He had no way to confirm that was the case, of course, but he could instinctively feel it in his bones. Worse than that, he also had to realistically consider that the normal Raiders would do the same if they found out. While they were sort of on their “side” right now, they were behaving themselves for the most part so that they could continue to access the dungeon. All bets were off if they found out about their Abilities, however. Again, he couldn’t really know for certain what the Clan would do – but he could certainly guess.
Therefore, it was a risk doing what they were doing, but hopefully only a small one. They weren’t planning on telling anyone, let alone their new groupmates, about their special Abilities…at least not yet; the boost in Power would be easy enough to pass off as normal for a while, and by the time they caught on, then Sterge and his best friend could determine whether telling them was safe.
Gwenda led the way to the governmental building they shared with the Raider Clan’s representative, and walked right inside and off to the left-side office. She walked inside with Sterge just behind her, and he shut the door.
“What may I do for you this fine evening?” Jesper, in his normal red-shaded suit, asked politely without looking up from what he was working on. He was seated behind a large desk covered in neat stacks of paperwork, and he was scribbling away on yet another piece of paper that was probably just going to be added to another stack. On the left side of the office was “The List”, a chalkboard that was a mirror to the one posted outside of the building; it listed every group that was scheduled to delve through the dungeon, and at any time it could be seen by the Raiders to determine how long of a time they had to wait until it was their turn. Right now, based on how many names were on it, the wait was quite long.
From what Sterge knew, there was also a master copy of it that Jesper kept on his person (and memorized, probably), so if anyone tried to alter it without his permission, he would know and correct it if necessary. The chalkboard was more of a courtesy to the Raiders than anything.
Before they could say anything, the Clan representative finished what he was looking for and looked up at them. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, which was probably because of the fact that they rarely came to see him in his office. He looked worried for a moment, but then his face relaxed as revelation hit it. He’s a smart one, he is.
“Have you finally decided to delve? I’ve been wondering when you’d get around to it,” he said, accurately divining the reason for their visit. “I have to warn you, though, while I can get you bumped to the head of the line, I cannot allow just the two of you in by yourselves – you need a group of five…though I think you know that, don’t you? Who did you find?”
Wow, he’s really good. Gwenda smiled and relayed the names of the new groupmates, and asked to get in shortly after dawn the next morning. There was absolutely no problem getting that done, which Sterge had to admit he was a little worried about since they hadn’t exerted their privilege before. As they were leaving, however, the privilege came with a warning.
“I’m sure you can guess, but this alteration of the list might cause some…unpleasantness. Some people have been waiting for weeks or more than a month to get a chance to delve. Getting bumped back – even if it’s only a few hours – could engender some negative reactions. You’ve seen how crazy it gets out there sometimes, so I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate.”
Sterge was more than aware of what he was talking about; he might be a little slow when it came to some things, but he could certainly understand how the other Raiders might view their “cutting in line”. However, “budging” like this was something that they could only do once a week, and he had promised their new groupmates that he would get them inside the dungeon tomorrow.
“Are you sure you want to delve tomorrow?” Jesper asked plainly, giving them a chance to back out if they wanted to.
He nodded along with Gwenda. “Yes, we’re sure,” he replied without hesitation.
“Well, then, you’re all set. I’m not putting you on the official list, because that could cause even more problems, but everyone involved will know you’re coming. When you arrive, you may need to wait for the current group to finish before going in, but the wait usually isn’t that long. Good luck, and good delve, you two.” Jesper was already back to his paperwork by the time they were closing the door to his office.
“Well, that’s it. We better get some sleep as well if we’re going to be any good tomorrow,” Sterge said with a yawn. That earned him a playful punch in his shoulder.
“Speak for yourself – I’m always good,” Gwenda said with a grin, before giving him a small peck on his cheek and heading up the stairs to her personal rooms.
Sterge smiled and followed her up the stairs, turning in the direction opposite to her own. As he was falling asleep on his comfortable bed a few minutes later, he couldn’t help but think about the dungeon – and whether they would successfully complete it this time.
Chapter 16
Tacca’s planned purpose through the next few months was just to keep things running smoothly and acquire as many CIPs as she could. Whenever she hit her next Core Improvement Level and was able to get rid of the biggest obstacle holding her back, she had a feeling that the development towards her goals would be quite impressive. Unfortunately, she also knew that it wasn’t going to happen right away, and it was likely going to take at least 2 months before she accumulated the 1,133 CIPs she needed to get to CI Level 9. Of course, that didn’t really help with the boredom.
Is there something that normal Dungeon Cores possess instinctively that prevents them from feeling bored? Because I can’t believe that I’ve never heard of them complaining about boredom before. She first thought that it might be something that was never mentioned because it was just something that would happen no matter what, but then she didn’t hear any mention of ways a Dungeon Assistant could help stave off that boredom. Because, just as she had been in sort of a bored trance before and had nearly missed her countdown – as well as performing some unconscious actions – boredom could have potentially bad consequences.
Shale, for his part, could use his Hibernate ability to pass the time – which he did almost a few days after she had Leveled up, stating he was going to sleep for a week and check up on her. She couldn’t really blame him, though, because he had been going pretty much non-stop since he had arrived, with minor naps every now and again.
Theoretically, she could also Hibernate – but that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. For one, she wasn’t sure if she could wake up from it in time if there were a serious threat to her dungeon or her Core. Two, while the creatures and traps would (hopefully) automatically restock themselves even if she wasn’t mentally present to direct them, there was no way to be sure they would do so if she were Hibernating. Thirdly, she wouldn’t be able to dictate the order in which the creatures and traps restocked themselves, and there would be no way to alert the next Raider group that the dungeon was ready for them. She had an excellent routine going, and she didn’t want to mess that up; “training” the Raiders to follow her directions had taken some effort, after all.
Therefore, before she let boredom get ahold of her mind again – which seemed too soon to her, since it had only been about 6 weeks since her dungeon had been found – she turned the majority of her attention to the lower part of her dungeon, where she had room to experiment and possibly expand. She didn’t have a lot of Dungeon Force to use, since a lot of it was tied up in running the dungeon rooms the Raiders were delving through, but she still had some to play with; she had ended up using quite a bit of it before her countdown ended to create hundreds of traps, after all.
She couldn’t make more traps right now, though, as she was pretty much at the limit of what she could maintain without jeopardizing her Core. She was sure if there were an emergency she could place a few more, but without eliminating the ones she had protecting her enchanted-gear-wearing Human, Elf, Gnome, and Hill Dwarf creatures – a
nd her Core, of course – there wasn’t much play to with, trap-wise. She was hesitant to remove what she had placed, as well, because she was confident they would help to protect her if she were attacked again.
That left constructing additional rooms, or environmental objects, or experimenting with creatures. The first two were easy enough to do and didn’t really interest her, but creatures were something else entirely. She wasn’t as free to experiment as she wanted to be, however, as every point of her Control Limit was being used to maintain her dungeon up above, as well as her protective creatures down below. She didn’t want to reduce the number of Canines stocked in her dungeon again, as she had already needed to do that to be able to afford the Control Limit needed for her armor-wearing creatures below. What that basically left was temporarily absorbing the Human, Elf, or Gnome creatures so that she had something to play with.
However, before she could even get started, Tacca felt something strangely familiar enter her dungeon. She didn’t panic, though, because it didn’t feel like a threat; on the contrary, when she looked, she found that it lifted her spirits and erased any shred of boredom she was suffering from.
The Hill Dwarves she had Bonded with were back – and they had brought friends.
She was tempted to wake Shale up from his hibernation, but decided against it. He deserved his rest; even though she envied it a bit, she didn’t want to take that away from him. Besides, this was likely to be a relatively normal delve through her dungeon, despite her strange eagerness to see her two Bonded again. That odd feeling when she saw them made her suddenly glad that she had only later Bonded those Raiders that were already dying in her dungeon, because now she really didn’t want the two Hill Dwarves to perish while making their way through her dungeon.
“So, you said you’ve been in here before? What was it like?” one of the new Raiders with the male Hill Dwarf said – an Elf that appeared to be some sort of Fighter Class. From what she had been taught, and through her own observations, one of the Elven race being a front-line Class was rare, though not unheard-of. They tended to be Casters, Healers, or Scouts because of their natural agility and affinity for magical spells, so seeing one wearing ragged leather armor and wielding a sword was…different. Again, it wasn’t unheard of; Tacca hadn’t yet seen any Elves that had a Fighter or equivalent Class since she had opened up for delving, though.
The male Human that accompanied them was wearing a robe and was carrying an iron mace, similar to the male Hill Dwarf, though in the Human’s case the Dungeon Core thought he was a Healer, rather than a Fighter. The smaller Gnome leading the others was obviously a Scout, though if she remembered correctly, the Raiders just called them “Ranged”; Scout was just how they were classified for her own creatures. Instead of a bow, which seemed to be the normal weapon of choice for the class, Tacca could see a brace of throwing knives strapped to either wrist. From what she knew, it took a little more skill to use those types of weapons, so he was obviously somewhat skilled – or overconfident. Only time will tell, I guess.
None of them looked extraordinary, however, as they were wearing travel-stained clothing and armor that seemed to be the normal gear that the novice Raiders tended to wear, as well as using standard-issue weaponry – other than the Scout, of course. The male Hill Dwarf still had his shield and mace he had picked up in her dungeon the last time he was there, which put him slightly apart from the other Fighter in the bunch. I’m just glad that those two didn’t arrive with some of these “Merchant”-types; I’m not exactly sure how I would feel about that.
“It…was difficult. We nearly died—” the male Hill Dwarf started to say, before a look from the Caster that had accompanied him last time stopped him mid-sentence.
“Yes, we were both extremely injured,” the female Hill Dwarf interrupted him, taking over the explanation. “Fortunately, there is a room in here that heals your wounds, so we were able to fix ourselves up before we ran for our lives.”
Obviously, they took my warning not to share details about their experience in here seriously. She had been slightly worried that they might blab about what had happened to them, which would put them in danger. Not just them, though – but Tacca, as well; other Raiders might think that some sort of strange component of the dungeon was automatically going to help them (which would not have been entirely horrible)…or that the Core was somehow trying to infiltrate the minds of her Bonded to “possess” them or something (which would have been a very bad situation). That they didn’t know the exact details of what happened to them probably wouldn’t matter, as the mystery would be enough to endanger Tacca as groups more powerful than she had seen might come to investigate.
That was something imperative to avoid, at least until she had a means to stop them from destroying her Core out of worry over something strange and unknown.
“I’d heard about that room, which is like nothing I’ve ever heard of before,” the Elf continued, before looking down out of what Tacca thought might be shame. “Though, it’s not like I’ve heard a lot; this is my—our—first delve through a dungeon,” she said, gesturing to the Human and Gnome, who nodded in response.
“I’m glad you’ve been here before, because there was no way we could afford a map. Is that how you became the Chief of the village at the bottom of the mountains? And how you were able to cut the line to get in here when you wanted to?” the Gnome suddenly asked, not looking at the Hill Dwarf. He was looking around for any threats instead, but he was also obviously listening to everything the others said.
“Ah…you heard about that?” the male Fighter said with a little chuckle. “Well, there’s not much to tell, really…” Her Bonded went on to explain in very limited detail how he and the Caster had been the ones to find Tacca’s dungeon, and their “reward” for that was a few measly gold coins that were used to start building up The Village to handle the crowds of Raiders. In addition to that, they could apparently go to the top of the list of delvers once a week because of their find, though now Tacca knew why they hadn’t been back until then – they had been busy building a town from the ground up. From what he said and didn’t say, she had the feeling that his status as Chief was really just honorary – and that the female Hill Dwarf was the real brains behind the entire situation.
“Not much to tell, huh?” the Elf asked with a friendly smirk on her face. “You know, you could probably group up with just about anybody, since you have access to this dungeon without having to wait. Why us?”
“Why not?” the Bonded Caster replied with a shrug. “We certainly don’t like those Merchants, though they haven’t done anything overt other than be a nuisance. And, as you said, most of the Raiders in The Village are already grouped up, so it was just our good luck that you came along when you did.”
“Good luck”? Good luck, my a—
Just then, as if they were waiting for the group to finish their conversation, the two Root Foxes near the entrance attacked, catching most of them by surprise. The Scout, his head on a swivel looking for dangers, saw one of them attacking out of the corner of his eye and managed to shout a warning just before they slammed into the Caster and the Healer with a powerful jump, knocking the smaller Hill Dwarf on her back, while only causing the Human to stumble. The warning was just enough, however, for the 2 Fighters to respond before either of their group members could get seriously hurt.
The Hill Dwarf slammed his small shield into the face of the Fox that had knocked the Caster over and was currently on top of her chest; the creature was slightly injured from the attack, but it was also knocked off and away so hard that it hit the nearby wall with more than a little force. Neither impact did enough damage to kill it, though the Fox was beat up pretty badly when it limped back to the fight. Before it could attack anyone else, it got its head smashed in by a follow-up attack by the smaller Fighter, the Rusty Iron Mace he had acquired from her dungeon doing more than enough damage.
The Elven Fighter fumbled her sword and dropped it in her sur
prise and haste, though she recovered enough to help the Healer out of his predicament; the Human still had his mace hanging at his waist and was in no way prepared to defend himself. Instead of picking up her sword, the tall Fighter simply kicked out and slammed her booted foot into the side of the Root Fox that was attempting to attack again. Similar to the brown-colored Fox that was slammed by the Hill Dwarf’s shield, this one went flying across the room from the kick, though it wasn’t nearly as hurt. Still, it gave the Elf long enough to pick up her sword, which she inexpertly wielded but “somehow” managed to maneuver it into place so that the creature essentially impaled itself.
Tacca’s “luck” at work again.
No one was hurt, but the Healer looked a little annoyed that they were attacked in the first place. “I thought you had been in here before? Was this something new?”
The Hill Dwarf Fighter’s face turned red in apparent embarrassment. “Well…no. I just forgot about them,” he said with an unhappy shrug. “Now that we’re here, I’ll try to stay focused and let you know about anything else coming up.”
The others seemed to believe him, or at least hope that he was serious, because they moved on after picking up the rewards left behind by the two deceased creatures. As soon as they were halfway down the room, the Hill Dwarf Fighter looked back at the Caster for just a moment, with some sort of silent communication passing between them. Between one step and another, something strange happened to her Bonded Fighter – which shocked both him and Tacca.
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Page 18