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

by Alex Oakchest

  She hadn’t just gotten lost in the caves. This was much worse than that. There weren’t many people, creatures, or spells who could turn someone into a wraith.

  She had half a day until it claimed her completely. Maybe less.

  The question was, would she trust me to get her out of here? I needed to be nice. Personable.

  “Hello, little girl,” I said. “Are you okay? No, of course you’re not. I’m here to help you, alright?”

  She retreated back toward the wall.

  What could I do? I couldn’t forcefully grab her. I didn’t have arms! How was I supposed to make her trust me?

  Maybe I knew the problem.

  I was trying too hard. Trying to be nice, to speak as the townsfolk did. And because it wasn’t in my nature, it probably seemed fake.

  Let’s try again.

  “You look like crap,” I said.

  She stared at me.

  “I don’t have time for your games,” I said. “Something bad has happened to you. Boo hoo. Bad things happen all the time, and worse things will happen if you stay. I already told you about the rats, didn’t I? Now grab hold of me, and I’ll get you out of here.”

  The girl put one hand on the ground. Crawled forward a couple of feet. I floated closer to her now. When she didn’t back off, I risked getting a little nearer.

  “You’ll have to grab hold of me tight,” I said.

  I heard a droning sound coming from one of the tunnels. There was something about it. A haunting aspect, like the wailing of a lost ghost.

  The sound was joined by another, and then another.

  The girl stared at me. Pale face. Dark eyes, lifeless. She spoke, but the words wouldn’t come out. I watched the shapes her mouth made.

  They’re coming.

  Shapes suddenly flew out of every tunnel around us.

  Giant insects emerged from hidden places. Buzzing so loud the sound echoed in my ears. The girl opened her mouth. Looked like she was silently screaming.

  She was becoming a wraith, alright. Part of the transformation was losing your voice. Shouting to get help was probably the last sound she’d made. She was lucky the other kids had been playing nearby.

  The closest thing the insects resembled were mosquitos, but not just any kind. These were mosquitos dreamed up by a mad mage. Better yet, by one of the demented creature-spawning demons in the underworld. Some were taller than a man. Spindly bodies, web-like wings that on close inspection were made of skin. Human skin, in fact. I’d done plenty of hero killing, and I’d know human skin anywhere. Some of them had abdomens bulging with blood. All of them had arm-length spikes jutting from their arses. They looked like the ends of a knight’s lance, except sharper and stained with blood.

  Their thirst was palpable; I could sense it in the air, their utter desire for the girl’s blood. They’d come to drain the girl before she became a wraith.

  “Hold on.”

  She grabbed hold of me and clung on to me. I floated through a tunnel. I brought to mind the route I’d taken to get here. I took every turn in order.

  The buzz grew behind me. The tunnels were alive with it. The insects were made for flying, whereas my floating ability was still relatively new. They were going to catch us.

  Luckily, we were underground. Whether it was my dungeon or just some random cavern, I could use my essence underground.

  I channeled it now. I imagined something emerging from the ether behind me, shaped by core essence.

  Steel Door created!

  Essence Remaining: 4630 / 4738

  Dink! Dink! Dink!

  The insects hadn’t expected a door of steel to appear from nowhere, and they slammed into it.

  It gave us time to get out. Maybe the insects knew the caverns well enough to find another route, but by then…

  A series of hammering broke my thoughts.

  I heard steel bend. Tear.

  And then the buzzing was back.

  These things had ripped through steel!

  The girl gripped tighter. A mosquito caught up to me. I could sense it inches away. Gaining, gaining, reaching for the girl…

  I channeled essence.

  I wished I could have made something cleverer, but I didn’t have time for anything fancy.

  Steel Door created!

  Essence Remaining: 4500 / 4738

  Steel Door created!

  Essence Remaining: 4370 / 4738

  Steel Door created!

  Essence Remaining: 4240 / 4738

  The sound of mosquitos hammering through new steel doors met with the thump of those who were caught off guard and slammed into it.

  Three doors gave me a little more time.

  I paused. Hovered in place.

  I needed something that would slow them for a little longer. A trap that would keep them in place, and maybe take a few of them out.

  What was good against flying creatures?

  Tough one. All my traps were geared toward hero slaughter. Heroes didn’t tend to fly.

  Maybe I had something that would work.

  I channeled essence from my core.

  Trap created: Lava Rain

  Essence Remaining: 3240 / 4738

  Normally, a trap is a thing of beauty. A work of art to be admired. Studied. To look at and see what was good, what I could do better.

  This was no time for self-evaluation. I trusted in my trap and flew on. There was a thud behind me. Then a hiss. I smelled fire. Steam channeled through the tunnel.

  Soon I emerged into a cavern. Sunlight shone from a hole way, way above me.

  “Hold on tighter,” I told the girl.

  She couldn’t answer me, but she adjusted her grip.

  I flew upwards now, toward the daylight. For a brief second, irony flashed through my mind. I was a dungeon core, yet I was fleeing into the daylight to escape danger. Trying to escape the darkness. Usually, it was my job to bathe in the darkness and send heroes running.

  The giant insects gave chase, refusing to let their prize go. Steel couldn’t stop them. Lava hadn’t stopped them. What the hell were they?

  I shot out of the caverns and back onto the crater. I found more people waiting for me than before. Geologists. Town guards.

  And Riston.

  “Shove your offer up your arse!” Eric was shouting just as I emerged above ground.

  What the offer was, I didn’t know.

  He was surrounded by town guards. Riston was talking to Eric, but staying at a safe distance. Shadow was across the crater, with two guards pressing spears against her. And then there were the children, being looked after by the geologists.

  What the hell had happened while I was gone?

  A guard pointed. “Holy shit of the gods!” he shouted.

  Faces turned to the sky, where sixteen giant mosquitos hovered. Wings flapping. Abdomens writhing, their sacks full of blood but thirsty for more. Bum spikes ready, sharp enough to tear a hole through steel.

  The guards, those armored, armed, and trained men and women, suddenly looked like lost children. Never mind that, on Reginal’s request, I had let them all spend time in my dungeon. They were supposed to be desensitized to monsters. But these grotesque insects were something else.

  It wasn’t just the way they looked. It was the dark aura they carried with them. They seemed to turn the air thick with foreboding. Even the wasteland carrion-eaters and vultures would be silent as they passed.

  The girl let go of me. She fell ten feet to the ground, landing on her back.

  “It’s her!” shouted the orc girl from across the way. The kids tried to run to her, but the geologists stopped them.

  The mosquitos circled overhead. Corralled us like we were cattle. Some guards looked terrified. Others gripped their weapons harder and got ready to fight. Shadow appeared to be the most scared of us all. She hadn’t been the same since Redjack, and I knew we couldn’t depend on her in a battle.

  Only Riston, Eric, and I were calm. As a core, I had nothing to fear
from insects who drained blood. Eric had lived with danger so long that he’d made peace with it. He told us he still felt it, but he didn’t let fear sap his energy. He and danger had forged some kind of coexistence.

  Riston, on the other hand, had never looked anything but assured in the short time I’d known him. Whether he was giving a speech to the townsfolk, walking through a corpse-laden bakery, or facing a bunch of giant insects, he never showed a hint of distress.

  Two guards pulled bows. Nocked arrows. Squinted, drew the strings back, and released.

  One arrow sailed over a mosquito. The other stuck in a swollen abdomen. The stricken insect wasn’t hurt. It didn’t fall from the sky.

  Instead, a perfect copy of it entangled itself from its own body. Now, there were two insects hovering with arrows stuck in their abdomen.

  The guard released another arrow. Hit another mosquito.

  Another copy.

  “It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that firing another arrow would be a very stupid idea,” I said.

  The guard, nocking another arrow, looked to an older guard to his right. The captain of his unit, maybe. He shook his head. The guard relaxed his bow.

  We all waited as the mosquitos buzzed. I wracked my brains. Tried to remember if I’d ever learned about a monster like this at the academy.

  A giant mosquito that made a copy of itself when you tried to hurt it. Something invulnerable to lava. Something that could hammer through a steel door.

  No. Nothing. That meant it was something new. Or at least, a monster type that had been created since I had left the academy, and thus wouldn’t be mentioned in academy texts.

  The girl was crying. No sound, of course. The only way you’d tell was from the tears on her wraith-like face. The guards, who’d noticed her appearance, wouldn’t look at her. Only the other children wanted to go to her, but the geologists held them tight.

  Riston glanced at me. “This is your game, is it?” he said. “Kidnap children. Bring them here for your monsters to feed upon. Turn them into undead spirits.”

  “She isn’t undead. She’s becoming a wraith. If we can get her to town, Cynthia might be able to reverse it.”

  “Get her to town? A likely story! Call off your monsters, if you’re speaking true.”

  “These aren’t mine.”

  “I know what cores do,” said Riston. “I know what you can make. Such creatures could only have been made by a core.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Look at them!”

  “There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Riston. A question you should ask.”

  “What?”

  “Who makes the cores? We can create monsters, but who creates us?”

  “You are forged.”

  “Exactly. Our existence proves we aren’t the only ones who can conjure things.”

  “Call them off, core.”

  “They aren’t my monsters, you stupid prat!”

  A guard tossed his spear to the ground and ran forward, stopping directly under the mosquitos. “I’ve got it! I know what to do! If hurting them makes them copy themselves, then we need to heal them!”

  He took a glass vial from his pocket. “This is my hemorrhoid medicine,” he said.

  He threw it at a mosquito. The glass smashed on its body. Liquid and glass rained back down on the guard.

  Nothing happened to the insect.

  For a second, anyway.

  Soon, it copied itself.

  It seemed the damage they took only had to be slight for a copy to be made. We couldn’t so much as throw a pebble at these things without doubling our problems.

  The creatures formed a tighter circle above us. Their wings flapped, slapping together like a giant clapping his hand.

  The geologists looked to the guards.

  The guards looked to Riston.

  Riston, using his hand to block the sunlight from his eyes, was whispering something under his breath.

  It was then that I noticed a series of blue marks on his palm.

  Tattoos. I’d never seen them before because he obviously covered them up. He probably had some kind of paste. The kind that criminals buy on the black market to cover their crime brands when they look for work. But being out here in the intense wasteland heat, constantly wiping sweat from his brow, had faded it.

  Riston’s tattoo was stupid. Firstly, it depicted an open palm. Yes, he had tattooed a palm on his palm. Sitting on top of it was a brain. The brain had eyes and a mouth, and it had strange little lines emanating from it. Behind it, for no discernable reason, were the words ‘I love mom.’

  But the ridiculousness of his tattoo wasn’t important. More important was what it told me.

  Riston was a mage!

  I knew this because of the style of the tattoo; the way the lines almost seemed to move on his hand, as thought they were buzzing with energy. This wasn’t a tattoo he’d gotten when he was drunk with his pals. It was done at a mage college with mana-infused ink.

  He stopped whispering and turned away from the mosquitos.

  One by one, the insects left, disappearing back down the hole they had emerged from. It was as if they’d been given an order.

  Riston clapped his hands.

  “Get the girl back to town. There’s an alchemist called Cynthia who may be able to undo the core’s foul work.”

  “Everyone knows Cynthia,” said a guard.

  “Good. I want you to go straight to Chief Galatee. Tell her what the core tried to do. What he did to this child, and what he planned to do to the other three. Put the barbarian and the kobold in cells. Geologists? Go and…go and…study stones, or something.”

  As the guards followed Riston’s orders, he turned to me. “I wouldn’t come back to town, core. You won’t be welcome when everyone learns the truth.”

  CHAPTER 7

  After Riston and the guards had marched back to town, I’d decided it was best to take his advice and stay away. Right now, Yondersun wasn’t a place I wanted to be. The problem was that the entrance to my dungeon was right next to it.

  But given that I’m not a complete dope, I had long ago made three separate dungeon entrances hidden in the wasteland. Completely invisible to anyone but me.

  This meant I could get back to my dungeon without going through town. It was taking the long way around, but that gave me time to think.

  First, it made me consider how happy I was to be going back to my dungeon. The gloom was comforting. Lots of people add a grim connotation to the word darkness, but it can be cozy. It’s better than the sun. The sun gives life, sure. But it also burns. It dries riverbeds. It scorches crop fields if you let it shine too much without watering them. The sun gives life with one fiery hand, takes it with another.

  Maybe that was my problem: spending too much time in the sun. I was made for the dark, and maybe spending too much time above ground did things to a core that the Dungeon Core Academy forgers could never predict.

  Either way, my route home gave me time to dwell on how to fix things. And being no nearer to the answer, I asked Gulliver and Wylie to meet me in my core chamber.

  “And they just took Shadow and Eric away?” said Gulliver.

  “That’s right. The girl was underground,” I said. “Something had started to turn her into a wraith. She was too far gone to talk. Or too scared. Either way, she didn’t have any answers.”

  “It makes me so mad!” shouted Gulliver. He punched the wall, yelped, and then put his bloody fist to his mouth.

  “Calm down, Gull.”

  “It makes me so mad too!” shouted Wylie, punching the wall.

  He also yelped.

  And also put his bloodied fist to his mouth.

  “Just calm down, you two. Let’s think this through.”

  “You don’t seem as bothered as I’d expect. This isn’t even my dungeon. It isn’t my town. Yet when I think about that Riston bastard…” said Gulliver.

  “It took me a while to get back here.
At first, I was seething. I wanted to destroy Riston, the guards, the whole bloody town. But the longer it took to return, the more I decided I wanted to think clearly. Not angrily.”

  “And it’s as simple as that for you, is it?” said Gulliver “You just command your anger to leave?”

  “Emotions aren’t supposed to affect me at all, but they do. More and more, lately. It’s like my human past is leaking into my core.”

  “Did something go wrong when they forged you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time in Yondersun. Cores are meant to stay in their dungeons. Spend all their time killing heroes. I seem to be doing things above ground half the time, and it’s messing with me. But even if I feel human emotions, I don’t need to process them the same way. If I want them gone, they go.”

  “It’s enviable, being able to banish your feelings. Many a time in my teens I would have loved such a gift.”

  “You’re a scribe, Gull. You spent half your life following the Law of Scribalistic Neutrality. You saw horrible things happen, and you weren’t allowed to intervene while you were there as a scribe.”

  “Being neutral and being unfeeling are two different things. Some of the stuff I saw, Beno. The wars. Massacres. Scribalistic Neutrality stopped me from getting involved. It’s also a law that lets scribes go to warzones and know we won’t get murdered. But don’t go thinking I can turn my emotions off like they’re water from a tap, like you. I feel them as strongly as anyone. I just had to learn not to show them. You can’t report on things like wars and famine if you let yourself get wrapped up in how they make you feel.”

  It was funny. There was I, a core who wasn’t supposed to have emotions, but I did. Gulliver was a human and was supposed to have emotions, but he’d spent most of his working life not being able to show them. No wonder he was so quick to punch walls.

  And then there was Wylie. Honest, simple Wylie. As quick to anger as he was to kindness. He wore his heart on his sleeve and his soul on his shirt. No pretense, no hiding.