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

will be your new home. Cheer up! Dungeons are lovely places. Soon, you’ll be up to your neck in dead heroes. And not only that. You’re about to get an education, my friend. You’re about to join the greatest dungeon core academy in the land. And the newest. And at least one of those statements is true.”

The core looked at me and Jahn, and the fear came off him in waves.

“No! I won’t go with you. I don’t want to be a core. I can’t be.”

I was about to speak when Jahn interrupted me. “Beno, Gulliver, Bolton, give us a minute alone, will you?”

The three of us left Jahn alone with the core. One minute became five, then ten. Gulliver passed it by scribbling in his notebook, while Bolton was transfixed with some sort of puzzle he’d bought from a street vendor in the town, no doubt satisfying yet another new experience.

Finally, Jahn called us back in. The core seemed much calmer now. I had to hand it to Jahn. He’d done well.

“Beno, Bolton, Gulliver… I’d like you to meet Wrench.”

“Wrench?” I said.

“That is the name my… forger? Is that the right word? It is the name he gave me,” said Wrench.

“Wrench is a utility core,” said Jahn. “Forged not so much to create things, but rather to repair them. He wouldn’t be much good at creating monsters. He and I have a lot in common.”

“That doesn’t matter so much. Repair core, food core, bard core. It doesn’t matter. He’s still eligible to join an academy. What do you say, Wrench? Do you want to become our first student?”

Wrench thought about it for a while before finally answering. “If Master Jahn is there, then yes.”

“Master Jahn?” I said.

Jahn gave the core equivalent of a shrug. “That’s just what he decided to call me, Beno. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Sure you didn’t. Welcome to the academy, Wrench.”

Chapter 11

It was the big day. Later that afternoon, a representative of permit office number 129 was going to trouble from Tavercraig to my dungeon, where they would evaluate my new ’academy’ to make sure we had passed the requirements.

I was excited and nervous, two feelings that often go together but never feel pleasant when mixed. Worries buzzed in my inner core, so I shut off my core feelings. The sensations disappeared instantly.

In my chamber, I was joined by Bolton, Gulliver, Anna, Cynthia the alchemist, and Maginhart. Maginhart was busy scribbling strange symbols in a book. They seemed to represent parts of some kind of potion. Or was it a tinker schematic? Or some kind of artificery, maybe? I supposed it wasn’t my job to know. That was why I had arranged Maginhart to be trained by Cynthia, after all.

“Beno, will you stop floating around? You’re giving me a bloody headache!” said Bolton.

I hadn’t realized I was doing the core equivalent of pacing in the chamber, floating from wall to wall. I stopped. “Sorry. We just won’t get another chance at this. The deadline for registering an academy closes in three days. If this doesn’t go well, we’ll never have time to correct whatever’s wrong and have the permit office send another inspector.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Gulliver. “Things always are.”

“Are they?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. Either way, last-minute nerves are good for no one.”

The core room door opened, and Shadow the rogue kobold sauntered in, flanked by four giant beasts. They had started as puppies and just grown and grown and grown, and now would put most wolves to shame. Excellent defenses for a dungeon, but they cost us a fortune to feed them.

“Shadow? I thought you were taking the wolves to hunt?” I said.

“There’s a problem, Beno.”

“Don’t tell me heroes are raiding the dungeon. I love a diversion as you know, but this isn’t the time.”

“No. Bandits.”

“Excuse me?”

“The carriage booked to take Tomlin to his exam has been waylaid by bandits. They surrounded it, and they’re refusing to let it move unless the driver gives them all the cargo it is carrying… including Tomlin. So far he has refused, but he’s bound to cave eventually.”

“In the meantime, Tomlin is going to miss his bloody exam!”

Footsteps came from outside the core chamber, echoing down the tunnel and getting closer and closer. Soon, Wylie appeared. He was panting, and his face was red.

“Problem, Dark Lord!”

“Not another one.”

“You sent Wylie to fetch new overseer from Hogsfeate, but Wylie cannot find him! Overseer was supposed to meet Wylie at town gates as you said. But he wasn’t there. Wylie checked every tavern, as you told him to, and Overseer Gill was nowhere to be seen.”

I found myself floating from wall to wall again. “So Tomlin is missing his bloody exam, and our overseer has vanished, no doubt on another booze binge.”

More footsteps came towards the core room. There stood Rusty. He was a kobold, but could often be found wearing a skull crown and a cloak of skin, as well as carrying a staff made from a femur bone. It was okay, though, because he was a shaman. They get away with dressing like that.

“Yip yip! Dark magnificence, there is a…”

If I had hands and a face, I would be slapping my cheeks with them and praying to wake up from this nightmare .

“If the next words out of your mouth are 'problem', Rusty, then you will soon get a major problem of your own. One that involves you being sent into a fire ant trap covered in honey.”

Rusty thought about it for a moment. “Complication, Dark Magnificence. The permit officer is here, yip yip.”

So many problems to deal with at once. It might have completely overwhelmed some people, and nobody could blame them. Luckily, I had learned the core technique of separating my mind