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

by Alex Oakchest

  Ah. Now I remembered.

  The bakery had been remodeled last week.

  I used my core voice to speak to one of my dungeon creatures.

  “Jopvitz?”

  A few seconds passed before he replied. The guards stared at me. The crowd bunched into groups. They murmured and gossiped. Still no sign of anything inside the bakery. No movement.

  “Yes, Dark Lord?” said Jopvitz.

  “I need you to check your notes.”

  “My spy notes?”

  “I told you, we don’t call them that. It makes them sound creepier than they already are.”

  “My reconnaissance notes, Dark Lord ?”

  “Exactly. I need to know about a guard. Red hair. Bushy eyebrows, like an owl.”

  Silence.

  Jopvitz would be cross-checking his big ledger of notes. Like Maginhart, Jopvitz had started dungeon life as a miner. During the whole anti-core thing, he’d helped with my spying…my reconnaissance…and he took a liking to it. Showed a real flair, too. I was edging on promoting him, but not just yet. The longer I made him wait, the more grateful he’d be. I needed loyalty among my monsters.

  “The guard’s name is Segul.”

  “Seagull? Like the bird?”

  “Don’t call him that, Dark Lord. My notes say he doesn’t like it. It’s spelled S-E-G-U-L.”

  “Are there any secrets he might not like me to talk about, as well?”

  Silence. Segul stared at me. Come to think of it, his nose looked a little like a beak. And he had the beady little eyes of a seagull.

  He couldn’t hear my core voice conversation, so it’d just look like I was just floating there. Stubborn, refusing to move.

  “The guard is having an affair, Dark Lord,” said Jopvitz.

  “Who with?”

  “His wife’s sister.”

  An affair. It made me inexplicably irked. I didn’t give a damn about relationships. I didn’t care whose beds the townsfolk danced in and out of. So why should this annoy me?

  I supposed it was the loyalty aspect. A dungeon is only as strong as its weakest link. When you’re fighting heroes, you need utter trust in each other, and we prized loyalty above everything. I supposed that was what annoyed me, not that it was my business.

  “Segul,” I said. “Can I have a word?”

  “You aren’t getting inside, core.”

  “Step down, core,” added the other guard. “Or float down.”

  Oh, if only you two were in my dungeon…

  I swallowed my inner desire to kill and tried to remain civil.

  “I just need a quick word, Segul. Either with you or your wife.”

  That got to him. I saw him flinch. Just for a second, but it told me everything I needed to know. He moved away from the door, and I floated along with him.

  “Just what in all hells do you want…” he began.

  “I hear you’ve been putting your beak in other people’s nests, Seagull,” I said.

  “It’s pronounced See-gale!”

  “I don’t care how you say it, and I don’t care what you get up to in private. But other people will.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Let me inside the bakery.”

  “You do not want to see what is inside, core.” The way he said this worried me.

  “Is Gary still in there?” I asked.

  “Better that you do not see.”

  “Let me in. I’ll decide that for myself.”

  I was filled with worry now. I had assumed something had happened in the bakery, but I didn’t think Gary would still be there. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I guessed the whole thing had surprised me.

  Segul tapped the other guard’s shoulder and whispered. A look passed between them. He stepped aside and pushed the door open, just enough for me to float through.

  I braced myself. I had a bad feeling. I tried to prepare myself for finding Gary dead. That something had happened in the bakery, of all places, and Gary was dead.

  I wasn’t ready, but I couldn’t hover out there all day. I floated in.

  The crowd murmured as they watched me leave them. The door swung shut behind me and cut off the noise of the crowd. Inside it was silent, except for a clock ticking from some unseen place.

  I looked around. Something stirred in my soul. Dread, maybe. Fear? I couldn’t place the emotion. The only true emotion I could name was confusion.

  And then I saw it.

  I thought it was jam, at first. This was a bakery after all.

  But then I spotted the bodies. Four corpses on the floor. Dead eyes staring at the ceiling. Full of fear. They’d been torn apart, and their blood was splattered everywhere. The ceiling was covered in spots of it. The blood was pooled so thick in some places it hadn’t dried yet. They’d died in the most horrific way, and they’d been gripped with terror while it happened.

  Whatever had done this, it had been caught in a tremendous fury. It had ripped them limb from limb. Even I feared the kind of thing capable of this.

  But what did Gary have to do with it?

  Was he hurt, too? Or did he…

  Looking around, I couldn’t see him.

  “Gary?” I said, using my core voice.

  Still no answer.

  I spoke out loud this time.

  “Gary?”

  I heard footsteps coming from the back of the bakery. A door opened, and a soldier stood in the doorway. Behind him was a long hall, with a trail of blood spread over the floor.

  The soldier pointed a spear at me. Pointless, really. Not the spear, obviously, but the action. Mortals don’t seem to get that spears and swords aren’t usually much use against an immortal gemstone.

  “You should not be here, Beno,” he said.

  It took me a second to realize that the soldier was a young half-orc with dark green skin and three eyes. Muscled, but in an athletic way.

  Warrane. One of Ex-Chief Reginal’s favored guards. One of my friends. When I’d met him, he was a weedy teenager from a disgraced family. Doomed to stay at the bottom of the Wrotun clan’s archaic hierarchy.

  When the two tribes merged, Warrane proved himself enough to become a chief’s guard. He exercised. His body filled out. He proved himself trustworthy. But even as he got tougher and rose in stature in the town guardship, he kept his amiable manner. It was rare to find someone with a bad word to say about Warrane, and rarer to hear Warrane say a bad word about anyone else.

  “Warrane? What in all hells is going on? Is Gary okay?”

  “This one doesn’t think you should be here, Core Beno,” he said, his voice kinder this time.

  In all this confusion, I hadn’t taken the time to really think.

  Gary wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. I had created him, and I would feel it in my core the instant a dungeon creature died.

  “Chief Galatee would not be happy if she knew you were here. She would say this one is lax in his duties,” he said.

  “Just tell me what happened, Warrane.”

  “This one should not. He would get into trouble. He has worked hard to get to this position and doesn’t want to lose it.”

  “Warrane, this is me. We’re friends.”

  Warrane took a second to think. He relaxed his spear hand. Stepped aside.

  “Gary is in there. This one asks that you be quick. Do not get me into trouble.”

  “Thank you, Warrane.”

  I floated ahead of him and down the hall, soon emerging in the bakery storeroom. There was flour everywhere. Pots smashed, glass all over the floor. Raisins and currents littered throughout.

  And there was Gary. Slouched on the floor, his eight eyes looking dazed. The stench of alcohol was enough to make an elephant tipsy. I realized I still had my core smell amplified. I dulled it down and looked at my friend. He had crumbs and jam on his abdomen. He must have broken into the storeroom and had a drunken snack.

  The question was, did he kill those people before he did it?

  �
��Gary?”

  All his eyes blinked. Part of him was covered in flour. Other parts in blood. In places, the two had met and formed a crimson gloop.

  “You didn’t come,” he said.

  That wasn’t Gary’s voice. Where was the cheer? The ridiculous positivity? This voice was lifeless.

  “What happened, Gary?”

  “You said you’d come. It was supposed to be a special night.”

  “Did you horribly mutilate and slaughter those people? Just tell me. I won’t be mad. Everyone makes mistakes,” I said.

  “They were my friends. Or I thought they were. I should have known better. Should have known not to trust even my own dungeon mates to be there for me…”

  “I need to know what happened so I can sort this all out. Come on, you know me. The killing itself doesn’t bother me. It’s against dungeon rules to kill civilians, but let’s forget that for now. After all, what’s a little murder now and then? Not a crime, is it? Well, I suppose it is. But you know what I mean. Tell me the facts, and then I can help you.”

  Tears ran from four of his eyes, cutting a current down the smear of flour on his cheeks. He used a leech leg to wipe the mess away. He only made it worse. Spread a smear of crimson blood-flour over his cheeks and into his eyes.

  I felt sorry for him. Sorry, and angry. If he’d killed those people, he’d just destroyed any chance of me becoming chief. He’d put the dungeon in danger. But he was my friend, I’d let him down, and he was in a state. I was supposed to be the dungeon leader. To look out for every dungeon mate. Could I really say I’d done that lately?

  “Just tell me one thing. Give me the truth, and I’ll believe you,” I said.

  “You’d take my word for it just like that?”

  “We’re friends, Gary.”

  “Friends keep promises, dear chap. It’s the most basic foundation,” he said.

  And now I felt bad again.

  “I’m sorry. Things are hard right now. A lot is going on. And with the chief election, dungeon security is on the line. I had to think of everyone, and not just you.”

  “Is that what it was, Beno? A decision? Or did you merely forget?”

  I tried to decide which sounded worse.

  Deciding to miss his show meant I weighed up the options and concluded that Gary’s important night was way down the list of my priorities. But forgetting to go showed that he meant so little to me I didn’t give him a thought. Either way, I looked bad.

  I needed to give him an answer, because I needed him to talk.

  “Core Beno?” called a voice from outside the room.

  “One second, Warrane.”

  “This one needs you to leave. Chief Galatee is coming.”

  “Just one second.” I floated eye level with Gary. “Just tell me if you murdered those people. We can deal with the consequences, but I need the truth.”

  Gary thought about it.

  “Tell me why you missed my show.”

  I couldn’t lie to him and then expect him to tell the truth. “I forgot, Gary. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded his head. He wasn’t angry at all, which made it worse. “I don’t know what happened here.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “I was drunk, Beno. Completely off my head.”

  Damn it.

  Everything about this was a contradiction.

  On the one hand, Gary was a dungeon monster. I had combined a spider, stone troll, and a leech to create a giant killing machine. His whole purpose was to slaughter people who entered my dungeon. Given that he’d been found in the same place as a bunch of bodies, it didn’t take a giant leap to see he could have done it.

  But anyone who knew Gary would say it was impossible. Killing heroes was in his nature, but that was just it - killing heroes. He didn’t murder indiscriminately. If someone was in my dungeon, they were fair game. Outside of it, nope.

  Added to that, Gary had a soft side. He was the most sensitive murder monster I knew. I refused to believe he’d just mutilated four people.

  If he couldn’t remember, then I couldn’t say for sure. But I had to make up my mind. Did I side with my friend, or with logic? I supposed that was the thing about belief. You had to risk being wrong, but hope you weren’t.

  “Core Beno?” snapped a voice.

  Chief Galatee was at the end of the hall. Though she was a gnome and naturally quite short, she had a glare that seemed to make her bigger than anyone. I’d seen burly soldiers wither under her stare. Galatee was as sun-drenched as they came, having spent all her life in the wasteland. The sun had cracked her skin. Toughened her. Years of war and struggle had done the same to her mind.

  “We need to talk, Beno.”

  I joined her in the bakery shop floor. I couldn’t see the crowd outside because the windows were covered, but I could hear them. They weren’t merely curious now. There was tension. I could sense it building.

  And then a voice shouted.

  “I’m sick of this! They’re hiding something!”

  A rock smashed through the window.

  I rushed in front of Galatee, let the shards patter against me and fall.

  There was a hush for a second.

  And then someone reached in from the street. They ripped the curtains off their hooks.

  Another rock caved in the second windows.

  Warrane, spear in one hand, darted over to Galatee. He tried to pull her away from the danger, as he’d been taught. She shrugged him off.

  “Let me face the rabble.”

  The crowd was up against the broken windows now, staring in at the corpses and the blood. Mouths open. Eyes wider than I thought a person’s eyes could go. Taking in the horror in a different way to me. I was resurrected for the sole purpose of slaughter. To me, seeing a bunch of corpses was as normal as looking at the sky.

  To them, it caused revulsion and fear, and with those feelings came anger. Faced with something so horrendous, they needed someone to accuse.

  On the one hand, who could blame them? There were four mutilated corpses in the bakery. People murdered, people who they knew. People who…

  Wait a second.

  Staring at the bodies, I noticed something.

  A man ran up to the crowd. “I just finished talking to Tsuen. He says the spider freak is in there!”

  “The one who plays in the Scorpion?”

  “That’s him. He did this!”

  “Kill him!”

  One orc used a shovel to remove the broken glass from the window, clearing the frame so they could climb through it.

  Segul and his fellow guard stepped forward, made themselves big. It didn’t matter how big they were or how tough their armor was. They were outnumbered, and that was that.

  The crowd rushed past them. Barged through the door. Climbed through the windows.

  Warrane and Galatee backed off.

  I floated there, facing the crowd.

  If we were in my dungeon, I’d conjure a trap or a monster. That’d send them running for sure. But I couldn’t use my essence above ground. Some cores could. Cores like Jahn, who used his essence to construct most of the town. It wasn’t something I’d ever been able to master.

  I never said I was perfect.

  Five townsfolk became ten, twenty. Some of them armed, all of them angry. They looked more like rabid dogs than people. A few dared look at the bodies but most avoided the sight. The blood was too much. All they knew was that someone had to pay, and a spider monster made a good debtor.

  I used my core voice. “Gulliver, I need you to bring everyone from the dungeon to Jahn’s Row.”

  “I’m just having my breakfast…what’s happening?”

  “Gary’s in trouble.”

  “I’ll round everyone up.”

  That was one thing about Gull; he acted when it mattered.

  More townsfolk piled in until Galatee, Warrane, and I were facing thirty of them. The crowd knew Gary was in here, and they wanted him to pay. I wanted to protect him
.

  What about Galatee? No reason why she should risk herself for a potential murderer. And standing in front of her, Warrane had one job: to protect his chief. Neither of them had any loyalty toward me right here and now. I wouldn’t have blamed them for just leaving me.

  This might end with me, a core who couldn’t use his essence on the surface, facing up against an angry mob.

  Galatee stepped forward. Some of them withered under her stare. That was what she banked on; that her authority would overpower their anger.

  “Anyone still in this shop when I count to five will spend the next month digging in the desert,” she said.

  Galatee had chosen to help me and Gary. As much as we’d had our run-ins in the past, I was beyond grateful to her then. Pressure either cracks a person or it shows who they are, and right then, I’d learned I could trust Galatee to do what was right. Even in the face of a mob.

  We waited to see if her authority took hold.

  The man, the one who’d been the loudest, snarled. “This isn’t a clan anymore! This is a town! You can’t order us into the desert!”

  “That’s right, she can’t,” someone agreed. “You’re not a dictator. You’re a chief. You serve us, Galatee. That’s your job!”

  The man who spoke stepped forward.

  Warrane placed himself in front of Galatee. Twisted his spear so it was horizontal. Jabbed with the tip, giving them a warning.

  “This one will run his spear through your gut, Kempton,” he said.

  The loud guy, Kempton, eyed the spear. He was realizing that anger didn’t armor you. The spear would stab through his fat belly flesh no matter how furious he was.

  But then the look in his eyes showed he’d realized something else.

  “There’s two of you and that floating rock, and you’re guarding that…that…monster. You can’t protect him from all of us!”

  “Galatee,” I said quietly. “Where the hell are the rest of the guards?”

  She looked worried, and that worried me. It wasn’t often she showed anything but utter confidence. The last time I’d seen fear on her face was when her husband, Reginal, had a heart attack.

  “On a training exercise, Beno. Out in the wasteland, while it’s early morning and it’s cool enough for them to be in combat armor.”

  “Damn it. My monsters won’t get here quickly enough.”