Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) Alex Oakchest (list of ebook readers .TXT) 📖

It came from behind us, a new voice echoing throughout the chamber.

Who else could it belong to? A voice, spoken by a person who had arrived unannounced, a person capable of walking through a dungeon completely undetected?

“Overseer Bolton,” I said.

“Ah, Beno. It seems you are a raven now, are you? It suits you. Sneaky, too curious for your own good. Treacherous.”

“Shiny thing!” said another raven.

“Aye, obsessed with shiny things, too. You have a lot in common with your corvids.”

“Death and thunder!” said the core. “What is this? Those robes…an overseer? Here?”

“Quiet,” said Bolton.

Edgar fluttered around so I could see Bolton properly. He was standing by the core room entrance, no longer in his laborer clothes but adorned in his sweeping academy robes.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I might ask the same question. I knew you were hiding something, Beno, but I thought it would be some misguided attempt to trick First-Leaf Galatee and Chief Reginal. I never dreamed you had made a discovery such as this yet failed to inform the academy.”

“Yes, the academy is a paragon of truth, isn't it?” I said.

“Death and thunder! I awake to an overseer and braggart raven bickering in my chamber? Kainhelm, get here this instant!” shouted the core.

Overseer Bolton walked across the chamber. While Shadow had taken cautious steps with her dust, the overseer was more than capable of detecting traps with the barest glance, and it was only seconds before he stood in front of the core.

“It is time for you to sleep again.”

“Death and thun-”

Light glowed on Bolton’s palm, and he gently caressed the core. The blood-red glow left the gem, returning it to its grey state. It spoke of death and thunder no more. I had seen overseer do this in the academy, of course. Overseers needed to be able to control us cores, or they wouldn’t be worthy of their titles.

“We have quite a dilemma, don’t we?” said Bolton. “This core still belongs to the academy, despite being lost in the sands of time. While my overseer powers let me render it docile, I cannot do the same for you, Beno, since you aren’t owned by the academy any longer.”

“And why would you want to do that anyway?”

“I think you have seen enough in this dungeon, that you have begun to understand who this lost core is.”

“Yes, you bet your arse I have,” I replied.

I hadn’t.

I had pieced together some of the clues, but only in a way that let me date this core to somewhere during the Corenaissance. But as for its identity, I had no idea other than its name, which I had never heard before. I certainly hadn’t read about it, which meant…what? That it was an academy secret, perhaps?

I badly wanted to know. And I wanted to learn what it had started to tell me about the true purpose of cores. Had it just been manipulating my natural core curiosity to buy itself some time? Was it merely demented from so much time alone? Or did it know something…

But I couldn’t ask it now. Nor could I ask Bolton. Overseer Bolton believed I knew something that he wanted keeping secret, and he couldn’t shut me up the way he had with this core.

That gave me something to bargain with. The key in any negotiation is not to flaunt your cards, and instead to let your opponent show theirs. In other words, to keep my core gob firmly shut.

“What do you suggest we do?” I said.

Bolton ran his finger across the dormant core. “The academy would appreciate your discretion in this discovery.”

“And how will they buy my discretion?”

“Let me see. What can I offer to a dungeon core?”

“You could get me my freedom,” I said.

“Quite impossible. I cannot influence Galatee in that way; to do so would undermine the academy. We cannot be seen to sell our failing cores, only to trick our way back to ownership.”

“Less of the failing,” I said. “After all, I discovered this place. You chumps had no clue about it.”

Bolton laughed. “No clue? Why do you think I have been hanging around this barren pit of dirt in the arse end of nowhere? To help the clans? Pah. Why do you think I have been digging on the surface, staining my hands with dirt? Not for bloody thermal pockets, let me tell you. I am not even convinced such a phenomenon exists, despite Chief Reginal’s insistence. No, Beno. The academy knew that one of our cores was lost out here, but the records were destroyed in the great academy library fire of ’22. I was sent here when it became clear the clans were expanding their settlement. I was to make sure they never stumbled upon this place. But in the hundreds of miles of wasteland, I never suspected a dungeon would lay exactly next to yours.”

“Lady Chance at work.”

“You think it is chance that draws cores so close to one other? Lady Chance has a sister, Beno. A most stubborn one who they call Destiny.”

“If you need my secrecy, then here is what I want in return.”

“I’m all ears.”

“You can take the sleepy core, and I will say nothing. My reward for my silence is that everything in this dungeon belongs to me. The blaudy stone, the narkleer, the hideous statues, everything.”

Bolton looked concerned. “There’s a narkleer here?”

“That’s a long story, so let’s pretend you’ve already heard it. The narkleer is mine.”

“A dangerous creature. Too dangerous for a young core like you.”

“In many dwarven towns, they let children carry their own battle axes. I can handle a narkleer.”

Bolton seemed to weigh my deal in his mind. “I suppose we can agree, but only if you ensure the narkleer never presents a danger to the