God of Gnomes (God Core #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG

by Demi Harper

  I sought out the nearest whipfish and sent it crawling in the adventurers’ direction. The squelchy, spidery creature had quite a way to travel, so I settled in to watch the adventurers argue some more.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ Coll was grumbling, still lagging behind at the group’s rear.

  ‘Not your fault you ate all that leftover bean stew? Sure,’ said Benin, sounding just as moody as his flatulent friend.

  Judging by the topic of their banter, I was lucky indeed that I did not possess olfactory organs. Benin’s constant complaints about Coll’s… emissions, along with Lila’s observations about how the tunnels were becoming mustier, made me relieved to only be sharing their company in god’s-eye form.

  ‘There’s a cave up ahead,’ announced Tiri, lifting the jar-flame higher to illuminate the passage.

  ‘Be careful,’ Lila warned. ‘Go in slowly and quietly. I’ll cover you.’ She unslung her bow from her shoulder and bent down to string it. ‘You two,’ she nodded toward Benin and Coll, ‘stay beside me, weapons ready.’

  Tiri swallowed and began to edge forward. Her hand trembled, sending quavering firelight up the stone walls and causing shadows to jerk and dance all around them. Benin and Coll shared a glance before taking up positions on either side of Lila, who was now standing with her bow in one hand and an arrow in the other; the arrow was nocked, but the bow remained as yet undrawn.

  Saving her strength, as well as the bowstring. Smart.

  Coll had drawn a hammer from his belt and was swinging it back and forth. A brave show, except I could hear his teeth grinding with nerves even from where I hovered, up near the ceiling. Benin had his own weapon at the ready, though in the mage’s case it was another fire conjuration. This time, it took the form of a ball of flame, roiling threateningly in his palm.

  The cave before them grew brighter, and I heard Tiri gasp as she caught her first glimpse of the Sinkhole.

  The black-haired cartographer cautiously crept right up to the Sinkhole’s edge, her academic curiosity apparently outweighing her species’ natural wariness of deep, dark places. I admired her courage; the Sinkhole’s black opacity and fathomless depths unnerved even me.

  ‘What do you see?’ called Lila.

  ‘It’s… it’s some kind of cavity. It’s deep. And flooded. A collapse, probably caused by—’

  ‘Anything in there?’ Lila interrupted.

  ‘No. There’s nothing.’

  That wasn’t strictly true, I knew; my boulderskin clung to the vertical rock face just beneath the surface, barely three feet down from the dark-skinned human and her tiny flame-in-a-jar.

  Lila nodded at Tiri’s assessment, yet did not advance into the cave herself. Again, smart. If something did suddenly jump out of the shadowy water, the tunnel entrance was the safest place from which to attack – or, if necessary, retreat.

  Tiri had dragged her gaze away from the depths and was now scanning the cavern, the flame held high in her still-trembling hand.

  ‘There’s only one other way out,’ she called back to Lila and the others.

  Technically, there was another, but the Sinkhole itself wasn’t really a tenable option for their frail, air-breathing bodies.

  Tiri continued to roam the cavern, narrating her observations all the while. ‘There’s some kind of fish – a loach, perhaps – that’s climbing the wall. I’ve never heard of such a thing! Wait till I tell the Professor of Troglobitic Studies back at the Academy! And over here…’

  She trailed off.

  Coll gripped his hammer more tightly; I heard his knuckles creaking in the unexpected silence. Benin shifted his feet.

  ‘Tiri?’ Lila’s own fingers tightened around her bow. She took a step back, staring around the cave with wide eyes.

  ‘There’s something… something in the tunnel.’ Tiri was backing away now, each step bringing her small circle of light back to her waiting companions.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes! I heard… I’m not sure. Scratching, like claws on stone. Lots of claws.’

  ‘Rats, perhaps?’ squeaked Benin, his face even paler than usual.

  My Sphere of Influence ended where the unfamiliar tunnel began, so I had no way of knowing for sure what it was Tiri had heard. I had my suspicions, of course, but waited with as much trepidation as the rest of them, mentally bracing my hidden boulderskin for potential action. The whipfish I’d summoned was almost here, too. Just a few more minutes…

  A growl echoed out from the passage. Tiri yelped, then turned and ran the rest of the distance back to the group, where she positioned herself behind Coll. I imagined Benin would have argued that was not the wisest place to be, had he not been so preoccupied with his own terror of what was approaching.

  The growling noise came again, louder this time. Benin jumped, then sidled closer to Lila. ‘What was that?’ The flaming ball in his hand grew brighter, illuminating the sweat glistening on his forehead.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she hissed, finally raising her bow, drawing the bowstring back to her cheek and aiming at the distant tunnel. ‘Now hush. And be ready.’

  No sooner had she spoken than a kobold darted out into the cave. Its red-scaled body was surprisingly large and muscular, and its teeth glinted in Benin’s light as it snarled at the humans opposite.

  What are they doing here? And why now?

  Lila loosed her arrow. The kobold dodged, and the shaft sunk instead into the neck of a second kobold behind it. The creature gurgled and collapsed, but a third stepped over its body and into the cave, quickly followed by another.

  By the time Lila let fly her second arrow, a dozen kobolds had crowded into the cave, and were slinking around the edges toward the four humans. The first kobold remained by the tunnel entrance, barking instructions to the others, and I realized with a jolt that it was the same one that had led the raid on my gnome village: Barka.

  I looked closer, and sure enough, it held a curled whip in one black-clawed hand. It glared at the humans; malice and hunger glistened in its yellow eyes and its vertical lizard-like pupils were narrow in the light of the two magical flames.

  Dread’s cold hand gripped me as I realized this could only mean one thing.

  ‘They’re here for the gnomes, aren’t they?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ came Ket’s reply. ‘What a stroke of luck that these humans are here!’

  ‘Hm. Right place, right time, indeed,’ I admitted.

  Still, to rely solely on luck was the province of fools, so I mobilized six of my twelve forrels – the two groups guarding the two passages that led from the Grotto to the Heart – and prepared them to head in our direction lest the adventurers fail. I didn’t have enough mana to simply create new reinforcements, but along with the whipfish that was also currently moving our way – not to mention my secret weapon: the boulderskin in this very cavern – the existing creatures would hopefully be enough to hold the kobolds at bay.

  The kobold raiders crept closer. Lila managed to pick off two more with her arrows, but it was clear she would not be able to eliminate them all. Coll set his feet and clutched his hammer with both hands, and behind him, even Tiri looked ready to fight, holding the flaming jar as though it were a grenado.

  Then one of the kobolds threw an obsidian-tipped spear at the group. The spear sailed past Lila and clattered harmlessly down the passage behind them, but Benin gave a panicked shriek. He thrust both arms straight out before him and launched his fiery sphere into the center of the cave. Then he threw himself down on the ground. The other humans followed suit—

  —and the fireball exploded.

  The blast tore through the cavern. A wave of orange flames and scorching air was propelled violently outward from the center of the explosion, catching the kobolds in its path.

  For a moment I was blinded as the flare filled the entirety of my vision. Then it died just as quickly as it had erupted and I was left staring at a near-empty cavern, the magical detonation having left n
o more than small piles of charred bones and pieces of leather armor.

  Some of the armor still burned, glowing like embers, as did a few scraps of ragged clothing. The grimly flickering fires were scattered around the cavern, reflecting eerily off the Sinkhole’s dark water, and illuminating the occasional weapon glinting among the blackened enemy remains.

  The kobolds were dead. Furthermore, their deaths appeared to have refilled a small portion of one of my mana globes. That brought me up to two globes out of my total of six. I recalled Ket’s explanation for why this had also happened after Cassandria had expired within my Sphere of Influence. It seemed kobold grunts provided far less mana than humans – barely a quarter of a globe gained from the deaths of a dozen – but still.

  Thank you, Circle of Life.

  Below me, Lila edged into the cave and approached the nearest pile of burnt kobold. She nudged the bones with the toe of her boot; they crumbled into black ash.

  ‘Why is it always kobolds?’ she muttered. ‘Why can’t it be something nice? Butterfly people, maybe, or kittens?’

  Behind her, a quiet exclamation came from the tunnel entrance.

  Tiri.

  The girl’s face and hands were covered in tiny shrapnel cuts, but that wasn’t what had made her cry out. She was on her knees, sifting desperately through a tiny pile of ashes and paper fragments on the ground – all that remained of the map she’d carried.

  ‘The blast,’ she moaned. ‘It shattered the jar. The flame… the map… oh, gods…’

  Benin and Coll looked on wordlessly, horror slowly spreading across both their faces as the seriousness of their new predicament finally dawned on them.

  ‘But… how will we find our way further in?’ whispered Coll.

  ‘Forget that! How will we get out?’ This was Benin. His entire face was sheathed in sweat; it seemed casting the spell had taken a lot out of him. Or perhaps it was just the heat. At least it wasn’t the bean stew.

  ‘Calm down, all of you,’ snapped Lila. ‘Accidents happen. Tiri, pull yourself together. Benin, shut up. Coll – excellent question.’

  All three of them fell silent as Lila eyed them sternly. ‘In case some of you have forgotten,’ her eyes lingered on Benin, who shuffled his feet and muttered something too quiet for anyone to hear, ‘we still have a job to do. Cassandria’s death didn’t change that. Losing the map doesn’t change it either.’

  Tiri pulled herself up a little straighter, brushing glass shards from her clothes and then nodding at Lila. ‘You’re right,’ she said, sounding a little bolder than before. ‘We still have a Core to eliminate.’

  Coll nodded, and without another word he strode across the cave toward the kobold tunnel. Tiri followed, pausing only to collect a kobold dagger from one of the piles of remains. The blade still glowed; she held it distastefully by the pommel, her sleeve pulled over her fingers so she didn’t actually have to make contact with the blackened glass-like substance.

  Benin edged after Tiri, but stopped in the center of the cave. ‘We’re really going to do this?’

  ‘Those kobolds were organized under one leader,’ said Lila calmly. ‘That means they’re not just kobolds; they’re denizens. And that means we must be getting closer to the Core. All we have to do is follow their leader.’

  ‘It escaped?’

  I suddenly realized Lila was right. Barka was not among the dead; there was no pile of bones beside the tunnel where he’d stood. The wily little git must have dived to safety when the fireball went off, and was no doubt on his way back to his master right now with news of what had happened.

  I couldn’t help experiencing some satisfaction when I pictured Grimrock’s displeasure at learning an entire squad of his best denizens had been annihilated by the ‘filthy humans’ he disdained so much.

  Meanwhile, the group was divided.

  ‘We need to move,’ urged Lila. ‘We need to follow that kobold while there’s still a chance of catching up to it. It’ll lead us straight to the Core.’

  She was right. It would lead them straight to the Core. Just not my Core.

  Not only will they shortly be leaving my Sphere of Influence, there’s also a real chance they’ll destroy my enemy before he destroys me. And even if they don’t manage to defeat Grimrock… well, at least they’ll be out of the picture for good, and I won’t have to feel guilty about being the one to kill them.

  I felt my spirits lift for the first time since Grimrock’s last visit. This was going to work out better than I’d hoped.

  Benin, however, was not convinced.

  ‘And what if we do find the Core?’ he demanded. ‘That fireball was all I had left. I’m done. No more spells until we’ve at least rested and eaten.’

  ‘Maybe we should go back,’ said Tiri. ‘Get a new map and a replacement for Cassandria, and return with more strength.’

  No! Ignore them, I silently urged Lila. Stick to the plan. Follow the kobold.

  Lila paused, grimacing with indecision as she looked back and forth between the kobold tunnel and her fellow humans.

  Go on! Go!

  When her shoulders slumped, I knew exactly what she was about to say. She was going to agree with Tiri. I’d lost. However, I simply could not risk having them wander back through the tunnels – my tunnels – to eventually blunder upon and then incinerate my settlement.

  So I sent a tendril of my will down into the Sinkhole, and before Lila could say anything, the boulderskin burst from the black water. It lurched across the cave – and positioned itself between the humans and the way back.

  Benin screamed and staggered backward. Coll grunted and hefted his hammer. Lila raised her bow, her mouth wide open in shock, and Tiri simply stared, apparently exhausted beyond surprise.

  Please don’t attack it, I thought desperately.

  To make sure they didn’t even consider it, I used some of my newly replenished mana to cast Evolution on the boulderskin. From the corner of my eye, I saw another Creation slot fill up.

  Hm. So Evolving a god-born creature means it takes up even more Creation slots. Interesting… and annoying. Ah, well.

  I didn’t have the time to go about the Evolution process carefully, as I had earlier with Ris’kin, so instead I simply poured my remaining two globes of mana into the boulderskin, thinking to increase its size in the same way I’d used Growth on my mushtrees.

  The boulderskin did grow vastly larger, but that wasn’t all. As its muscles expanded, so too did its armor. The thick plates – the protective armor I’d spliced from the millipede’s blueprint – grew even thicker, extending out to cover the boulderskin’s upper legs. Bony ridges projected from behind its head into a sort of frill, while similar ridges grew on its feet.

  A daunting sight, to be sure.

  In the shadows and flickering fires from the burning kobold corpses, perhaps the humans took the boulderskin’s increase in size and ferociousness to be a trick of the light. But it worked.

  Lila closed her mouth and lowered her bow.

  ‘Sod this,’ muttered Benin, bolting down the kobold tunnel. An instant later, he’d vanished from my sight and into the darkness beyond my Sphere of Influence.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Lila. Without taking her eyes off the boulderskin, she jerked her head toward the kobold tunnel. ‘Everyone out.’

  Tiri scurried after Benin, and Coll stumped out after her. Lila followed, backing carefully away from the boulderskin. When she reached the passage, she turned and strode from sight, leaving me alone in the cavern with my boulderskin, my Sinkhole, and the still-burning corpses of my enemies.

  Today had been a surprisingly good day.

  Twenty-Five

  How to Kill Your Core

  Once the humans were out of sight, I glanced at my Augmentary, noting once again that evolving my boulderskin had used up an additional Creation slot. This particular specimen now took up three slots, while its non-Evolved equivalent at the Lake took up two. This was annoying, of course, but I supposed it made
sense.

  Besides, the result – an even more heavily armored boulderskin – had absolutely been worth the cost. The Sinkhole was now surely impassable.

  Once I’d dismissed the boulderskin and the whipfish back to their posts, I returned to the Grotto to check on the shrine’s progress – though not before directing Ris’kin to retrieve as many of the deceased kobolds’ weapons as she could carry.

  Let’s see what my gnomes can make with these.

  Work was well underway on the shrine. In fact, my altar had expanded to twice its size during the half-day or so I’d spent following Lila and the other hapless humans. Weirdly, rather than building upward, the gnome worshipers had instead simply added another ring of stones to the outside, apparently deciding that increased girth was far preferable to height.

  Ah well. Size isn’t everything.

  Slightly more impressively, they’d dug down into the hillside to create a narrow ditch between my existing altar and this new layer of stones. It was reminiscent of a defensive moat in miniature, though its purpose was unclear.

  A bit more elevation would have been nice, I lamented. But as devoted as they were, the gnomes seemed reluctant to actually touch my gem, and so I remained in place.

  ‘It’s as if they think I’ll burn them or something,’ I complained to Ket.

  ‘You wanted to burn them not four days ago,’ she reminded me.

  ‘Only the un-Faithful ones. Besides, there’s no way they could know that.’ I hesitated, recalling what she’d told me earlier about denizens being able to sense their Core’s motivations. Suddenly, I was worried that perhaps they could hear every uncharitable thought I’d had over the last few days. ‘Is there?’

  She chuckled at my concern. ‘Relax, Corey. They don’t know what you’re thinking. They’re in awe of you, is all.’

  I liked the sound of that.

  ‘Though they needn’t be so cautious,’ Ket continued. ‘It’s not like they would destroy you by accident. The only way denizens would destroy their own Core is if the majority of the population loses Faith and rises up against it – denizens are the only ones who can destroy their own cores through physical means alone.’