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

This is why they call essence the aloof sister of mana. It would be fascinating to discuss what a core is really made from, and how essence fuels our abilities. I could talk about it for hours and hours, but this isn’t the time.

“Ten paces would risk alerting them,” said Shadow. “Twenty would make it a certainty.”

“Then let’s take eight. No point messing around with lady chance, she’s just as likely to kick you up the arse than a kiss on the cheek.”

Shadows crept forward some more. Eight paces weren’t a lot, but I could see the seekers in a little better detail. If I had created the tunnel ahead myself, or if I had modified it, I would have been able to cast my core vision forth and see them clearly.

As it was, my regular vision was still better in darkness than most people’s would have been. See, cores are creatures of the night. We have dark souls, and we love miserable poetry and gruesome watercolor paintings of vampires and things like that.

And we can see in the dark.

Ahead, I saw eight figures standing where the tunnel had widened, with four tunnel openings around them.

There were three men and one woman dressed in leather tunics and jerkins, the kind you would see people wear in any town or city in Xynnar. They carried iron swords of no particular quality or description, weapons that said little about their owners.

Or did they?

Common armor and basic swords suggested that these people weren’t worth wasting better gear on. Either that or they hadn’t fought enough to loot better gear from their enemies. Whatever the answer, it spoke of inexperience or incompetence.

The other four members of the party worried me. They were better armored, better tooled. I saw metal cuirasses with intricate carvings on the front. Well-made leather that looked tough enough to take an arcane blast.

And none of these four were human.

Does that strike you as odd? That the poorly equipped four were human, yet the more suitably dressed ones were not?

There was something even stranger.

The four well-equipped Seekers were goblins. And that made me very, very nervous.

See, you can say what you like about heroes, even the toughest ones, but I’d rather face fifty heroes than four well-equipped, suitably motivated goblins.

They’re clever. They’re mean as hell. If you accidentally tripped up a goblin, he’d cut off the hand you put out to help him up.

Goblins are shrewd and have a way of seeing the world in a way that others don’t. It’s hard to explain, but they don’t think like a normal person. Goblins make very good lawyers, for example. They just have a way of seeing the world that goes against the grain of most civilized people.

That’s not to say they aren’t civilized; there is a goblin city out east that is welcoming to travelers, which Harry Belza listed in his book, 100 Places to Visit in Xynnar Before You Die. He was especially complimentary of the goblin theatre scene, which he described as being ‘eons ahead of its time.’

So they aren’t all bad. But once a goblin sets his sight on something, he will fight all the demons in all the underworlds to get it. If he is wronged, he would have a fistfight with the sun if that was what it took to settle things.

Give me a human barbarian and a few gnome mages any day. Just not goblins.

After my initial shock wore off, I sized up my new opponents.

A goblin bard was holding a tambourine under one arm and a hammer in his hand, and a torch fixed to a pole strapped to his back. A warrior with a spear and shield, with the shield strapped around his wrist so he could hold a goo torch. Then there was a metal armored, obese goblin with a warhammer big enough to tear through a mountain, and a ranger goblin of some kind who had squirrels running up and down his shoulders and arms.

Back in the academy, I had been told to prepare for all manner of strange combinations of heroes. Some of the people who got together to form hero parties…you wouldn’t believe it. Dwarf paladins hanging around with troll clerics. Monk orcs forming friendships with kobold warlocks. Dungeons bring the community together. It’s like we’re performing a public service.

With that said, even I was stumped with what I saw before me, but I needed to work out how to beat them.

The obese warhammer-carrying goblin addressed the humans. The light from his torch lit over his armor, making him look impressive. It was covered in carvings of different goblin faces, each more fearsome than the last. I couldn’t help but look at this goblin in awe; he and his friends were a good two feet taller than most of their kind.

He pointed at tunnels ahead of him.

“What are you waiting for?” he said, his voice booming through the tunnels. It was a wonder I hadn’t heard it until now. Maybe they had given up any pretense of stealth after seeing Warren escape.

The humans looked at the tunnels and then each other. They didn’t look ready to move.

The goblin smashed his mighty warhammer against his palm. “I told you before this expedition that I had a sore throat, and that you mustn’t make me repeat myself.”

The humans seemed to share a look of understanding with each other. They walked toward the tunnels the goblin had pointed out, each person entering a different one.

Soon, there was a metallic snapping sound and a shriek of pain.

The obese goblin looked at his bard, ranger, and warrior friends. “Three tunnels clear, one trapped. Which way?”

A squirrel climbed up to the ranger goblin’s head and sat on his scalp while tugging his ears. The goblin didn’t seem to mind. “We go through the