The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1)

by Jonathan Brooks

  The Dungeon Fairy

  A Dungeon Core Escapade

  The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Series

  Book 1

  Jonathan Brooks

  Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Edited by: Celestian Rince

  Copyright ©2020 Jonathan Brooks

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, corporations, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design Copyright ©2020 Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank all my friends and family who have supported me on my writer’s journey, as well as providing much-needed encouragement. I also can’t forget all of the readers out there that have enjoyed my books; without you, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today.

  You’re all awesome!

  I’d also like to thank all of my beta-readers who helped beat this book into shape after I wrote it!

  Aaron Connelly

  Aaron Wiley

  Alex Canavan

  Brian O’Neil

  Brian Oles

  Christopher Burr

  Emma Baker

  Grant Harrell

  Jonathan Kröning

  Joshua Chausse

  Kyle Doucette

  Michael Huber

  Nate Martin

  Rei S

  Ryan Adams

  Sean Hall

  Steven Gene Mills

  Tania Bay

  Tyler Giesel

  Zachary Stading

  Zack Devney

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Final Stats

  Author’s Note

  Books by Jonathan Brooks

  Extra Information

  Chapter 1

  “I want you to leave today not just as Novices, but as fully trained Fairies that are embarking upon the greatest adventure you’ll ever commit to in your lifetime. I hope to hear great things from all of you over the coming years and centuries…well, most of you,” Head Instructor Lapis said in his graduation speech to the newest class of Dungeon Assistants. He was staring at one Assistant in particular when he said that last part, however, before he continued his speech addressing the entire group of graduating Dungeon Fairies. “Now, you all have your initial assignments, so go out and make DAPS proud!”

  Tacca looked over her fellow graduates, noting that all of them had smiles on their faces and were congratulating each other – all except her, of course. Still, she couldn’t help but grin idiotically as she realized she was free of the decade-long Dungeon Assistant training program. It hadn’t been necessarily difficult training, but with her ominously portentous birth and the accompanying stigma attached to it, navigating her way through the social obstacles in her way was a nightmare. Fortunately, with this being the last day she had to spend at the Dungeon Assistant Preparatory School ever, she didn’t have to endure the looks, snide remarks, and flat-out insults to both herself and her parentage.

  And that was just from her instructors.

  Her fellow Dungeon Fairies enrolled in the school were worse, but luckily she wouldn’t have to see any of them ever again unless she chose to – and she was fairly certain that would never happen. From here on out, she could theoretically spend centuries away from any other Fairies, as she had to spend all of her time with her assigned Dungeon Core as an Assistant. At least, that was the plan; none of the graduates had actually been assigned to their own Cores yet, because they all had one final training program…though it wouldn’t be at the school anymore. Instead, they would all be in separate real-life dungeons with a veteran Assistant “Mentor” that would show them one-on-one how everything was supposed to work in the field.

  Fluttering her wings fast enough to bring her up and out of the large main DAPS hall where the graduation ceremony had taken place, Tacca didn’t even look back at the others as she passed through the smaller hallways. The decorative glass and mirrored archway over the school’s grand entrance was supposed to represent honesty, clarity, and transparency towards the Cores that were their assignments – or some such nonsense that didn’t make sense to her – but all she saw was her reflection as she shot by them.

  Extremely pale skin framed by long, straight, jet-black hair stared back at her and her dark-grey wings, completely at odds with every other Fairy she’d ever seen before. Most Dungeon Fairies had skin tones ranging from a light amber color to even a deep purple, and their hair colors were like a rainbow exploded – all shades of blues, greens, reds, yellows, and even some light browns. All of that made her particular appearance unique, which might’ve been a good thing if she hadn’t been compared to looking like some sort of corpse her whole life.

  While that made her ability to fit in a significant challenge, there were other things about her origins that caused so much controversy and hardship for herself. Things that I’d rather not think about right now, especially since I’m getting out of here and it won’t matter anymore.

  As she took off into the night sky when she exited the school, she felt the cool air fluttering around her short, skin-tight, emotion-reflecting “Mood Dress”; looking down, she saw that it, and the thigh-high boots that accompanied it, were black as had been usual of late – though she could also see that it was lightening up with some grey spots here and there. She figured that escaping the nightmarish confines of the Assistant School was having a reciprocal effect on her mood, and she was hopeful her color-shifting clothes (that helped portray the whole “honesty, clarity, and transparency” concept that Assistants were supposed to adopt) would eventually reach the myriad of bright colors that were the norm for most Fairies.

  It’ll be nice to finally not have to worry about what the others think about me; soon enough it’ll just be me and my Dungeon Core, braving the constant incursions by Raiders as they search for rewards. Daydreams of working side-by-side with her assigned Core – who certainly wouldn’t care about her appearance and “ominous” birth omens – had been a constant salve to her feelings of isolation and the remorseless cruelty of the other Fairies. It was everything she ever wanted, and she was almost giddy with excitement as she fluttered above the smallish building that represented DAPS headquarters.

  “Hey, watch where you’re flying, Novice!”

  The words barely registered before she was hit from beh
ind, causing her left wings to buckle under the impact, and she began to plummet. She was so surprised at the unexpected attack that she spun and tumbled through the open air as her right wings continued to flutter, sending her into an uncontrolled dive. As she turned around and around and attempted to stabilize herself, she caught a glimpse of three of her fellow graduates watching her fall and giggling at her potential death.

  Luckily – or unluckily, she supposed – this hadn’t been the first time something like that had happened; the constant harassment she received from the students of DAPS had trained her well enough that she recovered fairly quickly. I can’t believe I let my guard down; I should’ve at least waited until I left completely.

  She reflexively reached back and to the side to fix her temporarily bent wings – as she had done many times before; as she did so, she noticed that the three who had hit her from behind appeared disappointed when she was able to stop spinning and level out, at least 15 feet above the top of the DAPS building. With their entertainment not cooperating with them, they broke apart with cheerful waves to each other and disappeared. There were brief pops as each of them Translocated to their assigned “Mentor” cores, followed by other, louder explosions of air as their abilities finished their processes of transporting the Fairies somewhere else.

  It was also the reason why it was done outside in the night sky instead of inside the School, because Translocating while too near something – or someone – could be destructive…or even fatal to those caught up in it. Thankfully, none of the students had access to that particular ability until just the day before when the official Dungeon Assistant Status was added to their consciousnesses. Tacca had gained it as well, though with preparations for the graduation being so hectic she hadn’t even had a chance to check it out yet.

  I’ll have plenty of time to look it over while I’m finishing up my training with my Mentor. Which, since I was delayed by being knocked out of the sky, I’m already late for.

  With a sigh and a thankful thought that she’d never have to deal with the nasty students of DAPS again, Tacca flew back up and started to activate her Translocate ability, picturing the coordinates she had been given earlier. Even though they were technically new to her, using any of her abilities felt natural – as if she had been using them her entire life. As a result of her activating her ability, a few seconds later she felt almost all of her Fairy Mana drain from her reserves and she heard a faint *pop*.

  Tacca’s vision went dark as the Translocate ability seemed to rip her body apart and send it somewhere else; although it felt “natural” using it, she had never actually activated the ability before – and it was quite the unusual experience. She figured she should be scared but being ripped apart and being put together on the other side didn’t hurt in the slightest. In fact, she didn’t feel anything – including the passage of time. What could’ve been less than a second or a decade passed by before she sensed herself coming back together in a suddenness that would’ve taken her breath away if she had any at that point.

  The world sprang into being around her and she found herself fluttering her wings in the air before and just below an absolute specimen of a Fairy; he was at least three times larger than her own five inches in height, with dark-blue hair down to his shoulders, a deep amber tone to his skin, and nearly translucent pearly-colored wings that fluttered quickly to keep him airborne. His tight, short-sleeved shirt and pants – which were also emotion-reflecting Mood Clothes – were straining under the shapely muscles covering his frame, though for some reason they were an angry red in color.

  How did I get so lucky here? Maybe things are finally turning around for me now that I left that vile cesspool of hatred and negativity.

  Her Mentor wasn’t looking at her, and the expression on his face made her wonder if he was mad because she was late. She wasn’t exactly in his line of sight either, so it was entirely possible that he hadn’t even seen her Translocate in…though he should’ve at least heard her. I better make amends right away, especially if I’m going to be working with him over the next year learning the ins and outs of assisting a Dungeon Core. “Excuse me, Expert Assistant Cobalt? I’m Tacca and I’m here to—”

  At the sound of her voice, the blue-haired Dungeon Fairy looked down at her and his face transformed from angry to confused and then to worried in a matter of a second. “Who are you and what are you doing here – and now of all times?”

  Tacca was shocked at his tone, which wasn’t accusatory but concerned; it was so different from what she was used to that she herself was confused. “I…uh…I was supposed to come here to be Mentored—”

  “Was that today? I lost track of time with everything that’s been going on – you’ve come at a bad time…Tacca, was it?” he asked absently, looking over her shoulder with his expression turning sour again.

  “Y-yes—”

  Expert-ranked Assistant Cobalt interrupted her curtly before she could even finish. “You need to leave right now; Translocate out of here before it’s too late.”

  What? What is going on?

  Rather than argue with her Mentor in the first minute she had met him – and since he seemed genuinely concerned with her safety – she tried to do just that, picturing the sky high above the DAPS building, as it was the only thing she could think of after just leaving it moments before. She activated her Translocation Ability and…nothing.

  “I can’t Translocate right now because I don’t have enough Fairy Mana—”

  He flew down to her and before she could react he grabbed her arm. “Fine, we’ve got to hide you, then. We don’t have much time; Emmalynn, can you create a tiny alcove?”

  Tacca was about to say that her name wasn’t Emmalynn, but she realized that Expert Assistant Cobalt’s face was looking the other direction. Moving her own head to peer over at what he was eyeing, she saw a spherical, glowing, bluish-red gem that was floating in the middle of the room – and she realized immediately what it was.

  A Dungeon Core! It’s more beautiful than I even imagined!

  The sound of stone cracking along the far wall – of what she now knew was the Core Room – tore her attention away from the glowing Dungeon Core; she had been distracted before, but she could’ve sworn that the wall had been amazingly smooth and now it had a slight indentation in it. Before she even knew what was happening, the larger blue-haired Fairy wrapped his arms around her and flew towards the indentation; she instinctively tried to fight him because of all of the abuse she had suffered over the last decade at DAPS, but he was too strong.

  “Stop squirming! Get in here and don’t move – and don’t make a sound! If everything works out, I’ll come get you in a few minutes,” Cobalt said, before shoving her into the small space on the wall. Her wings had to be folded up tight against her back to fit, and even then she was forced to stand upright in what was essentially a hidden crevice in the smooth wall barely big enough for her to squeeze into.

  Tacca froze, scared about what was happening; it was so completely opposite of what she assumed would happen when she woke up that morning that her mind was having trouble processing everything. She thought that her difficult schooling was over when she had graduated, and she wasn’t prepared to be roughly handled by her Mentor and squeezed into a crack in the wall against her wishes; despite her confusion and the abrupt way everything seemed to be happening, the squished Fairy knew better than most just how dangerous a dungeon could be to those unacquainted with their particular hazards. The fact that her parents only lived for just shy of a month inside their newly assigned dungeons after she was born was enough to attest to that.

  Her head was facing towards the opening and she caught a glimpse of the light that was emanating from the Dungeon Core – but that was all that she could see. The squashed Fairy fought with her body to slow her breathing down – because it sounded loud to her ears – as she strained to hear anything outside of her refuge. She had no idea what she was expecting, nor even what the perceived danger
was that Expert Assistant Cobalt seemed to think was there, but it certainly wasn’t what she eventually heard after a few long eternities of being crammed into a small hole just over a minute later.

  “…didn’t work? This is bad, Emmalynn, this is very bad. Have you tried—? Of course you have, I’m sorry; this is just so unexpected that I’m a little flustered. How many Goblin Thugs and Brutes do we have left?”

  It was telling how stressed her Mentor was by the way he was talking out loud instead of communicating through his bond with his Dungeon Core; Tacca could only hear one side of the conversation, of course, but what she heard didn’t sound good. Objectively, she knew that her Mentor was paired with a Core whose main monster type were Goblins, but actually being there and knowing that a few…Goblin Thugs and Brutes…were all that stood between the Core and whatever it was that was making Assistant Cobalt nervous was something else entirely.

  Suddenly, a wild, deep-throated – but relatively high-pitched – scream coming from a distance away echoed throughout the Core Room and her little crevice; it was followed up by a dozen more in varying volumes, coming closer and closer to the Core and her Mentor. She didn’t know exactly what had made the horrific noises, but she pictured Goblins getting hacked to bits in an effort to protect the access to the Core Room.

  “…No, I’m well aware that it’s not going to be enough. Why are they even here? We followed every single rule laid out by the DPRC, so there shouldn’t be any reason why—NO! I’m going to let you break the bond, Emmalynn; there’s no way I’m going to abandon you now when things are looking a little bleak. Besides, with my last Rank increase, I have some things that’ll help. If your Core Room entrance trap works the way it’s supposed to, then we may have a chance.”

  Tacca was now even more confused. The DPRC, also known as the Dungeon Placement and Regulatory Council, was responsible for placing Fairy Assistants into dungeons, as well as laying down rules and suggestions for how Dungeon Cores were encouraged to operate. The DPRC didn’t enforce the rules or inflict any type of punishment (though they could choose to pull their support of a particular Core that was reluctant to fall in line), but if you ended up bending or breaking some of those rules, then the Dungeon Raiders that delved through dungeons would inflict their own measure of punishment. In most cases, punishment meant destroying the Dungeon Core – and any Fairy Assistants bonded to that Core for longer than a year.