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

your stinking shirts, or something. It’s not like you ever wear them. Demons’ arses, is this really so complicated?”

CHAPTER 17

It should have taken Eric just over two days to get to Hogsfeate and back. It ended up taking four. That was how I knew that Eric, being a barbarian, had given in to his instincts and had stopped off in the Lame Mule, a tavern in Hogsfeate. Being a barbarian, one drink turned to two, three, sixteen, until he found himself sleeping in a sty next to a giant boar named Marcus.

In the meantime, we got along as best as we could. Warrane took guard duty at the far end of the tunnel to make sure we knew the second Riston ever discovered the false wall in the dungeon that led here.

Brecht tried composing new music with his tambourine, but as good as his beats were, they sounded strange without Gary’s lute. The hounds did their best to cheer up Death and Kill. They licked them. Tried play wrestling. Wagged their tails incessantly. It worked somewhat, but the beetles’ feelers remained drooped. In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Fight, Kill, come and have a talk with me, please.”

I took the bugs away from everyone to somewhere private. Since we were in a tunnel, this meant that we simply walked away from the group a little. But it was the best I could do.

“Listen, you two,” I said. I was unsure of what to say. I needed to show empathy. Be nice. Not my strongest points. I guessed that honesty was the best way. “I know I let you down. I should have thought about this better. Stayed ahead of Riston. Anticipated what he’d do.”

“Death,” said Death, softly.

“Kill,” answered Kill.

“Don’t try and say it isn’t my fault. It is. I spent all that time trying to win over the traders. Focusing all my energies on the dungeon, and trying to fit in with the townsfolk so I could win their votes. I neglected the dungeon. I closed my mind to everything that was happening. Riston must have been working his mind control for a while, and I missed it. Perhaps if I’d had my priories straight, Fight would…”

Death’s antenna raised a little. He scuttled closer to me. Patted me with it.

It was bloody weird, to tell the truth.

But it was also touching.

“We’ll make this right,” I said. “From now on, I’ll focus only on you guys. My dungeon mates. Forget Yondersun. Forget trying to be chief. You will be my priority. The first thing we’ll do is make Riston pay.”

“Eric!” shouted Tomlin, way behind us in the tunnel.

Death, Kill and I rejoined the others, just in time to see Eric climbing down into the tunnel. He swept his glorious, glorious hair back once, twice, and then stood with his hands on his hips.

“It is I! Eric the barbarian! And I bring you…a little pebble. Here, Beno. Catch.”

He tossed the pebble to me.

It sailed through the air.

Hit me.

And bounced to the floor.

“Thank you, Eric. But this isn’t a pebble; it’s a portal stone. Was Mage Hardere helpful? Did he moan about doing it?”

“He did this weird thing with his hands, Beno. Pretended they were weighing scales, and I had to keep placing gold coins on his palm one by one until the scales were even. When we were done, he turned his palm over and let the coins fall on the floor.”

“Yes, he does that.”

“He’s an annoying old git,” said Eric.

“Still, we have the portal stone.”

“Is this like the one we used for Cael Pickering?” said Gulliver.

A while ago, I’d become enemies with a hero named Cael Pickering. All heroes were my enemies, of course, but Cael had plundered my dungeon several times, and I just couldn’t kill him. So, I had decided to take the fight out of my dungeon and bring it to Cael. Take him by surprise. Mage Hardere had helped me by creating a portal.

“Exactly,” I said. “Eric gave Mage Hardere some of the insect’s blood. Hardere used that to create a portal to its nest.”

“Then we can finally leave this hole?”

“I suppose we can. Although, you do realize that their nest will be underground?”

“A change of scenery is a change of scenery.”

“Eric?” I said. “Can you do the honors?”

Eric looked at the pebble. “Honors?”

I sighed. “Gull, open the portal, please.”

We all stepped through the portal, emerging into a great cavern. The walls were covered in murals that seemed to depict great battles. The whole place gave off an aura of age, as though this place had been here for eternity. I couldn’t help feeling that this wasn’t an insect nest, but something else.

All wasn’t as it appeared.

In the center of the cavern was an old, wooden chest. Unmistakably a loot chest that had long ago been raided. Way over to my right, one wall was covered in black vines.

Tomlin sprinted over to them. “Tomlin thinks these are essence!” he said.

I agreed. But I’d never seen black essence before.

“Jahn?” I said. “What do you think? Black essence?”

Warrane carried Jahn in his hands, showing much more respect than Maginhart when he’d been tasked with the same thing. He and Jahn stood beside me.

“Never heard of it, Beno,” said Jahn. “But then, if it was something we ought to have learned in the academy, then I’m the wrong-”

“Wrong core to ask. Yes.”

I badly needed essence. Without it, I was useless. A core with no skills. Like a barbarian who’d had his muscles sucked out by some kind of…er… muscle-sucking monster. My own essence vines had burned to cinders, and even thinking about that made me want to kill something.

Here was a wall of black essence, and I badly wanted to draw from