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

by Alex Oakchest

  First, 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 four door. I mentally gave an unlock command, and then I heard the soft tread of a kobold walking toward me.

  I had to admit, as soppy as it sounded in my head, 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 excavate 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 liked to think that I was a core of my word. 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 his 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.

  As the night wore on my essence reached 100 again, and I started to get anxious about finishing my dungeon. After all, there was no telling when the overseers might return.

  Then, on cue, there was a knock on a door, way across the dungeon.

  CHAPTER 18

  “If it isn’t my favorite ex-core, miner extraordinaire!” I said, after unlocking the door and having Tomlin carry Vedetta into the dungeon. To her credit, she did a great job pretending the kobold was kidnapping her.

  “I’ll have to be quick,” she said. “Mom needs me later, and my brothers aren’t much help.”

  “Send her my regards.”

  “Ah yeah. ‘Mom? A dungeon core sends his well wishes.’ I don’t think so. Thank you for the thought, though.”

  “Did you find any iron?”

  “Some. Not a lot, but some. Let me show Tomlin where to dig.”

  “Woah. Hold on a second. Show me.”

  “Oh? You dig things for yourself now, do you?”

  “No, but despite all appearances, my dungeon conforms to a very strict plan. I can't have a kobold digging up holes everywhere.”

  “Hmph. Fine. Do you have a dungeon map?”

  “What kind of core wouldn’t?”

  With a mental command, I made a map appear in front of us. It showed my core root, loot room, worm larder, and the three unassigned rooms. Tiny symbols displayed our current location, as well as the fire beetles who I had stationed as guards in room two, which would eventually become the hero entrance. Unfortunately, it was entirely lacking trap and puzzle symbols right now, but that would hopefully change soon.

  Vedetta pointed out a section in the corner of the third room.

  “If you dig a small tunnel a few yards there, and then go up a little, you should find some iron.”

  “That’s much more precise than I expected.”

  “I told you; I’m a pretty good miner.”

  “Then why haven’t you found what you need yet?”

  “The wundaroot? It’s a much rarer substance than iron, and my mining level isn’t high enough yet. I’ll find it eventually, though. Now, I better go.”

  “No problem. Oh, make sure you flee the dungeon screaming and waving your arms. It has to appear like you’re escaping.”

  She nodded. “Will do.”

  She then raised her arms, screamed, and fled the dungeon.

  I felt much happier now. In fact, I was buzzing with excitement. Tomlin turned to me with a grim look on his face.

  “Tomlin has to dig now, I suppose?” he said.

  I grinned. I had planned a surprise for him, and I guessed it was time to let him know.

  “Not so fast. Wait a second.”

  Create kobold.

  Essence left me, and just as before, a figure took shape before my imaginary eyes, and soon I had a second kobold.

  He was shorter than Tomlin, and had inherited more of the wolf side than lizard. He had fine, bristle-like hairs all over his head, and his eyes shone with cunning.

  “This is your new clanmate,” I said. “You, Tomlin, are his supervisor. Would you like to name him?”

  “Tomlin name him?”

  “I
told you, you’re a lieutenant now. He will be under your direct supervision as a miner.”

  “Thanks, Dark Lord!”

  “Don’t mention it. Now, what’s his name?”

  Tomlin pondered on this.

  Then he pondered some more.

  To be honest, I grew a little tired of all the pondering. “Out with it!”

  Tomlin approached the new kobold with a giant smile on his face and put his claw on its shoulder. The new kobold looked at him warily. “Tomlin names you Wylie, new friend.”

  “Wylie? I don’t know what I expected, but not that,” I said.

  “Wylie was a littermate in the academy. Best littermate. But Wylie is now in another core dungeon.”

  “At least you have a friend, now,” I said. Then I turned to Wylie. “Welcome to your new home. A few things you should know. You are a miner, and Tomlin is your boss. There are worms in the larder just over there, and there is a door in room four that should stay locked at all times. If a girl enters the dungeon, she is not to be attacked. Oh, and whistling is allowed here.”

  Kobold created: Wylie [Miner Lvl 1]

  “Greetings!” said Wylie, more comfortable now. His voice was much higher than Tomlin’s, and he seemed to have a smile permanently fixed on his face now that he had been properly introduced to his surroundings.

  “Come on, Wylie, Tomlin will show you where to dig.”

  The two kobolds trudged off together, and not long after, I heard the reassuring sound of pickaxes hitting mud.

  It was a full eight hours later when the sounds of mining stopped, and a message appeared in front of me.

  A beautiful, beautiful message.

  You have received: Iron deposits x150!

  Now it was time to make some traps.

  CHAPTER 19

  Construction and placement of dungeon traps is an art form. Some people might not think so, but they aren’t dungeon cores, so I completely understand. To a gem like myself, it is as fulfilling an activity as I can think of, and I couldn’t wait to get started.

  While Tomlin and Wylie re-built part of the wall they’d excavated to get to the iron - with Wylie doing most of the work now that Tomlin was a kobold of authority - I went to room two.

  This was the most northern of my dungeon rooms, and it was here where I had planned to construct an entrance.

  Now, though, floating there, I realized that there wasn’t enough distance between it and the loot room. Seriously, it would have taken even the most pathetic bunch of heroes twenty minutes to battle their way to the prize.

  That wouldn’t do. No use making it easy for them. In fact, you might say it went against every dungeon core principle to do so.

  Considering that, I had my kobolds friends dig another tunnel going north-west, and they then dug out another room, another tunnel, and yet another room. This expanded the reach of my dungeon greatly.

  But…it still wasn’t enough. It was all too much of a straight path from the dungeon entrance to the loot room.

  So, I had my kobolds place a door in the furthest room. From here, they dug out a circular tunnel that left the door, looped around for about five minutes’ walk, and then ended up back at the same door. Great stuff!

  But, since it was completely against rules to cut the entrance room off from the rest of my dungeon, I constructed a separate disguised door. It looked like part of the mud wall, but if a rogue or mage dispelled it, they would see it. Then, after picking the lock, they would find the real tunnel that led to the rest of the dungeon.

  My dungeon had hit its room capacity now, and I would have to level again before I could add more. That didn’t matter though, because it was time to create traps.

  So, I thought about this for a while. I remembered all of the things I had learned in Overseer Tarnbuckle’s trap theory class, and the myriad of trap strategies I had read about in the academy library.

  There were thousands of combinations of traps and ways to place them, but I was a little hampered by being a level two core, which meant my trap crafting list was pathetic. I checked it now.

  Traps:

  Beartrap [Cost 50]

  Pitfall [Cost 100]

  Pressure Switch [Cost 50]

  Poisoned darts [Cost 250]

  Not too great at first glance, but these simple devices were the bread and butter of dungeon traps, and it was time to come up with a way to use them to slaughter heroes. It was time to get diabolical.

  The word diabolical, I had learned, comes from diabolus, one of the demons in an underworld. I forget which one. Anyway, I met him once, he gave a talk at the academy. Nice guy.

  But enough of that. Let’s see what I was dealing with.

  A bear trap was something most people would know about. A beautiful construction of metal teeth that, when stepped on, slams shut and bites through the ankle of the poor person or creature. Rather painful, I am told.

  Pitfalls are simpler, but can be quite gruesome. All you need to do is dig a hole in the ground, and then cover it so that it looks like it isn’t there. It sounds rather basic, but you need to be creative.

  For instance, you could place metal spikes at the bottom, creating a delightful impaling trap for would-be looters.

  You could dig the hole fifty feet deep so that the hero falls into the pit and dies when he hits the bottom. Or, if you are especially cruel, you might dig it only thirty feet so that he or she breaks their legs, and then has to lie there and pathetically call for help that won’t come.

  Maybe you fill the pitfall with water and lace it with malicious little piranhas that eat the hero alive.

  Even with a simple pitfall, there were lots of fun things a person could do. They could even try it at home! Though, they’d be advised not to.

  A pressure switch on its own isn’t a trap. A trap, defined by the overseers in the academy, is ‘a construction designed to trick heroes that is placed in a dungeon with harmful consequences intended.’

  A hidden pressure switch on its own is just a trick, but there are no consequences.

  So, this is where you combine the switch with things like the last trap on my list – poisoned darts. A person who is at all familiar with dungeons, maybe if they have read Tomdarksy’s ‘Dungeon Making for Beginners’, would be nodding along with me now.

  Everyone’s heard of a dungeon where someone stands on a hidden switch and poisoned darts shoot out of the wall. They’re a cliché. Sometimes, though, things become cliché for a reason.

  Because they work.

  Now, with 100 essence points, I had some choices to make. I could afford everything except the poisoned darts, which I’d have to level up to get.

  That meant it would just be a matter of buying what I could, letting my essence regenerate, and then deciding where to place stuff.

  And that...well, that took some planning. Oh, yeah, you couldn’t just throw traps around. A core’s setting of his traps could decide his whole evaluation.

  That’s a lot of pressure.

  Another thing to consider was that, as a level two core, I was limited to eight traps in total in my dungeon. I had to be really, really careful.

  Over the next four days, I spent my time buying a trap or two, and then letting my essence recharge in my core room, while plotting where to place things to ensure maximum carnage.

  In the evenings I tutored Tomlin in whatever subject he chose, though sometimes he picked something I didn’t have a clue about. I didn’t want to be all vain like an overseer, so if I didn’t know something, I admitted it and we moved on. This was something Bolton had drummed into me, and I fully believed it. Don’t ever be afraid to admit you don’t know something; it’s much better to admit, than wing it and be wrong.

  Wylie sat with us and listened with a smile on his face, but there wasn’t much going on behind his eyes. Good worker, though. Very pleasant to have around.

  We settled into a routine, and it was strange how much this felt like home for all of us. Many a time I would see Wylie
or Tomlin going into the worm larder to get a bunch of worms, like it was a normal, daily thing.

  There was something to note about this routine. The larder worms came from the walls just outside of my dungeon boundaries. Even though I had bred more of them, I hadn’t created them.

  This meant that when Tomlin and Wylie ate them, they were technically slaying monsters for me.

  Which meant…

  …experience points!

  Yup, when my kobold lieutenant and miner chowed down, they were earning experience points for me. So, how much experience had they earned me from eating worms for five days?

  Experience points [Filter: Worms] – 1.9

  Not even two experience points! It turned out that killing worms wasn’t a great way to advance. It made sense when I thought about it.

  You never hear about a famous barbarian getting legendary powers from digging into the soil on a rainy day. There are no tales about the worm-eating pigeons that found themselves leveling up into eagles or something.

  After days of buying traps and recharging my essence, I was left with enough weaponry to turn my dungeon into a place where heroes had a really, really bad time.

  Trap Inventory:

  Bear-Trap x4

  Pitfall x2

  Pressure switch x2

  The first idea I had was to play around with the heroes’ expectations a little. Manipulate their emotions, toy with their mental states. Fun stuff like that.

  I crafted another chest in the loot room. I placed this one in the center, exactly where a hero would expect to find one. I also crafted not one, not two, but three locks onto it.

  “Tomlin!” I called.

  There was no answer.

  “Tomlin!”

  Damn it, I was too nice to my underlings if they were ignoring me!

  “The next kobold to ignore me gets mashed up and fed to the beetles!” I shouted.