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

by Alex Oakchest

  Yet if he didn’t, then he was stuck here. A prisoner. He wasn’t so naïve as to think they’d ever let him out. What would they do, rehabilitate him? He was a dungeon monster! There wasn’t a chance they would apply the laws of civilization to him. Especially not if Riston won the chief vote.

  The choice was obvious. Kill him.

  “Please…” said Muckstremp.

  He let go so suddenly that Muckstremp fell onto the floor. He lay there, gasping. Gary retreated further back into his cell, tears in his eyes. He cursed his own conscience.

  He had to believe that he hadn’t done it. That he hadn’t killed those people. If he could show Muckstremp mercy even at the expense of his own freedom, then surely he wasn’t capable of murdering those people.

  Then again, was he just tricking himself with that reasoning? He was a killer! He’d murdered plenty of heroes before now.

  No, not murdered.

  Fought.

  When heroes entered a dungeon, they took the risk of dying. When a hero encountered a monster, it was a fight. Murder was something different. It was when you killed someone who hadn’t gambled their own life.

  Gary’s head was spinning. He just didn’t know anymore.

  More guards sprinted into the cell. Two of them picked up Muckstremp and helped him limp away. Six of them stood outside Gary’s bars. One of them held a wooden tube to his mouth and blew.

  Something sharp stung Gary. He saw a needle in his leech leg. Within seconds, his thoughts began to go soft and fuzzy. He lost his anger. His sadness. He felt nothing but relaxed.

  “Let’s get him out of here,” said the guards.

  He didn’t understand. The more he tried to, the softer his mind became and the harder it was to think.

  Were the guards helping him escape? Were they friends with the three-eyed orc boy who Beno liked?

  Barenne? Garenne? Warrall?

  If Bore Ceno were here, he’d help Gary.

  Oh yes, Bore Ceno would help.

  Gary was beginning to enjoy this feeling. It was light and calm, and it made him think he’d never want to hurt anyone again. Not even heroes.

  Four guards grabbed Gary’s legs, two of them put their arms around his abdomen. He had the strangest thought that he should be fighting them right now, but he knew he wouldn’t. Why would he? Everything was peace…relaxation…

  Thirty minutes later, they had tied him to a stake in the middle of Jahn’s Row. Gary hadn’t protested. Why should he do a thing like that?

  Looking around, he saw that people were watching him. Some were in the windows of the houses and shops lining both sides of the street. Others were standing on the street itself. Pointing. Scowling.

  Someone had painted a big circle on the ground, and Gary’s stake was in the middle of it. Twelve townsfolk were standing on different points of the circle. They were wearing black shawls and black hoods. Was it to hide their faces? It didn’t matter. Gary recognized some of them.

  Look – there was Chopson, the butcher. He always used to give Gary a free portion of desert weasel steaks.

  “Hi Chopson!” he said, though his voice was so quiet that his words died as soon as they left his lips.

  The crowd in the street went quiet. The silence was like that of a crypt. Their faces were ghastly. So full of hate.

  A man walked into the center of the circle. A man with an impossibly tidy beard and blond hair oiled back over his head. He, too, was wearing a black shawl, but he had a symbol drawn in blood on the front.

  It was Riston. Riston had come to free him!

  A sudden, true thought pierced through whatever the needle had done to his mind. Riston is not my friend.

  “The monster will face justice,” said Riston. “And with his blood, we will summon the Fifty!”

  Riston walked toward him. He had a long, curved dagger in his hand. The cliched kind. The type people always used in rituals because they thought it was the done thing, even though a normal-shaped dagger worked just as well.

  He grabbed one of Gary’s leech legs and gripped it and then cut. Gary felt no pain, but he saw his blood. It dripped from his leg and hit the ground.

  Drip, drip, drip. The blood began to trickle over the shape painted on the ground. A great roaring sound came from the sky. Thunderous, black clouds covered it. And then it was nighttime. Just like that.

  Only seconds ago, it had been a sunny day. Now, the symbol painted on the ground was glowing red, and the wasteland had been plunged into darkness.

  “Behold!” shouted Riston, raising the dagger in the air. “The 50 Nights have been summoned!”

  CHAPTER 22

  My core senses led us to the heart of the dungeon. I felt essence in the air. The invisible energy flowed from the blackened vines and traveled through the tunnels and passageways. I’d have bet my arse that the core was drawing essence from the vines. He could draw as much as he liked; all it did was help me. It meant that when the tunnels forked in different directions, we just went where the essence felt stronger.

  Soon we came to the point where it felt strongest of all. I saw a grand set of doors. Magically reinforced, forge-blackened steel. Near impossible to destroy. Impenetrable to most magic. Lots of fancy symbols carved into them, but there was a big chance they were gibberish. The only thing cores love more than symbology is tricking people with fakes.

  For all their impenetrable might, I knew the doors wouldn’t pose a problem to me. I only had to see the great big knocker to realize that. The great big knocker with the face of a cockatoo.

  It squawked.

  “Here you are! Hope you didn’t come far,” it said. “If you want to get past…hmm, how should I rhyme this next part…ah! If you want to get past, answer the question I’ll ask!”

  “A riddle door,” I said. “Perfect. Get on with it.”

  “What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?”

  I thought about it for all of two seconds.

  I mean, how stupid can you get, asking a dungeon core a riddle?

  “Are you even serious? The answer is a promise.”

  The cockatoo gave another squawk and grumbled about me answering so quickly. The door swung open to reveal the chamber beyond.

  “I’ll speak to it alone,” I said. “Core to core. The rest of you wait here.”

  “I’ll join you,” said Bolton. “I told you why I came here.”

  “Me too!” said Anna.

  Bolton shook his head. “Beno and me only. Wait here.”

  I expected Anna to kick up a fuss, but she didn’t. It seemed she had developed a measure of maturity from somewhere. Only the gods knew what Bolton had said to her when they went off alone, but it had worked.

  Bolton and I headed into the core chamber. He shut the doors behind us.

  I took a second to get a sense of my new surroundings. While every dungeon has different monsters, different traps, different puzzles, a core’s central chamber is the most individual place of all. It’s where we truly express the beauty of our souls. Spend just a few minutes in a core’s central chamber, and you’ll get a sense of their spirit.

  This chamber was ancient. Way older than any core chamber I’d ever seen. There were weird statues dotted around. Ones of creatures I couldn’t name, and others that I recognized. There was a statue of a gogoloth, a monster that had long ago died out. This place was archaic. Forget the old dungeons we’d studied in the academy; it predated those.

  “Remarkable,” said Bolton. He looked fascinated by the place, but he hadn’t moved. Given his vast experience, he knew enough not to just blunder around a core’s central chamber. He waved his hands in the air. A pale light gathered on his fingertips, then spread out through the room like trap-seeking fairies.

  “No traps,” said. He took a step forward. “What do you think, Beno? What era would you say this dungeon was made in?”

  Here we go, I thought. Bolton loved to test me. He loved to see me struggle for an answer and get it wrong
. It was a power play.

  “This isn’t the academy anymore. You’re not my teacher, and you don’t have to quiz me.”

  “Quiz? I’m asking you as a colleague.”

  Colleague. Wow. I was weirdly touched by that.

  Pity I didn’t have a damned clue which era it came from.

  I thought about making up the name of an era. Then, when Bolton told me there was no such thing, I’d double down on my lies and act confident. That seemed to be the way to get people to believe you.

  But I was done lying to Bolton to make myself look better. I mean, I wouldn’t have lied to Gulliver. I wouldn’t lie to Tomlin, Wylie, Shadow. Why should I let Bolton have so much power in my mind? Why did I always try to make myself look good in front of him?

  “You know, I didn’t really choose to come here,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “What I told you before, about seeking this place out. That’s not exactly how it happened. Riston chased me out of my dungeon. I couldn’t stop him. He has control over everything. The town, the people in it. And me…well, I lost control.”

  “I know.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I was born yesterday, Beno? Well, I wasn’t. I was born a long, long time ago, actually, and I’ve learned a few things about people’s natures. What they say, what they hold back. I knew there was more to this from the way you’ve been acting.”

  I said nothing.

  “But at least you seem to be over whatever was making you behave like such an idiot and lie to an overseer,” said Bolton.

  We pressed on through the chamber, finally finding the core itself.

  It was resting on a marble podium in the center of the chamber. It was shaped like a trident with the shaft snapped off, and colored oil black. It had little golden runes carved all across its body. This core thought it was fancy. It thought it was really something. Then again, it really was a much swankier-looking core than me. Except for one thing: its body was covered in cracks.

  Bolton walked a circle around it. He crouched down. He took out a magnifying lens. He tried to cup it and turn away from me, as if to hide it.

  Looked to me like Bolton’s eyesight was fading, and he was too vain to just get some spectacles. Bloody hell. We’d been through the same thing with his balding hair, a while ago. Turned out that I wasn’t the only one who tried to look good in front of people.

  Gazing at the core, I could sense a few things.

  This core had been draining from the black essence. Just as I had. As such, it had been chipping away at its core purity, and that explained all the little cracks. This moron had drained so much black essence that it was close to falling apart.

  Secondly, it didn’t have much essence stored inside it right now. A core can always tell when a fellow core is empty. Kind of like if one human could look at another and tell they were tired. Like if there were physical giveaways such as big, dark bags under their eyes or…

  Well, I suppose humans can do that. The point stands.

  This core wouldn’t be able to conjure any traps or monsters. It was defenseless.

  “Beno,” said a voice.

  It wasn’t Bolton. He was busy examining the podium that supported the core. Blowing the dust off it, trying to decipher what looked like writing, but had mostly faded.

  I knew at once that it was using its core voice to speak to me. Bolton hadn’t indicated that he’d heard.

  He drummed his index finger on his chin. “Looks dormant. It’s been draining black essence for too long, see? Damn it. I’d hope to find it while it was still…never mind.”

  “You’re observant,” I said.

  “Let’s see what these runes say.” It was only seconds before Bolton was completely consumed with deciphering the core’s golden runes.

  “Beno,” the core said again.

  It knew my name. This core was more powerful than I thought. It must have read my mind, and used that to find out my name. That meant I would have to be very, very careful. This kind of psychic power…

  I answered it using my core voice. “How do you know my name?”

  “You and your friends talk very loudly. You haven’t shut up since you arrived in my dungeon.”

  “Oh. Right. Yes.”

  “You have come to end me,” it said.

  “We’re here for answers,” I replied. “And to stop what’s going on. I mean, come on. What’s with the bloody insects who copy themselves when you hit them? Care to explain? Even better, teach me how to make them! And I have to say, the whole wraith thing is a very tacky move. Not very becoming of a core. We can create our own monsters. We don’t stoop to turning civilized folks into dungeon creatures.”

  “I have to show you something,” said the core.

  “You know my name. What’s yours?”

  “They call me Wreithintzo. Or Reith, for short. My good friends used to…they used to call me…Ray. I have no friends now, Beno. It’s has been too long for that. Too much has passed. But I would like to be called by that name again before the end. Humor an old core.”

  “Ray? Really?”

  “Yes. Thank you…Beno.”

  Even using his core voice, Ray’s tone was labored. Drawing on the black essence had left him close to death. His second death, I supposed, given that he was a core. The thing was, he must have been drawing on it for a while, judging by the insects and wraiths that he’d made. I’d absorbed essence from it just once, and I lost so much core purity that I didn’t even want to think about it. At his peak, Ray must have been a strong core, to be able to draw from black essence for so long.

  Maybe he was used to it. Maybe Ray was made to be able to draw from it, and the black essence allowed him to create things like the insects. I sure as a demon’s arse couldn’t make something like that.

  Then again, if Ray was supposed to absorb black essence, why did he look like a giant steel elephant had sat on him?

  Judging by the state of him, I wouldn’t have long to get my answers.

  “Tell me something, Ray. You created the insects, and you’re turning people into wraiths, aren’t you?”

  I braced myself for the denials and the lies.

  “Well, obviously,” he said.

  “Oh. Good, at least I know. Can you turn them back?”

  Here came the bargains. He’d want me to do something in exchange for turning them back.

  “No,” he said.

  “Right. Nice to know where we stand. What about Riston? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “Riston Ruth is an Awakener, Beno. When the ancient ones begin to stir, the Awakeners are…well, they are awakened. All across Xynnar, it is their job to find us. Each Awakener has a core he must find. And then, they are our hands. They are our tools on the surface, while we shake off our slumber. Riston was to be my hands on the surface until…until the 50 nights were summoned.”

  There it was again. Riston had told me the wraith girl mentioned the 50 knights in her sleep.

  “50 Knights? Who are these guys?”

  “I said the 50 nights, Beno.”

  “Yes, I heard. Who are they?”

  “They? What do you mean?”

  “The 50 knights!”

  Ray sighed. “Night is what follows day, Beno. When the sun retreats and darkness spreads in the sky.”

  “Ohhhh. 50 Nights! Bloody hell, I feel like an idiot now.”

  And then a thought hit me.

  Demons arses!

  Ray had asked Riston to summon 50 nights, which must have meant…what? That there would be 50 straight days where the whole wasteland was in darkness?

  And what about the wraiths? They’d have the freedom to roam for all that time!

  They’d attack Yondersun. Kill the townsfolk. Create more wraiths. Then roam over to Hogsfeate, kill the folks there, and multiply their wraith numbers even more. After that, they would head north and spread through the rest of Xynnar.

  “You need to call this whole thing off,”
I said.

  Call it off? That sounded lamer than a three-legged mule, even to me. Why would a core who called himself an ‘ancient one’ give up on his grand plan, just because I told him to?

  I had to try another way, but I needed more information.

  “What’s your angle on this, Ray? Why do you need to create so many wraiths in the first place? It’s just greedy if you ask me. And who the hell are the ancient ones?”

  Bolton straightened up. He wiped his dusty hands on his trousers.

  “The ancient ones are the original cores, Beno. The first cores to exist in Xynnar. I would have thought that was obvious.”

  “You could hear our core voices?” I said.

  “I’m a bloody Dungeon Core Academy overseer. Do you think it would be wise to let cores talk amongst themselves using their core voices, and for us overseers not to hear?”

  “Then you knew about Ray and what he is?”

  “I told you, I came here for him.”

  A sickening feeling began to worm its way inside me. Bolton had come here for the core. For Ray.

  Riston was an awakener, apparently. His job was to be Ray’s hands on the surface. To act out his desires. What if Bolton was the same?

  “Don’t look at me like that, Beno.”

  “Like what?”

  “So suspiciously. I think Ray has something to show you.”

  “Who are you, old man?” said the core. He used his real voice now. It sounded ancient and gloomy. “Are you an Awakener?”

  “Not as such. Show Beno what he needs to see.”

  Ray cast a core vision in front of us. A rectangle of light that extended from floor to ceiling, housing a dizzying swirl of colors. Every color that existed, and some that never had until now. They went round and round, hypnotic and mysterious. The colors finally settled, forming a scene.

  It was a village. The strangest village I had ever seen, actually. The houses were made of jagged glass spikes that extended higher than a bird could fly. Each spike was covered in a patchwork of vines, twisting and wrapping around them all the way to the top. Essence vines. I’d know them anywhere. Except, I’d never seen them growing above ground.