Dungeon Core Academy 1

by Alex Oakchest

  So, I changed my priories for a second.

  Hopping back into my core room, I did a couple of things. First, I crafted a disguised iron door and placed it at the tunnel opening. I admired my work; it was great!

  Although it functioned as a door, it looked like a mud wall. I crafted a lock onto it, and then I did the same at the end of the tunnel, where it opened into the loot door. Disguised door and lock, check.

  Now, my friends, I had two disguised and lockable doors that would stop heroes from getting to my core.

  Sure, it wasn’t foolproof. If a hero party had a mage who could dispel illusions and a rogue who could pick locks, then they could still get through. But I wasn’t overly worried.

  The thing was, if the heroes made it to my loot room and defeated whatever boss monster I placed in there, they’d be too excited about opening the loot chest to bother hunting for more secrets. I wasn’t indestructible now, but I was a little safer.

  Constructing two doors and locks had sapped 90 of my 100 essence points, so I had a little waiting to do.

  I did this in my core room. Although my essence vines would replenish me no matter where I was in the dungeon, the effect was strongest at the source. Now, the vines had completely covered the two walls where I’d planted them, and they were getting much thicker. Unlike Overseer Bolton’s hair.

  (Sorry, Bolton. I shouldn’t joke about that. You can’t help it.)

  While I floated on my core pedestal and let the vines nourish me, I looked around, and a thought hit me.

  Man, a rug would actually go rather well in here. Wouldn’t it? What do you think?

  Argh, what was I saying to myself? What a waste of essence that would be!

  My essence had replenished to fifty points when I received a message.

  What do you think that was?

  Yep…Bolton had finished tearing me apart in his evaluation.

  Attention, Core Beno.

  Overseer Bolton has completed your second evaluation.

  He is disappointed that you do not seem to have progressed much since his last visit. Four unfurnished rooms, save an oddly placed loot chest. You had not leveled at the time of his visit, nor have you constructed any traps or puzzles.

  Your lack of advancement has dropped your placement among the other cores to the lower 50%. Some cores have already opened their dungeons to heroes.

  However, Overseer Bolton accepts that for the purposes of your evaluation, you are not to be ranked against other cores.

  Furthermore, he noted that you have summoned a kobold and instructed him to mine, and your core room essence growth is impressive.

  As such, Overseer Bolton has issued an evaluation reward. Henceforth, the number of non-dungeon creatures surrounding your territory has increased, and their difficulty has heightened. I am sure you realize that this will bring increased experience points if you can kill them.

  Also, the overseers have increased the fame score of the towns and villages near your dungeon, which will attract heroes of a much higher skill level. Again, this brings better rewards.

  Uh, what?

  I had to read the evaluation three times before I dismissed it because I couldn’t believe my eyes. Overseer Bolton had actually rewarded me?

  Did that mean that maybe he respected the fact that I’d appealed his earlier decision? Perhaps it was the right thing to do after all, and it gave me the idea that overseers might actually like their cores to stand up for themselves.

  Then I thought about it some more, and I reread the reward they’d given me.

  Reward? Pah.

  See, they had increased the toughness of the monsters that might find their way into my dungeon, and the ones Tomlin might encounter while mining.

  As well as that, they’d gone to the villages and towns on the surface and somehow made it so that better heroes would go there, and thus the first heroes I encountered would be tougher.

  They were right in saying that would bring me more experience points and rewards for killing them…but that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  When a core first opens their dungeon, nobody really knows about it. Words hasn’t spread yet. The more famous a dungeon gets, the more highly skilled heroes want to conquer it.

  This means that early dungeons only attract crummy heroes. You know, teenagers trying to prove themselves, or alcoholic heroes who can barely swing a sword or cast a spell. Even then, young cores almost always lose their first fights.

  What Bolton had done, in the disguise of a reward, was making my job a hell of a lot tougher.

  No core ever passed their final evaluation without beating a party of heroes, and that had just become harder for me.

  The worst thing was, by disguising it as a reward, he had kicked me in my metaphorical balls. You couldn’t appeal a reward, could you? Trust me, you can’t. I know the evaluation rules, and you can only appeal a condemnation.

  Damn you, Bolton! Damn you and your stupid-ass intelligence!

  “Uh, Dark Lord,” said Tomlin, from across the dungeon. “Girl is back. Tomlin hears her.”

  Ah. Maybe things weren’t all doom and gloom, after all. At least I hadn’t lost my surface liaison.

  By the time I hopped back to room 4, my essence had replenished to 75 points. Floating there in the bare room, I heard the girl making sounds behind the mud wall she had once fallen through.

  I had made Tomlin rebuild the mud so that the girl couldn’t wander in and out freely, but now I had other means.

  “Tomlin, would you be kind enough to dig a door shape in the mud?”

  “This will cost more study time.”

  “I know what it will cost! Demons alive, you’re the most pedantic minion I ever heard of!”

  “Tomlin honors his deals. He hopes Dark Lord will do the same.”

  “I have more integrity than you could ever know, my friend,” I said. I realized that maybe I was a little grouchy thanks to Bolton, and I shouldn’t take it out on Tomlin. “I’d appreciate it if you could dig, and of course I will dedicate time for your study this evening.”

  “Thanks, Dark Lord.”

  After Tomlin dug a hole in the mud wall, the girl sprang out with a look of pure thunder on her face. Seriously, she was mad. I, a dungeon core in his own labyrinth, was a little wary of her.

  To recover some control of the situation, I said, “Ah, Vedetta. Nice to see you! Before we talk, I just have something to do.”

  “You grubby little core, I-”

  “One second,” I said.

  I quickly crafted a door and lock, placing it over the hole in the wall. There we go! A way for the girl to enter my dungeon, but with a nice lock to keep her out when necessary.

  “Thanks for being patient,” I told her. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Are you going to explain why you blocked me out?” asked Vedetta.

  Before I had a chance to answer, Tomlin scuttled over to us, and he reached out with his claws and gave Vedetta’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Tomlin made wall, but only because Dark Lord asked.”

  She smiled at him. “I know, Tomlin. My anger is solely for this gem. Care to explain?”

  “Overseers can drop by for an evaluation at any time, which I’m sure you know,” I said. “If they realized you were here, they would have been very, very disappointed that I hadn’t killed you yet. As luck would have it, or misfortune, I suppose, an overseer dropped by for a second evaluation.”

  “Which is why you ignored me. Hmph. Fair enough, I guess. Has it occurred to you that overseers can also view your dungeon remotely? That they might, at this very moment, see me standing here?”

  “It has, actually. Since we’re going to be working together, you might need to be here from time to time. So, I had a plan for that. A workaround.”

  “Ah, this should be good,” she said. “Well?

  “The technical definition for a hero, for a dungeon’s purposes anyway, is-”

  “One who is
not a core or monster, and finds their way into the core’s dungeon by their own means, for their own motives. Yes, I know,” she said.

  Hmm. She knew the definition of a hero off by heart. I was now 85% sold on her story. Enough to work with her, but with a healthy dollop of doubt. There’s a lesson there, for the cynical among you; there’s always a place for doubt.

  “There’s a key part to that definition,” I said. “The whole find their way into the core’s dungeon by their own means.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “The area outside my new door is technically not part of my dungeon. So, I suggest that going forward, whenever you need to visit me, you knock on the door. I’ll have Tomlin answer it, and he will carry you into the dungeon. That way, you haven’t found your own way in. Technically, a kobold would have kidnapped you.”

  “Very clever,” she said. I was surprised by how good it felt to get praise from a little girl. “Although, you know that the overseers aren’t idiots, yes? They’ll see through it.”

  “They can see through what they want. The still have to stick to their technicalities.”

  “I bet you’re really one of their favorites, aren’t you? Well, I guess you’re right. They will have to stick to it. I wouldn’t expect that it’ll put you in their good books, though.”

  “We’re way beyond that, Vedetta. Trust me. Now that’s settled, what’s the reason for your visit today?”

  She shrugged. “Our deal. You promised the kobold would mine things for me.”

  “I did. I’ll need something in return.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You said you earned the mining skill while you were digging your tunnels from the surface. You can locate materials better than Tomlin, who’s only a level 3.”

  “Level 3? Well done, Tomlin. Good progress!”

  Have you ever seen a kobold blush? Me neither, until then. It’s a strange sight, let me tell you.

  “Tomlin thanks you, Vedetta,” he answered.

  The girl stared at me. “I’m a level 14 miner. I’d bet that I’m the only level 14 little girl miner in the whole of Xynnar. Learning that you were once a dungeon core does that for you, y’know. It opens your mind to possibilities and stuff. I can locate materials for you, sure. What do you need?”

  “Well, I have traps to make, and the essence cost for crafting iron stuff is killing me. Having a heap of iron would bring the crafting cost down.”

  “I can do that, but I’ll have to go back onto the surface and perform a mining scan.”

  “Great. That will buy you a few hours of hard labor from my kobold friend here.”

  Tomlin nudged me now.

  “What?” I asked.

  He nudged me again.

  Then I understood. “Ah, yes. Another thing. Would you be able to buy a few books for me? I assume your village has a bookshop.”

  “My town might be kinda backward, but they do have things called shops. What do you need?”

  “Tomlin? What do you want to study?”

  The kobold scratched his chin as he thought about it. “Tomlin would like to study architecture and management.”

  I looked at him now, puzzled at his choices. “Really, Tomlin? You could learn anything. Alchemy, botany, artificery, what happened to wanting to know about those? You want two subjects as dry as architecture and management?”

  “Tomlin would like to be more useful in his nest. Learn to improve the slapshot placement of rooms…no offense, Dark Lord…and how to manage creatures under his supervision.”

  “Under your supervision?”

  “In Soul Bard, Tomlin is the bard’s friend, no? His second in command. I thought that…”

  I was touched by how he’d taken his name to heart, and he was right; I could use a partner. “Fine. That sounds all well and good to me. In fact, Tomlin, I hereby promote you to dungeon Lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant?” asked Vedetta. “I believe that is an army rank, and you’ve skipped a few of them.”

  “My dungeon, my ranks. Tomlin is promoted.”

  Tomlin the kobold [Miner Lvl 3] is promoted to lieutenant!

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

  Ah, my first real friend. As a core, anyway. I’m sure in my first life, I had so many friends that I couldn’t leave the house for all the well-wishers. Still, it felt good after starting here with nothing.

  “I’ll go to the surface and scan the ground,” said Vedetta. “I’ll try and locate iron deposits surrounding your dungeon, and then you can mine as you see fit.”

  “Great.”

  “I’d like my payment in advance, if you please. If the kobold could leave the dungeon with me, I have located a section of ground that might just have what I need.”

  A big grin spread on Tomlin’s face now. “Tomlin can see the land outside his nest?” he said, and he looked at me hopefully.

  Damn it, the stupid kobold was like a puppy! I nodded. “Go on then. I have things to do, anyway. Make sure you’re back before it gets too dark.”

  So, after Vedetta and Tomlin left the dungeon, I checked the door was locked behind them. Then, I spent time hopping from pedestal to pedestal. I didn’t want to make traps just yet, because I needed the iron deposits, but there was stuff I could be doing.

  Nope, not whistling. Not working on my Soul Bard fiction, either. I was way past that.

  Instead, I placed lockable doors on the entrance and exit of every single tunnel, the ones that the heroes would use to navigate my dungeon.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want the heroes to be able to traverse my dark palace. I was a core, after all. Why create a dungeon if you don’t want heroes to die in it?

  No, my thinking was that if I placed locked doors everywhere, then any rogues or mages would have to use their lockpicking skills and spells to open them. This would gradually deplete their skill points and mana, giving them fewer to work with when they finally reached my loot room.

  Small advantages, sure, but a new core had to take everything he could get.

  Hours had passed by the time I heard a knock at the room 4 door. I mentally gave an unlock command, and then I heard the soft tread of a kobold walking toward me.

  I have to admit, and I hope you don’t think this is soppy of me, that I had missed Tomlin while he was away with Vedetta. Sure, I had the fire beetles to keep me company, but it wasn’t the same. All they did was scuttle around and make that annoying chirp to each other.

  Given that I could understand the speech of all creatures created in my dungeon, I knew what they were saying. I wasn’t lying about their intelligence.

  “Wall!”

  “Food!”

  “Crumb?”

  That was the extent of it. It grew pretty tiresome, which was why I locked myself in my core room. I got some peace and let my essence regenerate.

  “Tomlin has returned!” said a voice.

  There he was, standing by the door of my core room, the lovable little kobold with a wide smile plastered on his face, covered head to toe in mud and weeds.

  “Enjoy yourself?” I asked.

  “Tomlin dug for the girl. Vedetta bought Tomlin a pastry, and it was delicious.”

  “Don’t get used to it, you won’t find delicacies like that in here. Though, I suppose we had better sort out the food situation since our dungeon population is growing.”

  This was a bit of an annoying aspect of being a dungeon core. It wasn’t all making traps and killing heroes, I also had to take care of my creatures. In fact, there had been an entire class on creature husbandry, taught by Overseer Fencegate.

  “Study time?” asked Tomlin.

  “Soon, I promise. We just have a little more work to do.”

  Under my supervision, Tomlin dug a narrow tunnel sprouting off from the loot room. That done, I instructed him to excavated another room, though at ten feet squared, this was the smallest in the dungeon.

  Here, we – and by we, I mean Tomlin �
� dug little holes in the walls, going deep enough into each one until we saw worms squirming in the mud.

  “Collect as many worms as you can find, and put them on the floor,” I said.

  Tomlin did so, and after an hour he’d found a hundred of them. The floor was practically crawling. It was like a rug from my crafting list, except disgusting and alive.

  Next, I snipped four leaves from my essence vines. I had Tomlin tear these up into the smallest pieces he could, which he then sprinkled over the worms.

  A few seconds later, and there I had it! The essence nourished the worms, and it made them breed at an insane rate. Not only that, but it sped up their biological process, and soon, there were thousands of them. All I had to do now was let them carry on breeding.

  “There you go, Tomlin,” I said. “A never-ending food supply for you. Lots of lovely, squelchy protein.”

  “Worms? Tomlin must eat worms?”

  “Well, what did you expect? What did they feed you in the academy, lobsters and caviar?”

  “Sometimes breedmaster Hulle would give kobolds sheep meat.”

  “Worms are a kind of meat…I think. I’m sorry Tomlin, but breedmaster Hulle and Vedetta have spoiled your palate. This is a dungeon, not a restaurant, and I’m afraid this is the best we can do for now.”

  “Hmm.”

  He wasn’t happy. I could see that. The problem was, I had been a core for so long that I no longer had an appetite, and food wasn’t a draw for me anymore. I tried to be empathetic.

  “How about this? If, while you’re working for Vedetta and me, you come across any underground fungi or anything like that, you can collect them, and we’ll cultivate them. Huh? Sound okay?”

  “It isn’t pastry or sheep meat.”

  “No, like I said, Vedetta has spoiled you. Now I have to be the bad guy. I’m sorry, Tomlin.”

  “Dark Lord must teach, then. Study time?”

  I hope you know by now that I’m a core of my word. I’d like to think so, anyway.

  So, Tomlin and I spent the evening in my core room, where I taught him as much as I knew about dungeon structure, and I answered all of Tomlin’s questions. He picked it up quite quickly, actually, and asked things that neither me nor any of the other cores had thought to ask back in class.