“First dungeon. Already had an evaluation, from which I earned perfect marks.”
“Yes, I can tell you’re as green as they come. You’ve made the kobold a mining specialist, haven’t you? Psh. Kobolds make terrible miners. He’s done an awful job making this room.”
“Yes, he…uh…did a poor job in excavating this room. This is awful, Tomlin. Absolutely awful.”
The kobold looked at me, hurt. “Tomlin didn’t-”
“Hush!” I said, in my most commanding voice. “Do you make a habit of interrupting your dark lord?”
“Tomlin didn’t-” he began.
Vedetta shook her head now. She saw straight through me. Tomlin looked upset, and I felt bad.
“Fine. What a pair you are,” I said. “Tomlin didn’t do the crappy digging, okay? I carved out most of the dungeon myself, and Tomlin only dug the tunnel ahead. Tomlin did a fine job.”
“A core should always be honest with himself,” said the girl.
Tomlin smiled at her now, and I got the feeling that I wouldn’t have an easy life if the two of them got friendlier. I was the core around here, damn it! If anyone was going to rebuke anyone, it’d be me. This was my rebukedom.
And I was being an ass.
As soon as I had the diva-ish thoughts, I knew what an ass I was being. As well as that, I had things to do.
“Well, Vedetta,” I said. “It was nice to meet you. But despite your past lives, you are a human girl in this instant, and you still meet the technicalities of being a hero. I’m sure you know that I’m duty-bound to try and kill you, unless you run for your life.”
“The old evaluation thing, huh? Those overseers, listening in to everything and all that crap.”
“Annoying, right? Still, you’ll need to at least pretend to flee here, preferably screaming.”
“Or, there’s another way,” said Vedetta.
“Hmm?”
“I remember back to my first dungeon. That horrible evaluation period when at least 75% of cores get scrapped and ground to dust. It’d be nice to feel like that wasn’t a risk for you, wouldn’t it?”
“What are you saying, child?”
“Perhaps it would be helpful for you to have an adviser. One who was such a great core in one life, that she ascended. One who could even procure things from the surface, things you could use in your dungeon.”
Ah. She was onto something here. Every successful core needed to find him or herself a surface liaison. I just never expected an eleven-year-old, former core girl to be mine.
“I’d have thought you would have spent enough time in dark, horrible pits. Why not enjoy a life on the surface?”
“Because somewhere down here, core, somewhere underground, there is a resource I need. One that the alchemist says could cure my mom’s illness. Despite how much I changed when I learned about my past, despite how much learning this has aged me, she is still my mom.”
This was so, so strange. When she talked about her mother, she sounded like a kid again. Just a normal, nice little girl. When she talked about core stuff, you’d swear she was hundreds of years old.
I thought about what she said. She was right about the core-failure rate during the evaluation season. She was right that it would be incredibly useful to have her around. What’s more, I was the kind of guy who would take any advantage he could get.
But there was a problem.
“We’ll have to come up with a way of getting the overseers to accept this arrangement,” I said. “Having a fellow core advising me is against the rules. So is allowing a human free reign in the dungeon.”
“Quite a conundrum.”
“Here’s the deal,” I told her. “I’d be grateful to get your advice, and as such I will accept your proposal. You can dig in parts of the dungeon to find the materials you need. You’ll have to tell me what you’re looking for, and we will need to agree where exactly you can dig. I won’t compromise the structural integrity of my dungeon. Actually, Tomlin will do the digging, but only when I can spare him.”
“Structural integrity….ha. Fine, Core.”
“Secondly, you will have to flee from my dungeon, screaming in terror, in precisely five minutes. Thus satisfying my requirement on hero protocol. Tomlin here will chase you and pretend to be a territorial kobold.”
“I’m sure I can act that way.”
“Finally, how did you even get down here?”
“I have been digging in a spot marked by the witch, getting further and further into the ground. I have made my own series of tunnels. Today I dug through a wall and then fell straight through it and into your dungeon.”
“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 in return, you 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, everyone knows that a core must kill things to level up. And while that’s true, there’s a grey area. There are lots and lots of grey areas in a core’s life, in fact.
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 that a core could kill rats, moles, and other things, and he’d still earn experience.
So, why didn’t I just create monsters and then have Tomlin kill them for me, and level up that way?
For one thing, Tomlin clearly wasn’t suited to becoming some kind of dungeon butcher. He was pretty cowardly, and he had better things to do with his time.
The idea of using spawning creatures and then using Tomlin as an executioner was 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 wasn’t a way of leveling up, but there was another means of doing it before heroes got here.
There was no rule against Tomlin or another dungeon creature killing other things for
me. Animals that live underground and that I didn’t create. Rats, voles, mice, even worms, although the benefit gained for killing a worm is negligible. Point is, I had 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 second-level crafting stuff I’d earn so I could 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.
“Thanks for coming, Tomlin. You look like you have been busy.”
“Hole’s blocked up, Dark Lord. Also, room four excavations are complete. Tomlin is done with digging for today. Dark Lord owes him study time.”
I cast my core vision on room four and looked at his handiwork. My dungeon was really taking shape. “Ah, yes! 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 choose to bank your study 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. Maybe that was stupid, but I felt weirdly proud. 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 four 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, or 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 has to answer to some point: what should they do with their life? How old are you, Tomlin?”
“Five blood moons.”
“So sixteen years old? Just say that, then. You’re sixteen 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 chose ten subjects. He will 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 chose. 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.”
“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 do we catch vermin?”
“Damn it. I thought you would come here 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, and there was one thing that no animal 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 four,” 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 leaf 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 actual dungeon, I’d have an immediate awareness of it unless it had stealth skills. Unfortunately, I couldn’t detect much about the rest of the miles and miles of mud around me until I expanded into it and claimed it as part of my territory.
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.
When the dirt settled, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
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 had bulging muscles and was 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 that was 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.
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 7
