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

of my boy, you haven’t read about our own people. You’re talking about leaving a place that has been our home for nearly a thousand years.”

“Sometimes a people have to evolve, Dad. We could swear fealty to a lord and get land legitimately. Fertile land that we could farm and raise cows and sheep on. We would send a dozen of us to cultivation school to learn how to grow crops to maximum efficiency, and they can pass their lessons to the others. We eat what we grow, and we sell the surplus.”

“You’re talking about a whole new way of life for us, and you’re forgetting one thing.”

“The springs.”

“The springs, yes. We have spent decades away from them, and the addiction hasn’t got weaker. But something else.”

“What?” asked Devry. His green cheeks were turning red. Reginal knew it was because he was suppressing an almighty cough. Devry knew that Reginal would end their discussion if it was making him ill, and he wanted to finish it so much that he was trying desperately to hide it. Reginal pretended not to notice.

“What did I forget?” asked Devry.

“Do you remember Grandpa Garron, when he got too old to fight?”

Devry nodded.

“His muscles wasted away. He started to leave his tent less often. Eventually, he transferred back to the main camp, where he never left his bed. People need a purpose in life, or they waste away. Maybe your way of life would be easier, but it could be the death of us.”

“Are you thinking about our people now, Dad, or yourself? You don’t have to worry about what happened to Grandpa Garron happening to you.”

“You’re a clever little bag of horse crap, aren’t you?”

Devry laughed, which was a mistake because he wheezed like a mule with a seed stuck in its throat. Reginal patted his back and gave him more water.

When Devry recovered, he took a sip of water. “Some of the defectors say that the Wrotun are lying.”

“They always lie. They are deceivers at heart, down to the way they fight with their traps.”

“They’re making up history, now. That’s what the defectors say. It’s as though lies were woven into their minds from when they were children. Some of them really believe that the Wrotun has lived near the springs for centuries.”

“A child’s mind is like soil, and you can plant whatever you like if you do it early enough,” said Reginal. “See, when you started showing signs that you wanted to study, I promised your mother I would let you pursue whatever subject you wanted. In fact…”

Reginal stopped talking. Devry had fallen asleep now, leaving the chief to think about the boy’s manifesto, because that’s what it was no matter how much he denied it. The boy could be a leader someday.

Not in times of war where they struggled to win back what the Wrotun took from them. But if Reginal could fight and gain back the springs, then their clan would need a chief prepared for growth, not war.

That meant that there was no question of moving the clan yet. In turn, this meant they were split between fighters and settlers, with many of the clan’s families carved down the middle. All the soldiers were living out here, on the wasteland surface. A desolate place that made them miss their families.

His goblin masons had offered to begin work on crude buildings a mile away from the surface doors, but Chief Reginal had refused. Building homes all the way out here, in this desolate wasteland, would be both stupid and pathetic.

Stupid because nothing grew here, and it was ridiculous to think about constructing a long-term settlement in a place where even the toughest of weeds gave up trying to grow.

Pathetic because building stone or clay houses here would be like settling down. Like admitting defeat.

At least if they lived in canvas tents, he could pretend that this was only a temporary thing. Forget that temporary had meant decades so far. Forget that the rest of the Eternals clan lived thirty miles to the east, where there was soil that they could plant things in.

Sometimes, he thought that he and the whole clan were deluding themselves. They had their tents in the fertile east, and they had a camp here, near the mana springs. The soldiers and their slaves lived here, where they could quickly access the surface doors. The weakest and eldest of the clan lived east, where they grew food and sent it back here so the soldiers could eat.

Then, every so often, they would make plans and form a raid on the doors, each time trying something new.

The furthest they had ever got was to within a half-mile of the mana spring, but they had lost many, many honorable warriors in doing so. A chief of the Eternals clan earned glory by advancing further into the tunnels than the chief before him. He proved how far he had gone by having his soldiers bring back rock from the tunnels. The closer they were to the mana springs, the more mana was encased in the rock.

So far, Reginal had launched the biggest assault, but he hadn’t beaten the last chief’s record.

He needed a new way, and he had it…he thought. But no matter the method, the goal was always the same; claim back the springs from the people who stole them.

Reginal was the latest chief tasked with doing so, and to be honest, he was beginning to think that it was a lost cause. So many lives wasted in raids that bore no fruit.

 “Chief?” said a voice outside the tent. “She’s here.”

Reginal felt a flicker of nerves, but he buried them. He glanced at Devry, who was snoring. Not the pretend snoring he faked to listen to Reginal’s chief meetings, either. That had been a problem, lately. Some of the others