Golem Dungeon (Orb Keeper #1) - A Dungeon Core LitRPG Read online

  Golem Dungeon

  S. P. Andrews

  Contents

  The Before Time

  The Fall of Carkhold

  The Oath

  Rebirth

  1. Nightmare

  2. Waking

  3. Food

  4. Fairy

  5. The Bond

  6. Dungeon

  7. The Stone

  8. Mana

  9. The Sorcerer

  10. Spider

  11. Mind Menu

  12. Reality Check

  13. A Grave Business

  14. Stuck

  15. Blocked

  16. Classifications

  17. Choices

  18. Tiers

  19. Points

  20. Home Making

  21. Stone Work

  22. Polishing

  23. At Long Last

  24. Rascals

  25. Training

  26. Rodents

  27. Rock drop

  28. Overload

  29. Boss

  30. Eureka

  31. Smithery

  32. Arachnid

  33. The Foundry Gets Going

  34. Visitors

  35. Strategy

  36. Battle

  37. Mercy

  38. Lily

  39. The Stranger

  40. Beyond My Domain

  41. Rail Track

  42. Time Frame

  43. Slicers

  44. Managers

  45. Seeing Stones

  46. The Commander

  47. Reprisals

  48. Win or Lose

  49. Production

  50. Traps

  51. Revenge

  52. Armor

  53. Bandits

  54. Jett

  55. Firewood

  56. Death

  57. Mission

  58. Pump

  59. Steam Engine

  60. Swamp Life

  61. Defenses & Dreams

  62. The Tavern

  63. Freddie

  64. Evolution

  65. Visitors Good & Bad

  66. Cabbage

  67. The Sorcerer’s Visit

  68. Frenzy

  69. Hope

  70. Huts

  71. Naming

  72. Loot

  73. The Team

  74. Blowpipes

  75. Recall

  76. Pulleys

  77. Teammates

  78. Fissure

  79. Logic

  80. One for All

  81. Multitasking

  82. Dummy Run

  83. Siege

  84. The Guild

  85. First Day

  86. Jett’s First Dive

  87. Assassins

  88. Unlooked-for Help

  89. Curation

  90. Other Preparations

  91. News

  92. Water Rising

  93. To Do

  94. The Dream

  95. Empty

  96. Diving Again

  97. The Way of the Universe

  98. Veggie Curry

  99. Second Chamber

  100. Final Preparations

  101. Panic

  102. Nearly There

  103. Spying

  104. Attack!

  105. Options

  106. Rescue

  107. Defenses

  108. Destruction

  109. Bloodshed and Reunion

  110. Adventurers

  111. Rockslide

  112. Goblins & Dwarves

  113. For Freddie

  114. Bell

  115. Bonding

  116. Arrival

  117. Homecomings

  118. Enforcement

  119. The Mountain Decides

  120. Guardian of the Orb

  121. A Dream Come True

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  The Before Time

  The Fall of Carkhold

  Bowen paused, listening. There it came again. The boom of the battering ram.

  The darkness quivered behind the barricaded doors to the Great Hall of Carkhold Mine. Tension mounted within, as each boom sounded from without.

  Heavy. Regular. Powerful. Explosive. Like the sound of a cannon going off. Bowen guessed the battering ram must be huge. The trunk of a fallen pine? Bigger even.

  Sweat trickled down the back of Bowen’s neck. His legs felt weak.

  Maybe two pines spliced together?

  Again came the boom.

  The oak doors shivered. Bowen shivered right back.

  Questions raced through him, even as he braced himself for the inevitable. How much longer could the doors hold? How many of the enemy were there?

  It would take at least fifty goblins to ram such a huge beam. There’d be at least as many again armed and ready to pour through, as soon the doors were breached.

  Why them? He couldn’t fathom. Why Carkhold Mine?

  What did he and his fellow dwarves have to do with goblins? With any of the Sorcerer’s minions? The ways of the world outside had never affected their mine. Never.

  Bowen looked around. Carkhold Mine was not even big. Not by any standard. They were just a humble mining community high up in the mountains. There wasn’t even much copper. Just some tin and a bit of iron ore. Nothing of value.

  And their community was small.

  Thirty dwarves – at most – and more than half of those womenfolk and dwarflings. A good number of the menfolk were elders as well.

  Wise, knowledgeable, but old.

  Dwarven elders, who could man the forge and harvest the seams of copper, but not warriors. Not trained in warfare.

  And now all of them must fight. Women and children and elders alike.

  But they wouldn’t be able to fight off the hordes outside.

  Their numbers were too small.

  Bowen’s heart pounded. His grip on his short axe tightened.

  This was going to be a massacre.

  Think. Think. Was there anything else that could give them an advantage?

  Bowen scanned the Great Hall.

  There was a small door on the far side of the chamber, near the first chimney shaft. But of what use was that? To be driven like rats down through the lesser galleries into the dark prison of the deep mine?

  There was no escape that way. That was certain. In that echoing chamber under the mountains, Bowen shook his head.

  Was this real? Why had the armies of the Sorcerer come for them?

  But it was real enough. There could be no mistaking that booming. It battered into his skull and drowned out his heartbeat. It seemed to thump out: doom, death, disaster.

  ‘Help us, for the love of the mine!’ An injured dwarf mother tugged his arm. ‘My husband, Garadoc, has…was…’

  Bowen knew her and Garadoc well.

  Garadoc and his lovely wife, Camlin…

  How could this be happening to the people Bowen loved so much?

  Camlin fell to her knees sobbing. The babe clasped at her breast started wailing.

  The tiny babe that had been named after Bowen.

  Garadoc’s other two younglings hung onto Camlin’s skirts, white-faced, trembling.

  ‘He went to defend the pathway, on the mountainside, by the adit opening…’ Camlin stuttered, her front soaked in blood.

  Bowen nodded. Garadoc would not be coming back.

  Bowen scoured the walls for a hiding place.

  That crevice behind the ancient wall-hanging on the farthest wall? Surely the goblins would not slay little ones
and babes?

  Bowen guided Camlin across the hall and helped her and her dwarflings into the hidey-hole.

  Surely they wouldn’t.

  Bowen was not sure. He sent a prayer up to the great gods.

  Keep them safe.

  Then he whispered, ‘Stay quiet. Don’t stir until I come for you.’

  Camlin, the young dwarf wife, looked anxiously down at her wailing babe. Bowen kissed little baby Bow on the forehead. ‘I give you my blessing, little Bow, for the rest of my existence, however long or short that may be.’ The touch seemed to calm the babe. Then Bowen dropped the tapestry back in front of the tiny distraught family and returned to the ranks waiting behind the barricaded doors.

  The dwarf males set about silently donning iron helms, hoisting up shields, passing axes and swords out. The womenfolk likewise picked up shields and armed themselves with short daggers.

  Hadagul, waving his staff, wove his way across the hall toward Bowen.

  ‘Greetings, Father of the Mine,’ said Bowen respectfully.

  ‘A word, young Bowen.’ Hadagul beckoned him closer, glancing round at the tense faces.

  The booming was intolerable now, louder and more incessant. You couldn’t even think. It blotted out everything.

  Bowen shook his head, and motioned to Hadagul: ‘I cannot leave them – our numbers are not enough.’ He gestured at the dwarves ready to defend the Great Hall.

  So many women and children. Only ten or so men left.

  Bowen shook his head in disbelief.

  They were not fighters. Just simple earth-loving dwarves. All they knew was how to work the seams of the mountain, smelt the ore into little objects of use, just craftsmen – that’s all…

  The archway high above the great oak doors suddenly cracked and a lump of stone fell inward. A beam of light plunged through, illuminating a pathway of shivering dust in the thick air.

  For the love of the gods and goddesses!

  Outside, the goblins started up a drumbeat.

  The doors cannot hold!

  One dwarfling, just a lad of five summers and bravely holding a hammer, screamed. His shriek, shrill and high, echoed bleakly into the depths of the mine. Then his screaming was pounded out by the drumming.

  ‘I said, a word young Bowen.’

  Again Bowen felt the pressure of Hadagul’s hand on his shoulder.

  In the semidarkness, Bowen turned to politely attend to his elder. Dwarven etiquette demanded his deference even at this urgent time.

  Hadagul removed something from a small leather pouch. A second later Bowen felt the dwarf press something cold and hard into his left hand.

  ‘Take it,’ urged Hadagul.

  Instinctively Bowen closed his grip around the object. Guttering lanterns flickered, and the scent of burning oil stung the back of Bowen’s throat. The air rattled with the grating of steel blades being sharpened.

  This was no time to burden him with useless objects.

  ‘Use it,’ said Hadagul.

  Another blow on the doors made the air tremble. Another lump of stone fell from the archway. Bowen watched in horror as the timbers strained and heaved inward. His heart pounded. His legs shook despite his best efforts to control them. He steadied his axe, took a deep breath and braced himself.

  ‘I have no need of the gemstone, Hadagul. We are not defeated yet.’ Bowen pushed the stone back into Hadagul’s pocket. ‘And please get behind me – for safety – this is no fray for an elder!’

  The doors began to grind slowly inward, bulging at their hinges. Out of nowhere fissures appeared in the wood. Splintering panels strained.

  Another booming impact, as the drumming reached a crescendo.

  Then there was a sickening crunch.

  A battering ram of huge proportions burst through the ancient timbers. Pale skinny faces pressed into the splintered gap. Eyes. So many eyes. Scores of gleaming, beady eyes. And as many greedy, grasping, sinewy arms. Filthy, treacherous, grabbing hands…

  Then there was a beat, filled with the foul stench of goblin. Bowen dragged his jerkin front up over his nose. A sweat broke out across his shoulders. There were hundreds of them.

  We cannot hold out against so many.

  A raucous cheer sounded out from the enemy, as they saw how few dwarves opposed them.

  ‘To arms!’ called Durn son of Dulri.

  A band of three dwarves, seasoned miners, strong of shoulder and thick of leg, sprang forward and hewed at the wriggling mass, starting to squirm through the ruptured doorway. Dark blood spurted out. Fingers were hewn from goblin hands. Bowen sprang forward too, but Hadagul’s grip stayed him.

  ‘A word, yet,’ insisted Hadagul.

  Not now!

  There was another batter against the door. More booming. Crash after crash. The stonework of the archway supporting the door’s hinges crumbled.

  ‘Bowen!’

  The massive oak doors with their ironwork of hinge and bolt and brace were wrenched forward and hung precariously from their settings in the sides of the archway.

  By some force, magical, powerful, Hadagul commanded Bowen to turn away from the invasion and follow him to the back of the hall to the small door that led to the chambers below.

  What is it?

  Sweat poured down the side of Bowen’s face. The air vibrated. The smell of battle and the lust for blood swept through the Great Hall like a wild sea.

  Through the shattered gateway, Bowen could see the battering ram being dragged back yet again.

  ‘What is it Hadagul?’ Bowen could barely keep his voice civil. He needed to fight. The cries of the women and kinder stabbed at him.

  I must fight. Fight and die in their defense.

  Then the ram swung forward again with monumental force. The broken timbers were blasted out of its path. The aperture sprayed wide. The goblin drumbeat pounded out.

  And the timbers of the gates gave way.

  Arrows whistled in through the breached paneling. Goblins scrambled, squeezed and squirmed over their bleeding companions.

  Bowen tried to shrug off Hadagul’s grip and join the small band of dwarf women defending the children.

  A further rush of shrieking goblins toppled into the Great Hall. Bowen tried to leap at them, axe in hand, yet found himself frozen to the spot.

  ‘BOWEN.’ Hadagul’s voice was stern, imperative, commanding.

  Goblins. Dozens. Hundreds.

  Steel clanged on steel. Blades slashed down. Axes rose and fell, and yet hordes of pale goblins still flooded in.

  Flooded into the Great Hall.

  Bowen saw the head dwarf fall. Farli son of Farlan who had always been there, always guided the dwarves through every shock, every grief.

  Down.

  Down on the cold stone floor.

  Down in a pool of red blood with his helm caved in two.

  ‘Farli!’ shouted Bowen.

  ‘Come away now.’ Hadagul dragged Bowen back.

  The elder dwarf’s voice whispered urgently in his ear. ‘You must fulfill the prophecy. Only you are strong enough.’

  Bowen tried to shake him off.

  ‘Not now Hadagul. That prophecy is just a story for babes and kinder to chase away the dark. It will not help us. I must help defend the families!’ he yelled.

  But Hadagul had enchantment in his grip. ‘Our end is near. We cannot get out. They have taken the Outer Gate. All will fall here. Listen to their drumming – they’re preparing for the slaughter.’

  The slaughter?

  A sudden chill swept over Bowen.

  ‘What – of the children too?’

  Bowen had hardly spoken when there came a massive crash that seemed to tremble the very stones under their feet. Bowen lifted his axe high. The torches on the walls guttered and dipped, chasing shadows across the hall, right up to the ceremonial shield, hung high above the chimney breast.

  Then there came a shriek of triumph as the entire gateway opened up. The stonework gave, and the goblins cheered.


  ‘Hold fast!’ cried a dwarf warrior.

  The goblin drumbeat echoed into the Great Hall. The walls seemed to shake. ‘Stand your ground Dwarves of Carkhold!’ shouted Durn son of Dulri, cheering them on again. ‘Keep your axe arm ready!’

  He stood shoulder to shoulder with the last rank of dwarf men.

  ‘Hold the formation! We will cut our way out yet.’

  ‘I should stand with them!’ cried Bowen, pulling against Hadagul’s magic.

  ‘No!’ ordered Hadagul, pressing the stone again into Bowen’s hand.

  There was a clatter as dwarves brought their axes down on goblin armor. A wail as dwarfling children and their dams fell beneath a hail of arrows.