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

Before she could, the lumpy-headed guard pointed. “She’s the one I told you about. Skulking around the bakery. Trying to get in to see the corpses. Probably to perform some kind of ritual. And that big bugger over there is the one who hit me and Ste!”

“You’re sure about this?” said Riston.

“I didn’t see him too clearly. He’s faster than he looks. But he’s with her, and I’d know her wolfish face anywhere.”

Riston looked pale now. “And they’ve brought three children with them. This gets sicker and sicker.”

“Now just wait for a second, well-groomed human. The brats were already here,” said Shadow.

Riston pointed. “Seize her.”

“The wolf?”

“The kobold,” said Riston. “Not wolf. If you’re going to mess around with monsters, have the sense to learn about them.”

“What about the big brute?”

“Surround him. Don’t let him get close, but don’t hurt him. Send a barbarian into battle mode, and they start shouting, and then all hell breaks loose.”

Something moved in the tunnel, but it ran away from me. I didn’t know if it was the girl. I also didn’t know this series of tunnels. For all I knew, they might fork off in dozens of directions. If I rushed after her, I could easily get lost if I took a few turning without thinking.

But if it was the girl, and if I let her go, she’d be lost, too.

I made my decision quickly, floating across the cavern and following her into the darkness. I couldn’t see her, but my amplified hearing fed the sound of her footsteps to me. Plodding ones. Heavy, but panicked. Running without coordination. It was a child, no doubt about it.

Following the sound of her steps as quickly as I could, I made a note of every turning I took.

Left.

Her steps got louder.

Left, right. Straight. Left. Left.

They were louder still.

Right, right, left…

Something crashed into me. It caught me off guard, sent me hurtling into the wall. Stones fell from the roof. There was a low rumbling sound. Rocks shifting, perhaps.

Cave systems like this, they weren’t like my dungeon. The tunnels weren’t reinforced by expert miners.

“Little girl,” I said. “If that was you, you need to come with me now. I know you’re scared. I know that I look strange. But this place is unstable. Hear it? If you don’t come with me right now, it’ll collapse on top of you.”

No answer.

I was going to have to be a little nastier. It was the only way.

“The tunnel will collapse, and you’ll be stuck. You’ll wander around in the darkness. Getting hungrier by the second. Thirstier. Weaker. You’ll be alone. Scared. You’ll hear noises, and you’ll wonder what they are. Even your own mind will start to turn against you, and you’ll walk around and around, getting more terrified, feeling more alone, until you die of thirst. After that, the rats will feast on your flesh.”

Too much?

I felt like I’d gone overboard.

“Or you can come with me right now. Take a chance that I might hurt you, might not. Either way, it won’t be as bad as if you stayed here.”

A shape crawled out from the shadows.

The sight shocked me a little. I felt like I’d been hit with another rock.

“Demons arses…what the hell happened to you?”

One spear was pressed against Shadow’s throat, the other against her back. The guard facing her wore a grin as if he was daring her to move.

Riston walked past her. She couldn’t turn to look because the guy behind her jabbed her spine every time she moved. She heard his boots crunching over the pebbles.

Way behind, Eric was arguing with the guards. Shadow supposed they’d circled him, just like Riston asked. Who was this guy, anyway? Why was he ordering guards around all of a sudden? Had he become chief before the vote had even begun?

She hoped not. Shadow would be the first to say that Core Beno had his faults. There was a time when she and Beno argued like two dogs scrapping over a steak. But there was a good amount of integrity sitting alongside his evil parts. He wasn’t cruel for the sake of it. He didn’t lie. If you were part of his dungeon, he’d do whatever it took to protect you. If he was chief, Yondersun would be like his dungeon. He’d protect everyone. The townsfolk were just too stupid to see it.

But Riston? With his beard that was too tidy to be anything but a spell? With his stupid oiled hair? She just didn’t see the appeal.

“Get off me! I swear to god, you oiled chump, I’ll smash your nose through the back of your head!” shouted Eric.

Shadow turned to look. Felt the spear tip press against her.

“Give me an excuse,” said the guard facing her.

Knowing she couldn’t turn round, she had to listen. As a rogue, that wasn’t hard.

“This doesn’t look good for you, barbarian,” said Riston. “Caught kidnapping three children.”

“He didn’t kidnap us!” said the orc girl.

“Quiet. Someone take the kids away.”

More footsteps crunching over gravel. Shadow saw a guard and three kids walked past her.

“Turning up to Yondersun in the dead of night,” said Riston, “Attempting to murder two guards. Assisting a monster in her corpse ritual. Kidnapping three children. There are places that would see you hang from a noose for that.”

“Ain’t a noose strong enough to snap my neck, lanky. Even my neck muscles have muscles of their own,” said Eric.

“I see you have the barbarian’s confidence. You’re all the same.”

“Know us, do you?”

“Once. An old girlfriend. Named after a weapon, if you can believe it.”

“Axe?” said Eric.

“No, her name was Sword. Enough about the past. Let’s focus on the now. Better still, let’s focus on your