If he weren’t a good friend of mine, it would have sickened me to my core.
“Really, Maginhart?” I said. “You kept Jahn in your bag? Show a little respect! He’s a core.”
“Hess’s heavy, Dark Lord. My bag isss artificed ssso I do not feel the weight.”
“Lay off Ash Whiskers,” said Cynthia.
“Ash Whiskers?”
“That’s my name for Maginhart. After he burned himself the first time he tried to use my burner.”
“Beno! I can’t believe all this,” Jahn said. “Riston. Gary. The wraiths. Riston…Gary…the wraiths…Riston…Gary…”
“Focus, Jahn. We need to get back to the dungeon. Hold them off.”
Twenty-something guards charged at us in groups of threes. In every trio, one had a sword, another a shield, and the third had a core whip. They weren’t taking chances. They were expecting me to attack them, but I couldn’t use essence on the surface.
Jahn, however, could. One problem with that…Jahn was hopeless at anything combat-related. So earlier, when we discussed our plan, we’d decided on something else.
Core Jahn channeled essence. Every non-core in the area would have been oblivious, but cores always know when essence is being used. I felt it. I smelled it.
Four big, steel walls sprouted up from the ground. They rose until they were twenty feet tall, fencing the guards in.
We heard them talk worriedly. Then their swords dinked on the metal as they tried to pound their way free.
A great crash came from our west, away from town. The cell building that housed Shadow and Eric had completely crumbled.
I had a pretty good idea of what had happened.
Wylie and his team were expert miners. But they had to dig their tunnels carefully. Keep the structure intact. Today, I’d given them hardly any time to work. So, when they tunneled under the cell block, they must have made it cave in.
Oh well. It could have used a renovation anyway.
At least Eric and Shadow were free.
“Everyone back to the dungeon,” I said.
CHAPTER 10
We reached the glorious gloom of my dungeon. The door slammed shut behind me and then the sunlight was gone. I breathed in the darkness and felt it strengthen me, even though a thick coil of tension refused to leave my core.
“It’s good to be home,” I said.
The first chamber was empty. There was a tile puzzle just ahead of me, the tiles dirty from hero boot prints. Ah, what sweet memories we had made here. How many low-level heroes had met their painful end within these walls? I felt nostalgic. Today, no monsters lurked in the shadows; I’d told them all to wait in the loot chamber.
“You guys go ahead,” I said.
“You aren’t coming?” asked Warrane.
“I’ll be along in a second. I need to do something. Jahn, can you help?”
“Sure thing, Beno.”
As Maginhart, Cynthia, and Warrane crossed the room, where two riddle doors blocked them from going further into the dungeon.
One of them, with the face of a bull, stirred to life.
“Hello heroes, don’t delay!” it said. “The answer to my riddle, you will say!”
“Let them through,” I said.
“You’re no fun,” sighed the door.
The riddle doors sighed and opened up. The guys headed through them and down the tunnel, and soon they were gone. Jahn and I were alone.
“What do we need to do?” asked Jahn.
“Nothing. I just wanted to thank you,” I said.
“You really don’t have to.”
“I do. I know how much your role in town means to you. I’ve asked a lot from you today.”
I was understating it if anything. Jahn had trained in the Dungeon Core Academy just like me. Only, he was useless at anything dungeon related. Whatever criteria the academy used to choose who they resurrected as a core, they’d made a mistake with Jahn. He was a dud. A blunder. Or that’s what they thought.
They were wrong.
Really, Jahn just needed to find his calling. He’d stumbled on it in Yondersun, where he was able to use essence not to destroy but to create. Jahn was gifted at constructing buildings and fixtures on the surface, and he’d made more than half the town. There was a reason there was a street in Yondersun named Jahn’s Row, and none named Beno’s Alley.
Creating things is what gets you remembered. All I did was kill. Nobody remembers a killer. At least, not for the right reasons. Hopefully, in centuries to come, people would walk down Jahn’s Row and be thankful to him. Nobody would remember me, the core who lurked in a dungeon and murdered heroes. But you can’t change what you are.
Core Jahn had shown exactly who he was when I asked him to risk his reputation to help me.
Hours ago, before going to see Galatee, I’d used my core voice to speak to Jahn. If Riston was using magic to alter people’s minds, then it meant Jahn was one of the only people I could truly trust. He was a core, and like me, magic of Riston’s nature wouldn’t affect him.
Jahn was so loyal that he’d heard me out, and he’d believed me, and he’d agreed to help. Just like that. That was the kind of person he was.
In doing so, I’d made him act against the town. There wouldn’t be a place for him on the surface anymore. Not unless I could fix this.
“I don’t suppose Chief Galatee will need my services now,” Jahn said. “What will I do? I’m not like you, Beno. I’m a defective core.”
“You’re not defective! You’re just…different. Who’s to say that it isn’t me who’s defective? Maybe cores weren’t meant to murder heroes. What if everything they teach in the Dungeon Core Academy goes against why cores were created in the first place?
“But they resurrect us to kill heroes. How can it be any other way?”
I thought about Namantep. She was an old core who had almost been killed and had to spend decades in dormancy to cling onto life. Right now, she was hiding in a sublevel of my dungeon. Years of sleep had messed with her mind. I had so many questions for her, but it was difficult to get sense out of her sometimes.
She was proof that cores existed before the Dungeon Core Academy. She was a healer core, and her existence meant cores didn’t always have to kill.
I still didn’t know what to do about that.
“Never mind. Look, we’ll straighten this out.” I said.
“I’m not sure you will. The townsfolk hate you now, Beno. When they hear I was helping you…”
“I told you. This is all Riston. If we can stop him, they’ll go back to normal.”
“What if this is normal, Beno? What if you’re wrong? Maybe even if Riston goes away, everyone will still hate us. Not because of a spell...but because of what we are.”
He had a point. It was hard to counter that. I just had to believe that I was right.
“Forget that; we can’t control it. Let’s focus on the things we can do,” I said. “I need your help. Do you have any essence left?”
“Some, but I can’t use it below ground.”
“You can transfer it to me. Let’s get to it.”
We had questions to answer. Plans to make. But right now, I had to make the place secure. Riston’s men would get to the dungeon soon, and I couldn’t let them get in.
There were two entrances to my dungeon that others would know about. One was the main entrance that heroes used when they were raiding, which we’d just used to get to the first chamber. There was another entrance on the west side of the dungeon, adjoining the great cavern where Galatee’s clan used to live.
Jahn transferred half his essence to me, topping me up to full capacity. Using this, I created eight steel doors, one after another. In between each steel door, I put pressure switches on the floor. When they were triggered, the little chambers would fill with gas that would knock intruders out. I didn’t want to kill the town guards. That would not have been a good look for me, given they were under Riston’s influence.
Usua
lly, anyone who entered my dungeon was fair game for murder. After all, I was resurrected to kill heroes, and the Dungeon Core Academy's definition of a hero 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.’
But there was a problem here. Not only did I not want to murder Yondersun townsfolk, but they weren’t entering the dungeon under their free will. Riston was messing with their minds. Forcing them to come down here.
So, I had to use non-lethal means to stop them.
After creating steel doors and sleeping gas traps on both entrances, my essence was down to just over a third of my capacity. Not ideal. Still, at least I was in my dungeon. My essence vines would slowly regenerate it.
There was no point blocking up the hidden emergency routes. Nobody knew about them except me. I hadn’t even told my monsters about them. We might need them later, so I didn’t want to obstruct them.
“There,” I said. “If the guards want to get into the dungeon, they have to get through eight steel doors, and they have to do it while being gassed to sleep. Come on, Jahn. Let’s find the others.”
The loot chamber was back to its gruesome best, which comforted me a little. After the failed trader dinner, we’d taken the nice table back to the meeting room. We’d spread a few fresh bloodstains on the ground. Wylie had hung his paintings back on the walls.
He’d started painting as a way of expressing his more sensitive side, and he used his dungeon wages to buy canvas. The medium he used was heroes’ blood. Although it came in only one shade, it was free, and we usually had a lot of it to spare. It had seemed appropriate to take the paintings down while the traders were here, but otherwise, I was proud to have my friend’s work on display.
The chamber was the most crowded I had seen it in ages. In fact, the last time it had been so full was the surprise rebirthday party they’d thrown for me.
There was Gulliver. He had a roll of apple skin in his hand. Say what you will about my dungeon creatures, but Gull was the most monstrous of us all. The freak loved to peel apples, throw away the actual apple part, and eat the skin. And people say that I’m the evil one.
Wylie and the miner kobolds were resting by the chamber wall. Exhausted. Covered in sweat and dirt. When I looked at them, messages pinged in my inner core and told me they’d all leveled their mining skills several times over.
Brecht sprinted over, his tambourine swinging around with each step. Bards were usually skinny specimens, but Brecht had two things going for him. He was a kobold, and his wolfish ancestry meant that though his frame was slight, it was packed with muscle. He’d also developed giant neck muscles from going absolutely everywhere with his tambourine slung around it.
“Where’s Gary?” Brecht said.
“Still in the cells.”
“You haven’t gotten him out yet?”
“We’ve been on the back foot all morning. Just be patient, Brecht.”
“Patient,” he said, pacing in a circle. “Patient. Okay.”
I knew why he was so on edge. Brecht was a bard, and Gary loved to sing and play the lute. The two were in a band together and would often perform in the Scorched Scorpion, either as a duo or with the fire beetles Fight, Death, Kill as a backing chorus. Though Brecht’s and Gary’s arguments over creative differences were legendary, a friendship had developed.
Eric stomped over to me. He held out his hand, remembered my lack of hands, then just nodded.
“Thank you for getting me out of that place,” he said. “I’ve been in plenty of cells in the past. Dirty places than that, to be sure. Places where even an underworld demon might refuse to spend a night. But the bloody sun out here. Heating the walls. Shining down all the bloody time. Thank you, Beno. Even though it’s your fault I was in there in the first place.”
“You came to me looking for work, Eric. You’re a bloody barbarian! Your job isn’t going to be dancing and having tea parties.”
“Sometimes a fella just wants a nice, cushy gold-spinner. That’s all I’m saying. That one day, after spending my life getting battered and bloodied, I might get a nice job that pays well and doesn’t wind up with me getting my arse kicked. But as long as you’re paying, and as long as that brute Razensen doesn’t come back, then I’m your guy.”
“Thank you. We’ll need your help.”
Cynthia, Maginhart, and Warrane were standing together. Since he’d become her apprentice, Cynthia and Maginhart were inseparable. It wasn’t just a case of Maginhart looking up to his teacher. Cynthia seemed to take a lot of comfort from her friendship with him. I supposed that being the only ratbrid in Yondersun, being one of the few of her kind in Xynnar not forced into slavery, made her bond with a creature like Maginhart.
“Right,” I said. “First, thank you all for your help. Wylie, you and your lads did sterling work tunneling under the cell. I know we didn’t plan to make them cave in completely, but it was a nice touch.”
Wylie was too exhausted to even reply. He half-heartedly raised a hand. His miner coworkers were already dozing.
“You lads go get some proper sleep,” I said. “The rest of us need to talk.”
The miners struggled to their feet and left the chamber. Those remaining gathered in the center. Eric sat on the massive loot chest. Then he sprang up like his arse was on fire.
“That’s not a mimic, is it?” he said, nodding at the chest. “It won’t eat me?”
“It’s just a regular old chest filled with shiny tat. Chest mimics are old school,” I said.
Eric sat back down. Gulliver finished his apple skin. Warrane looked a little uncomfortable. It had been a while since he’d been in the dungeon.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s get to it. First, we learned something about Riston today. We can say for sure he’s using his powers to influence everyone in town. Being cores, it doesn’t affect Jahn and me.”
“This one still doesn’t believe he was affected by it,” said Warrane.
“Did you explain this to him?” I said, looking at Cynthia.
Still wearing her tinker goggles, even in a gloomy dungeon, she nodded. “I gave him the brew and explained it all. The thing about mind powers is that the really good ones don’t even leave a mark on your brain when they leave. You’d never even know someone had toyed with you.”
I noticed then that Shadow was deep in thought. I knew what she must be wondering.
Lately, she’d been having nightmares about the time Anna controlled her mind. About what Anna made her do. Anna’s mind powers had definitely left their mark. According to Cynthia, that would mean Anna wasn’t actually very good at manipulation, if she couldn’t hide leaving a trace in Shadow’s mind. And yet, she’d still been able to get Shadow to murder a fellow dungeon mate, breaking the sacred rule of dungeons.
If Anna, a young psyche-mage, could do that, then what about Riston?
Riston wasn’t just a guy who dabbled in psyche-magery. That was obvious. He’d worked at it and he’d reached a level that must have been close to mastery. I hated the guy, but if he’d mastered the psyche-tier of mage spells, I needed to respect him. I’d be stupid not to.
I pushed the thought to one side. I needed to think about how to stop him, not dwell on things.
“Warrane,” I said. “I promise you, you were under Riston’s spell.”
“Then how was this one freed from it, but the others in town are not?”
“A while ago, we had some trouble with a girl named Anna, who has the ability to control people and monsters. After I’d dealt with her…”
“Killed her?” asked Warrane.
“Unfortunately not. After we’d removed her control from Shadow’s mind, I had to make sure it never happened again. I couldn’t risk my dungeon creatures ever falling under someone else’s control. So, I asked Cynthia if there was any kind of alchemic brew that would stop mind control. We have her to thank for the fact Warrane could help us. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be in a cell righ
t now, and guards would be gassing this place out.”
Cynthia put her hand on Maginhart’s shoulders, who was slowly retreating toward the wall. She pushed him forward.
“Actually, you’ve got my star student to thank. Maginhart came up with the brew. And like every lunatic alchemist down the years, he tested it on himself until he got it right.”
“Maginhart?” I said. “You never told me that. You let me think Cynthia made it.”
“Well…” said Maginhart, clearly uncomfortable getting the limelight.
Wylie, who had stayed behind after dismissing his mining team, sprinted over to him and clapped his back so hard that Maginhart stumbled. Their physical difference was clear to see; Maginhart came from a mining background like Wylie, but his muscles had gone to waste as he pursued a more academic career.
“I am proud of Maginhart!” Wylie declared.
“We all are,” I agreed. “He saved the dungeon today. And we must thank Cynthia, too, for agreeing to take him on as an apprentice.”
Maginhart’s face had reddened to the color of a slapped arse.
Cynthia shrugged. She huffed on her goggle lenses, wiped them with her shirt, and put them back on.
I continued. “As I said, all of this was a while ago, after the incident with Anna. But the brew wasn’t ready, so none of us have been taking it. When I started to suspect what Riston was doing, I went to see Cynthia. I asked her and Maginhart to drink the brew to protect them from his mind spells. She gave some to Warrane, too.”
“Why not just dilute the town well with it?” said Gulliver.
“Ever tried finding trerine, scribe?” said Cynthia.
“No. I’m a scribe. Why would I?”
“Fair point. The main ingredient of the brew is a liquid called trerine. Comes from the armpit glands of the gorillogoran, who use it as protection from their main enemies, a parasitic worm. They spray it out of their armpits and it’s a whole thing…never mind. It’s harder to find out here than a priest in a brothel. Wait…I got that the wrong way round. Harder to find than a pimp in a church is what I meant. I only had enough to make nine or ten batches.”
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 119
