The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (great novels to read txt) 📗

“You’re out of time to do anything else, though if you start absorbing your other Oozes in the rooms farther down you might eventually acquire enough Dungeon Force to Transport yourself below,” Tacca said reluctantly.

“Why didn’t you say so!  What kind of assistant are you if you forgot to tell me that?”

The Dungeon Assistant Fairy hadn’t forgotten to tell Jeremy about that at all, but it probably wouldn’t do much good.  While he would receive the same amount of Dungeon Force that had been spent on the creatures’ production, the process of reabsorbing them for Force also took time – which they didn’t really have enough of.  Normally, having to wait a couple of hours for that wasn’t a big deal, as change tended to happen slowly inside of a dungeon; in the current instance, however, they didn’t have a couple of hours…it was more like minutes.  Even if Jeremy managed to get enough force, though, he had to move before Raiders stepped a single foot in the first room – because it was impossible to Teleport out from a room they were in.

“Oozes!  Eareth – you’re up!  My axe will do absolutely nothing to these things; we need your spells to wipe them out so we can go further in—what is that?!” the Dwarf exclaimed when he saw Jeremy floating in the middle of the room.

The Orc came up behind the Dwarf, and she peered at the glowing crystalline rock.  “It looks like a Core, but why would it be here?  I can see a tunnel leading down into the dungeon on the opposite side of the room, so this can’t be the final room.”

“I have no idea either, but everyone stay back – it might be a new type of trap.  Let me kill these Oozes and then we’ll deal with that thing.”  The Elf—Eareth, apparently—pushed to the front of the others and raised her hands in front of her; a small ball of condensed flames formed between her palms, growing larger by the second until it was the size of her head.  The entire process took about ten seconds and as the Elf released the Fireball spell, Tacca held her breath from across the room, hidden up near the ceiling.

All of Jeremy’s creatures were slowly approaching the Raiders, but there was one that was closer than all of them.  It was this one that was targeted first, and the ball of flames hit the Earthen Sludge Ooze with force, flattening it with a minor flare of flames upon impact.  When the fire disappeared a few moments later, Tacca could see that the creature was slightly smaller and there were burn marks over the top of the Ooze – but otherwise it was alright.  Yes!  This could work out after all—

“That should’ve worked; this must be a different kind other than what I’ve seen before.  I wonder…” Eareth trailed off as she clearly considered Jeremy’s creatures – which were steadily getting closer and blocking off access to his Core.

“Stop wondering and do something, because otherwise we’ll have to retreat and pick up some potions in town to deal with these,” the Human said, backing up a little as the closest Ooze was only about 5 feet from the room’s entrance.

“Excellent!  If they are forced to leave, then we’ll have time to get you somewhere safe and throw up some more defenses to prevent them from coming any closer.”

Before Jeremy could answer, the Elf said, “Ok, I think this might work – step back and brace yourselves.”  As the others stepped back from the entrance of the room and retreated a little back down the tunnel, Eareth raised her hands above her head and for a moment and mimed grasping something while she closed her eyes; a few seconds later, she abruptly brought her arms down as her eyelids shot open…and a powerful gust of wind shot down the entrance tunnel from outside.

The others were crouched down and holding themselves steady against the sides of the tunnel, though the Human was almost bowled over by the initial gust; the Elf, as opposed to the others, was completely unaffected by the wind other than a small rustling of her dark-green-colored robe.  As the wind passed by her, she raised her arms in front of her again and seemed to catch it in between her hands; Tacca could see that she was straining to keep it contained as it condensed together, solidifying enough that it turned into a barely visible spherical maelstrom of violent harnessed air.

Oh, no – I think that’s a Windblade Explosion spell—

“Jeremy, get out of there – keep trying to Teleport!”  She had a feeling that it was probably already too late, but she had to at least try to warn him.   There was nothing that Tacca could do to stop the inevitable, and she knew that even she was in danger if she stayed in the room; as a result, she fluttered down and into the tunnel leading farther down Jeremy’s dungeon, stopping until she was fairly confident she was far enough away to be safe.

“I’ve been trying, but I still don’t have enough yet.  Why are you so worried?  My Oozes are almost touching that exotic-looking woman with the pointy ears…wait a minute, don’t tell me that’s an Elf—”

As part of Tacca’s schooling, not only did she have to learn everything about how a dungeon was created, including all of the possible traps and creatures that were available to a Core, but she also had to learn what they would be up against.  Weapons, enchantments, and – of course – spells were at the top of the list, which was the only reason why she knew they were in trouble.  She was taught that the Windblade Explosion spell was extremely powerful, though