Dungeon Core Academy 1

by Alex Oakchest

  “So there’s a direct means of entry into my dungeon now. Hmm. I am going to place a locked door on the hole you made coming in here. You will only visit the dungeon once every week, during which time I will update you on mining progress, and you in return will answer my questions.”

  Vedetta stared at me like she wanted to shatter me with her eyes. Let me tell you, she was scary, even for a kid.

  “Your overseers must really, really hate you,” she said.

  “That sounds right.”

  “You have a deal. Let me explain what I am looking for, and where it is likely to be found. Oh, and if you create any more monsters, ones that can actually fight, instruct them not to attack me.”

  “So our deal is made.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said.

  “Great. Tomlin, chase her out of here.”

  The kobold prowled forward, doing his best to snarl and look scary. Vedetta raised her arms in the air and charged toward the wall opening screaming “Argh! Argh!”

  It was quite a good performance, if you ignored the fact that Tomlin had to give her a boost so she could climb back out of the dungeon.

  After she was gone, I looked at the damaged wall. “Repair that wall please, Tomlin. Make sure the mud is nice and compact.”

  “Dark Lord told Vedetta he would put a door there.”

  “Tomlin, my dear friend, if I left a door there, I’d be leaving my dungeon at the mercy of a child who could go blabbing about it. I’m still only 60% sold on her core story, though she did know about things she shouldn’t. We’ll play along and see what we can get from her, but I don’t want to leave a bloody door to the surface in my dungeon. Not until I’m ready to open the place up to heroes, anyway.”

  CHAPTER 13

  After Vedetta left and Tomlin set to work blocking up the wall behind her, I decided it was time that I leveled up.

  Leveling up is what every core must do if he is to pass his evaluation. If he does this, he will increase his total essence, open up more crafting categories and expand existing ones, as well as allowing more freedom in how many rooms, monsters, and traps he can have in his dungeon.

  It’s pretty damn sweet.

  Now, you might recall that a core must kill things to level up. While that’s true, there’s a grey area.

  I know, I know. Lots of grey areas in a core’s life, huh? Tell me about it.

  Though a core has to kill things to level up, those things don’t have to be heroes. It’s just that heroes offer waaaaaaay more experience points. The fact is, a core could kill rats, moles, and other things and he’d still earn experience.

  So, I hear you ask. Why not just create monsters, then have Tomlin kill them for me?

  Wow. Just…wow. That’s really patronizing of you, you know that? To just assume Tomlin will become some kind of dungeon butcher. As if he doesn’t have anything better to do with his time.

  Besides, I already had that idea.

  It’s a nonstarter. Though a core’s creatures can hurt each other, the core will never earn experience from their deaths. It’d just be a waste. Besides, any creature spawned in my dungeon is part of my clan, and clanmates don’t kill each other.

  So that isn’t a way of earning exp, but there is another means of doing it before heroes get here.

  There’s no rule against Tomlin killing other things for me. Things that live underground that I didn’t create. Rats, voles, mice, even worms, although the exp gained for killing a worm is negligible. Point is, I have options. The problem was finding them.

  So that was my next plan; somehow find and kill enough underground critters to level up, then use the 2nd level crafting stuff I’d get to make some traps for this place. To create new monsters, and maybe…just maybe…get this dungeon open!

  Speaking of level-ups. It was while I was considering what to do, that a few messages reached me.

  Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 2!

  Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 3!

  Tomlin has leveled up to Miner Level 4!

  Go, Tomlin! The overseers had told us that leveling up isn’t just useful - it gives you a high. A sort of warm glow inside you, like a runner might get after finishing a race.

  Right now, Tomlin was probably soooo glad that I had ordered him to do some mining. I bet he was thanking me as he worked.

  “Oh Tomlin,” I called across the dungeon. “Tomlin….I’d like to see you.”

  I heard a grunt and a curse word. I figured Tomlin was just really unhappy to be interrupted in his hard work. It couldn’t have been a curse at me. So I let it slide.

  When the kobold lumbered into my core room he was covered in dirt. Luckily, kobolds have scaly skin instead of fur. I already told you he was a mix of dragon and wolf, but at least he could be thankful he didn’t have a wolf’s fur, because that would have been a nightmare to wash.

  “Thanks for coming, Tomlin. You look like you have been busy.”

  “Hole’s blocked up, Dark Lord. Also, room 4 excavations are complete. Tomlin is done with digging for today.”

  I cast my core eye and looked at his handiwork. My dungeon was really taking shape. “Ah yeah. Thanks, that looks great.”

  “Four hours digging, means two hours study.”

  “The agreement, yeah. I hadn’t forgotten. Like I said, we don’t have books yet, but once I have some loot or gold, I can ask Vedetta to procure some books from a shop on the surface. Right now, you can bank your time, or I can teach you things. I’m not an overseer or anything, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “Tomlin would learn from the Dark Lord.”

  I was strangely touched by that. Does that sound stupid? I mean, I was only a graduate core. The overseers always drummed it into our heads how little we knew, and I even picked up on a little patronizing air from Vedetta, even if she didn’t mean it. It was nice to think someone wanted to learn from me.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll boost your study time to 4 hours. We can start tonight, how about that? So you just come up with a list of topics, and I’ll-”

  Tomlin opened his backpack and brought out a ream of rolled-up paper, which he unraveled …and unraveled…and unraveled.

  “That’s quite a lot of subjects.”

  “Tomlin wants to learn everything he can.”

  “Let me see.”

  He went to bring it over to me, but I stopped him. “I can read it from here. Tomlin. It’s alright. So...alchemy, botany, astronomy, herbalism, archery…Wow, Tomlin. You might have to be more selective about this. The subjects you have included here, some people spend their entire lifetime mastering. Do you want to know a tiny bit about lots of things, become a master at one?”

  “How can Tomlin know what to dedicate his life to, when he hasn’t tried something?”

  “Ah. The question everyone goes through. How old are you, Tomlin?”

  “5 blood moons.”

  “So 16? Just say that, then. 16 years old, and I’m asking you to decide on a subject that will become your life’s work. That isn’t the way to do it, is it?”

  Tomlin shook his head furiously. “Tomlin choose 10 subjects. Try them, and then decide which to pursue.”

  “Dark Lord teach Tomlin…I mean, I will teach you the little that I know about the things you choose. Sound good?”

  “Great!”

  Relationship status with Tomlin improved from [loyal] to [warm]!

  I have to admit, it felt good that Tomlin and I were becoming friends. I liked his style. He would still do the dirty work even though he clearly didn’t like it, because he wanted to pursue his real passions in the meantime. It showed good self-discipline. I was happy that he was the first creature I had brought into my dungeon.

  “Tomlin, we have work to do,” I said. “How do you feel about rat-catching?”

  He screwed his nose at this. “Eeeee, not sure, Dark Lord. Does it have to be rats?”

  “Or voles, moles, mice. Things of that size or bigger.”

&nb
sp; “To eat?”

  “I don’t eat, Tomlin. I’m a core. Come to think of it, I hadn’t considered that. You’ll need food, won’t you?”

  “Tomlin could eat the vines,” he said, pointing at the essence vines flourishing on my core room walls.

  A flicker of fear ran through me at the suggestion. That’s how bad an idea it was. It made me, a dungeon core, feel scared.

  “Tomlin, those are very, very important to me, to you, to the whole dungeon, and our clan. You can’t eat them, ever. Not even if you’re really hungry. Come to think of it, if you sense anyone getting to them, anything happening to them, you must drop everything to come help. Okay?”

  “What are they?”

  “That’s not important right now.”

  “This can count as study.”

  “Fine. They’re essence vines. When I create things in the dungeon, I use up the essence stored inside me. Without it, I can't do anything. The vines give off essence, which I absorb.”

  “Got it.”

  “We better get something for your belly to absorb. Catch some vermin and kill them. You’ll get food, I’ll get exp. Perfect.”

  “Great. Tomlin has question.”

  “Sure.”

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How catch vermin?”

  “Damn it. I thought you would come with the knowledge of how to do that. Didn’t the academy teach you anything? Let me think a second.”

  We’d covered this in the academy. Some cores wanted to earn their first level up by killing a hero, so they could get used to battling those pesky looters. Others, like me, wanted a level up or two under their belts before they let stupid heroes into their dungeon.

  Overseer Bluetop had covered this in his creatures and critters class. So…leveling up…catching stuff…ah. Yeah.

  I needed bait. There was one thing that no creature could resist. Didn’t matter if it was a rat, dog, moose, bear, chimera. There wasn’t a single monster or animal in the whole of Xynnar that could resist the smell of pure essence.

  “Tomlin, meet me in room 4,” I said.

  CHAPTER 14

  It pained me to do it, but I snipped two leaves from my essence vines and used my spectral hands to place one of them in room 4. I kept hold of the other, as this might not work on my first try. In that bare room, I floated on my pedestal point while Tomlin kneeled on the ground, inspecting the leaf.

  “Tomlin doesn’t see how this is so special.”

  “You can’t smell it?”

  “Smells normal.”

  “How can something smell normal? What’s a normal smell? There must be thousands of smells, even in a simple place like this. It isn’t as if there’s a uniform smell of normality. Ah. Hang on. I might understand what you mean.”

  Tomlin had been raised in the academy grounds, which meant that he’d become accustomed to the smell of essence. The fruity, weirdly nourishing aroma that hung around the academy day and night. This made sense now.

  “Here’s what we do, Tomlin. I’d like you to make a small hole in the mud wall. Do it near the ground. Then, build three tiny mud walls surrounding the hole. Almost like a little goblin’s house.”

  “A trap, you mean? Tomlin isn’t stupid.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Tomlin got to work. Even as a level 3 miner, it was easy to see the difference in his effectiveness. He was quicker in his digging now, more efficient in using the pickaxe. He even looked less grumpy as he did it, though that might have been because we’d improved our relationship.

  Soon, he was done. There was a hole in one of the walls, about two feet off the ground. Tomlin had built a kind of mud enclosure around the hole.

  “Great work,” I told him. “Now, Take the essence leaf, place it in the enclosure, and crush it up. Crushed essence leaves let off a pungent smell, and it’ll seep through the walls and into the mud, and any little vermin nearby will tunnel their way toward it. As soon as you place the leaf and crush it, make a little roof for the enclosure. We need to trap our prey.”

  “Got it, Dark Lord.”

  Tomlin did what I asked, while I listened for movement. If something got into my dungeon I’d have an immediate, totally clear awareness of it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t detect much about the rest of the miles and miles of mud around me until I expanded into it.

  Tomlin crushed the leaf and patted a mud roof onto the ankle-high enclosure, and then looked at me.

  “Good, Tomlin. Now we just have to wait. How about we get a start on your studies? It might take a while for any rats or mice to-”

  A great explosion of mud came from the wall above the enclosure. Dirt splattered all over me, all over Tomlin, all over the room.

  After I used my core hands to wipe the mud from my gem surface, I couldn’t believe it.

  Neither could Tomlin, judging by how he cowered backward until he hit the wall on the far side of the room.

  There, standing in my dungeon, was something that resembled a giant frog. It was ripped with muscle and standing on two legs, like a person. It had claws that it must have used to dig through into my dungeon, judging by the mud-caked underneath them. Its eyes were bulbous, its nose was exaggerated with great big nostrils. That thing must have smelled the crushed essence from near the surface, then tunneled down.

  The frog-thing took a step forward.

  “Tomlin, guard your nest,” I commanded.

  He didn’t move. His kobold eyes were so wide I could see the whites. I would have felt sorry for him, if he weren’t both a complete coward and my only line of defense. A sorry combination, I’m sure you will agree.

  After a few seconds more looking at the creature, my core senses washed over it, and information was fed back to me.

  Greater Bogbadug

  Habitat: Marshes, bogs

  Traits: Loves essence

  A bogbadug?

  What the hell?

  The bogbadug sniffed the air now, its oversized nostrils flaring as it caught the scent of something. Evidently, it liked the aroma, whatever it was, because it licked its lips with a long, slurping tongue.

  There was no food down here. Nothing for a giant toad to eat. Only…

  Oh, holy twelve demon lords of the damn underworld!

  The bogbadug had caught the scent of my essence vines in my core room!

  Time seemed to slow for me now, just as my pulse (imaginary) raced. I swear, I could almost hear an actual pulse pounding now, and it wasn’t just from that coward Tomlin.

  I had to think quickly. Actions and decisions in times like this sealed the fate of a core.

  Traps. Could I quickly fashion a tap to catch this thing before it followed the scent to my essence room?

  No – the trap crafting category was still locked for me.

  Okay. First things first, I had to contain it here, in room 4. What could I do?

  The bogbadug started to walk now, following the smell in the direction of the tunnel that led out of the room and toward my loot room.

  Ah!

  I quickly hopped onto the pedestal in my loot room. Here, I entered my core placement mode, which was how I manipulated the things that I created using essence.

  As the bogbadug walked down the tunnel, I used my placement command to move my loot chest.

  First, I turned it so it was standing vertically. Then, I dragged it to the tunnel, covering most of the entrance. There was a two-foot gap at the top, but it was something.

  I hopped back into room 4 now, where Tomlin was still cowering. I shook my head. Or at least, I liked to pretend I had. “Pull yourself together,” I said.

  The bogbadug, at the far end of the tunnel, was hammering the loot chest with his fists. The chest would hold him off from the tunnel to my core room for a while, but it was a crummy chest. It wouldn’t withstand it forever.

  It was then that I heard something.

  Footsteps coming from my core room.

  What in all hells was going on? Was Ved
etta here?

  “Core Beno,” called a voice. “I request your presence in the core room for an evaluation.”

  Another evaluation?

  A second one? Now?

  Was that…Overseer Bolton?

  I was suddenly aware of the almighty racket the bogbadug was making as it hammered desperately at the loot chest, its hunger for essence growing stronger by the second.

  I don’t want to exaggerate what my feelings were at this moment. I hope you realize I’m not an overdramatic core, by my nature. So I’ll say this.

  Things could have been going better.

  I had no way of killing the bogbadug, but nor could I let Overseer Bolton see it. The fact he was here for an evaluation so soon after the last meant I was being targeted. Like I already mentioned; overseers were people. They couldn’t help their biases sometimes.

  If Bolton saw the bogbadug running amok, he’d probably kill it. He shouldn’t do that, but I bet he would.

  Not to save me. Oh no, nothing as nice as that. He’d kill the creature and then claim severe failure on Core Beno’s part forced me to intercede.

  When an overseer had to intercede in your own dungeon, it wasn’t good.

  Now, I heard another shout from across the dungeon. Only, this one didn’t come from my core room, in came from room 4. And it was muffled.

  I pedestal-hopped into room 3, where I could at least see room 4. Yup, I heard the voice again, from behind the wall.

  The girl! She’d returned!

  “Vedetta? This isn’t the best time.”

  She shouted something, but she was outside my dungeon and blocked by mud, so I could hardly hear what she said. She was probably yelling about what a good job I was doing. She’d have to wait.

  Hop!

  Back on the pedestal point in my loot room, I had a choice to make.

  Bolton was approaching from the core room, calling my name. “Core Beno?”

  Maybe I had a plan. A shoddy one, but a lack of time meant shoddy plans.

  “Tomlin!” I called. “Pull yourself together and get over here.”