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

by Demi Harper

  The three builders hurtled together toward the nearest kobold; they wielded a deadly assortment of hammers, bricks and trowels. The kobold – though it was at least head and shoulders taller than the gnomes, and bulky with muscle – fell to its knees beneath the sudden onslaught, barking in distress and confusion. Black blood flew, and the barking soon ceased. Elwood and Jack dived on another kobold, swinging their woodcutting axes as though hacking at a shroomtree as the enemy flailed and yelped and bled and died.

  I still wasn’t sure I fancied my gnomes’ chances once the other kobolds had recovered their wits, but I was still too stunned to act. Luckily, the warriors had heard the commotion and now came pouring from the barracks and across the stream to join the fray.

  Armored warriors fought alongside untrained workers, all with the same fervor. Long pent-up fury was unleashed as they hacked and slashed at the creatures that had caused their tribe so much pain and misery. The kobolds didn’t stand a chance.

  Still, I had a moment of fear when two of the enemy sprinted up the hillock toward my gem, cornering my cowering acolytes against my shrine and that ridiculous statue of Ris’kin. No, they weren’t cornered – they were simply standing their ground. Defending the statue? Or my gem? I realized that although they were hunched in fear, all of them had their fingers curled around large rocks. Gneil stood in front of the other acolytes with his empty fists clenched, as though determined to protect them all with nothing but his bare hands.

  A couple of the acolytes threw their stones at the advancing kobolds, who ignored the poorly aimed missiles completely. Both kobolds shared grins and raised their obsidian weapons.

  A gray shape barreled into them from the side, knocking one into the other and bringing them both down. Bruce didn’t give his target time to recover; he leapt on his stubby legs atop the nearest kobold and savaged its red-scaled throat.

  Holy crap! I hadn’t realized badgers could be quite so vicious. Yet another reason to consider using their blueprints in future god-born.

  If I ever get the chance, that is.

  Bruce turned away from his first victim just in time to bat away the second kobold’s weapon; blood streamed from the wound in his paw where the blade had sliced through fur and flesh. This only seemed to enrage the badger further. Bruce roared and slashed at the kobold with his claws, opening up five parallel slashes across the creature’s chest.

  The kobold whined and tried to crawl backward, opening itself up to Bruce’s claws again, which the badger raked across the creature’s face and neck. After a moment’s struggle, the kobold finally fell still and silent.

  Is that it? Are they all down? Are we safe?

  Not quite.

  The last remaining kobold still had hold of the child. It held the tiny hostage over its head, as though threatening to throw or drop it should the gnomes come any closer. Such cunning in a mere minion was an unpleasant surprise.

  It worked, though. The oncoming gnomes halted their advance toward the kobold, which began to back away toward the tunnel entrance. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Gneil’s abduction on my first day on the job, so long ago now.

  Not again!

  I wasn’t so helpless this time, though. At my silent command, a dark shape appeared silently on the ceiling above the retreating kobold. An instant later, Binky was rapidly descending, judging the drop perfectly in order to snatch the baby gnome from the kobold’s outstretched hands and then ascending out of reach to the ceiling with his parcel safely clutched in his furry pedipalps.

  The kobold stared up at the spider, then at its own empty hands; then, slowly, it turned to look at the semicircle of armed gnomes, once more advancing toward it with vengeance in their eyes.

  They charged, and the kobold went down in mere seconds. And that was that.

  The gnomes had already begun dragging away the kobold corpses from where they’d fallen. Most of the dead hadn’t even had chance to draw a weapon. Most likely they hadn’t been expecting they’d need to. I’d ‘welcomed’ their presence here, after all. I almost felt guilty about my change of heart, and the gnomes’ unsportsmanlike ambush.

  Almost.

  Clearly sharing my ruthless sentiment, the gnomes had stripped the kobolds of weapons and armor – they were too large for them to use, of course, but the materials might be repurposed – and were now digging holes to bury them in the shroomtree patch. Apparently, kobolds made good fertilizer. Who knew? It seemed fitting, somehow, that their deaths would in this oblique way contribute to the tribe’s future growth.

  Now that the fury of combat had ceased, it was a real shock to see black blood – and the occasional splash of red, though thankfully there had been no fatal wounds among our own – soiling the ground and buildings of the normally peaceful Grotto.

  Granny took to bandaging Bruce’s paw with a strip of cloth, and Binky had abseiled down from the ceiling once again to give back the child he’d rescued, which had somehow fallen asleep.

  He placed its sleeping form gently into Hammer’s arms; she and the two nurses stroked the spider’s furry leg in fervent thanks. I swore I could almost hear him purring – until he caught sight of Flea, the smallest of the tribe’s four badgers, heading his way, after which Binky immediately scarpered back up to the sanctuary of the ceiling.

  My relief at our little victory was short-lived.

  I am sorely disappointed, came the familiar, hated voice, though I cannot claim to be surprised. I always suspected you were too weak to do what must be done.

  ‘Weak? You think protecting my denizens is weakness?’

  Do not mistake compassion for strength, little god. You and I were both dark elves. Do you not remember the lessons you were taught?

  ‘No, and I’m glad.’ And I meant it.

  Then you are a fool. Ignorance is just as weak a flaw, if not more so.

  ‘You’d know all about weakness, wouldn’t you? Given that you prey on those who are smaller than you, instead of going after someone your own size.’ My fury, my helplessness of the past few weeks, was all pouring out of me now. ‘And how many others have you consumed? How many other civilizations have you terrorized? Well, I say, enough. No more!’

  Oh my. Well, no matter. I have prepared for this eventuality, of course. My forces will arrive shortly. You will regret this, little god, and all that will soon befall you.

  'Oh? And what exactly will befall us?'

  I will befall you.

  ‘No. We won’t let you. We’ll stop you!’

  Will you, now? I cannot wait to see how. The very rock yawns in anticipation of your next futile move.

  His smugness was infuriating. I wished I could punch him in the face.

  He wasn’t done taunting me.

  My kobolds have a saying, I believe: “Never eat anything bigger than your own head.” You, little god, bit off more than you could chew when you made an enemy of Grimrock. And now it is too late. There can be no mercy for those who defy Grimrock.

  I no longer deigned to respond. He laughed.

  I will so enjoy destroying you, little god. Until you are no longer a god. Until you no longer exist at all. And I’ll take even greater delight in slaughtering your pathetic little denizens. My kobolds do so enjoy the sport of sacrifice. And my avatar is always… hungry.

  Soon you will all suffer the full weight of my retribution. Be assured you will not survive to betray me again.

  He disappeared. The lingering darkness of his threats remained, a dread weight around my soul – though not for much longer, it seemed.

  This is the end.

  ‘Well, shit.’ I said it aloud, despite there being no one around to hear me.

  Or so I thought.

  ‘“Well, shit” indeed,’ came an obnoxiously bright voice. ‘What’s the plan now, then, Corey?’

  Fifty-Five

  The Right Choice

  ‘Ket! You came back?’ My incredulity was exceeded only by my delight. I’d missed the bossy little speck.

&n
bsp; ‘I never left, idiot. Luckily for you.’

  ‘What? You’ve been here the whole time? Hiding?’

  ‘Watching. Someone has to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘You were worried about me?’

  ‘Worried? Of course I was worried. You’re my only means of vengeance against our mutual enemy, remember?’

  Her tone was bitter, and all at once I felt shame at the memory of our quarrel, when I’d accused her of using me as a mere tool in her vendetta against the red Core.

  But as I prepared to apologize, not wanting the sprite to leave again, she sighed.

  ‘You said I used you, Corey, and you were right.’

  I liked the sound of that. The ‘me being right’ part, not the ‘I used you’ part, obviously. I would have taken this opportunity to rub it in, but the contrition in Ket’s tone had thrown me off balance.

  ‘I was desperate,’ she continued to confess. ‘Because… because you were my last hope. You are my last hope.’

  ‘I’m what, now?’

  She flickered briefly in amusement at this throwback to my old ignorance. ‘You heard me correctly, Corey.’ She sighed. ‘Remember the vision I showed you? Of the yellow Core? The one that shattered?’

  ‘How could I forget?’ I grumbled. ‘You used it to put the terror in me so I wouldn’t overuse my mana and end up the same way.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Look, the reason I was so determined for you not to make the same mistake is because that yellow Core… was me.’

  What?

  ‘I used to be a God Core,’ she admitted, clearly sensing my confusion. I’d have to start getting used to that again, it seemed. ‘All sprites are former Cores, in fact. Failed Cores.’ She said this harshly, and I felt sudden sympathy at hearing her be so hard on herself.

  ‘When we fail – when our gem shatters – our soul remains bound to the civilization that summoned it. We’re forced to stick around, with no trace of our former powers, no way of helping our former denizens – except to guide whichever Core comes next.’

  Now I understood. As the yellow Core, she’d expended her mana foolishly, obsessed with observing Grimrock’s base, and she’d paid the price. Before I showed up to take her place, she’d been stuck in the Grotto, forced to watch the gnomes’ gradual decline as they fell before every kobold raid. And she’d been powerless to do anything about it. They hadn’t even known she was still there.

  I shuddered at the thought. A terrible fate.

  ‘That’s why you were so keen for me to improve,’ I realized. ‘That’s why you’re so attached to them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We watched our denizens in silence for a moment. The acolytes were kicking dirt over the large pools of blood near the shrine. Some of the warriors were helping bury the dead enemies; the rest had arrayed themselves near the palisades, weapons at the ready, warily watching the Grotto’s entrance.

  Bruce limped among the gnomehomes, climbed the hillock and plopped himself down in front of my shrine as if to guard it. The tanner had gone over to the armory to assist the armorer in sharpening weapons.

  In just a few hours, it would all be gone.

  Ket sensed my doubts easily. ‘You made the right choice,’ she said softly.

  ‘In the end, it wasn’t a choice.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a good god, Corey. And beneath it, a good person.’

  ‘Even though I’m a dark elf?’

  She paused. ‘I… I was wrong to judge you. I’m sorry. What you were before doesn’t matter. What matters is who you are now.’

  It would be so easy to just accept her apology, and her compliments. But I had to be honest.

  ‘You weren’t entirely wrong,’ I admitted. ‘I was selfish. I did only care about making myself strong enough to escape my gem. But things have changed. I know there’s no going back. No escape. And I’m okay with that. I just want to be the god they deserve.’

  I gestured down at the gnomes. Ket glowed.

  ‘You already are, Corey. And I’m proud to call you my friend.’

  ‘“Friend”?’ I asked suspiciously.

  She whirled in a circle to convey the impression of rolling her eyes. ‘Yes. Friend. It’s like an ally, except you don’t need to watch your back around them. Friends forgive, and understand, and take care of one another – and they’re always there for each other.’

  Huh. I’d never had a ‘friend’ before, or if I had, I couldn’t recall them being called such. I searched my memories for anything relating to this phenomenon.

  Faces surrounding me, pale in the gloom, illuminated by the faintest of spiderlight. Sharp features strained with terror and anticipation; the glint of knives in the dark.

  Were those people ‘friends’? Had they been my friends, in that other life? Somehow, I didn’t think so.

  I realized Ket had asked me a question. ‘Hmm?’

  She gave a bright trilling sigh. ‘I said, “Now, what are we going to do about Grimrock?”’

  The sprite’s optimism was refreshing after her long absence, but I couldn’t help feeling that this time, it was misplaced.

  ‘I’m not sure we can ‘do’ anything,’ I told her.

  ‘Aha! That’s where you’re wrong.’

  She zipped over to my shrine and flitted around the shoddy statue of Ris’kin, first erected by my acolytes in those dark days after the last battle was lost. She cooed over it awhile, chuckling when she sensed my bafflement.

  ‘First, Corey, we can restore your avatar.’

  Confusion roiled inside me, immediately shoved aside by a surge of hope. ‘What? Restore Ris’kin? You mean… bring her back?’

  ‘Next time, listen to what your worshipers are trying to tell you.’ As Ket alighted on the statue’s pointed nose, realization dawned.

  ‘That stupid statue… knocking it down, then rebuilding it… they knew I could bring her back?’

  Then I recalled my furious conversation with Grimrock after his avatar had killed Ris’kin.

  Come now, he’d said. Don’t be so dramatic. Death is not forever, after all.

  Even my direst enemy had basically told me, and I still hadn’t realized.

  I groaned. ‘Ket, I’m so stupid.’

  ‘Yep!’ she agreed brightly. ‘Now open your Augmentary and let’s do this.’

  Fifty-Six

  Ris’kin

  It turned out restoring an avatar was a much slower – and much, much more draining – process than Creation.

  At Ket’s command, I poured mana into Ris’kin’s blueprint. I watched my globes drain one by one, and, conscious that every minute brought Grimrock’s army closer, waited for the avatar to appear.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Luckily, Gneil sensed what I was attempting to do – or at least that my mana was being depleted – and rallied the acolytes into enthusiastic worship. My mana loss slowed significantly, but still continued to trickle downward. As the last globe began to empty, and red started to enter my vision, I worried that I might not have enough to bring her back.

  But as Ris’kin’s blueprint solidified and her corporeal form began to visibly coalesce, a handful of other gnomes came to join the acolytes in worship. With their contribution, my mana levels were draining only incrementally.

  But they were still draining.

  Gneil cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, turning to address all corners of the Grotto. The cry went out as more gnomes heard and spread the word; Granny hobbled around waving her cane, and soon nearly every Faithful adult gnome in the tribe had made their way over to the shrine. Their green Faith auras shone brightly, and blue lines of mana flowed from their kneeling forms in a gorgeous aurora of shifting light.

  Just a fraction of my mana remained at this point. But as the gnomes’ worship flowed into my gem, the blue levels stabilized, then began to climb. I was able to pour more of it into Ris’kin’s blueprint, hastening the process.

  Her swirling blue form became l
ess translucent, until eventually the glowing strands of symbols and whirling lines were replaced by thick russet fur, tufted ears, a pair of long slender legs and a curling bushy tail.

  With a flash of white light, the ritual was complete. My avatar was back.

  Her eyes shone with intelligence and awareness as she gazed around the sea of kneeling gnomes. She moved between them, touching each one lightly on the shoulder as she passed. Bruce the badger followed her, licking the cheek of every gnome she touched. Ris’kin’s ears twitched in amusement at his behavior.

  Wherever my avatar walked, my denizens’ auras of Faith shone even brighter than before, until the hilltop was glowing with green light only Ket and I could see.

  Blissful euphoria filled me at the sight. It had been so long since I’d felt it, it took me a moment to recognize the feeling of Ascension. A glance at my Faith triangle confirmed I’d finally reached god tier eight.

  ‘Congratulations, Corey,’ said Ket. ‘Let’s take a look and see whether you’ve been granted anything that might help us. The kobolds will be here soon, and we’ll need every advantage we can get.’

  Before I opened my Augmentary, I noticed something that made me stop and stare, incredulous. My worshipers were now accompanied by two very surprising new additions.

  ‘Is that… is that Swift and Cheer?’

  The two female scouts looked just as recalcitrant as usual – except that they were kneeling before my shrine along with the rest of the tribe. Unlike the other gnomes, Swift and Cheer did not bow their heads respectfully but rather stared up at the ceiling, frowning, their arms crossed obstinately in front of their chests.

  Still, they were kneeling, and the unmistakable green aura of Faith shone forth faintly from their bodies.

  ‘You’ve done well to gain such Faithful followers, Corey,’ Ket said seriously. ‘Many Cores don’t survive the loss of their avatar. The collapse in morale often leads their denizens to lose Faith, or at least to stop actively worshiping, meaning the god simply doesn’t have enough mana to complete the avatar’s restoration process.’