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

is sort of a double negative, given that wraiths are already undead. The fact is, if you turn a corpse into a wraith you create a sort of…well…”

“Go on…”

“A kind of ultra-wraith.”

The insect that had drained blood from Shadow’s vial had unwittingly consumed a sleeping draught. Right now, it was asleep on the wasteland ground. Completely alone, with its nestmates gone.

This had worked out the way I wanted it. Heroes were dead, and we had an insect we could follow back to the nest. Unlike the others, this one would be slowed by the draught. Once it started flying, we could follow it all the way home.

In theory, this had worked out.

So why did I feel like I’d really messed up?

I guessed it was because Morphant was injured, and we’d just supplied the insects with a bunch of hero corpses to turn into ultra-wraiths.

Yes, that was it.

Still, at least we had the…

“Beno,” she Shadow.

She was pointing.

Pointing at the insect over by the cart, who was just waking up.

“Right, let’s get moving. Cynthia said that if the draught worked, then when the insect woke, it would be sluggish. Slow enough for us to follow it home. I meant no offense by saying sluggish, Morphant. All we need to do is…”

I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence.

The insect had begun to hover in the air. It got five feet, ten.

And then, it crashed to the ground, slamming into the dirt.

After that, it was limp. Not sleeping. Not under the influence of a draught. But clearly dead.

CHAPTER 16

“This thing is heavier than an ice troll’s balls!” said Eric. “Not that I’ve done anything with an ice troll that comes close to fondling.”

His muscles were strained. The veins were sticking out. He had blood in his glorious hair. That was the real crime here.

“I thought you were a barbarian?” said Shadow. “Physical work is supposed to be your thing.”

“I’m not just a block of flesh, Little Wolf. There’s more to me than that. Here goes!”

With one heave, Eric threw the insect carcass into the hole.

There was a thud. Then a scream. Then the sound of kobolds yammering excitedly. Dogs growling. Gulliver shouting “We’re under attack!”

“I know I told you to drag that thing back to the hole,” I said. “But you might have checked nobody was standing beneath it.”

Eric shrugged. “Job’s done, ain’t it?”

“Not quite. We needed that thing alive so it could guide us back to its nest. This is a poor last resort.”

“Then why’d you make me drag it across the wasteland? By the axe, I’d chop your head off if you had one, core.”

“We were supposed to have a live insect, and instead we have a carcass. But it’s still an opportunity to learn more. We don’t know how to kill these things, and yet it’s dead. So what happened?”

“The brew the alchemist made. Never trust an alchemist, I always say.”

“It wasn’t supposed to kill them, and Cynthia isn’t known for mistakes. Let’s talk to her.”

When we got back into the tunnel we found Cynthia testing Maginhart on some kind of artificery equations. Tomlin had made a crude figure of a man out of clay he’d dug from the tunnel walls, and he was punching it. He’d scratched a name into the figure: Riston.

Nearby, Brecht was teaching Jopvitz how to play tambourine. I’d always thought an instrument like that only needed a hand and the adequate coordination to slap it on the drum. But the two kobolds seemed locked in discussion about it.

“Come on, Anvil,” said Brecht. “Follow my rhythm. Tap, tap, slap.”

“Grr! Music is tough!” said Jopvitz.

“It is,” agreed Brecht, and then muttered under his breath, “When you have the musical talent of a broom.”

Wylie, lacking his preferred medium of heroes’ blood, was using a stick to scratch a drawing into the walls. It was a drawing of Gary, and it was much more detailed than I’d expected.

I realized something then. Something hard to take for a dungeon core. When we were in the dungeon, the guys would spend their time training in the arena, or listening to me drill them on hero-killing tactics. I thought that was what they enjoyed.

But we’d been out of the dungeon for a while now, and not one of them had even mentioned heroes, training, or combat.

They’d been doing it all for me. Or not for me exactly, but under my orders. Take them away from the dungeon, and other interests, other instincts, surfaced.

It made me wonder what kind of place the dungeon needed to be when we got it back. It was hard to think about, but maybe I needed to make some adjustments.

Not everyone was enjoying their time away from the dungeon. Death and Kill were away from everyone, lying on the ground with their little feelers interlocked. Shadow’s pups were sleeping in a ring around them as if protecting them. Or were they trying to comfort them? Either way, I hoped it helped Death and Kill a little.

Poor things. Fire beetles lived in groups of three, everyone knew that. Fight had been taken away, leaving Death and Kill as a sad double act. If I had any essence, I’d have created a new fire beetle to complete their trio. He wouldn’t have replaced good old Fight, but it would have been something. Without essence, I couldn’t even do that.

“I know some of us are getting hungry,” said Gulliver, pointing at the dead insect. His eyes were puffy as if he’d recently had a nap. “But that wasn’t what we had in mind.”

Everyone moved away from the carcass. Only Cynthia approached it, pulling her goggles down over her face. “Interesting…”

Eric pointed. “It was your bloody poison that did this, woman! By the axe, it ruined everything!”