The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Tier 8, I believe. Just another thing that makes this whole thing not make sense.

  “Why did you waste that on her? Those things are expensive, you know. You had better keep the other one safe in case I need it,” the annoying Fighter said with more than a little threat to his voice.

  Everyone ignored him and didn’t respond, but they also didn’t protest. Within seconds, the mess that had been the Gnome’s lower leg was literally reshaping itself back into health, and any of the external wounds that had been there were now gone. The Elf helped the smaller Gnome to her feet, which the Healer did gingerly, testing her healed leg and shaking uncontrollably. There shouldn’t have been any pain anymore because the Elixir should’ve eliminated all of it, but the mental trauma of such an injury would likely linger.

  “Stop messing around; I don’t know how deep this place goes, and you’re wasting time.”

  The fact that none of them responded other than with some murderous looks when his back was turned convinced Tacca that the “leader” of the Raider group was somebody important. They could make derisive remarks under their breath and even laugh at him all they wanted, but it appeared as though they were past that stage; physical harm was in all of their eyes as they stared at the arrogant Raider walking down to the next room – even the other armored Fighter.

  Despite the contention between them, the two Fighters did a thorough job of checking for more traps – which they found in the form of additional explosive squares seemingly set at random throughout the empty rooms. They weren’t necessarily designed to kill them, because they barely did anything other than forcefully move the Fighters across the room, but merely to delay them. Fortunately, her preparations down below were complete by the time they reached the very last room.

  “Who the heck is that? Where did they come from?”

  The confusion and shock in the lead Fighter’s voice was genuine – not that it was surprising. From the entrance tunnel leading into the room, he and the others could easily see what appeared to be 5 Raiders racing across the room after catching sight of them, headed for some sort of exit in the side of the room.

  “No idea; they aren’t from the group that went in before us, I can tell you that,” the Gnome Healer responded.

  “Well, we can’t let them see us in here; the Minister made it abundantly clear that we shouldn’t arouse any suspicions,” the Elf followed that up with information of her own. “The illusion we had on us was canceled as soon as we entered, and if someone sees us like this…well, let’s just say it will be much harder to place blame on the decrepit group we acquired this spot in line from.”

  “Wait, I didn’t agree to this—”

  The angry Fighter cut off the Gnome’s objections immediately. “It’s too late for that now; we’re already committed and it’s doubtful we’ll get another chance like this. After them!”

  Tacca had been hoping for that response, but neither she nor Shale had known exactly how they would react to seeing another “Raider group” inside of the dungeon. It was a toss-up between them turning around and leaving or hunting them down so that there were no witnesses to their deeds. In the first scenario, they would just leave and hopefully never come back – which would keep Tacca and her dungeon safe. In the second scenario…well, they were all about to find out.

  Fortunately, none of the invading group seemed to notice her invisibly watching from the upper corner of the room as they raced across to where her creatures had “escaped”. In reality, she was able to slightly alter the Rotating Stone Bridge that led out to the exit staircase leading up to the surface so that it would stay open for longer than usual before resetting; by having one of them push it open before the group intent on destroying her Core arrived, it was already open when they arrived. Then, all it took was a direct order while the invaders weren’t inside the room for her creatures to run through the trap, which would normally prevent them from exiting if there were Raiders in the room.

  “Hurry, we can’t let them get away!” the Fighter said as he led the others into the tunnel, where it quickly turned sharply to the right, and then to the left after another few steps. After a third turn to the right another 20 feet down, the leader – and the others behind him – finally caught up to Tacca’s creatures, who were assembled together towards the end of a tunnel with no outlet.

  “Hey, what are you all doing down here, anyway? Were you…looking for the Core to this dungeon as well?”

  Her creatures, she found out quite quickly, couldn’t communicate. In fact, Tacca couldn’t do anything to direct them, once her orders to run through the tunnel and wait for the Raiders to arrive was complete, because they were now basically under their own control; the same limitation that prevented her from controlling any of her creatures when Raiders were in the room seemingly applied to tunnels as well.

  Instead, they immediately attacked – as futile as it was. The Hill Dwarf and Human Fighter Variants immediately strode forward in their Ragged Leather Armor and Rusty Iron Swords; the Scout fired an arrow at the plate-covered Fighter on the opposite team and it hit him directly in the chest…and then bounced off without any type of noticeable damage. The Caster and Healer also strode forward, brandishing their staff and mace, because they didn’t have any spells to cast; in fact, none of her creatures had any special Abilities, because she hadn’t paid any DF for them to be part of their repertoire.

  “Hey! Fine, I was going to give you a choice, but not anymore—wait a minute, do they look strange to you guys?” the lead Raider responded to the sudden attack, before looking at Tacca’s creatures a little closer and addressing his own group.

  “Uh, yeah, now that you mention it. They look a little…unnatural, is the only word I can think of,” said the Raider Scout as he readied his own bow to attack.

  Now that Tacca could compare the two groups next to each other, she could see immediately what he was talking about. Her creatures were dressed correctly, made “normal” movements with their weapons, and were anatomically correct – but that was where the similarities ended. Each of their faces was just a little too perfect, symmetrical, and…bland, honestly; there was no character to them, nothing that made them unique, and that was probably what the other group had caught onto. Well, either that, or the fact that they didn’t have the slightest expression on their faces and the relatively “dead” eyes in their focused gazes might have given it away that they weren’t quite right.

  “I don’t know what they are, but that girl Gnome with the bow over there isn’t normal by any means,” said the Raider Healer, looking closer at someone from her supposed same race.

  “They’re some sort of abominations! I don’t feel so bad about killing them now,” the other Fighter said, one of the few times he had actually spoken throughout the entire delve. He immediately pushed past the leader and blocked a strike by the Hill Dwarf Fighter Tacca had out front, and his steel sword actually bent the iron weapon of her creature from the impact. An arrow ricocheted off of his armor as Tacca’s Gnome Scout creature attacked futilely again, and in response the Raider swept his sword out in anger, easily decapitating the Hill Dwarf in front of him.

  As the creature’s head flew through the air to bounce against the side wall of the tunnel, each of the Raiders stopped in shock at the sudden “murder” in their midst…until the head, blood, and body disappeared just like any of the dungeon’s other creatures when they were killed.

  “They’re not real – kill them!” the leader shouted, before pushing past his fellow Fighter and slaughtered the rest of her creatures with a savagery that made his previous aggravation and embarrassed wrath pale in comparison. When they were all dead, as Tacca had known they would end up from the beginning, their slayers all stood looking at each other in shock and confusion – and anger.

  “We have to tell the Minister about this; I have no idea what this means, but I’ve never heard of anything like this before. Have any of you?” the Elf asked finally, looking at the others.
/>
  “No, this is unprecedented as far as I know,” the Gnome said as the others shook their heads. “I have to say, I was a bit against the destruction of this dungeon initially; seeing this, however, has changed my mind.”

  To hear that from the one Raider in the whole group who had seemed almost on her side was a bit of a blow to Tacca, as well as being more than a little disappointing. I guess that means I shouldn’t be using Humans, Gnomes, Elves, and Hill Dwarves in my dungeon…quite yet, at least. The Dungeon Core relayed the results of the fight – if she could even call it that – and the resulting conversation to Shale, because the Dungeon Fairy hadn’t followed them inside the tunnel.

  “Yeah, that’s about what I thought, but it’s possible you can find a use for them in the future. It’s still a good thing to acquire the Abilities from them, at least.”

  Tacca mentally shrugged, still a little disappointed but understanding. She would probably feel the same way if Fairies were used as a dungeon’s creatures, and she was very glad that nothing like that had ever happened before; there were some Fairy-adjacent creatures that could be used as defenders, but nothing exactly the same, fortunately.

  She was so distracted by this that she nearly missed it when the Raider group followed the tunnel back out – only to find that their way was blocked. The Stone Bridge trap had shut, and there was no way out; while they were still journeying their way down to the bottom of her dungeon, she had disconnected the exit staircase from this tunnel she had hastily dug out by filling it with 10 feet of solid stone. Normally, having a trap like this with no way to get out would be highly frowned upon, because it went against the Rules set out by the DPRC; it was a “no-win” situation that a Raider or group of Raiders might stumble into, which was a no-no. For this particular incident, however, neither Shale nor Tacca thought that anyone on the Council would have any objection. As long as she got rid of it afterward, then it was possible that no one would ever know, in fact.

  “Hey, what gives? Let us out!” the leader of the Raider group yelled, beating his fists against the closed trap, before slicing into it with his sword. Tacca grew a little alarmed as his weapon actually started to take some slivers of stone off, which disappeared as soon as they hit the floor, being part of the “trap” and not actually able to exist as a separate object. To combat this, she created another stone wall blocking the trap from inside of the room she was in, effectively sealing the exit; while she couldn’t directly affect anything inside of the tunnel they were doing their darndest to attack and carve their way out of, that in no way prevented her from doing things inside of the previous room they were in.

  It was probably a blessing, in a way, that she created the thick wall, completely sealing them inside; she was going to have to wait for them to starve and die before she could officially get rid of them, which could be a while depending on whether they had any food and water in their bottomless bags. Now, though, she had sealed off even the slight crack at the bottom of the Stone Bridge trap that was letting in the slightest bit of air.

  Now all she had to do was wait for them to suffocate.

  That’ll teach you to try and destroy my Core…

  Chapter 10

  Things were a little rocky for the first few days around The Village after Falaern Whiteoak, the Minister of Merchants, arrived with his entourage. It seemed as though there was a mutual distaste between what the Hill Dwarf would classify as “normal” Raiders and the Raiders that originated from the social world of the Merchants. At least, that was the vibe that Sterge got from watching the interactions between the two groups.

  Tensions rose almost immediately after their arrival, and within a day there were multiple fights between groups of the different factions. From Sterge’s point of view as a bit of an outsider to the politics that seemed to shape their attitudes towards each other – not that he was an expert or anything – the Merchants appeared to consider the other, poorer, Raiders as beneath them and held themselves superior, even when they were the exact same Raider Level.

  He could see a little bit of merit to their assumption that they were better, though not because of them personally; their gear, as he had seen when they had arrived, was many times stronger or more protective than nearly everyone else near The Village, which would help them survive much longer in a fight and allow them to take on harder monsters without dying. Some few, he had heard rumored, even had enchantments on their armor or weapons – which he knew was prohibitively expensive. A few utility enchantments, like what was used to create a relatively inexpensive Amulet of Illumination, were common loot drops from dungeons; others, like the boosts and enhancements to armor or weapons, were anything but commonplace.

  But superior gear couldn’t quite make up for the horrid, self-entitled attitudes which made them personally seem inferior to Sterge. They were so disruptive to the previously relaxed atmosphere that had encompassed The Village that the Hill Dwarf wanted them gone – especially after they had begun to harass the villagers, including Gwenda and himself.

  “Hey! Move – those are our seats,” one of them said to him two evenings after they arrived, as he and Gwenda had been enjoying a well-deserved meal in one of their Inns. It was crowded, as had been usual, because there just wasn’t enough room to put the massive mob of Raiders that had come; it was one of the reasons Sterge and Gwenda were enjoying their meal, in fact. They had both spent most of the day either constructing yet another Inn or handling the hundreds of questions and problems that seemed to pop up every few minutes, and needed the reprieve.

  Which made the confrontation with a group of the Merchants and their sneering and overbearing Elven leader in an extremely fine, tailored black-and-blue-accented suit all the much more unwelcome.

  “Uh…no. We are still eating; as soon as we are done, you may have these seats,” he responded automatically, trying to be as courteous as possible without giving into the Elf’s demands. He knew from experience with the Raiders – after some swift lessons after they had arrived at The Village – that if he gave in and showed weakness, they would walk all over him.

  He turned back to his food, trying to ignore them all entirely, but the Elf wasn’t having anything of it. A hand darted out quickly and smacked into the bowl of delicious stew he had just barely begun to eat, scattering its contents all over the floor, including a small portion of it on his work clothes. “Looks like you’re done; you can leave now,” the Elf snidely remarked, to the laughter of his friends behind him.

  The disturbance, despite occurring in the middle of the extremely busy Inn and raucous hubbub of activity, caused the majority of the Inn to go silent. As nearly all of the Raiders inside turned to see what was happening, the deadly silence was nearly tangible, and the half-dozen Merchants with the loud-mouth Elf stopped their laughter and huddled in with each other. Their leader, however, seemed oblivious.

  One of the servers that Gwenda had hired arrived quickly with another bowl of stew and set it in front of him without being asked…or so he thought. With a quick glance at his friend, he saw her wink and flash a quick smile at the server before she disappeared into the crowd, who was now staring at the Merchants with anger and disdain in their faces. Strangely, Gwenda hadn’t said anything through the entire confrontation, which made Sterge a little confused; she usually handled all of the problems between the Raiders and now the Merchants. For some reason, though, he was glad she hadn’t intervened.

  “Seems as though I’m not quite finished yet,” he said matter-of-factly. He dipped his spoon in and took in a mouthful, relishing the taste again – it really was quite good. Before he could dip his spoon back in, he saw a hand come in from behind him and aim for his bowl again…but it was stopped by a different, well-muscled hand that didn’t allow it to budge any further.

  “Let go of my hand, you filthy Orc scum!” the Elf shouted when he couldn’t extract his appendage from the secure grasp of Sterge’s stew savior. Out of the corner of his eye, Sterge saw one of the Orcish Rai
ders he had seen around a lot – but unfortunately didn’t know the name of – with his hand clasped securely around the Merchant’s wrist. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “I don’t rightly care, brat,” the Orc said gruffly, before visibly squeezing his hand and causing the bones in the Elf’s wrist to audibly creak alarmingly. Sterge was about to tell his savior to stop, but after a cry of pain coming from the Merchant, the Orc flung the wrist away as if throwing out some trash. “Don’t you have any idea who this is?”

  The Elf was holding his wrist in obvious pain, but Sterge doubted that anything serious had actually happened to it. “You’ll pay for that, you fool! How dare you touch me – and injure me, nonetheless!” he practically screamed out, looking for help from his crew. They, however, were slowly but inexorably putting some distance between them and the Elf causing all of the problems. They can obviously read the room much better than him. It’s good to see that not all of them are stupid.

  “As for who this is, who cares? He’s obviously some filthy peasant, based on his attire, and while this girl is dressed a little better, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that she’s his wh—”

  An unexpected pop to his face with a closed fist by yet another Raider shut him up before he could finish his statement, and the Elf reeled backwards, caught by his friends before he could be completely knocked down. Blood was pouring out of his nose, and as Sterge turned around and looked at the Elf better, it was quite obvious that the nose had been broken. With the amount of wealth the Merchants seemed to possess, however, the Hill Dwarf had no doubt that he would have some sort of potion, or access to a Healer to fix it up well enough that it would be like it had never happened.

  “I’ll kill you for that! I’ll kill each and every one of you—” the Elf shouted in outrage, his voice quite nasal-sounding from his broken nose.

  “Keep your threats to yourself and leave, you worthless brat,” the Orc said to the Merchant, backed up by a surprisingly large number of the Inns’ patrons as they stood their ground. “And next time, don’t mess with the Chief.”