Dungeon core academy 4, p.1
Dungeon Core Academy 4, page 1
Dungeon Monsters
Brecht – Kobold bard
Death – Fire beetle warrior
Dolos – Mimic boss-monster
Fight – Fire beetle warrior
Gary - Troll-Leech-Spider Melded-Monster
Gore - Angry Elemental Jelly Cube
Hivemind Shroom – boss monster
Kainhelm – Narkleer sentry
Kill – Fire beetle warrior
Klok – kobold miner
Maginhart – kobold miner
Peach - Angry elemental jelly cube warrior
Raven Scouting Squad – A flock of ravens…who scout things
Rusty - Kobold Shaman
Tomlin – Kobold cultivator
Shadow – Kobold scout / rogue
Wylie – Kobold mining supervisor
Previously in Dungeon Core Academy Books 1-3
*Spoiler alert for those reading the ‘Look Now’ preview! *
This is a brief summary of books 1-3 to refresh people already reading the series. Welcome back to Dungeon Core Academy.
After suffering a premature death, Beno was resurrected and brought back to life as a core. He joined the Dungeon Core Academy, where he learned how to build a dungeon, create monsters and traps, and slaughter heroes.
After years of study, Beno was given his final test. He had to build his first real dungeon and kill a party of heroes. Although he managed this, with the help of his creatures, he failed graduation on a technicality.
Subsequently, the academy sold him to the Wrotun clan, who wanted Beno to build a dungeon next to their underground home and help protect it against the Eternals clan. Beno did so, but also helped the two clans reach an understanding, where they agreed to share the space and live together as one.
With the two clans building a town in the wasteland, Beno was tasked with protecting them both. Resenting being used as a tool, Beno plotted to manoeuvre the clan chiefs into granting him his freedom, while successfully defeating a freak named The Collector, who wanted to add Beno to his collection of cores.
Now, Beno is a free core with a dungeon that belongs solely to him. With that settled, can he expand his power further?
CHAPTER 1
It was the hero’s birthday, judging by the serenade his brothers had given him as they entered my dungeon. A day to celebrate his passage into the world, a day of gifts and fun and well-wishes. The perfect day for me to slaughter him.
The problem was, he didn’t seem too scared. Not even after I had thrown everything at him in the hopes of snuffing out his life on the anniversary of its beginning, which was too ironic a chance for me to pass up.
He and his brothers had battled their way through the twists and turns of my labyrinth, disarming traps, fighting monsters, and solving puzzles until they reached the heart of my lair: the loot room.
As the largest chamber in my whole dungeon, this was the scene of numerous fights between my monsters and parties of heroes. A metal chest dominated the center, and inside was that which every hero desired: loot. Gold coins, beautiful vases, shiny antiques. Heroes might have many reasons to enter a dungeon, but the strongest was a desire to beat the dungeon core’s monsters and make off with his treasures.
It was here that we’d all thrown down our last cards, the hero and me. If the hero won, my dungeon loot was his. If I won, his miserable life was forfeit.
And things were looking good.
My three beetle warriors threatened his left flank. Gary, my giant troll-leech-spider hybrid loomed to his right, cutting off any chance of escape in that direction. Meanwhile, Brecht, my kobold bard, was hidden on the far side of the room, pounding his tambourine to release magic notes that filled his fellow monsters with even more courage.
Although I was in a chamber south of the loot room, I used my core powers to project my voice throughout my dungeon.
“You’re outnumbered,” I said.
The hero looked in the air upon hearing my voice, then glanced at his brothers. One had been incapacitated by triggering a poison dart trap, and Brecht had used his Fable of Fear song to paralyze the other.
“You can look at them all you like,” I said. “They’re no help to you now. It’s just you and I.”
“Interesting that you would say you and I, core,” replied the hero.
I had to give him that – he had never betrayed his fear in the numerous times he’d been in my dungeon.
He continued, “You and I. Heh. It’s funny, I don’t see you anywhere. All I see is your gaggle of beasts. A man might say that you don’t dare face me yourself.”
“A man might also say that fighting a dungeon core who doesn’t have arms isn’t a fair fight at all. Therefore, my monsters are my arms.”
He grinned now. Such arrogance, it was written all over his face. He had already beaten my dungeon, and I saw in his expression that he knew he could do it again.
“Well, limbs can be severed whether they are monster’s arms or not. I’m fairly certain I won’t die on my birthday. It would be such an affront to my mother,” he said.
He took a single step forward, towards the loot chest.
Click.
“Shit.”
He looked at his feet, and I saw a slight change in his expression. There were many, many sounds that a hero dreaded hearing in a dungeon, such as an evil cackle, the scraping of claws, the scuttle of feet. A click was down there with the worst of them.
“A pressure plate, I presume?” he said. “How droll. I suppose if I shift my weight from this spot, something nasty will happen?”
“You’re a perceptive one.”
“What is it, then? Pitfall? A bucket of acid overhead? A giant boulder?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil your surprise,” I said.
He thought about it.
He thought some more.
I waited, expecting steam to leak from his ears and fog up my dungeon, he was thinking so hard.
“Well played,” he said.
Realizing that he didn’t have any desirable options, the hero did the sensible thing and stayed completely still.
Halfway across the dungeon, in the comfort of my core room, I allowed myself a minute to enjoy the feeling of imminent victory. But then even a minute seemed too long, so I cut it short. I couldn’t assume victory was mine just yet. I had to put the hero in his grave before I danced over it, otherwise I was just dancing over a hole in the ground.
I turned my attention to my core vision. This was a flickering frame of light hovering in midair, and within that ethereal picture frame I saw a cavernous room, the darkness broken only by light blinking from lamps on the walls.
Dagger-shaped rocks pointed down from the ceiling, and the acoustics of the curved room made every sound echo. This was an effect I had designed so that when a hero cried, he couldn’t escape his own whimpering. It was a work of art.
In the center of the loot room was him; the hero who had become a real pain in my arse over the last few weeks.
Cael Pickering. The middle of the three Pickering brothers. Easily the most capable hero of the bunch, and he knew it.
I wasn’t going to let him beat me again.
I studied the scene as if it were a game of chess, looking for anything I had missed, any way that my nemesis could get out of this. I rotated the frame of light back and forth, round and round, studying all angles of the loot room.
All the while, Cael stayed put, one foot on the pressure plate trap, sucking in his cheeks as he tried to think of a way to get out of it.
Had I left any weaknesses for him to exploit? If I had, they were beyond my ability to see them.
“There’s nothing he can do. See? He’s finished!” I said. “At last I’ve trapped the sword swinger! Five times this berk and his dopey brothers have waltzed into my dungeon and taken my treasure. But there’s no way out of this one.”
A figure shifted from the corner of the core room. A wolfish beast called a kobold, a species which many dungeon cores use for mining, laboring, and even fighting. I had many of them, including a kobold bard, shaman, rogue, and several miners.
“Dark Lord said he had no way out last time,” said Tomlin.
Tomlin was my oldest kobold. My oldest friend, I suppose you’d say. He always retreated to the safety of my core room whenever heroes entered the dungeon. If cowardice was measured in gold, Tomlin’s riches would make a king tremble with envy.
“This time I’m right. Look at him! His brothers can’t help. He can’t move from the pressure tile because he knows he’ll release a trap, and he’s outnumbered. If he gets out of this, then you might as well close my dungeon down.”
“Tomlin is scared, Dark Lord.”
I felt a rebuke on my tongue that was so sharp I almost cut myself with it. One stare into Tomlin’s wide, pathetic eyes was enough to stop me saying it. No good would come from kicking a kobold when he was down.
“I know you’re worried, but this is dungeon life. Heroes are always going to come. You would do better to try and get over your fear.”
“Tomlin cannot fight.”
“You don’t need to. Perhaps go to the loot room and stand in the shadows and watch how Gary, Brecht, and the others deal with it. You’ll see that heroes aren’t anything to be scared of. They’re made of flesh and blood, just like you. Flesh can be cut, and blood can be spilled.”
“Your words do not inspire Tomlin with courage.”
“Everyone gets scared sometimes, Tomlin. Bravery without fear is better describe d as foolishness.”
“Look, Dark Lord! Hero is doing something,” said Tomlin, pointing.
There was a movement in the frame of light that showed the loot room. Cael, still standing in the same spot, was fumbling for something in his shoulder satchel.
He was up to something. Given that thus far, Cael and his brothers had defeated almost every trap I set for them, I needed to end this quickly and without mercy.
“Gary?” I said, casting my voice beyond my room and deep into the dungeon. “Finish this. Tear out their guts. Drain their blood. Rip their heads off their necks and kick them down the tunnels, and other equally horrible things.”
Cael looked up from his satchel and spoke to the air. “Can we finish it in a second? I’m looking for something.”
“Tear him into tiny pieces, Gary,” I ordered.
In the loot room, Gary, my giant spider-troll, scuttled toward Cael. Gary was the first boss monster I had ever created. A hybrid of a troll, spider, and leech, he towered above most beings, was ugly enough to inspire fear in the stoutest of hearts, and had a ferocious appetite for hero flesh, even though he pretended that he was too dignified for such base desires.
As he stomped forward his every step echoed through the room and created a clamor that should have stirred fear in even the bravest of heroes.
But Cael Pickering wasn’t just brave. He also had that special quality that renders bravery infallible: he was arrogant as hell, and he didn’t care to hide it. His arrogance was so shameless that it was hard to dislike him completely. As they say, arrogance is the younger brother of confidence, retaining its charm but lacking its older sibling’s wisdom. I respected anyone who had that quality, even if they were heroes who I’d have to kill.
A smile crept on Cael’s face, and he laughed in a way that was meant for me to hear it. Whatever he planned to do to get himself out of this, he was almost ready.
“Gary,” I commanded. “Slaughter him on the spot.”
Before Gary could reach him, Cael produced a leather purse from his satchel. It was tied with string and bigger than his head, and should not have even been able to fit inside his satchel. It must have been magically altered. What was he up to?
He set the bag down by his feet, and then simply stepped off my pressure trap.
“Not bad, core,” he said aloud. “I almost feel tired this time around. You’re improving, but you have a long way to go. Now, let’s see what treasure you have for me this time.”
There were no clicks. No noises of traps activating. Instead, there was just the sound of Cael whistling to himself as he began helping his brothers.
Damn it! I knew how he’d escaped my pressure plate, and I hated it. If I was powerful enough to spawn a dragon to scorch the heroes to cinders, I would have. Even though dragons are notoriously poor dungeon occupants.
It was obvious what he had done. If the trap had been working, then him stepping off it should have triggered a hidden compartment in the ceiling. A gallon of acid should have rained down, boiling him alive and filling the dungeon with the stench of charred hero skin.
But there was no rumbling of a secret hatch, no lovely acid.
The bag he’d placed on the pressure tile must have been filled with stones that weighed as much as he did, but paradoxically were light enough for him to carry. Putting these on the tile had rendered the trap useless.
Damn it. I was so, so close.
Then again, Cael and his brothers were still outnumbered. I could still defeat them. This wasn’t the time to give up.
“Gary? Tear out his spine and strangle him with it, if you would be so kind.”
My giant spider-troll rushed toward Cael with his teeth bared, his face a picture of bestial hunger.
“Fight, Death, Kill,” I said. “Pincer him into pieces.”
From the other side of the loot room, three beetles perked up, pointing their antennae in the air. Fight, Death, and Kill were the size of dogs, with oil-black skin and pincers sharp enough to shave iron.
They charged into battle, screaming their own names at the top of their voices.
“Fight!”
“Death!
“Kill!”
Cael unsheathed his sword and held it upright until its blade caught the glow from the mana lamps scattered around the room. Taking a phoenix feather from his satchel, he used the feather tip to draw on the blade, just above the hilt. Red light spread over his etchings, forming a glowing lightning bolt on the metal.
I had seen him do something similar on one of his previous trips to my dungeon, where he used the feather to draw a shield shape on his chest piece. Back then, it had given him a shimmering field of energy that protected him and his brothers.
What was this new effect? Drawing something on his sword meant it would be an offensive ability. That was the problem with wartificers like Cael; their powers went either way.
It was too late for me to change tactics now. Gary bore down on Cael with a roar, his leech legs raised in the air to display all their razor teeth.
Cael pointed his sword at Gary’s abdomen. Gary’s roars were met with a crackling sound.
Light flashed once, twice, three times as a bolt of lightning left the sword’s tip, smashing into Gary and sending him flying across the room.
Cael’s brothers, still incapacitated yet watching the scene, coughed as they breathed in the stench of burning troll-spider.
Three cries drowned out the crackle of flames and Gary’s whimpers.
“Fight!”
“Death!”
“Kill!”
My beetles surrounded Cael. Waves of flame lapped over their husks as they activated their hell husk abilities.
“Fight!”
“Death!”
“K-”
There were three more flashes, followed by three crashing sounds like the roar of an angry god.
When the light faded, my beetles were scattered across the room, unmoving. Steam rose from their husks and made spirals on its way to the ceiling.
Cael’s had just incapacitated four creatures with that wartificer ability of his. Damn this miserable hero to the deepest hell in the underworld!
Knowing I couldn’t win, it was time for damage limitation.
“Gary, can you move?” I said.
“Just about, my good chap,” he groaned.
“Then get out of there. Brecht, you too. We’re done. Retreat.”
Brecht tugged a leather cord strapped around his shoulder, making his tambourine swing around so that it rested against his back.
“What about Fight, Death, and Kill?” he said.
I eyed my beetles, battered and smoldering yet showing signs of life with little twitches of their feelers.
“The heroes won’t care about them now,” I said. “Not when they’ve won the loot. Get out of there. No point risking your life on another defeat.”
Brecht lumbered out of the loot room, followed by Gary. This left the heroes alone in the cavern, with no creatures to stop them from taking the loot in the center.
Cael drew his dagger. Using his phoenix feather, he etched a set of rune letters on it. He approached his brothers and made cutting motions in the air around them, as though snapping invisible string. With a crackle of mana, his dagger broke his brothers free of their paralysis.
The shortest and youngest hero stretched his arms out now, pacing around the room. “Ah, it feels good to walk again!” he said. “Well done, Cael.”
Cael shrugged. “Pah. It was nothing, really. You would have done the same.”
“I’m not a wartificer like you.”
“You’d have thought of something. You’re not as dumb as you pretend to be,” answered Cael, smiling at his brother.
While his brothers checked the various chamber alcoves for signs of monsters, Cael took a golden vase from the treasure chest and held it aloft.
“Behold!” he shouted, using his best hero voice. “The dungeon loot is ours again!”
This was something that heroes tended to do, the whole holding treasure aloft thing. Stupid, if you ask me. The sensible thing would be to cram their loot in their satchels and get out of the dungeon.
