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

The miners struggled to their feet and left the chamber. Those remaining gathered in the center. Eric sat on the massive loot chest. Then he sprang up like his arse was on fire.

“That’s not a mimic, is it?” he said, nodding at the chest. “It won’t eat me?”

“It’s just a regular old chest filled with shiny tat. Chest mimics are old school,” I said.

Eric sat back down. Gulliver finished his apple skin. Warrane looked a little uncomfortable. It had been a while since he’d been in the dungeon.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s get to it. First, we learned something about Riston today. We can say for sure he’s using his powers to influence everyone in town. Being cores, it doesn’t affect Jahn and me.”

“This one still doesn’t believe he was affected by it,” said Warrane.

“Did you explain this to him?” I said, looking at Cynthia.

Still wearing her tinker goggles, even in a gloomy dungeon, she nodded. “I gave him the brew and explained it all. The thing about mind powers is that the really good ones don’t even leave a mark on your brain when they leave. You’d never even know someone had toyed with you.”

I noticed then that Shadow was deep in thought. I knew what she must be wondering.

Lately, she’d been having nightmares about the time Anna controlled her mind. About what Anna made her do. Anna’s mind powers had definitely left their mark. According to Cynthia, that would mean Anna wasn’t actually very good at manipulation, if she couldn’t hide leaving a trace in Shadow’s mind. And yet, she’d still been able to get Shadow to murder a fellow dungeon mate, breaking the sacred rule of dungeons.

If Anna, a young psyche-mage, could do that, then what about Riston?

Riston wasn’t just a guy who dabbled in psyche-magery. That was obvious. He’d worked at it and he’d reached a level that must have been close to mastery. I hated the guy, but if he’d mastered the psyche-tier of mage spells, I needed to respect him. I’d be stupid not to.

I pushed the thought to one side. I needed to think about how to stop him, not dwell on things.

“Warrane,” I said. “I promise you, you were under Riston’s spell.”

“Then how was this one freed from it, but the others in town are not?”

“A while ago, we had some trouble with a girl named Anna, who has the ability to control people and monsters. After I’d dealt with her…”

“Killed her?” asked Warrane.

“Unfortunately not. After we’d removed her control from Shadow’s mind, I had to make sure it never happened again. I couldn’t risk my dungeon creatures ever falling under someone else’s control. So, I asked Cynthia if there was any kind of alchemic brew that would stop mind control. We have her to thank for the fact Warrane could help us. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be in a cell right now, and guards would be gassing this place out.”

Cynthia put her hand on Maginhart’s shoulders, who was slowly retreating toward the wall. She pushed him forward.

“Actually, you’ve got my star student to thank. Maginhart came up with the brew. And like every lunatic alchemist down the years, he tested it on himself until he got it right.”

“Maginhart?” I said. “You never told me that. You let me think Cynthia made it.”

“Well…” said Maginhart, clearly uncomfortable getting the limelight.

Wylie, who had stayed behind after dismissing his mining team, sprinted over to him and clapped his back so hard that Maginhart stumbled. Their physical difference was clear to see; Maginhart came from a mining background like Wylie, but his muscles had gone to waste as he pursued a more academic career.

“I am proud of Maginhart!” Wylie declared.

“We all are,” I agreed. “He saved the dungeon today. And we must thank Cynthia, too, for agreeing to take him on as an apprentice.”

Maginhart’s face had reddened to the color of a slapped arse.

Cynthia shrugged. She huffed on her goggle lenses, wiped them with her shirt, and put them back on.

I continued. “As I said, all of this was a while ago, after the incident with Anna. But the brew wasn’t ready, so none of us have been taking it. When I started to suspect what Riston was doing, I went to see Cynthia. I asked her and Maginhart to drink the brew to protect them from his mind spells. She gave some to Warrane, too.”

“Why not just dilute the town well with it?” said Gulliver.

“Ever tried finding trerine, scribe?” said Cynthia.

“No. I’m a scribe. Why would I?”

“Fair point. The main ingredient of the brew is a liquid called trerine. Comes from the armpit glands of the gorillogoran, who use it as protection from their main enemies, a parasitic worm. They spray it out of their armpits and it’s a whole thing…never mind. It’s harder to find out here than a priest in a brothel. Wait…I got that the wrong way round. Harder to find than a pimp in a church is what I meant. I only had enough to make nine or ten batches.”

“I asked her to give some to Warrane, since he’s a friend and he’s a member of the guards,” I said.

“So we can’t just get more?”

Cynthia shook her head. “I only have a few batches with me, and getting more is a pain in the arse. I have a guy who hunts gorillogoran, but he lives weeks away from here. A trader passed through Yondersun a week ago. Said he was heading in that direction. I gave him a message, but it will be months before I hear back.”

“We weren’t expecting a mind control epidemic in the meantime,” I said. “So we better focus on what we can do. Riston said the girl was talking in her sleep. Something about the 50 Knights coming back.