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

by Jonathan Brooks

  She placed herself in the upper corner of the room and turned on her Invisibility using her Fairy Mana. While she could theoretically keep the Invisibility active perpetually, since she was regenerating more than enough FM every minute, it took a bit of concentration to keep it going – and it normally wasn’t needed 99% of the time. Now, though, she devoted a portion of her focus to keeping it active, as it would probably be the only thing that could stop her from being destroyed.

  Quickly, can you think of anything that I can create that might kill these people?

  Shale was silent for a few moments as they both watched the enraged Fighter and his companions tear through the third room with the Branch Jackals without difficulty, slaughtering the creatures almost as soon as they jumped down from the trees. Again, the trap that was supposed to induce Fear was ineffective, though this time Tacca could see that the helmet on the second Fighter, as well as a thin gold circlet on the Elf’s head, glowed yellow with their own enchantments. The Scout and Healer weren’t close enough to be affected by the trap, but the Dungeon Core was fairly confident that they had something similar in their own accoutrements.

  “I can’t see any of your creatures being terribly effective against them, unfortunately – especially those two Fighters. You might be able to kill or incapacitate the others if you overwhelmed them with numbers, but I doubt even your large Mastiff dogs would be able to do more than annoy the heavily armored Raiders.”

  I can think of a few traps that might work, but they aren’t Enchantment traps; just like my Soil-covered Pit Traps, they would take too long to initially set up. Not only that, but I don’t have enough Dungeon Force to create them, since I’ve been running pretty tight on my resources to keep the constant delving flowing. The final defense traps I have in my Core Room might slow them down a little, but I have no doubt they will be able to survive them.

  The Raiders basically sauntered through her fourth room with the Healing Paralysis trap, which again didn’t affect them – though this time it was because they weren’t injured. They were entering the fifth room with the Forest Wolves when Shale spoke up.

  “Absorb all the rest of your creatures in the other rooms! They are low-Level enough that you should be able to finish before the Raiders arrive, and it’ll give you a large chunk of Dungeon Force.”

  It sounded like he had a plan, so Tacca initiated the reabsorption process, which was going to take about 5 minutes to finish completely, especially inside the Boss Room. However, the creatures inside of the sixth room were likely to be fully absorbed before the delvers arrived – especially as the Forest Wolves the Raiders were fighting were doing their best to avoid being killed right away, by staying out of range of the rampaging Fighters out front. It was almost as if they knew they had to delay their demise to help Tacca, but that was a bit far-fetched even for her unique circumstances to even consider as the truth.

  Ok, it’s under way. What’s your plan?

  Tacca didn’t have a good solution in mind, other than to hide and hope they left out of frustration of not being able to find her. She could only pray that Shale had something else in mind, because it was entirely possible that the group had some means to locate her Core despite her Invisibility being active. Teleporting away wasn’t even an option, because she couldn’t Teleport past the Raiders; just like the limitation where she could Teleport into the same room with them and not Teleport out, another limitation was that she couldn’t Teleport past their furthest explored room. It was this limitation that ended up with so many of her Bonded Cores being destroyed in the past; while it might seem easy enough to just keep bouncing around their entire dungeon while the killers tried to track them down, the Core Option didn’t work that way, unfortunately.

  “Well, obviously your – normally – most effective traps aren’t working, and like you said, you don’t have enough time to create anything deadlier…if those would even work, anyway. Your current creatures are basically useless, sorry to say, but those aren’t your only options.”

  Wait, what? You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?

  “Yes, I am. Use those new creature types that you unlocked.”

  But those will only be Level 1; I doubt they would be of much use against these Raiders. Probably much less than my Canines, in fact.

  “That’s entirely true, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. If you can, start creating a group of 5 of them, of different Variants, down where you’re now located, and I’ll explain my idea,” Shale said hurriedly, as one of the Wolves was shot by an arrow sent out by the Scout.

  The Raider had very little obvious skill in the use of his weapon, but the bow was apparently enchanted with some crazy Accuracy boosts; the flight path of the arrow after it was released literally curved slightly through the air to strike one of Tacca’s creatures in the eye, killing it instantly. There was a limit to how effective it was, however, and that depended on how inept the user of the bow was; a second and third shot were so far off-target that not even an expensive enchantment could save them from missing their target by at least 5 feet.

  For the first time, Tacca created one of her new creatures; she had thought about doing it before, but some part of her made her hold off for some reason. That part of her didn’t interfere now, fortunately, and she was able to create her first Hill Dwarf Male with a Fighter Variant. Then she also created a Human Male Fighter, an Elven Female Healer, a Gnome Female Scout, and another Hill Dwarf Male as a Caster this time. It was only as she was finishing their creation, with just barely enough Dungeon Force at her disposal, that she realized she had instinctively created a typical group of Raiders that she would see delving through her dungeon. In fact, it had the same composition of Classes as did the party finishing off her Forest Wolves up above in her fifth dungeon room – if not quite matching up with the races.

  It was going to take a half hour for them to fully form, however, so Tacca hoped that there was enough of a delay in their approach for them to materialize. There would be, at least, enough time for Shale to explain his plan.

  “Ok, now that you have those going, this is what I have in mind….”

  Chapter 9

  The absence of creatures inside of the sixth and seventh rooms caused more of a delay than Tacca was expecting. As soon as they walked in, the enraged Fighter strode forward looking for a target – though he was visibly less manic after killing many of the creatures in the previous rooms himself. They all paused for nearly a minute as he stomped around, activating the Confusion trap. The Enchantment-based trap didn’t actually do anything, just like the others, but it at least gave the Raiders the knowledge that something was still there.

  “Where are all of the monsters?! I’m not done killing them!”

  For the first time that Tacca had seen, the Gnome Healer pulled one of the maps of her dungeon that she was getting used to seeing in the hands of those that delved through all of the rooms. “I have no idea; this room is supposed to have more of those foxes and dog-thingies, as well as those ones that jump down from the trees.” She peered closer at the map as if trying to glean more information from it, but since she was absolutely correct there wasn’t any more.

  “Well, where are they?” the Fighter demanded.

  When the Gnome didn’t answer, the Elf butted in on the conversation. “They’re not here, Marvin. They must have seen your ferocity and must have run away scared,” she said loudly, before muttering under her breath, “Or they all died of laughter from your screaming like a little kid.”

  “What was that?!”

  “Nothing, fearless leader,” she sneered, before waving him on. “This just makes it easier, let’s get the Boss room done and then we can…complete our other business and get out of here. All this stone over my head is making me uncomfortable,” she complained.

  “Fine. But there better be something in there for me to kill….”

  They followed him into the Boss room, but instead of striding quickly looking for b
lood, the Fighter seemed to be a bit more cautious than he had been so far. It seems as though the missing creatures were more effective than the ones that were actually there in the first place.

  For the first time, the group was actually affected by her Enchantment trap inside the Boss room, which slowed down their movements significantly – for all of approximately a second. Shortly after the trap was activated, their armor glowed with a red light, which Tacca thought indicated some sort of Physical Resistance boost enchantment; they were released from the trap quickly, though they barely even noticed. While her other Enchantment-based traps affected their Mental state – Rage, Fear, and Confusion – the Slowing one was all Physical-based, hence the different armor enchantment to help resist the effects.

  “There’s nothing here, either! I’m so going to destroy—”

  The Gnome shushed him immediately, but it was too late. “Shhh! I told you not to mention that—”

  “Mention what? That we were instructed to destroy this dungeon’s Core because if we can’t control access, then nobody should be allowed to access it? Is that what you don’t want me to say, hmm?” The words coming out of his mouth only hammered the final nail in the coffin for the Fighter and everyone else with him, as far as Tacca was concerned.

  “But, we’re not supposed—”

  “It’s too late for the dungeon to do anything to me now! Didn’t you see how I annihilated everything in my path?”

  The Gnome wasn’t the only one to appear a little nervous and uncomfortable. “Yes, well, I’ve heard that dungeons can get extremely dangerous when you threaten them like you’re doing,” the Elf said cautiously, all sense of her entitled and self-important attitude gone from her voice.

  That’s for sure. As much as your plan seemed a bit cruel, Shale, I don’t think I’ll feel so bad about it now.

  “Yes, I agree; they can’t be allowed to live after threatening you like this. Especially since it seems as though their reasoning has to do with some sort of Raider internal affair, and nothing wrong that you did,” Shale said quietly into her mind, despite the fact that none of the Raiders could hear him.

  It took a few more minutes of searching the walls for the access to the tunnel leading to her Core Room, but eventually they found it behind a tree and a mess of foliage camouflaging it. It was both against the rules and impossible to completely seal off access to her Core, but she made it obvious enough that if a group were looking for a way through it would be a clue that they had some destructive ideas in their heads.

  Since this was the first time that anyone had ventured into her Core Room, she was eager to see how the defenses she had placed in there were going to work. She didn’t expect much from them, of course, based on all of the enchantments these Raiders had, but they were designed for relatively “normal” groups delving through her dungeon. She knew that she was nowhere near powerful enough to create something that would protect her from everything that came after her, which was why she limited herself to traps that would be almost guaranteed to kill most low-Leveled Raiders.

  Walking a single foot inside the room with only a little bit of the cautiousness that he was showing before, the angry Fighter cracked the very thin sheet of stone that appeared identical to the rest of the Core Room’s floor and plummeted 30 feet straight down into a pit. He fell with a familiar scream reminiscent of a Fox being on his back as he slammed into the iron spikes jutting up from the bottom with a screech of metal against metal.

  That fall, accompanied by the relatively poor armor worn by most Raiders that delved through her dungeon, would’ve killed most people. The angry Fighter, however, hit the spikes so hard with his durable, enchanted steel armor that he bent the iron protrusions out of his way. Tacca could see some scratches and deep dents on the breastplate and greaves for the first time, as it was obvious the armor could only withstand so much physical abuse before being damaged itself.

  Oh, and he was mad – livid, even.

  “Get me out of here! Hurry, fools!”

  If Tacca were there, she would’ve just left him, but apparently he was either a good friend or someone important, because those still above the pit looked at each other and sighed dramatically. The Elf miraculously pulled out a thick rope from her expensive bottomless bag at her hip, which was more than capable of reaching down into the pit. It took another few minutes, and some serious straining from the entire group, but they were able to pull the Fighter back up to their level. Upon closer examination, it appeared as though one of the spikes down below had busted up a few rings on his chainmail pieces and caused a minor scratch on his armpit area, but it had already stopped bleeding by that time.

  After the pit incident, they were a bit more cautious – not that it necessarily helped them. The two Fighters continued to lead, which meant that they took the brunt of the three other traps set up in the room. One was next to the wall, where they needed to walk to next in order to avoid the opened Pit trap; three large, extremely sharp blades emerged from the wall shaped like semi-circles and sliced into the two Fighters at knee, waist, and neck height. It would’ve killed anyone else, but all it did was cause the two to fly further into the room from the impact, where they triggered another trap.

  The ceiling opened up above the two and released a cascade of heavy and sharp boulders, which slammed into the battered Raiders, partly burying them underneath the Earth-based trap. They weren’t terribly injured by the trap, though it took a few minutes for them to dig themselves out – with no help from the others, who were watching from the relative safety of the entrance. As soon as they extricated themselves, they unsteadily wobbled around the pile of boulders, complaining the entire time – just in time to trigger the final trap.

  It wasn’t immediately visible, but a miasma of dark energy quickly coalesced around the two Fighters as the Death-based trap did its best to rapidly age and decompose their physical bodies. Unfortunately, a bright-white light surrounded the two Raiders almost instantly, pushing away the deadly effects of the trap and leaving them completely unharmed.

  The number of enchantments on that armor is…unbelievable. I haven’t heard of even some of the more powerful dungeons facing Raiders that are seemingly as impervious to everything as they are. The expense of gathering the necessary enchanting scrolls had to have been more than most long-lived Raiders would see in their lifetimes.

  There was a reason the higher Improvement Level Cores were so popular, and it wasn’t only because they provided a challenge to the Raiders; no, the valuable rewards like enchanting scrolls were a rarity and highly sought-after, because they provided benefits like what she was seeing. It was one of the reasons Tacca had been extremely alarmed to see Darlene (one of the first Dungeon Cores she had bonded to) hoarding so many rewards inside her Core Room, including dozens of enchanting scrolls.

  “These people are impossible to fathom. If they have this many enchanting scrolls and the funds to outfit these beginner-Level Raiders, why do they care so much about destroying you?”

  I have no idea; a lot of this doesn’t make sense to me.

  Another few minutes went by while the two Fighters, slightly recovered from their ordeals with the brutal-yet-ineffective traps, walked around the room trying to trigger anything else. They weren’t going to find anything, however, because just those four traps had used nearly all of her Dungeon Force each to set up, and she had needed to rest for more than a day between them so that she wouldn’t crack her core from the sheer amount of DF being utilized. She dreaded setting them back up, because she would likely have to shut down her dungeon for a few days while she concentrated only on those until she felt a little safer.

  “Where is it? Where is this Core thingy?” The angry Fighter was gone, replaced with a much more subdued but irritated Raider. “I was told it was supposed to be right here.”

  The Scout looked around and saw the exit that was in the corner, partly disguised because it blended perfectly with the rest of the stone interior of the Core
Room. “Look, it seems that there is another room…or something.” Despite being a “Scout”, he didn’t sound very confident about that.

  When they investigated the next room, the two Fighters did their thing and explored the entire empty room looking for traps, but there weren’t any there. Neither were there any in the second or third rooms past her Core Room, though in the fourth there was a change. Near the entrance of the room, Tacca had spent a little of her regenerating Dungeon Force shortly after she made her creatures down below to create a small Explosive-based trap in a 1 ft. X 1 ft. square on the floor; even though it was relatively small, it still cost 100 DF to produce, because it wasn’t part of her Specializations.

  Both of the Fighters ended up missing stepping on the activation trigger as they investigated the room half-heartedly, which was the whole idea; without anything obvious in the previous three rooms, they weren’t expecting anything to be there. Fortunately for Tacca, it wasn’t missed by the others as they traveled through; the Gnome Healer stepped on it and an explosive force propelled her upwards, cracking the bones in her lower leg from the sheer power of the explosion, though the cloth robe she was wearing prevented most of the damage she would’ve experienced slamming against the ceiling…and the impact against the ground afterwards.

  The shock of the injury was still reverberating through the Gnome’s body as the Elf quickly pulled out a dark-purple potion from her bottomless bag and force-fed it to the seriously hurt Raider. That’s…wow.

  “Yeah, I think that’s a High-grade Elixir; those are supposed to be a rare reward as well…Reward Tier 7 if I remember correctly?” Shale stated with a question in his voice, as if he wasn’t sure.