The owl lady floated over to her desk, clutched a sheet of paper in her talons, and flew back. She handed it to Bolton. The overseer read it, and then scrunched it up and threw it across the room.
“Bloody Tarnbuckle!”
“What is it?” I said.
“The Dungeon Core Academy.”
“But they already registered,” I said.
“The main academy did, yes. But it seems Tarnbuckle has created five sister academies and filled the registration slots with them.”
The owl floated back into her office and landed on the perch behind her desk. She tossed a mouse head into her beak, crunched it, and swallowed it, bones, fur and all. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have business to attend to. We have a tournament coming up, you know.”
Bolton was right about Tarnbuckle. Knowing that I intended to set up my own Academy, he’d used Dungeon Core Academy resources to create five sister academies, just to spite me. Not only that, but the owl lady who was evidently in charge of tournament administration seem to have antipathy towards me. Sometimes, it felt like the universe was trying to tell me something.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t a very good listener. So, I spent that night in the publicly accessible Hall of Records in Heaven’s Peak. This was an empire bureaucratic office that anyone could go into and study the laws and bylaws of the city and its surrounding areas.
I was in there for hour upon hour, reading book after book. Luckily, I don’t need to sleep. Bolton and Gulliver didn’t have the same luxury, and they took a room in a city tavern. No doubt, they would also sample some of the ales and maybe even the women of the city, if I knew Gulliver well.
The next morning, I was excited. I headed into the city. I had never seen such a busy place in my life. Heaven’s Peak was a large city by any standards, but with the tournament approaching, it came to life.
The streets were crammed with vendors and tourists and people who had traveled from all over the world just to try and get tickets. Even though many of them wouldn’t be able to, they would have just as good a time staying in the city, partying and drinking and sampling the atmosphere.
I found the tavern where Bolton and Gulliver were staying. It was a place called the Two-Headed Swan. I made a note of the mental image it gave me, rather liking the idea of having a two-headed swan in my dungeon.
According to the tavern owner, Gulliver and Bolton had taken a room on the first floor. Outside it, I saw that their window was open. So, being the considerate core that I am, I decided to give them a nice, loud wake-up.
I flew into the room and bellowed, “Fire! Fire! The city is on fire!”
Bolton and Gulliver almost leaped out of their beds. Both men looked worse for wear, and it made me feel pleased that as a core, I didn’t drink beer.
“Beno… we can head back to the dungeon this afternoon, can’t we?” said Gulliver. “Let me rest a little longer.”
“We’re not going back to the dungeon.”
“You heard the owl. The tournament is full.”
“Oh no, it isn’t.”
When we headed back into the star lodge, I was half expecting to find a different bureaucrat behind the desk. Instead, it was the owl lady.
“Don’t you ever sleep? I thought you were supposed to be nocturnal?”
“I’m the opposite, unfortunately. While the rest of the owls are sleeping, I’m wide awake. A very troublesome sleep schedule that plays havoc on my social life.”
“So that’s why you’re so bloody grumpy.”
“That, and the fact that a dungeon core will not leave me alone. What is it you want?”
I told the owl about a tournament bylaw I had found in Heaven’s Peak’s Hall of Records.
“Section 2.1 B: Sister academies are not recognized as fully-fledged dungeon core academies. As such, they may assist their main academy, but may not register as an academy in their own right.”
The old lady said nothing for a while, instead, sitting with her wings folded, tapping her claws against the table edge. Her beak clacked softly open and shut.
“Interesting. Very interesting. You seem to have done your research.”
“That’s what Beno is good at,” said Gulliver. “That, and waking people up.”
The owl opened one of the desk drawers. “Not good enough, apparently.”
She slid a book across the desk. The cover looked new, and there seemed to be between 50 and 100 pages in it. Bolton opened it.
“Skip to section 7,” said the owl.
Bolton did so and then sat back, groaning. Whether that was because of what he read or because of his hangover, I didn’t know. But when I read the page myself, I felt as if I was hungover, too.
“This can’t be right. I was in the Hall of Records all night and didn’t see this book! When was it written?”
“Just a few days ago, actually,” said the owl. “Upon receiving advice, we decided that our laws concerning sister academies were antiquated and had to be updated. Sister academies can now enter the tournament.”
Chapter 13
We spent the next two hours in the Gulliver and Bolton’s room in the Two-Headed Swan. They had been told by the tavern owner that they had to check out before the cock crowed 10. To a normal person, that was 10 o’clock. Apparently, in Heaven’s Peak, cocks crowed every hour, except between 12 o’clock and 2 o’clock, out of respect for sleeping residents. Strange place.
I didn’t like to watch Bolton and Gulliver packing up their things and shoving them in their leather canvas bags. Not because I felt lazy and felt like I should help. More because packing up their things meant they were giving up. I wasn’t ready to give up. But then, would I ever be?
“There’s a law that says that… “
Gulliver angrily shoved a shirt into his bag. That wasn’t like him. He loved to fold his clothes, and hated creases. “Give it up, Beno! The tournament was a good dream while it lasted. A nice diversion, certainly, and I think you sold us all on the rewards. But it’s time to come back to reality. The Dungeon Core Academy seems to have a stick up their arse about you, as do many people. Only with them, they have the resources to shove the stick further up.”
Bolton rubbed his belly and groaned. “Can you two young lads stop talking about sticks and arses, already?”
“As I said, there’s a law that… “
Bolton threw a pair of grubby underpants at me. “The scribe is right, Beno. The wise man never loses. But an even wiser man knows how to take victory from his loss. Take this is a lesson and move on.”
“If you two could stop being so pessimistic and listen, your attitudes will change. Last night I discovered another, rather interesting tournament bylaw. If we can get another academy to drop out from the tournament, the tournament will have to allow a different academy to take their place.”
Bolton put down his bag and sat on his bed. “Interesting. Do you have a way to make an academy drop out from a tournament they have probably been preparing a decade for?”
“Perhaps. But we need to decide who to target. For this to work, it would have to be a small academy. As much as I’d love to stick it to the Dungeon Core Academy, they’re too big.”
“I hear that the Academy of the Moneyed Fist is competing this year,” said Bolton. “They have links to rogue forgers, but nobody’s ever been able to prove it. Regardless, they are probably one of the smallest academies in the tournament. Aside from Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy, of course.”
“So they’re small enough for us to target. And because they work with rogue forgers, I don’t even have to feel bad about making chumps out of them.”
“What you have in mind?” asked Bolton.
“We’ll have to get Tomlin to travel here,” I said.
Gulliver stood up and pointed while holding a pair of his underpants. “I told you we should have hired another mana carriage!”
It took Tomlin four hours to get here in yet another mana carriage. This, along with renting the
room at the Two-Headed Swan for another day, completely cleaned me out. This just had to work. Otherwise, I would go back to my dungeon having sunk more gold into this than I wanted to, and with nothing to show for it.
Tomlin met us in the bar of the Two-Headed Swan, where Bolton insisted on sampling a pint of every beer that they served on tap. When he walked into the tavern, none of the other patrons even looked at him.
In most cities, the sight of a kobold would at least draw a stare, if not downright hostility. But in Heaven’s Peak, where the whole economy was built around a dungeon core tournament, the sight of a kobold was as common as muck.
“Tomlin!” I said. “Thank you for getting here so quickly. Do you have what I need?”
“Tomlin has it, Dark Lord,” he said, holding up a bag that bulged with essence leaves.
“And Shadow?”
“Shadow will be here soon, Dark Lord. She passed a bakery, and is buying a bun.”
“Tell her to get one for me, Tomlin, lad,” said Bolton. “I’ve never tried the buns in Heaven’s Peak. I hear they are delicious.”
Gulliver shook his head. “Trust me, Bolton. Never get food in a place full of tourists. It’s always cheap rubbish. You'd be better off-”
“Enough about buns,” I said.
The sky was dark. The stars were out, but they were hidden from view by the God’s Fist that covered the sky. Shadow looked up at it as she sneaked across the plains on the outskirts of Heaven’s Peak. She looked up at the bowl that they said was an arena. It was so high up that the gods, if they were any, would have a close view of the tournament.
Shadow admired Core Beno for his doggedness in all of this. She didn’t necessarily believe in the benefits of competing. Not because the rewards didn’t exist. Everyone, even overseer Bolton, agreed that the rewards of winning the Battle of the Five Stars were legendary. She just doubted Core Beno could do it. Especially after what she had heard about his core quality. Not that she would ever mention it to him.
Focusing on the task at hand, Shadow crept towards an encampment. There were half a dozen wagons parked there. No horses outside, which meant they were mana carriages. The overseers and staff of the Academy of the Moneyed Fist would be sleeping inside, but they weren’t her prey today.
Instead, Shadow crept through the camp until she found a hole in the ground. There were dozens of such holes all around Heaven’s Peak, and each one led to a tunnel system underground. It made sense. With so many cores descending upon the city for the tournament, they needed an underground place to stay until the tournament began.
Using the See No Evil skill she had earned upon reaching level 15 as a scout, Shadow combined it with her Scout Feather Toes perk. She then crept down into the hole, into the lair where the Moneyed Fists’ core would be staying.
She put all her roguish skill into sneaking through the tunnels. There was no sign that the core was aware of her when she reached an essence cultivation chamber. The walls of this chamber were nothing like the ones in Core Beno’s dungeon. There was nowhere near the same amount of essence. But then, this dungeon was a temporary one, just hospitality shown to visiting cores. It wasn’t the Moneyed Fist core’s real dungeon.
All the same, it would be drawing its essence from this place for the next few days, and that was the key to it all. In the cultivation room, Shadow opened the bag that Tomlin had given her. Inside were dozens of leaves. She had watched him prepare them. Their natural color was sickly grey, but he had painted them with a purple dye, so they looked like normal essence leaves.
She clipped true essence vines from the wall and replaced them with the ones Tomlin had given her. As he had promised, his leaves bonded to the vines on the wall and became part of them, as though they’d always been there. Shadow was amazed. She had been impressed enough when Tomlin earned his F class cultivation license, but seeing real proof of his talents was remarkable.
With her job done, Shadow crept away from the cultivation room and out of the dungeon.
The exit was in sight when someone grabbed her shoulder.
The core has noticed me!
She spun around, only to come face-to-face with a fellow kobold. On instinct, she pulled her dagger and swung it towards his throat, but then stopped before puncturing their skin.
She looked into the kobold’s eyes. Just like Tomlin, this kobold was petrified. Not a warrior.
Shadow knew she should kill him. If she didn’t, he would tell the core what he had seen, and the core would be suspicious. Everything would be ruined.
But ever since Anna had possessed Shadow and forced her to murder one of her fellow dungeon mates, Shadow had found violence curiously hard to come by.
The kobold backed away. Soon, he would turn and run.
The dagger felt strange in Shadow’s hand. She almost turned and left.
And then her instincts kicked in. She lurched forward and stabbed the kobold, while covering his mouth with her free hand and silencing his screams.
Chapter 14
We headed to the star lounge bright and early the next morning. Well, I say bright, but it was a rather dismal day. Angry clouds billowed way ahead, dark, brooding, ready to spit a torrent down upon Heaven’s Peak.
And I say we, but today, that only meant Shadow, and me. Gulliver, Bolton, and Tomlin were in the city, searching for a shop that was rumored to sell magic lamps with genies inside. Never mind that Bolton was an old man in his third life and Gulliver had traveled the world. They still believed in hokum like magic genies. I preferred to keep myself grounded in reality, in the indestructible logic of a world where a resurrected gemstone could conjure monsters from essence.
“You did well,” I told Shadow. “I chose you because I could rely on you.”
“And because I am your only scout, Beno.”
“All the same. You did what I asked of you. Just as you did in Hogsfeate with the old mayor. Thank you.”
“I am here to serve.”
“I told you, Shadow. You have your independence now. Unlike the others, you and I work together. I will not command you to serve the dungeon. You earned your true independence. So for as long as you do so, you have my thanks.”
Shadow had a strange look on her face. Pride? I didn’t know. I’ve always found emotions hard to read. “Did it work?” she said.
“Perfectly. The vines that Tomlin supplied you with were failures. One of his many experiments designed to boost my essence regeneration. The grey vines have the nasty habit of making a core completely unable to use essence for up to a week. Painted purple, the Moneyed Fist core, and his cultivator wouldn’t have known anything was amiss, and he would have drawn from the vines as normal.”
“Then we will be able to register?”
“I hope so. Gulliver kept his ears open to rumors this morning and heard that the Moneyed Fist Academy had to drop out. The core they brought here, so they say, is the only one worthy of fighting in the tournament. What they mean, I think, is that was their only legal core. The rest, they probably got from rogue forgers. Either way, they’re gone.”
Inside the lodge, there was no sign of any snooty owl, nor any other kind of bird as it happened. Given that it was daytime, and she was the world’s only non-nocturnal owl, she was most likely doing something in another part of the lodge. I turned to Shadow.
“I have to warn you. The owl lady who works here can be very snooty and condescending. The trick is not to rise to it. And if you find it difficult, just do what I do, and imagine her being fed to a fox or something like that.”
“We will have to get you some help one day, Beno. I worry about you sometimes.”
Soon, an owl flew through a door and into the office.
“Here she is,” I told Shadow. “Remember, don’t rise to her grouchiness.”
The old owl saw us and spread her wings out wide and opened her beak. Her eyes were shining. “Why, hello! If it isn’t Core Beno. Lovely to see you. Good morning!”
I was a little taken
aback. “Is everything…okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Ah… Look, about the last few days. Or weeks. If I came across as grouchy as a crow, I apologize. You have to understand that here in Heaven’s Peak the last ten years have been geared towards the Battle of the Five Stars. The closer it gets, the more frenzied things become. I have academies constantly pestering me for things. To arrange accommodation, to register their cores for battle, and so on. It can all get a bit too much for my beak to chew on. But now the tournament is just a couple of days away, and when I woke up this morning, I said to myself: ‘Brenda, you are not going to let them stress you out today. You are a competent, powerful owl, and you are doing your best. That’s all anyone can ask.’”
“Good for you, Brenda,” said Shadow.
“Anyway, what can I do for you?” asked Brenda.
“I hear that an academy has been forced to drop out of the tournament. I would like to register Beno and Jahn’s Dungeon Core Academy to take their place.”
I braced for it. For the bureaucratic reason that would prevent my academy from competing in the tournament. The obscure bylaw, no doubt written in the last day, that would mean we couldn’t compete.
“Okay,” said Brenda.
“Excuse me?”
“No problem. I will register your academy for the tournament. The Moneyed Fist academy dropped out this morning, and you are the early bird stealing the worm.”
“Well… thank you, I suppose.”
Brenda spread her wings again. “You don’t have to thank me. Do you know why I had my epiphany this morning? Last night I was drinking in a tavern called the Two-Headed Swan, and who did I meet? A lovely man named Overseer Bolton. There’s a man who knows how to live his life! I recognized him from accompanying you here. We got chatting, and he told me about his exhilarating attitude towards things. And you know what? It made me rethink my life. So you go ahead. Good luck in the tournament. And please, tell Bolton to come and see me whenever he likes.”
Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Page 140
