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

by Alex Oakchest

  “Let’s see if anyone’s posted a job about a monster,” I said to Gulliver. “We might get lucky. Or maybe not, if this lot are anything to go by.”

  Gulliver nodded. “I’ll keep myself busy. This crowd will add flavor to the book.”

  He approached a barbarian who was resting on a stump away from the board, tearing meat off a bone. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?” Gull said, his book and quill handy.

  The barbarian lifted the bone up and growled. “This is ‘uman meat,” he said. “And I’m still ‘ungry.”

  To give Gulliver credit, he didn’t flinch. I suppose his years of experience as a warscribe meant that his flinching instincts were withered to dust. Taking a copper coin from his pouch, he flicked it onto the barbarian’s lap.

  The warrior gave a smile full of missing teeth and patted the space next to him on the stump. “What do ya wanta know, me old pal?”

  Gulliver thought about it, quill poised. “Is that really human meat, first of all?”

  “It’s chicken, you stupid sod. Sit your arse down and ask away.”

  Leaving them to it, I floated over to the bulletin board. The group of mercenaries around it was three -people thick, and try as I might, I couldn’t get close. I tried floating above them, only to get swatted by a meaty hand that belonged to an even meatier woman.

  “Piss off, core!”

  If this were my dungeon, I’d have slaughtered the lot of them. They might have looked tough, but I have always found that the tougher a fighter appears, the less they can back it up. Truly scary people don’t feel any need to dress up to prove that to people.

  A few traps, a well-timed ambush or two. Easy. Yep, I’d butcher this lot without sweating. Here in Hogsfeate, though, I had no monsters with me except Dolos, and I couldn’t use my essence.

  I floated toward the board again, this time staying behind the rabble.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “The town tanner is offering a three-for-one deal on leather girdles and thongs. Idiot! Who in Xynnar needs one leather girdle or thong, let alone three?”

  Within a minute, the mercenaries had scarpered, leaving me alone at the bulletin board. I scanned all the jobs that folk from Hogsfeate and surrounding areas had posted.

  Wanted: Illusionist mage to perform at Duke’s party. Does not pay gold, but will be great exposure for an up-and-coming mage.

  For sale: Novice’s Warhammer, never used.

  Also for sale: Novice’s bronze helm, dented in several places.

  Want to make a fortune from thine own dwelling? Found out how this one barbarian makes 200 gold coins per week without picking up his axe!

  Gulliver joined me, pausing for a second to wave at the barbarian, who had slung a sack over his shoulder and was heading off.

  “Good luck with the pack of three-headed weasels, Eric!” said Gulliver. “I’m sure you’ll vanquish them before anyone else gets a chance to claim the reward.”

  Eric the barbarian gave his fabulous toothless smile again. “You too, scribe! Luck to yer!”

  “Lovely guy,” said Gulliver, joining me. “Says he’s getting bored of trying to compete for jobs on the person-at-arms board, and wants a stable paymaster. In my younger days, following a barbarian like him around would have made for a great story. Where did everyone get to, anyway?”

  “Shopping.”

  “Any luck with monsters?”

  “Hmm. Not much. At least, not ones worth my effort. I need one that’s better than what I already have.”

  “Like what?”

  “A creature that can kill Cael, so I can be done with this whole thing. All I’m seeing are gremlocks, golems, bloodwolves. Boring.”

  “Perhaps we better get back to the mage, then,” said Gulliver.

  “You’re right. Let’s…wait a second…what’s this?”

  Tap-tap-tap.

  Mage Hardere’s door hatch opened, and the goblin with ear studs poked his head out. “Yes? What is it?”

  “It’s us, from earlier. We’re here to see the mage.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m getting tired of people, tired of this town, and most importantly, tired of you. I’m guessing you don’t stay holed up in your tower all the time. If you don’t stop wasting my time with your little power games, I’ll follow you until I catch you alone, take you to my dungeon, and then skin you alive.”

  The goblin snorted. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Really? Do you remember what happened last time a core got angry in Hogsfeate?”

  The goblin glared at me and then slammed the door shut.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game,” said Gulliver.

  “They’re the only ones worth playing. All the rest are boring.”

  Locks clanked from behind the door, and it swung open to reveal a corridor inside the tower. The walls were adorned with the finest silks, crimson and lavender, and sky blue. A smell of spices hit me. Tarragon, turmeric, basil. They were pungent enough even to me, and I had already dulled my core senses. There was a set of spiral stairs at the end, which presumably led all the way to the top.

  The goblin blocked the doorway. “Master will see you, but he requires a hair from the scribe and a shaving from the gem.”

  “Mage Hardere can shave himself,” I said.

  The goblin held up a chisel coating in an alchemical drip and thrumming with magical energy. “A shaving from the gem.”

  “No damn way.”

  “Then he will not see you.”

  Gulliver plucked a hair from his head. “Don’t worry, Beno. This is just a precaution. Lots of mages and witches do it.” He offered the hair to the goblin. “This should suffice, surely? My hair will grow back, but a core’s body does not.”

  “Hmph. This way.”

  The old mage leaned forward. His robe slipped open and revealed his wrinkled, hairy chest underneath. Mercifully for us, he was wearing a pair of shorts to cover his modesty, but it seemed that apart from that and the robe, Mage Hardere didn’t much care for clothes.

  “Sorry about the shaving business,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how many people try to kill a mage. They stand outside my tower at all times of the night. They shout the most ridiculous things.” He shook his fist in the air. “‘You bring the dead back to life! You create gargoyles!’ They ought to grow up. That’s the way of the world. Magic exists, gold exists. When the two are swapped, someone wins, someone loses.”

  “The hair was for a spell of some sort, I take it?” I said.

  “And the gem shaving, though the hair will suffice. Security for me, you see. If you tried anything when you were in here, you’d quickly regret it. Of course, I won’t keep Mr. Gulliver’s hair. I will destroy it before your eyes once our business is concluded. Now, Scribe Gulliver and Core Beno. What exactly is our business?”

  “I need a portal.”

  “That’s almost so simple that I’d be ashamed to take your gold. But as I have debts…where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Ah. It’s not a where, but a who, then. You wish to follow someone, and you need me to open a portal to their whereabouts. A mistress, perhaps? Do cores have mistresses?”

  “Scribes do,” said Gulliver. “Plenty of them.”

  “Scribes also like to brag,” said Hardere. “Almost as much as mages.”

  “Gull, give him the blood,” I said.

  Gulliver opened his satchel and took out a glass jar with scrapings of dried blood in the bottom.

  Hardere leaned forward, his man-breasts swinging like fleshy pendulums. “You know, such portals are against the Magic Dictorium. A mage may not produce such a portal unless he has a writ signed by an official of magistrate level or above. You can appreciate the complications when one has the ability to open portals like that.”

  “How important is the Magic Dictorium to you, Hardere?”

  “Oh, I treasu
re it. I have every law and edict scored into my mind, and I follow them as if they were the words of the gods themselves. You would never find a more Dictorium-abiding mage in the whole of Xynnar.”

  “Might there be a way to erase a certain edict from your mind, just for a little while?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. You tell me.”

  Hardere held out both of his hands, palms up. One palm was raised much higher in the air than the other.

  “Go on, Gull,” I said.

  Gulliver sighed. Reaching into the satchel again, he said, “You really ought to find a way to get arms, Beno. Or bring one of your kobolds along with you next time. I’m not your servant.”

  He took out a coin purse, inside which was half of the gold I owned. I had earned this from selling the surplus ores from my miners’ labors to the merchants in Yondersun. It was one of the benefits of having so much underground space to mine through.

  Gulliver placed a gold coin on Hardere’s higher palm. The mage lowered his palm an inch, adjusting it like a scale.

  “Another,” I said.

  Gulliver put a second coin next to the first, and Hardere moved his palm further down, yet still much higher than the other.

  “Exactly how much will this take?” I said.

  “Only the scales may answer that.”

  I had already counted on having to spend all the gold I had brought with me, but it still rankled. What choice did I have, though?

  “Keep going,” I said.

  By the time that the purse was empty, Harder’s coin-filed palm was still an inch higher than the other one.

  “That’s everything I have,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”

  “I’m afraid you are still a little short.”

  “As I said; that’s all.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Hardere. “There might be another way.”

  Now, he flipped his hand over, dropping the coins on the floor and sending them scattering.

  Gulliver leaped to his feet. “You senile old-” he began, and then stopped himself, no doubt remembering that he wasn’t just talking to a mage, but a mage who was in possession of one of his hairs.

  “Gold is one thing,” said Hardere. “But I desire something else.”

  “Oh?”

  “Chip-Chap!” said Hardere, and then clapped his hands.

  The studded-eared goblin appeared. “Yes, master?”

  “Fetch her.”

  “Certainly.”

  Gulliver had gathered all of the coins by the time Chip-Chap reappeared. He came bearing a red velvet cushion, on top of which was…

  No way!

  I floated upwards in surprise, hitting the roof and making a chandelier shake. “What are you doing with a core in your possession, Hardere?”

  “This is Namantep,” he said.

  Gulliver shook his head. “The core who destroyed half the town? It can’t be.

  Sir Dullarse dealt with her.”

  “You have heard of her, then?”

  “Of course. She’s the reason nearly everyone in this place stared at Beno like they wanted to incinerate him with their eyes.”

  “That she is. Though as you can see, her days of destruction are over.”

  That much was obvious. Namantep was only slightly smaller than the cushion she rested on. She was colored a deep red, and she might once have been shaped like a tooth, with a broad, flat top that tapered into a spiked bottom. Now, though, a large chunk of her was missing. No doubt from Sir Dullbright’s heroism.

  Seeing a fellow core like that, lifeless and half destroyed, didn’t feel right.

  Something began to happen to me. My vision faded for a second, returned, and then faded again.

  “Beno?” said Gulliver.

  “I’m fine.”

  There it was again. The room darkened for a second.

  What’s happening to me?

  I felt myself drop in the air.

  Glass smashed, and the room went completely black for several seconds.

  When my vision returned, I was on the ground, surrounded by the smashed remains of Hardere’s glass table.

  “I’ll take two coins for that,” said Hardere. “Not to be a penny pincher, but that was a nice table.”

  Gulliver went to pick me up, but I floated up on my own.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  And I was fine, right then. But I hadn’t been. Seeing another core in that sorry state had given me the strangest feeling. It was as though someone had reached into me and grabbed hold of raw nerve endings, ones that shouldn’t exist in a core, and gripped them tightly and wrenched them out like roots from the earth.

  “Is she alive?” I said.

  “Are any cores alive, Beno? Truly?”

  “That’s rather insensitive,” said Gulliver.

  The mage shook his head. “It’s an honest question. A core’s body is not flesh. No heart, no blood. Can such a thing be alive?”

  “What is consciousness,” I said, “if not life?”

  “To answer that question; I do not know. Namantep has rested in my tower for sixty-six years, ever since Sir Dullbright destroyed her. Sometimes I sense something coming from her. Other times I’m quite convinced that there’s nothing inside that ruined gem.”

  “What do you need from me?” I asked.

  “Dullbright has gotten wind of Namantep’s existence here. I need her taking away, and I imagine a dungeon way across the wasteland is as good a place as any.”

  “How would Dullbright find out about her being here? Did someone betray you?”

  Hardere nodded. He took two jars from his robe pockets. He unscrewed one. “Gulliver, this is your hair,” he said, giving it back. He unscrewed the other jar and took out another strand of hair. “And this belongs to Chip-Chap. I’ve been meaning to do this for a few days now, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. You know how these chores are.”

  Hardere clicked his fingers, sparking flame from his hand. The fire took hold of the hair and melted it in an instant.

  From outside the room, from somewhere higher up in the tower, came the sound of a goblin screaming.

  CHAPTER 7

  “People have spotted the monster somewhere around here, the bulletin board said.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Gulliver.

  “As sure as I can be. The directions on the job posting weren’t the best.”

  We were outside of Hogsfeate and back in the wasteland. Not too far, but enough that the town walls were in the distance. The heat didn’t affect me at all, but looking at Gulliver, it was clear to see that the middle of the afternoon wasn’t the best time to be out here.

  “I’m going to have to do it, Beno,” he said. “I have no choice.”

  “Do it?”

  “May the gods forgive me.”

  Gulliver took off his hat and stuffed it in his satchel. He rolled his shirt sleeves up, revealing pale forearms that were surprisingly muscled. On his right forearm was a scar that zigzagged from elbow to wrist.

  “Think of the creases,” he said, shaking his head. “Dear gods…”

  “You were a warscribe. You covered dozens of battles. You have traveled with merchant companies in all kinds of weather. How in Xynnar did you cope, if a few creases are such a disaster?”

  Gulliver displayed his scar to me. “That was from a blunder wolf.” He unbuttoned his top shirt button and showed me another scar on his chest. “That was from following a duke into a serpent nest. I’ve spent weeks in the Howsi jungle, getting drenched until my skin wrinkled like a frowning elephant. I’ve been so dehydrated that I tried catching my own tears. I’ve been with caravans where disaster struck suddenly and hard, and we were a day or two away from cannibalism. I’ve done my time in the gutters, Beno, and now I like to enjoy the rewards that hard work should bestow. So I like nice things. Not such a crime, is it?”

  “I suppose not. But you’re not likely to keep your wardrobe intact following a d
ungeon core around. You know that from last time.”

  He sighed. “Sometimes I wake up and I put on my silk pantaloons and my favorite winkle pickers and I think Gulliver, how did it come to this? How did you let yourself become softer than a eunuch’s bum cushion? That’s when I resolve to get back out there. Go find a warmongering duke or duchess and follow them and write their story. Other times, I just want to buy some nice things, go to a nice place, and have a nice, relaxing time. Nobody ever got a horrible scar by lying on a beach. Yet, people don’t read the stories of folks who just lie on their arse all day. I don’t know, Beno. I can’t settle down, but I also don’t want to keep on crawling through the mud.”

  “Maybe there’s a happy medium somewhere.”

  “Perhaps I just have to accept that as much as I want a quiet life, it bores me.”

  “You’re not going to get the quiet life following me, you can bet on that. Come on, we better hurry this up. We have the portal stone already,” I said. “Let’s get the monster, and then go home. I’ve had enough of towns and wizards.”

  “Aye, I can’t say I’d be happy to speak to him again. I had heard that Hardere made unusual bargains sometimes,” said Gulliver. “But nothing like this. Is it worth it, Beno? Having to hide this old, deranged core for him just so you can have the portal stone?”

  “I didn’t have much of a choice. If I just sit around waiting for Cael to recover from his wounds and come to me, I’m begging for a beating.”

  “At least Namantep is dead. Crazy is crazy, and I don’t mess around with things that are both crazy and capable of destroying half a town. But a dead lion is just a rug, and a dead core is just a lump of minerals, I suppose. No offense.”

  “None taken, because obviously you’re right. A dead core is a dead core. Whereas human Whereas human corpses are so much more than just a sack of rotting meat, aren’t they? Besides, Namantep isn’t dead.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t soil your best britches. She isn’t conscious, and she could never become conscious unless certain rituals are done, but she isn’t dead either.”