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

by Jonathan Brooks

  From her schooling, she knew it was dangerous to be bonded to a Core that tended to disobey some of those rules. The DPRC could break a bond between Assistant and Core if need be – which was a clear indication that “support” was being removed – but it took a measure of time and distance for that to happen; if Cobalt refused to allow his bond to be broken, however, then he would instantly die if the Dungeon Core was shattered. Their obviously strong bond was beneficial to assisting a Core, but it had some major drawbacks as well.

  She wanted to wriggle out of the crevice she was shoved into to tell him not to be stupid and break his bond before it was too late, but she was caught fast against the cold stone and couldn’t move; even trying to call out was next to impossible, because she could barely catch a breath from the tight quarters, let alone speak loud enough that he might be able to hear her. Besides, the sound of metal banging against metal – and even something that she pictured as stone exploding outwards from a wall – made it unlikely he would hear her anyway.

  Not being able to see what was happening was driving her crazy, as she kept expecting the stone around her to start exploding. In a panic, Tacca tried to use her Translocation ability again, but she could tell that she was still dreadfully short of Fairy Mana; struggling to get out of the crevice and flee, she heard and felt a portion of her dress tear along the side and she felt something warm running down her side. A moment later she felt the intense sting as the cut that must’ve been caused by her struggling made itself known…and as she concentrated on that, she realized that she couldn’t hear anything coming from the Core Room or beyond.

  She jumped in shock – as much as her body was able to in that enclosed space – as an impact coming from outside her crevice shook the room, followed by the pained screams of a few somethings – or someones – other than a Goblin. Their screams were so close that Tacca thought that they were coming from right outside her hidden refuge, but they were also blessedly short; as she was shivering in fright at such an unexpected sound nearby, she somehow felt a massive amount of Fairy Mana being used from right outside of her hiding place.

  That’s…a lot. I’ve never felt that much being used all at once—

  She heard and felt more painful-sounding impacts, cutting short the few screams that managed to come out before they were silenced. What is going on? Why is this happening? She was starting to seriously freak out and suddenly didn’t care about hurting herself as she tried to escape her stone prison; for some reason she didn’t want her Mentor to die so soon after meeting him, and any sense of self-preservation she had went away as she tried to get free.

  “…Emmalynn, I think we did it—NOOO!”

  At Expert Assistant Cobalt’s heart-wrenching primal scream, Tacca froze just as she got one of her legs free; the sound of breaking glass echoed through the Core Room and the glowing light that was leaking into her crevice was abruptly extinguished. Oh no! Maybe I’m not too late to save him—

  “Gather up the shards and grab the Fairy’s corpse; on the way out, we’ll strip this place bare and leave nothing behind – including our own. It looks like this’ll be a big payday, boys,” Tacca halted her efforts to get out again as a throaty, guttural voice in Common Tradespeak called out loudly in the otherwise deafening silence. Tears of impotent rage ran down her face as she heard some of the others in the room comment at how light her Mentor’s body was when they picked him up, and all she wanted to do was rush out and enact revenge for his slaying.

  Some rational part of her mind took over at that point and kept her silent and unmoving, knowing that she had no way of hurting any of them. At higher Assistant Ranks she would likely obtain more abilities that would be of a more offensive nature, but at the moment she knew she had no hope to hurt one of them, let alone kill them. In less than a minute, the sounds of Dungeon Core shards being picked up, heavy stone being shifted around, and bodies being dragged away faded into the distance, and within another ten it was completely silent in the dark and – hopefully – completely empty dungeon.

  She had regenerated enough Fairy Mana to use her Translocation ability, but she knew it would be extremely stupid to do it while she was still trapped in between two stone walls; not only would it likely kill her, but it might be dangerous for anyone near where she emerged, flinging out stone shards in a wide sphere that could be almost as deadly. She had to admit that she wouldn’t mind if there were some of her graduating class there to receive a face full of sharp stone shards, but it would more likely be someone innocent nearby that would suffer as a result of such an action.

  Instead, Tacca slowly worked her way out of the crevice, stopping every couple of seconds to ensure she didn’t hear anything nearby. When she was finally free, she cautiously poked her head around the corner of her hiding space, seeing absolutely nothing in the complete darkness of the now-destroyed Core’s Room. The lack of light didn’t matter in the slightest, however, as her Fairy eyes were able to see quite well in all but the darkest of magically created concealment spells.

  She breathed a sigh of relief that there wasn’t anyone waiting for her to emerge, but also felt a little guilty about hiding while her Mentor and the Core were fighting for their lives. The thought that she likely wouldn’t have made the slightest amount of difference was not really comforting, and all she could feel was regret and disappointment that she wasn’t strong enough.

  She flew over to where she had seen the Dungeon Core floating in the middle of the room not that long ago and looked around. There were broken stone slabs and what appeared to be still-wet dark-red blood puddles underneath some of them; she fluttered a little closer and saw streaks of blood running off into the Core Room’s entrance tunnel, where she assumed the murderous Raiders – or whoever they were – had dragged off their own dead.

  There’s nothing left…it’s like Cobalt and his Dungeon Core never existed here.

  With a loud sigh that she didn’t even care if anyone heard, Tacca readied her Translocate ability; normally, it would be best to use it in the open air where there was less risk of damaging the nearby walls of the dungeon, but she figured that it really didn’t matter anymore. Plus, she’d rather not try to navigate her way through a dungeon she didn’t know the layout of just to get outside, and the risk of running into those that killed her Mentor was too great to chance it.

  Therefore, she pictured an area above DAPS that she was relatively sure was going to be empty, and felt the Fairy Mana flow from out of her body…

  Chapter 2

  “What do you mean there aren’t any other Mentors available? What am I supposed to do?” Tacca practically screamed, still shaken up from the traumatic experience she went through and now thoroughly confused at what was currently happening.

  DAPS had essentially wiped their hands of her when she came back reporting the death of her Mentor, Cobalt, and the destruction of his Dungeon Core. They seemed genuinely concerned that it had happened but also had absolutely no sympathy or time to deal with her mess of emotions; not only that, but they blamed her for what had happened. “We should’ve known that anywhere you go, trouble would soon follow; we didn’t think it would happen this quickly, however, and I guess that’s on us,” Head Instructor Lapis told her with obvious distaste in his voice. “You’ve already had your chance to train under a Mentor, and we’re not going to risk any others falling victim to your bad luck. You’re on your own now and we take no further responsibility for you; congratulations, you’ve completed your training and can now report to the DPRC for assignment.”

  “But I haven’t even—”

  “Not our problem anymore. As far as all of your paperwork will say, you’ve finished your training and are ready.” He paused for a moment, before reluctantly adding something else. “Despite your obvious…detriments…your scores were at the top of the class, and I’m sure the Council will find a perfect Dungeon Core for you to assist once they see your file,” he finished with a disingenuous smile.

  Great…jus
t great. Tacca knew exactly what they would see and had been dreading when that information was passed onto the Council. She had been hoping that she’d be able to prove herself during her training with a Mentor, but alas – that was plainly not going to be the case. Head Instructor Lapis was correct in one thing, though: her scores on all her tests directly reflected how knowledgeable she was about dungeons and Cores. If that was the only consideration she would likely be placed somewhere with high growth potential; as it was, they were going to look at her background…and without her Mentor training to offset that, she didn’t like her chances of getting placed anywhere beneficial to her or to the Dungeon Cores she was assigned to.

  “I…understand. You do realize that all these so-called ‘omens’ about my birth are just fictitious nonsense—” she tried to explain, before being cut off.

  “I think that the fact that your Mentor – an upstanding Assistant in his own right – was killed within minutes of your arrival proves you wrong. I have to admit that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt during your schooling, as nothing about your portentous birth inside of a Tacca black-bat flower located in the Gloomwood on a moonless night during the winter equinox showed itself – but I was evidently wrong. You’re a blight on this school’s reputation, and if it were my choice I would have you barred from ever Assisting a Core again.”

  The Head Instructor looked down at some paperwork on his desk, sighing in resignation as he did so. “Fortunately for you, the demand for any type of Assistant is so great that I’m sure the Dungeon Placement and Regulatory Council will overlook your origins and be grateful for the help,” Lapis continued, before muttering under his breath. “If only to place you somewhere that no one else wants.”

  Her origins had always been her biggest stumbling block in her short life, as the “omens” surrounding being born in a flower that was considered bad luck to some, inside a dark and forbidding forest, on a lightless night, and during the winter equinox was too much for one to bear. Individually, the circumstances of her birth wouldn’t necessarily be considered “bad luck” or negatively portentous; altogether, however, it shouted, “watch out” and “stay away” to those with a particularly superstitious bent to their thinking.

  Unfortunately, that was almost every single Fairy in existence.

  Now with her Mentor being killed within moments of her arrival, accompanying the tragic fate of her parents shortly after she was born, she was even more likely to be shunned by anyone she met. Luckily, Tacca herself didn’t believe in any of that nonsense, so all she had to do was convince the Dungeon Core she would be working with that she was an asset rather than a liability. It can’t be that hard, could it?

  After leaving the DAPS building, the newly graduated and Mentor-less Dungeon Assistant took the long way to the distant DPRC headquarters; she could’ve Translocated directly above it after being mentally sent the location by the Head Instructor, but she was in no hurry. Her eagerness surrounding graduation and further hands-on training with a Mentor was completely gone, extinguished by the events of the last few hours.

  Instead of Translocating directly there, Tacca spent the 10-hour flight across the landscape trying and failing to think about anything other than what had happened to Expert Assistant Cobalt and his Dungeon Core. Is this really what I want to do, still? Am I going to end up like my parents and my Mentor and quickly perish within a dungeon? Are these so-called “omens” correct and I’m just bad luck? She didn’t think that she had any more bad luck than any other Fairy, because there was no indication of it when she was brought up by the kindly older faculty of DAPS, nor during her actual schooling. In fact, she honestly thought it was good luck that she had managed to be raised by a place that taught the only subject she was passionate about and being a Dungeon Assistant was the only thing she ever wanted to be.

  Maybe it’s only “bad luck” when it has to do with actual dungeons and Dungeon Cores? She refused to give into the same superstition as all the students – and Head Instructor Lapis, obviously – had concerning her, however, so she dismissed that thought. Besides, Expert Assistant Cobalt and the dungeon he was a part of were already being invaded when I arrived, so my being there had nothing to do with it, Tacca firmly told herself. Or…was my impending arrival enough to justify it being bad luck? A little part of her mind refused to be silent, though, and stray thoughts like that kept popping up.

  To distract her further, she finally pulled up the menu she received the day before as part of the entire Dungeon Assistant program.

  Dungeon Assistant Information

  Assistant Name:

  Tacca GloomLily

  Assistant Rank:

  Novice

  Assistant Stage:

  1/5

  Experience:

  0/100

  Experience Pending/Countdown:

  0 in 1 Year

  Fairy Mana (FM):

  100/100

  Fairy Mana Regeneration:

  5 per minute

  Abilities:

  Core Bond

  Instant

  50 FM

  Translocation

  Instant

  70 FM

  Hibernate

  Sustainable

  1 FM per minute

  Invisibility

  Sustainable

  3 FM per minute

  Repellant Shield

  Sustainable

  2 FM per minute

  There wasn’t a lot to it quite yet, mainly because she was just starting out as a new Novice-Ranked Assistant. There were 5 stages per Rank, and 5 Ranks total (Novice, Adept, Expert, Master, Supreme), so she was at the lowest of the low. The only way to grow and acquire access to greater amounts of Fairy Mana and Abilities was to acquire “Experience”, which was only possible when bonded to a Dungeon Core – and only after a requisite amount of time. At her current Rank, she had to stay bonded to a Dungeon Core for an entire year before she actually acquired that experience; she knew that those time frames would only increase as her Rank progressed, but a year was more than long enough for her right now.

  With a really productive and smart pairing between an Assistant and a Dungeon Core, Tacca knew it was theoretically possible to raise her Rank all the way up to Adept in a single year if the Core followed her strict strategic planning – which she had developed over dozens of hours of analyzing different historical dungeon models and growth rates. That was what she was most looking forward to, because as she improved in Rank, so too did the Dungeon Core get stronger – though it was an entirely different progression than her own; as much as she would appreciate being more versatile herself, she yearned to be part of a bond with a Core that might eventually be one of the world’s most powerful. Something like that would likely take centuries, but when Fairies could live for hundreds of millennia, that amount of time was practically nothing.

  Thoughts of her potential future sustained her throughout the flight and by the time she arrived she was quite tired; even though she didn’t need to eat like most creatures – she was sustained by the constant regeneration of ambient Fairy Mana alone – she still needed to sleep for short time periods every once in a while. She had been awake for quite a while at that point, because she was too excited to sleep the night before because of her impending graduation, and that lack of sleep was starting to catch up to her. I’ll just see where they are going to assign me and then try to catch a nap.

  The DPRC building was not so much a structure as a grand entrance on the top of a mountain that led deep inside the natural formation. Rumor had it that Mount Whipporwhill was originally the home of a powerful Dungeon Core, and its vast array of rooms were reinforced after it was destroyed and repurposed for the benefit of the Dungeon Placement and Regulatory Council. All Tacca knew from her studies on world history was that it had been there for a long, long time – so whether or not that rumor was true was up for debate.

  As large as the Council headquarters reportedly was, it appeared nearly empty; Tacca di
dn’t see a single other Fairy flying into or out of the carved marble and gold-rimmed entrance, nor did she see anyone as she was immediately forced to stop her exploration in a small, garishly decorated room immediately inside. There was a sign that said, “Take a seat”, and it was only after she set down, folded her wings along her back, and sat – gratefully, since she was practically exhausted after her flight – on the single bench in the middle of the room that she finally saw someone.

  “You’re late…Tacca GloomLily?” a voice said from behind her, prompting her to whip around at the unexpected sound. Emerging from a hidden panel in the wall behind her was a female Fairy, though Tacca wasn’t sure at first. Fairies technically aged over time, but for it to really show, it could take many millennia; from the appearance of the one looking at her over a stack of papers, the mystery DPRC member must’ve been around for a long time. Her short hair was still a vibrant light-blue color, but the Fairy’s face was a mass of wrinkles and lines – something that Tacca had never seen before.

  Standing up, she said, “I apologize – I flew all the way here from DAPS—”

  “That’s your problem right there, you flew; if you’re ever to be a successful Assistant to a Dungeon Core, you need to learn how to use your Abilities effectively. You would’ve been better served coming here directly through Translocation rather than having me wait for half a day,” the wizened Fairy said gruffly, while at the same time motioning Tacca to follow her.