Overall, things were stable enough that the leader of the DPRC began to relax, hoping that the worst was over. He had even relented enough in his constant vigilance over the map depicting the placement of all of the Cores around the world to get some sleep. He still slept inside his office located in the heart of Council Headquarters, though, because he didn’t want to risk not being on hand if something changed drastically in the situation.
He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but he figured it had been at least 2 full days before he woke up, feeling fresher than he had in the last few centuries of his 15,764-year-long life. It was only when he had settled in for sleep that he realized that the crisis had kept him from lying down and getting rest for months. His body could handle it, but his mind had been straining from the constant pressure of needing to be ready at a moment’s notice to solve any problems that arose.
It didn’t take him long to get back to the Council chambers, to check in on the situation and ensure that everything was still running smoothly. No one had awakened him during his much-needed sleep, which he was thankful for, but he had left instructions to his subordinates to wake him if he was needed. Since that didn’t happen, he could only assume that everything was fine.
Malachite fluttered inside and, indeed, everything seemed as normal as possible. A few of the Fairies they had monitoring the map looked up and bowed their heads at him, but other than the brief acknowledgement of his presence, they largely ignored him. He was perfectly fine with that, however, because that was exactly what he wanted from them; he’d much rather they concentrate on their work than concentrate on him.
Lily, the Lead Placement Council Member, was at the far end of the room, so the Council Leader flew over to her; he couldn’t help but notice when he got closer that she looked exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in the same amount of time that he hadn’t just a few days before. If she keeps this up, she’s either going to make a mistake or kill herself from all of this stress. Luckily, there hadn’t been as much to stress over during the past month, so there wasn’t any reason she couldn’t leave for a few days like he had and get some rest.
“Lily, I’m here now,” Malachite said softly to her when he was close enough to be heard. “I think you should go take a long break; I’ve got this handled here.”
Her entire body seemed to sag in midair at his words, and relief painted her face. “Thank you; I think I could definitely use—”
“Sir!” came a voice from behind him, cutting Lily off in midsentence. Malachite turned around to see one of the Fairies monitoring the giant map covering most of the room – Chrysanthemum or Chrys for short, if he recounted her name correctly – trying to get his attention. “Look!” she said, pointing to the map’s upper quadrant, where the northeastern part of the Abenlure continent was located. Oh, no….
The Council Leader quickly homed in on what was obviously the issue being pointed out to him. The light indicating a Dungeon Core was blinking rapidly – which he knew wasn’t a good sign. In fact, it usually only happened…
Sure enough, the blinking stopped, and the light started to fade away, leaving yet another dungeon bereft of a Core because it was destroyed. Malachite could only hope that the Dungeon Assistant had a chance to have their Bond broken before the Core’s destruction. “Which one was that?” he asked. He hadn’t gotten a chance to check out that information himself before the tragedy happened.
Lily came up behind him and said tiredly, “That was Marigold’s Core; I think they were just coming up on their millennium mark together. I hope she got out before…” Her choked-off words echoed Malachite’s own thoughts regarding the Dungeon Assistant’s well-being.
“Perhaps that was a fluke; these things do happen, after all.” He hated to say that out loud, but if he hadn’t said it – no one would. Malachite didn’t like to trivialize the destruction of yet another solid, reliable Dungeon Core, but he was also trying to be optimistic.
“I hope so,” Lily said sadly, staring at the Balance Bar as it tilted back to where it had been a month ago. “For all of our sakes.”
The next day, another Core was destroyed, on the complete opposite side of the continent of Abenlure. Again, there didn’t seem to be any correlation between the types of Cores that were destroyed; they both used wildly different creatures and traps in their construction, one had been nearly 1,000 years old and the other just under 400, and they were in completely different regions. They were also far enough away from each other that it was highly unlikely that the destruction was done by the same source, though that was still a possibility that they had to consider. The only thing they had in common, in fact, was that both of them had been operating within the Rules and Regulations set out by the Council.
There was no putting it off any longer: Malachite was going to have to visit with the Conclave of Sages to see if he could find out what was going on.
He looked at the others inside the Council chambers, which included those that helped with the everyday workings of the Council and the other Council members, and he could see that knowledge on their faces as well. There was nothing else that they could do, because for all that they could tell, most – if not all – of the Cores that had been destroyed had been following the Rules agreed upon by the Council and the Conclave years and years ago – far before Malachite had even been born.
“Alright, I’ll be going. If you don’t hear from me within 24 hours, and things start to get worse, you’ll have to spread the word to all our Assistants to enact Defense Protocol 1,” he told the Council members as he fluttered to the middle of the room. There was no reason to go anywhere special, as he could Translocate from just about anywhere.
“But that—” Lily started to protest, but immediately corrected herself. “It shall be done.”
Malachite nodded and closed his eyes, picturing the Conclave location that he hadn’t visited in nearly 1,000 years. There was a good reason for that, though, because it was dangerous every time he had to visit; while he had quite a few powerful Abilities as a Dungeon Assistant Fairy at his disposal, it paled in comparison to what the Sages could do – or had been able to do in the past. That was mainly because the members of the Conclave were originally Raiders – and extremely powerful ones at that.
They originally came about during a time of chaos and instability in the world, when Dungeon Cores and Raiders both were unregulated. Cores and their dungeons varied wildly in unpredictability, verging on the outright impossible at times, but the Raiders at the time were equally brutal and wild. Eventually, a small, central group of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Orcs came together and conquered every dungeon in the world, destroying those that weren’t “playing fair” – at least by their rules. They became so powerful that there wasn’t a challenge left to them anywhere to be found, so these Raiders created what they called the Conclave of Sages, which was filled with those that had achieved the ultimate in strength and wisdom.
Really, though, it consisted of Raiders whose lives had been extended through the grueling process they went through to get stronger. Most of them were violent and just liked to kill things, but some few of them were actually quite wise and developed a series of “Rules” they wished the dungeons to abide by, so that their children and children’s children (and so on) could reliably delve through dungeons and get stronger themselves.
Malachite wasn’t there, so he didn’t know the exact details, but a collection of Dungeon Fairies that had been assisting the Dungeon Cores all that time got word of these proposed “Rules” and jumped at the chance to help implement them. The Balance of primordial force in the world was dangerously out of proportion, so anything that would prevent the wholesale slaughter of their charges (who, for the most part, were trying to be fair) was something that they were all for – if only to save the entire planet from destroying itself. They made an agreement with this Conclave to abide by these “Rules” and implemented regulations that Dungeon Cores had to abide by, otherwise they were free to b
e attacked and destroyed by the Raiders if they stepped out of line. The Raiders, in turn, were forbidden from destroying Cores that were obeying these “Rules”.
It wasn’t the most ideal of solutions, but it had worked for so long that almost nobody knew exactly how it all came about; Malachite and the other Council members knew, of course, because such knowledge was passed down through the years. The Conclave, though…. Well, the members of the Conclave of Sages were long-lived, but they were also sporadic and occasionally died doing stupid things, such as trying to tackle a Core Improvement Level 80 dungeon by themselves. Sometimes when that happened, some important information regarding the whole agreement was lost.
So, was occasionally Malachite or other DPRC Leaders in the past had to visit and remind them of the arrangements that were made so long ago. Every time he had gone to see them, the Conclave seemed to consist of mostly new faces, but one or two were still there who had lived long enough to recognize him. He didn’t visit very often – only when he had to, really – because when he was in the presence of so many powerful Raiders, his own Fairy Mana and Abilities were muted somehow. It was a terrifying experience feeling intensely vulnerable. Just being there for more than a few minutes was almost too much for him. When he thought about the…accidents…in the past where the Council leader had been killed by startled or vengeful Sages, his trepidation grew.
From all accounts, the Conclave’s headquarters hadn’t changed its appearance since it was created before the Council Leader was born, so it was always the same in case one of the Fairies had to visit. He wasn’t sure exactly what was going on now in the world and why so many of the Dungeon Cores were being destroyed, but he was prepared in case there were some changes this time.
At least, he thought he was ready. It turned out that he was in no way prepared for what he found.
He popped into existence in the middle of the lushly decorated Conclave chamber, very similar to the Council’s chamber but much larger. He already had his Invisibility and multiple protective shields around his fluttering form, and he held himself ready from the first second he arrived to Translocate out at the first sign of hostility. The instant he felt himself in the Conclave headquarters, he expected to feel the nearly overwhelming dampening of his own Fairy Mana; getting himself prepared ahead of time was the best, most sure-fire way to ensure he survived.
However, instead of experiencing those muted feelings, there was…nothing. It didn’t take him long to see why. Scattered around the room were the corpses of Raiders in various stages of dismemberment, sprawled over tables and chairs as well as the normally spotless white marble floor of the chamber. Dried blood was splattered all over the walls and pooled near bodies, leaving a macabre scene of pure death and destruction.
What…what happened here? How…? He fluttered up higher until he was almost near the high ceiling of the Conclave chamber, as the first wave of decomposing flesh and curdled blood nearly sent him retching up his stomach – which was relatively empty, fortunately, since he had forgotten to eat after he had woken up not that long ago. He looked around at the entire room and it looked like some sort of powerful killing force (or forces) had managed to infiltrate the Conclave’s headquarters and wipe out everyone inside.
He couldn’t believe it, though, even if it was plain to see right in front of him. He thought for a moment that perhaps what he was seeing were much lower-Leveled Raiders, but he quickly recognized the remains of a female Elf he had seen the last time he had been there, with her upper half severed from her lower half by what appeared to be a single slice of…something. He couldn’t tell if it were a weapon that had done the damage, or some sort of sharp claw; regardless, it had done enough damage to kill the extremely powerful Raider in one blow. A closer inspection at some of the others, including some individuals wearing the remnants of some extremely powerful armor, showed that they had put up more of a fight against whatever had done this to them, but in the end it appeared not to be enough. He didn’t see any indication of someone (or something) being wounded and leaving blood behind; as much as the vital liquid was literally coating some of the furniture, it was more than obvious it had been spilled there by the deceased bodies nearby.
I…just don’t understand. How did this happen? These people were supposed to be the most powerful Raiders on the planet. While it was possible that their standards had dropped in the last 1,000 years, he knew for a fact that the Elf he had recognized was outrageously powerful and had been the leader of the Sages the last time he had been there. He thought that she had been powerful enough that she might even be able to tackle the most difficult dungeons in the world by herself – one after another. It had actually been a little frightening to be around her and others like her, because their physical proximity tended to affect his Fairy Mana to even greater extremes.
Nevertheless, there she was, killed by something that took her out in what appeared to be one blow – and killed everyone else in the Conclave chamber. Such a thing should’ve been impossible, yet it had happened. Judging by the decomposition of the bodies – not that he was an expert or anything, but he had been around quite a long time – he estimated that they had been dead for at least a few months; despite that, no insects or animals had gotten to them to aid in their decomposition.
Trembling a little at the scene arrayed below him, the first time in nearly 15,000 years that he had been truly frightened instead of just wary or worried, Malachite went to the doors of the chamber so that he could see if anyone else was alive in the Conclave headquarters. There he found the reason nothing had gotten to the bodies; some sort of field was around the entire room, sealing everyone inside and everything else out. None of the doors were open and with the field still intact, that meant….
That whatever had killed them was either still in the room or had arrived and left by another means entirely.
He had already looked around and hadn’t seen anything left alive, so he had to assume that the killer had left the chamber by some other means. Something similar to Translocation, potentially, though he had never heard of anything having an Ability so similar to a Dungeon Fairy’s.
Malachite wasn’t naïve enough to think touching the field was a good idea, so he backed off from the doorway leading out. Whether or not there was anyone still alive and moving around in the rest of the Conclave of Sages headquarters was going to have to remain a mystery. Just like the reason behind the deaths of the entire Conclave, though, it was something that he was going to have to find out eventually. Otherwise, he was no closer to an answer as to why Dungeon Cores were being destroyed under the Council’s care.
The DPRC Leader spent another hour of disgusting investigation looking around the Conclave chamber for any other clues as to what had done this to all of the Sages. Luckily, his Fairy Mana and Abilities weren’t dampened from the Raiders’ presence like they normally were, so he was able to use his various Shields in a way that prevented him from having to actually touch any of the corpses. After a relatively thorough but unsuccessful search, Malachite decided that he had better leave and let the rest of the Council know what had happened. He still wasn’t sure what exactly they were supposed to do now, which felt awkward to him because he was supposed to have all the answers as the Council Leader. This, however, was something for which he didn’t even know he had to prepare an answer.
Malachite flew back into the middle of the room, looked around one more time to see if he missed anything, closed his eyes and pictured his destination, and then Translocated back to the Council’s chambers. When he felt the Ability activate and his body slipped through neutral space to end up at his destination, he opened his eyes and stared around in confusion.
Everyone who had just been there a little over an hour ago was gone. Fortunately, unlike the chamber he had recently come from, their bodies weren’t strewn all over the place; nevertheless, their complete absence was more than alarming. Malachite quickly flew through the entire DPRC headquarters, frantically searching
for a sign of any of the dozen Fairies that lived and worked inside the complex. He found nothing and no one.
There weren’t any visible signs of what had happened to them, either. No signs of a struggle, a fight, or any type of protracted battle; not that Dungeon Fairies had a lot of expertise when it came fighting, but all of the Council members had similar offensive and defensive abilities that he did. He was sure they would’ve put up some sort of fight if it came down to it – and yet, there was no sign of any resistance. In essence, they were just…gone. He kept hoping that they had all just Translocated somewhere else and were due back any minute, but as time stretched on he began to have his doubts.
What happened here? Where is everybody?
Malachite went back to the Council chamber and looked at the map there. Although he couldn’t be completely sure, it appeared as though all of the Dungeon Cores that had been there before he went to visit the Conclave were still there – so that was a good sign, at least. That wasn’t his biggest concern, though; with the deaths of what appeared to be most or all of the Conclave of Sages, and the disappearance of basically the entire Dungeon Assistant Council, things seemed to be going from bad to worse.
Eventually, he sat on the edge of the map and stared at it for a moment, before putting his head in his hands in defeat. He tried to think of what – if anything – he could do to stop everything from spiraling out of control and into chaos…and he was at a loss. What do I do now?
No answers seemed to come to him, though, so he just sat there waiting for something to happen. How long it would be, or even what he was expecting to happen, he had no idea.
Chapter 15
Sterge finished hammering the last nail into the roof of the latest – and theoretically last – Inn that he had helped to build, before wiping the sweat from his forehead and looking around. This place sure looks different from just 6 weeks ago. The Village center now had 18 Inns crowding the area, all newly built and fully booked by the Raiders that seemed to never stop arriving; when he added in the Raider Supply Store, 2 warehouses that had needed to be built to contain extra foodstuffs that had to be transported in to feed everyone, and the rather ostentatious building that was hastily constructed a few days ago to hold The Village leadership, the once-small village was now the size of a small town.
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Page 16