“Why, pray tell, did we have to get up so darn early?” she heard one of them complain as he held his head. It was hard to tell them apart, because they all dressed exactly the same, had greasy-looking hair and unkempt beards covering their faces – where dirt wasn’t covering the skin, of course. Tacca was suddenly glad that she couldn’t smell because she was overwhelmingly certain that they all stank horribly from their unwashed bodies and the still-wet stains of spilled alcohol dotting their leather chestpieces.
“For the same reason we came to that stupid village before everyone else did,” said one of the others, who appeared slightly less tired and intoxicated. “We needed to be first so that the other groups wouldn’t steal all of the loot for themselves and then there would be nothing left for us!”
“Uh…*hic*…I don’t think it works that—”
“Shut up! We’re here already, and despite the early hour, we have no other choice. That red-clothed fool said that we have to go now, or else we’ll be put at the end of the list.” The leader pointed at the others one at a time, as if to make a point. “And I will not wait another month or two to have our turn at this place.”
The wait to get in here is already a month…or two? The thought of that was incredible to Tacca, but then again those in charge didn’t know about the exit stairs she had put inside nearly every room. By utilizing those consistently, they could significantly speed up the process of getting more groups to run through her dungeon.
“Fine…*hic*…whatever. Let’s just get this over with because I, for one, didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Neither did any of us, you dimwit. This shouldn’t be too hard, though; this dungeon is supposed to be brand-new, so it should be extremely easy.” The leader staggered inside of the first room with his sword held out in front of him, and Tacca kept expecting him to trip and impale himself every other moment. The others followed him inside, though the one who had complained earlier appeared to be a bit more cautious than the others.
“I still think…*hic*…we should’ve tried to buy a map to this place.”
The leader of the group waved his hand in the air as if to say…something. Tacca wasn’t quite sure, because almost all of their mannerisms were a bit off from what she had learned and experienced herself; she’d never seen an intoxicated Human before, after all. “What? And pay 5 silver for a stupid piece of paper? We don’t need it. These swords are all we need, am I right?” He turned towards the others and thrust his sword up high to emphasize his point, and the others enthusiastically copied him, screaming out their defiance. Where that defiance was directed, the watching Dungeon Core didn’t know – but it sure wasn’t at the two Root Foxes who had emerged from the trees flanking the entrance and were racing for the assembled group of intoxicated Raiders.
Despite showing poor judgement and disregard for proper preparation, Tacca couldn’t fault them for their courage. After two of them staggered enough to fall flat on their faces after being hit from behind by jumping Root Foxes, the others reacted with a ferocity that nearly ended up with them hurting each other; swinging their swords with absolutely no skill, they managed to tear the two creatures apart – and nearly slit the throat of one of their own in the process. It was only an unlucky (or perhaps she could say lucky?) trip over his own feet that caused the Raider who nearly had his head removed to topple backwards, narrowly avoiding the slice of an errant sword swipe.
None of them seemed to care, however, nor even really noticed; instead, they congratulated themselves when the two creatures were slain and gathered up the two copper coins that were left behind as a reward. “See? This is going to be so easy!”
It seemed as though she underestimated the Raider group and their fearless leader; his assumptions seemed to be entirely correct for a little while after that. They practically slaughtered the other Foxes inside the first room with wild abandon, earning a scratch or two on their arms that they completely ignored. Either they were brave and didn’t want to let a little wound slow them down, or…
“Yeah, I don’t think they can feel their injuries right now,” Shale said, after watching the group progress from a very safe distance.
That seemed to be the case in the next room with the Frond Coyotes, where another side effect of their intoxication made itself known. The Rage-inducing Enchantment trap had no real visible effect on the group, probably because their minds were already enraged and on a murderous killing spree. It was entirely possible that it did actually make them rage even harder than they already were, and the only thing that prevented them from killing each other were the fern fronds blocking their view of their comrades, and they just swung blindly at everything around them – which included the creatures set to try to kill them.
“I think that’s the definition of dumb luck if I’ve ever seen it,” Shale said reflexively, before he thought about what he said and tried to backtrack. “Wait, I didn’t mean—”
No, you could be right. My misfortunes with luck could be contributing to this. However, we’ve seen it go both ways; remember how those first two “accidentally” fell into my Boss room and nearly died?
“Yes…but was that actually good or bad luck for them?” Shale asked slowly as the Raiders rushed maniacally down the tunnel to the third room with the Branch Jackals. “I mean, look what they gained from it afterwards.”
She knew he was talking about the Power Boost and Dungeon Sight special abilities they had gained as a result of the Bond that saved them. However, she had also gained something from it, and it had been her decision to save them when it came down to it. Whether that meant that the more important instances of luck inside of her dungeon were variable dependent upon her own actions, Tacca didn’t know, but it was certainly something to consider.
Whatever luck they had going for them held through the third room, as they somehow scattered away from each other when the Fear-inducing Enchantment trap was triggered – which definitely did affect them this time. Instead of striking out fearfully at each other, they were all separated enough that their frantic sword-swinging managed to smack into and slice up the Branch Jackals as they descended from the tree branches above them. It was a wild and crazy maelstrom of fearful yells and swinging of weapons that just barely missed hitting their friends so many times that Tacca lost count.
When the fear left them as the trap ended, the Raiders just stopped and looked at each other in shock. “What…was that? Were you just screaming like a little girl?” one of them asked of another, whom the Core could now recognize as the leader.
“Uhhhh…no! Of course not—let’s get moving!” he responded, changing the subject abruptly – probably because he really was screaming like a little girl the entire time. “These monsters aren’t going to kill themselves!” He raced ahead down the tunnel to the fourth room, which was the one that would paralyze them while they were healed. Amazingly, the leader of the intoxicated Raiders and two others weren’t hurt in the slightest and ran through the room to the next without anything stopping them.
However, the two of them who were bringing up the rear were actually still bleeding from a couple of shallow wounds. The wounds were nothing particularly serious, and they probably didn’t even feel them, but it was enough for them to freeze up while the trap did its work. They couldn’t call out while it was happening, of course – because they were entirely paralyzed – so those in the lead had no idea they were two short.
That seemingly beneficial trap, where they could be healed of all of their physical injuries, turned out to be their undoing: their “luck” had turned just that quickly.
The leader and the other two with him raced into the fifth room and were instantly surrounded by a half-dozen Forest Wolves. It didn’t take long for them to discover that the creatures weren’t as much of a pushover as the ones in the previous rooms, as the Wolves were in their element: outnumbering their prey 2-to-1. If the other two Raiders hadn’t been delayed due to their healing, then they probably wouldn’t hav
e had any issues; as it was, the leader was immediately overwhelmed by 3 Wolves as they surged forward at the same time, clamping down on his left arm and right leg with powerful jaws. The Raider managed to strike down at the third with his sword, though his aim was thrown off when he was impacted by the other creatures on him. Instead of slicing through the neck of the Forest Wolf, all he ended up doing was carving the fur and flesh off of its right shoulder.
As the hollow crack of a broken arm bone echoed through the room, 2 other Wolves went after another Raider, while a solitary creature cautiously went up against the last. Instead of going for an all-out attack like they had been doing, they hesitated when they saw their leader in trouble – which was all the opening that Tacca’s Wolves needed. They growled and padded forward quickly, herding the 2 other Raiders away from the scene of ripping, tearing, dragging, and breaking of more bones as the lead Human was disarmed with a bone-crunching bite to his right wrist.
“Help! Kill—” the leader shouted out between his screams, before he was knocked flat on his back and a Wolf clamped down on his throat. As his throat was literally torn out in a fountain of blood, Tacca was slightly revolted…but she also saw that she earned 5 CIPs from his death. It was good for her – and not so much for the Raider.
The two others seemed to sober up a little after witnessing their friend being viciously killed, and they backed up together and watched each other’s backs. One of the Wolves tried to bite the Raider on the left and managed to get itself impaled and killed by a hastily shifted sword, so things were starting to look up – until the 3 creatures that had finished off the leader joined in on the hunt.
“Luckily”, the two Raiders who had been healing were released from their paralyzed state and surged forward in slight confusion. They reached the next room just as the remaining 5 Forest Wolves attacked the 2 Raiders already there; a wild swing by a sword managed to slice through the throat of one of the Wolves as they attacked, but the others managed to push the 2 Humans back – and right into the Soil-covered Pit Trap behind them. They landed heavily on the spikes below and were out of the fight and reach of the creatures, though there were still more Raiders for them to attack, fortunately.
“I’m getting out of here!” shouted one of the Raiders, whom Tacca thought she recognized as the one who had been overly cautious at first. His fellow Human agreed and ran with him – but it was too late already.
Her creatures weren’t confined to a single room once they were “activated”; they would stay there until an intruder ventured into their territory, but there was nothing preventing them from chasing down their prey. Just like what had happened to the 2 Hill Dwarves who accidentally triggered the attack in her Boss room, the Forest Wolves raced down the tunnel after the retreating Raiders, not intending to let them go. Even if she had wanted to stop them – which she didn’t – for some reason she was again helpless to stop them from fulfilling their original instructions to defend the dungeon. She was more than confident that they wouldn’t chase the Raiders out through the entrance, as they were instructed to defend the dungeon, not to hunt down anything outside of it.
Granted, Tacca didn’t get a chance to test that confidence, because the Raiders didn’t make it that far; in fact, they never made it out of the fourth room. “NO!!!” screamed the overly cautious Raider, as he watched his friend tackled from behind by 3 Wolves into the wildflowers encompassing the healing area. Tacca was glad that the Healing Paralysis Enchantment Trap had deactivated after it was done healing them just moments ago; not that she didn’t want them to heal, but because being ripped apart by Forest Wolves while paralyzed and healing the wounds at the same time would be unnecessarily torturous.
Distracted by his friend’s demise, the last Raider took a wrong turn and was cut off from heading into the third dungeon room. As a consequence, he was trapped against the opposite wall with two very dangerous creatures stalking up to him. “Stay back! I just want to leave!”
His genuine plea – and the noticeable wetness running out from the bottom of one of the Raider’s pant legs – made Tacca want to pull her creatures back so that he could exit, but her figurative hands were still tied. She could absorb the Wolves, of course, but that would take a few minutes…which the Human certainly didn’t have.
As he backed up against the wall, waving his sword around at the approaching creatures – who were soon joined by the other 3 when they were finished with their victim – with increased desperation, Tacca noticed that the wall he was trapped against was (as luck would have it) where the Rotating Stone Bridge leading out was located. When the Wolves suddenly streamed forward as one to finish the Raider off, he jumped backwards in surprise and slammed against the wall. As she had designed it to do, the wall rotated rapidly backwards and up against the ceiling of the short tunnel leading to the exit staircase, causing the Raider to unexpectedly fall to “safety”.
The safety of the exit tunnel turned out to be true, because the 5 Forest Wolves stopped their advance at the threshold leading to the exit tunnel, letting the Raider scramble further into the passageway in relief and confusion.
Wow; I didn’t expect that, but I guess it makes sense.
Shale seemed almost as confused as the Raider did. “Why did they stop? That tunnel is technically part of your dungeon, is it not?”
Yes, that is true; however, it’s also a trap.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Tacca thought about it for a moment while she watched the Raider get to his feet while keeping his sword pointed in the direction of the creatures still growling in his direction. Well, my creatures won’t trigger my Enchantment traps if passing through their activation range, but physical traps can be activated if the requirement is met. We’ve already seen that when I was testing these traps out, of course, but without direct orders they won’t venture into an activated trap. Just like they wouldn’t just leap into one of my Pit traps, they won’t cross the threshold of this Rotating Bridge trap.
It wasn’t something that she had been planning on being the case, but now that the quirk made itself known, Tacca thought it was probably a good thing. She didn’t need her creatures chasing fleeing Raiders up the staircase of the exit tunnel, after all.
After 30 seconds of a tense stare-off between the frightened Raider and the 5 Forest Wolves, the trap quickly closed and effectively sealed off the exit tunnel from the rest of her dungeon. The Raider exhaled loudly and dropped his tense shoulders in relief as he finally looked around his whereabouts.
“What is this place? Is this a secret entrance or something?” Nothing answered him, of course, nor did he seem to expect any response. He ventured onto the staircase and looked both up and down, where they curved out of sight. “I guess up would probably be the smartest idea; the sooner I can get out of here, the better.” Tacca couldn’t help but think that the smartest idea would’ve been to not come to her dungeon tired and intoxicated, but she guessed it worked in her favor on that one.
It took about 15 minutes of walking up the stairs until he reached the surface, mainly because he was taking his time and being as cautious, if not more so, as he should’ve been the entire time inside of the dungeon. As he emerged from the exit – which was hidden around the corner from the actual entrance – she lost sight of him as he quickly ran away, shouting, “I’m alive! I’m alive!”
Meanwhile, down in her fourth dungeon room, her creatures immediately ventured back into the fifth room when the Raider was completely out of sight; they calmly took their normal places where they would wait to ambush the next group to enter. However, Tacca noticed that one of the Forest Wolves was still injured and bleeding from the initial attack on the Raider leader. Since Shale didn’t have access to the Healing Aura ability yet, Tacca transported her Core into the room and started to heal it. She figured it would be better to heal it instead of waiting for it to die and replacing it then, especially as the rest of her killed creatures and traps were already being reset i
n the first few rooms.
“Wait! There’s still one left alive!” Shale said shortly after she popped up in the fifth room and started to heal the Wolf.
What? Where? She was going to tackle absorbing the bodies of those Raiders who had died next, so she hadn’t really been paying attention quite yet. A quick look at her CIPs told her that her Dungeon Assistant was right; she had only received 15 Points instead of the expected 20.
“Uh…he’s in the pit.”
Looking down into the spiked pit, she noticed that one of the Raiders had somehow managed not to have the sharp protrusions lining the bottom of the trap pierce through anything vital – though he had hit his head hard enough that he was currently unconscious. There were still enough spikes through the rest of his extremities and lower torso that he was quickly bleeding out; Tacca didn’t think he would last much longer. She finished her healing of her Wolf and stared at the slowly dying Raider, feeling nothing more than revulsion and…impatience. As a Dungeon Assistant first and now a Dungeon Core, she was well aware that one of the main ways for a Core to obtain CIPs was through the deaths of Raiders who delved through a dungeon; seeing it happen because of something she did was a bit disturbing and disgusting, however. She just wanted it to be over so that she could absorb them and move on – hence, the impatience.
Those feelings wouldn’t stop her from wanting Raiders to die in the future, because that was just a normal part of the way the world worked. She didn’t have to like watching them perish, but she also wasn’t going to save them all—
Huh.
“What now? Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to heal him…”
No, not at all. I just had a thought about the last time a couple of Raiders were dying inside of my dungeon, even if the situation wasn’t exactly like this. I ended up healing them, granted, but that was only after I had established a Bond with them and could use my Healing Aura.
The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Page 6
