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

“So? Elswhyte is the deadliest poison in the world, and that’s made of herbs.”

“Koxain is the deadliest poison, actually. And then dreamspray. Not as well-traveled as you like to think, are you?”

“Settle down,” I said. “I’ll have no squabbling in the dungeon.”

“This isn’t our dungeon,” said Shadow, standing next to Eric.

“No. I suppose not. Cynthia, the brew you made put this one to sleep. When it woke, it hovered a little, and then just died.”

“Interesting. Very interesting. Maginhart, fetch my scalpel, my saw, my clamps, and some nose snuff. This thing’s innards won’t smell like roses, I can tell you that much.”

“What in Xynnar are you doing?” said Gulliver.

Cynthia looked at him as if it was the stupidest question she’d ever been asked. “I’m going to dissect it. Learn about it.”

“Could your brew have done this?” I said.

“Impossible. You’d have to feed it a barrel full for the brew to be toxic.”

“And yet, it died.”

“Only so many ways a thing can die,” said Eric. “Trust me. I’ve seen ‘em all. There’s stabbing. Bludgeoning. Poison. Burning. Falling from a great height, not that it would affect our insect friend here. Then there’s suffocation, freezing to death…I could go on.”

“Tomlin asks you don’t,” said Tomlin.

Warrane, who had long ago stripped off his combat leathers and was wearing just a sweat-stained shirt, looked thoughtful.

“This one observes that it does not appear to be injured. Not a single wound. See?”

“I agree,” I said. “And anyway, we were watching it. We know that nothing attacked it. Even if something had, the insect wouldn’t have died. It would have made a copy of itself. So there is a way these things can be killed.”

“Give me an hour,” said Cynthia. “Let me see what I can find.”

With Maginhart as a willing helper, Cynthia cut the insect open. She removed organs. Placed them in a pile. Tomlin couldn’t watch, but Eric just looked on, bored, as if he’d seen disembowelment hundreds of times. Gulliver scribbled furiously in his book.

Soon, Cynthia and Maginhart were covered head to toe in blood, and the insect was just a husk.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m not an expert in these things, but if there was an obvious internal sign of the cause of death, I’d have seen it.”

“So there was no damage internally or externally,” I said, floating in a circle. Trying to get my mind working better. The problem was that the tunnel was so cramped and crowded that there wasn’t much floating room. “It’s as though the thing just chose to die.”

“Or someone commanded it to,” said Gulliver. “We suspect Riston is involved with the insects, and we know what he can do to people’s minds. It’s not beyond possibility that he can control these things. Maybe he can even see through their eyes.”

“What are you saying?”

“That he knew we were going to use the insect somehow, and he commanded it to die. He controlled its mind. Willed its vital functions to just…stop.”

“Sounds like poncy scribe talk to me,” said Eric. “Things don’t just die on command.”

Gulliver frowned. “Things don’t die on command? You’ve obviously never served in a lord’s army. You might try reading a book, barbarian. You’d learn a lot!”

“I’ve read more books than you’ve had haircuts, you ponce!”

“You’re one to talk about hair! I admit that yours is luscious. But still!”

“If you two don’t quit it,” I said, “I’ll have to make a time-out corner. Since this is a tunnel and has no corners, it means Wylie will have to do some digging. Then you’ll have me and my tired kobold both annoyed with you. Now shut it!”

I floated around some more. I completed three tiny circles. Shadow’s hounds watched me, thinking it was a game. One tried to snatch me out of the air.

“Sit!” commanded Shadow.

“Gulliver might be right,” I said. “This whole thing smells like Riston.”

“Fine,” said Eric. “But it still leaves us with a dead insect.”

“And we also supplied them with hero corpses to turn into ultra-wraiths. On top of that, Morphant was hurt in the fight, and he won’t be able to mimic anything for a while. Without him pretending to be Pvat, I don’t have any control over the heroes’ guild. I lost a valuable resource by doing this.”

Wylie stood up. “Hate heroes! Hate insects! Hate Riston!” he shouted.

He swung his leg and kicked the head off Tomlin’s clay statue.

“Hey!” said Tomlin. “Good kick, Wylie!”

“We just need a way to find their nest,” I said. “Then we’ll know more. If your theory about Riston is right, then he killed the insect when it looked like it was going to get captured. He’d only do that if there was something he didn’t want us to see.”

“We could always try capturing another?” said Gulliver.

“It was hard enough getting this one, never mind another.”

“Then how do we find the nest? Ask one of us to lead us there? Open up a magic nest portal and just go through it?”

Wait a second.

I looked at the dead insect.

Then I pictured a face in my mind. The face of a man who could do just that; open portals. I’d asked him to open one for me before, after all. All he needed was a drop of the target’s blood. We had plenty of insect blood to spare.

“Eric,” I said. “I need you to go to Hogsfeate. Take some insect organs with you, and go and see Mage Hardere. I’ll give you the last of my dungeon gold; it ought to be enough.”

“You want me to walk into town with a handful of dead organs?”

“Put them in your bag, obviously.”

“But they’ll get blood over everything!”

“Then wrap them in a cloth or one of