a floating lump of evil gemstone, I was different from them, and being different gives people something to talk about. Today, there was something strange about their whispering. A kind of tension.

The soldier stood a little straighter when I floated in front of them.

“This is guard business. Float back, core.”

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Yeah,” shouted a man in the crowd. “We deserve to know!”

The man stepped forward.

The guard blocked him, his hand straying toward