Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series)

by Alex Oakchest

  *New* Raven [Cost 18]

  [A black-feathered bird known for its curiosity, confident strut, and the subtle suggestion of menace. Often seen hovering above funerals or outside the window of a death bed.]

  *New* Shrub Bandit [Cost 100]

  [A shrub so inconspicuous that you may not notice it in the background, slowly getting closer and closer, until it is too late. Loves gold and jewels, but only when looted or stolen.]

  *New* Porcu-Pinetree [Cost 195]

  [A tree full of pine needles, that can shoot them out at will. Can move, but in an extremely lumbering way.]

  *New* Clock Work Sentry [Cost 1007, Artificer required]

  [A sentry that can be given a sole task and will before it for eternity with no complaints nor questions. Requires the expertise of an artificer to construct, cannot be performed by core alone.]

  At first glance, not a great range of new monsters. Ravens? Shrubs? Trees? Not impressive. But there was potential there, and it was my job to know how to use it.

  Back in the Dungeon Core Academy, we had learned all about critters and creatures, about their abilities, strengths, weaknesses. Even the simplest- lowest-on-the-rung creature had its uses in the right situation. This meant there was hope for us all, even cart parking wardens and census takers.

  With 909 essence points burning a hole in my core, I had a boss monsters to create, and I needed to use my knowledge to blend the right creatures.

  “Let’s see…”

  “This is exciting,” said Gulliver, his book and quill in hand. “Like watching a nobleman choose a new frock.”

  “Well, my first choice of garment is easy,” I said.

  I gave a mental command and brought the essence inside me brimming to the surface. Wielding this, I created the first component of my new boss monster.

  Creature Created!

  500 essence points used [Total: 409/909]

  With a surge of light, a new creature formed in front of us. Gulliver, apparently still not used to how things worked down here, jumped back a step when it materialized out of nothing.

  Recovering himself, he looked at the new monster and said, “That’s…uh…certainly…not interesting, exactly, but it’s something.”

  Yes, it would be hard to describe my new monster as interesting. Right now, it was just a hand-sized mound of goo, rather like builder’s putty. Grey in color, lacking any sort of features or scent. Hard to believe that this thing costs 500 essence points.

  “Say hello to my new mimic,” I said.

  “That’s a mimic? I thought they presented as treasure chests?”

  “You’ve been reading too many books.”

  “Writing too many, too, some would say.”

  “The whole mimic as a chest thing was started by dungeon cores, actually. Classically, dungeon cores utilized mimics by telling them to disguise themselves as treasure chests. Heroes generally come into our lairs for loot, and what better than to have them approach a chest, rubbing their greedy little mitts together, only to have their face bitten off when they realize it’s a dupe?”

  “Why not do that, then?”

  “Because it's cliché, and I hate clichés. They make my blood boil and they grind my gears. What’s more, heroes are wise to the mimic trick now. They usually use anti-illusion powder or cast an unmasking spell before they open a chest. No, I won’t be going in that direction. Mimics have a much better use.”

  “Doesn’t look like it to me. It looks like a glob of hair pomade, or like it should be spread on a windowsill to keep the rain out.”

  “That blob is the mimic’s natural form, but it wouldn’t be a mimic if it stayed like that. Watch this.” I looked at the pile of goo. “Mimic, transform, please.”

  The mimic stretched out as if plied apart by invisible hands, its mass growing larger and larger in a complete middle finger to physics. The dough was the size of a cannonball, then a pumpkin, and grew more and more until it finally reached six-feet tall.

  Its grey features took on colors; mustard yellow and salmon pink and a chalky white. Its smooth surface grew features, resulting in a pointy nose, delicate chin, frills, hairs, buckles, a belt, adding more and more elements until the effect was complete.

  “Gulliver,” I said. “Meet Gulliver.”

  The real Gulliver walked a circle around it, tapping his chin. “My, I’m a handsome fellow. I see an error, however. This mimic…well…it has a certain lack of physique, to my mind. It has copied my form, to be sure, but not my toned arms and athletic thighs, honed from numerous romantic dalliances over the years. It may have mimicked aspects of my visage, but it can’t copy the aura I bring to a room. It doesn’t understand experience, wit, bravery, and it certainly doesn’t possess my immense modesty. A mimic it may be, but a true copy it is not. In fact, it brings to mind the counterfeit books doing the rounds. You must know of them; ones bearing my name but not my words, just inferior scribbles intended to cash in on my fame.”

  “As humble as you are, I have to agree,” I said. “Someone who knew you well would be able to spot the trickery. It won’t always be so, though. A mimic needs two things to showcase its talents.

  For one, a mimic can only copy that which it has seen. Secondly, its ability to imitate something grows stronger the longer it spends with its subject. Even so, this little fella has only just met you, Gull, and already it is indistinguishable to most people’s eyes. Mimic, walk a few steps, please.”

  The mimic walked, copying the over-long steps that Gulliver had taken around it moments earlier. It crossed the room while tapping its chin.

  “You know,” said the real Gulliver. “I have on occasion found myself in the unenviable position of needing to please two ladies at once. Constrained by the laws of time and space, I have found myself in a pickle that resulted in me having pots thrown at my skull from an overhead veranda. This could be useful…”

  “You’re not having your own mimic. Moving on, time for creature number two.”

  “Fine, what’s next on this wonderful creature carousel? Do you have any idea what you are creating, or are you like an amateur baker throwing everything into the cake bowl and hoping it doesn’t come out tasting terrible?”

  “That’s the problem with the melding room,” I said. “You assign three monsters to stand in the runemarks, and you have no idea exactly how it will meld them together. Take Gary, for instance. He’s a giant spider with stone troll skin and leeches for legs. To make him, I combined a spider, leech, and a stone-dwarf troll. As it turned out, he’s actually as fearsome as he is pleasant, but it could have gone wrong. I could have ended up with…say…a troll the size of a leech, that could shoot tiny webbing from its backside.”

  “And what do you hope to get today?”

  “It is possible to purposefully get a result you desire here,” I said. “But you still have to be lucky. Nevertheless, I’m going to try. See, I need my mimic to take on some of the qualities of a leech.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see…if it happens as I hope. No point blowing my own trumpet before í know the song being played.”

  “How will you accomplish this, my gentlemen gem?”

  “By giving the melding room a nudge. Watch.”

  Creature created!

  Creature created!

  30 essence points used [Total: 379/909]

  There they were, squirming on the melding room floor, all slug-like and slimy. No, I’m not talking about door-to-door spelltome salesmen.

  I had created two little leeches.

  If this worked as it should, if Lady Chance was feeling friendly, then using two leeches instead of one would encourage the melding room to utilize their unique abilities more strongly. And when combined with a mimic…

  …well, I just had to hope this worked. Either way, I would use whatever boss monster was created, I’m sure.

  “Mimic, leeches, step onto the runemarks, if you please. The melding will begin.”

  CHAPTER 20

/>   While I waited for the melding chamber to finish creating my boss monster, I attended to some general dungeon bits and bobs. My battle with the heroes had highlighted weaknesses in my lair and flaws in my plans of attack, so I needed to fix that.

  Firstly, the tile puzzle in the first room in my lair was supposed to hit dungeon-divers with a taxing mental puzzle before they got their bearings. If I could wear out their minds, it’d take away a millisecond or two of their reaction time when it came to combat.

  But the last chumps had passed over the tiles while shedding barely a bead of sweat. Thinking about it, I concluded it was because they had all the time in the world to figure the puzzle out.

  So, how to address that?

  I could introduce a creature or two to the first room. Give them something to think about while they puzzled over the puzzle. But a hero party was almost certainly going to slaughter the first few creatures they saw in that situation. They would be full of energy, bursting to kill things. No, I’d just be throwing my creatures to the wolves. Literally, given the last heroes we’d encountered.

  I needed a way to put them under pressure while they solved the tile puzzle. A hero under pressure made mistakes, and in this case, a mistake would mean stepping on the wrong tile and triggering vampiric darts to shoot out of the walls.

  Aha! Got it!

  “Maginhart,” I said, casting my core voice.

  “Yesss, Dark Lord?”

  “I need you to go to the surface. See if the Cynthia the tinker can craft me a crude hourglass. I need it to be four or five feet tall and have runemarks on it. The runemarks don’t need to mean anything.”

  “Certainly, Dark Lord. I would be most pleasssed to visit the surface again.”

  “You like it up there?”

  “Yesss, Dark Lord. The sssun feelsss…different.”

  “If you like it, you like it. I hate it, but I’m happy for you to be our surface liaison. Just don’t bother the clans up there. The less we interact right now, the better.”

  “I will asssk her to make an hour glasss for you, Dark Lord.”

  That should do it. I would put a tall hourglass in the first room. When the heroes entered, sand would start falling. This would make them think that something would happen when the hourglass emptied, and their little hero minds would start imagining all kinds of gruesome traps.

  In reality, nothing would happen when the hourglass emptied, but as a psychological trick, it should be enough to make them hurry up. A rushed mind makes lots of lovely little mistakes.

  My next issue was that the last heroes’ journey through the maze of tunnels in the center of the dungeon had been way too easy. I needed to spice it up a little, add a little paprika and cinnamon to a dish sorely lacking in flavor.

  Beartrap x3 created!

  Pitfall x2 created!

  There, that ought to do it.

  Using the last of my essence, I created the traps and placed them in the tunnel maze. Simple snares like these weren’t likely to wipe out a hero party, but if I could snag a couple of them then it was worth it. At the very least it would keep them on their toes, which would make them tense. A tense hero often becomes a dead hero.

  “Word is that you tasted success,” said a voice, coming from behind me.

  “Overseer Bolton. I asked you not to do that!”

  There, leaning against a wall, was the bald overseer himself. Instead of his overseer robes, he wore a pair of leather dungarees with a checkered shirt underneath. His clothes and skin were covered in mud and dust.

  While staring at Overseer Bolton I got the strangest feeling, like a little gremlin knocking on the inside of my mind. This little gremlin was trying to remind me about something. Yes, there was something special about today, but what was it?

  Damn it, I couldn’t remember. It was like those finger traps that jesters give to children at parties; the harder you struggle, the tighter the trap gets. If I stopped trying to think, which was easy for me to do, it would come to me.

  “Have you been busy, Bolton?” I asked.

  He jerked his thumb to the ceiling. “It’s all-go up there. Your compatriot Core Jahn is learning surface-crafting most excellently, however, Chief Reginal is loath to begin constructing houses for his people.”

  “I thought they were keen to stop living in tents?”

  “It’s those damned thermal pockets. Reginal has had all of his people combing the wasteland searching for cracks, holes, or any sign there might be a thermal pocket beneath. He even roped me in to help.”

  “You? Doing physical labor?”

  Bolton laughed. “Like asking a cow to bathe a goose, no? But I helped because labor is exercise for the soul. Now, my little core, I am tired of inspecting dirt and instead turn to matters closer to my heart. I understand you have been a busy, busy core. And a clever one too, if the stories are to be believed.”

  “You heard about the heroes?” I said. “How? Their corpses aren’t even cold yet.”

  “Word spreads fast, and it spreads especially fast in a wasteland where throwing stones at the sun counts as entertainment.”

  I decided to be modest. “I’ve had some blinding success. Mostly through my own sterling battle tactics.”

  “Quite so. Carry on the way you are, and the academy might regret its decision about you, Beno. But I’m not here to slap your arse and tell you how great you are.”

  “Then to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’d like to tour your dungeon. See how things are shaping up.”

  “I don’t answer to the academy anymore. I don’t have to let you traipse around checking every nook and cranny.”

  “Something to hide?”

  “I’m just busy.”

  “Well, you may not answer to the academy, but you answer to your owner, First-Leaf Galatee. I am acting on her authority.”

  Damn it. If that was true and Galatee had asked him to come and check on me, then he was acting as her proxy and I would have no choice but to obey, due to the contract.

  There was one way to test it.

  “I refuse you permission to step a foot further into the Fungeon.”

  Bolton opened his mouth in mock shock and covered it with his hand. “Fungeon? What…forget it. Oh no, whatever will I do if you refuse me permission? Oh, that’s right. I will just disregard anything you say. I have a job to do, Beno, and no amount of unrighteous indignation will prevent it.”

  And with that, Bolton walked past me and out of the room, heading down a tunnel that led to the essence cultivation room.

  As I watched him go, I felt a flare of panic. If Galatee asked Bolton to inspect my dungeon, there were two reasons.

  One, my role here was to defend the clan against invaders, and she probably wanted to make sure I was building an army of creatures and training them up, instead of messing around and reading Soul Bard or something.

  Two, she most likely suspected me of plotting something. Why she would think that of me, I had no idea, but for some reason, people are always so suspicious of me. It’s a cynical, cynical world.

  But motives for the inspection aside, I was in trouble. Bolton had not only worked for the academy for decades, but he had built the greatest dungeon in existence. If there was something about dungeon-building that Bolton didn’t know, then it was probably a lie.

  That, and his overseer skills, meant he had a specialization in seeing dungeon traps, secrets, and puzzles. It meant that as soon as he walked by the room where we had covered up the narkleer hole, he’d sense something wrong.

  I couldn’t afford for him to find out. If he did, he’d tell Reginal and Galatee, and my slight, slight chance of using the narkleer to gain my freedom would be ruined.

  Damn it.

  I quickly checked my dungeon map and saw that Bolton was almost at the essence room, roughly ten minutes’ walk from the narkleer hole.

  “Tomlin,” I said, sending my voice out through the dungeon.

  Tomlin was in the essence r
oom, kneeling beside a vine bulging with essence plants and carefully pruning them to encourage growth. The look of concentration in his eyes was immense. Checking his stats, I saw that he was a level 12 cultivator now. It wasn’t hard to be impressed with his dedication.

  “Tomlin busy,” he grunted, clipping a leaf.

  “Tomlin will find himself tied to a pole and used as hero bait in the next raid if he isn’t careful.”

  He sighed. “Yes, Dark Magnificence?”

  “Overseer Bolton is heading your way-”

  “Oh? Great!”

  “I need you to stall him. Keep him talking, and for Demons’ sake, don’t make it seem suspicious.”

  “Tomlin would point out that Overseer Bolton talks to Tomlin every time he visits and talks always last a while. If you hadn’t told him to make sure it isn’t suspicious, he would have acted natural. But now you have told him to not be suspicious, he feels nervous that his demeanor will come across suspiciously.”

  “Good point,” I said. “My mistake. Okay, Tomlin. Pretend I haven’t said a word to you.”

  While Tomlin and Bolton had a chinwag, I would have a little time to come up with a way to divert the overseer away from the narkleer-hole part of the dungeon. But I had to be quick.

  Checking my map, I saw that Wylie and his mining crew were in the loot room, standing ten feet away from the open loot chest in the center and throwing pebbles into it.

  I pedestal hopped into the loot room. Wylie yelled at my sudden appearance, while Tarius and Karson bolted to their feet and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Yes,” said Karson. “Structurally unsound here, Tomlin. We will need to reinforce it.”

  I sighed. “I don’t have time for even the slightest rebuke for skiving on the job right now,” I said, “But rest assured it is coming to you. Now, I need you to do something for me.”

  Wylie sauntered over to the loot chest and all-too-casually closed it. “What need?” he said.