The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices
A Dungeon Core Escapade
The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Series
Book 2
Jonathan Brooks
Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists
Edited by: Celestian Rince and Ellen Klowden
Copyright ©2020 Jonathan Brooks
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, corporations, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design Copyright ©2020 Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all my friends and family who have supported me on my writer’s journey, as well as providing much-needed encouragement!
To my beta-readers and Patrons that helped to whip this book into shape – thank you so much for your help!
Aaron Connelly
Aaron Wiley
Alex Canavan
Brian O’Neil
Brian Oles
Brian Schwab
Edward Smith
Emma Baker
Grant Harrell
Joshua Chausse
Justin “Johnist” Johanson
Kegan Hall
Michael Huber
Nate Martin
Neil Stalker
Patrick Byers
Paul Richards
Rickie Brown
Ricky Kukowski
Ryan Adams
Scott Way
Sean Hall
Steven Gene Mills
Tania Bay
Zachary Stading
Zack Devney
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Recap
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Final Stats
Maps
Author’s Note
Books by Jonathan Brooks
Recap
Tacca GloomLily was born under unusual and negatively portentous circumstances, leading the young Dungeon Fairy to suffer from prejudices and distrust due to the disastrous omens centered around her. Most of her life she had discounted what people said about her as fictitious nonsense, but it turned out that the “bad luck” associated with her mere presence was in fact entirely true. Fortunately for her, the adverse effects of her birth weren’t necessarily detrimental to her; unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the Dungeon Cores she was trained at the Dungeon Assistant Preparatory School (DAPS) to help guide as they entered the world.
After some orchestration by the Dungeon Placement and Regulatory Council (DPRC), Tacca was sent to dozens of “misbehaving” Dungeon Cores; her bad luck was used as a weapon to assassinate these Cores so that they could be replaced with another that would follow the rules. Such acts weren’t only hard for the Dungeon Cores themselves, however – the poor Dungeon Assistant assigned to see them on their way suffered from the Bond between them being broken every single time. The severing of their connection wasn’t fatal, though at times it hurt Tacca so much that she almost wished she had died.
Then came an assignment unlike the others. A non-responsive Dungeon Core that wouldn’t talk to any of the Assistants sent to it, who would break the Bond between them as soon as it was established. Her determination and persistence in trying to maintain the connection between them paid off in the end – but it resulted in the soul inhabiting the Core being destroyed. At the same time, Tacca’s soul was sucked into the void left by the departure of the previous tenant inside the Dungeon Core, and her Fairy body was killed as a result.
Now a Dungeon Core, the former Dungeon Fairy – and still technically Dungeon Assistant – made the best of the situation by using her vast knowledge to create an unusual dungeon. By using some tricks to allow her to have all the Variants of the creatures she chose to inhabit her dungeon, she was given a wide selection of Canines to choose from: Foxes, Dogs, Jackals, Coyotes, and even Wolves. On the flip side, those advantages came with some serious detriments to her overall growth, with a 95% decrease in the Core Improvement Points she would normally receive and the inability to create higher-Leveled creatures without paying exorbitantly high Dungeon Force costs.
Added to those complications, the DPRC sent another Dungeon Assistant to find out what happened to Tacca when she didn’t report back. Shale IronSchist eventually became Tacca’s new Assistant, though he only knew her as “Tamara” and the Core didn’t inform him of her actual identity until later.
Opening up to the outside world, Tacca discovered that she was far to the south in the Wentrylock Mountains on the continent of Abenlure – where no Dungeon Cores had ever existed before. It took until the heavy snows melted before her dungeon was located and her first visitors were two farmers-turned-Raiders from a nearby village. Despite their obvious inexperience – and aided by a deliberate decrease of the difficulty of her dungeon – the two Hill Dwarves, Sterge and Gwenda, managed to somehow survive until they reached the last room. Instead of turning back right away, however, Sterge accidentally fell inside the room and caused all of the Canine creatures inside to attack.
Tacca was torn on whether to help them. She had already done a lot to ensure their survival to that point, her justification being that she needed them to live and leave her dungeon, if only to spread the word of her presence there in the mountains. Ultimately deciding that she needed to stop them from dying with whatever she had at her disposal, the Dungeon Core resorted to Bonding with them so that she could heal them of their injuries – which had unintended results.
For one, Tacca now had access to create Hill Dwarves in the Melee and Caster Variants, as well as being able to assign Abilities to her creatures that matched what Sterge and Gwenda had available. In return, the two Hill Dwarves acquired an Ability called Dungeon Sight that allowed them to temporarily pinpoint the locations of nearby creatures, traps, and environmental objects inside of a room at the expense of large amounts of stamina. In addition, they also received a Power Boost +50%, which essentially increased the Power they would receive from killing creatures inside of a dungeon by 50% – a huge boon for any Raider.
All wasn’t right in the wider world, however. Back at the DPRC, it was discovered that all over the continent, Dungeon Cores were arbitrarily being destroyed that had no reason to be destroyed. The balance of primordial forces was slowly tilting towards the intelligent races of the world with every Core’s de
struction – which was a nightmare scenario for the survival of the world. If the forces became wildly out of balance, then the entire planet could be utterly destroyed. As a last-ditch effort, the leader of the Council, Malachite, decided to go find out what the problem was by visiting with something called the Conclave of Sages….
Chapter 1
The leader of the Raider Delving Clan outpost hadn’t been kidding, Sterge thought as he peered around their nameless village’s center “square”. When she told them that things would be changing in their little corner of the world, he hadn’t realized exactly how much it was going to change – and how quickly it would happen. He had thought they had a few weeks before anything significant happened, allowing the residents of their village time to adjust to the new circumstances. So much for that.
Instead, Sterge and Gwenda went back to their village after meeting with the Elven leader of the outpost and called together everyone from their farms into the designated village “square”. It was only called that because there was a pair of large storage shacks set up next to each other for storing produce before it was sent out to sell, as well as a holding space for other community supplies. At the moment, they were relatively empty, as they had sold most of their produce before the cold weather set in; the crops they had planted afterward weren’t anywhere near the point where they could be harvested.
“Listen up!” Gwenda had taken the lead in their little meeting with the 45 other members of The Village – which was perfectly fine with Sterge, as he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. “We have some life-changing news; this may not be what you want to hear, as many of you have had some…contentious…situations with Raiders over the years.” She visibly glanced around at the assembled Hill Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, Orcs, and Elves of their small community, most of whom showed some sort of reaction to her words: Anger, contempt, and even fear were plain to see. “Nevertheless, the reality of the situation is this: There is a brand-new dungeon up in the Wentrylock Mountains.”
“Impossible!” shouted Evandurel, one of the Elves living in The Village. “There have never been any dungeons in the Wentrylocks, nor should there be. That’s precisely why this land was so cheap to lease.” He looked both angry and confused at the same time, which screwed up his face something fierce. “Where did you get this false information?”
Gwenda went on to explain most of the events that happened over the last few months, leaving out any hint of the special abilities they received, or of their miraculous survival inside of the dungeon, and forgetting to mention that they had found the dead Raider’s locator before they ever returned the Elf’s body to the outpost. Overall, it was very similar to what they had told the Raider Delving Clan leader. Sterge was glad that Gwenda had taken over the explanations because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have remembered to leave those parts out from the accounting. As much as he wanted to be honest and truthful with their fellow Villagers, he was more than aware that there were some things that they didn’t need to know.
To say that the crowd was less than enthused about the whole situation was putting it lightly…until Gwenda offered to split the Finder’s Fee and the coin they received from the dungeon with everyone – which wasn’t an insignificant amount. “This will only be a temporary salve, however, because as this village is the closest settled area to this dungeon…well, I will let you guess what that will mean. I’m not exactly sure of it myself. All I know is that things are going to change soon, and it’s up to us to decide exactly how we want to react to those changes.”
“They’re going to descend on us like locusts, destroying everything we’ve worked so hard to build here,” Garthin grumbled loudly into the silence. “I’ve seen it happen before, and it isn’t pretty.” The Hill Dwarf was at least a half-century older than Sterge and Gwenda combined, so Sterge was inclined to believe him. That, and he had heard some similar stories in the past and had felt that same kind of pressure from the Raider community himself. It was but one of the reasons so many were willing to relocate down this far south: in order to get away from all the chaos that the Raider Delving Clan presence usually instilled in the local area. Of course, that usually only happened when there was a popular dungeon nearby; from what the outpost leader had said, this dungeon was going to be extremely popular.
“You’re absolutely right…but there’s a difference this time because of where we are.”
Evandurel spoke up again. “What difference? Raiders are Raiders, no matter where they are. Uh…no offense,” he apologized. Their status as Raiders was still new to them – and truthfully still new to me – so Sterge completely understood.
“That may be true, but we’re in a unique position here. Most of the settlements near the most popular dungeons, as I understand it, are owned and operated by the Raider Delving Clan; they can basically dictate what they want to do there, as long as it doesn’t specifically go against the crown. The difference here is that this land, and therefore our village, is leased from the crown – not from the Raider Clan.”
Sterge couldn’t see exactly what she was getting at, but it appeared as though Garthin and some of the others understood. It probably helped that the old Hill Dwarf had been directly involved with the lease negotiations. “By my beard, you’re right! We have a solid lease contract here that cannot be broken unless we violate some of the clauses outlined within.”
“Uh…so what does that mean?” Sterge couldn’t help but ask. Looking around, he was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t figure out what was going on.
“What it means, my dear lad, is that we are essentially in charge of this land – unless we do something like raise an army, or display evidence of plots against the crown; doing so would be in direct violation of multiple clauses, which would make our lease here null and void. Since we don’t have any intention of doing that, there is nothing that anyone can do to take it from us.”
“But…won’t they try, anyway?” the soft voice of Annbury, one of the few Gnomes in The Village, asked. From his own interactions with the young Gnome, she was normally a bit shy, so hearing her speak up was a surprise.
“Precisely,” Gwenda interjected, trying to take control of the conversation again. “However, what if we don’t give them a reason to take it from us?”
“What…like…burn everything?” Sterge asked, shocked.
“No, lad, that would be folly; I think I understand what she’s saying, though. Why don’t you tell us what you have in mind?” Garthin offered, motioning to Gwenda.
“Thank you,” his friend replied, before straightening up a little and laying out her plan. “I think if we use this coin to purchase supplies, we can build up this village center enough to create a place where the Raiders coming this way can stay – for a fee, of course. We could also set up a few other buildings where they could purchase supplies, and possibly even—”
“You want us to establish some sort of…town? A Raider town?” Evandurel cut her off suddenly. “I don’t know about that….”
“Yes, I propose that we set up a town, where we would be in charge. For all intents and purposes, this is our land, so we can dictate what and even who we want and don’t want here.” Gwenda seemed confident in that, though Sterge was beginning to wonder how they would even enforce that kind of thing if they went through with her proposal.
The Elf was shaking his head in disbelief. “So, we’re going to just welcome them here with open arms?”
“They’re coming anyway,” Garthin snapped out, before clearing his throat and softening his voice. “It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that. As I see it, we have three choices regarding the flood of Raiders heading in this direction: try to stop it, get out of the way, or go with the flow. Trying to stop the Raiders from coming here is a foolish enterprise, because they have strength and numbers on their side. I don’t know about you, but I’m too old to start new somewhere else; I’ve already dedicated enough of my time and labor to this land, and I’m not ready to give
up without a fight of some kind. If that fight means embracing the change that is coming, even going so far as to take advantage of it in some way, then I’m willing to do that to maintain control over my own destiny.” He paused for a moment, before continuing. “Of course, that’s just my opinion; everyone is free to choose what they want to do, though if we’re going to do this, we need to have a united purpose.”
There was a lot of grumbling, but in the end almost everyone decided to stay and follow the plan that Gwenda had proposed. One Elven villager, Wryndle, had a very traumatic experience in the past with a Raider and couldn’t even imagine being around a horde of them, so he left with a very small portion of their funds for traveling. That just meant that it was going to be a lot of work for the rest of them, of course, and trying to balance that with taking care of their livestock and crops was going to be a challenge – but they were determined.
The next morning, a team of volunteers left with Dasper’s wagon towards Heftington to secure some building supplies and to order more for the future. With the 3 gold coins from the Finder’s Fee, their haul from the dungeon, and the pooled savings of everyone in the village (minus the few coins given to Wryndle as he left), they had nearly 5 gold – which they thought would be barely enough to get started. It was more than they could hope to see as a community in an entire year, so it really had to be. There wasn’t much they could do if it wasn’t enough, however, except to hope that they could get what they absolutely needed to set everything up properly before the first Raiders arrived.
The news traveled quickly, however, or that was what Sterge suspected when the team sent to Heftington came back that night with some strangers in tow.
“Are you Sterge?” asked a bald-headed Human clad in a smart-looking, multi-shaded red suit, which still looked relatively pristine, despite having walked in it for quite a distance. Stepping in front of the others, he appeared to be the foreign group’s representative, as the others were following behind and looking towards the suited man with varying degrees of disdain and boredom. Sort of how the other Raiders at the Clan outpost appeared, though the Human talking to Sterge looked to be important enough that they didn’t try to interrupt or interject anything into the conversation.
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Page 1