The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (free e books to read .txt) 📗

and Gwenda had available.  In return, the two Hill Dwarves acquired an Ability called Dungeon Sight that allowed them to temporarily pinpoint the locations of nearby creatures, traps, and environmental objects inside of a room at the expense of large amounts of stamina.  In addition, they also received a Power Boost +50%, which essentially increased the Power they would receive from killing creatures inside of a dungeon by 50% – a huge boon for any Raider.

All wasn’t right in the wider world, however.  Back at the DPRC, it was discovered that all over the continent, Dungeon Cores were arbitrarily being destroyed that had no reason to be destroyed.  The balance of primordial forces was slowly tilting towards the intelligent races of the world with every Core’s destruction – which was a nightmare scenario for the survival of the world.  If the forces became wildly out of balance, then the entire planet could be utterly destroyed.  As a last-ditch effort, the leader of the Council, Malachite, decided to go find out what the problem was by visiting with something called the Conclave of Sages….

Chapter 1

The leader of the Raider Delving Clan outpost hadn’t been kidding, Sterge thought as he peered around their nameless village’s center “square”. When she told them that things would be changing in their little corner of the world, he hadn’t realized exactly how much it was going to change – and how quickly it would happen.  He had thought they had a few weeks before anything significant happened, allowing the residents of their village time to adjust to the new circumstances.  So much for that.

Instead, Sterge and Gwenda went back to their village after meeting with the Elven leader of the outpost and called together everyone from their farms into the designated village “square”.  It was only called that because there was a pair of large storage shacks set up next to each other for storing produce before it was sent out to sell, as well as a holding space for other community supplies.  At the moment, they were relatively empty, as they had sold most of their produce before the cold weather set in; the crops they had planted afterward weren’t anywhere near the point where they could be harvested.

“Listen up!” Gwenda had taken the lead in their little meeting with the 45 other members of The Village – which was perfectly fine with Sterge, as he wasn’t exactly sure what to say.  “We have some life-changing news; this may not be what you want to hear, as many of you have had some…contentious…situations with Raiders over the years.”  She visibly glanced around at the assembled Hill Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, Orcs, and Elves of their small community, most of whom showed some sort of reaction to her words: Anger, contempt, and even fear were plain to see.  “Nevertheless, the reality of the situation is this: There is a brand-new dungeon up in the Wentrylock Mountains.”

“Impossible!” shouted Evandurel, one of the Elves living in The Village.  “There have never been any dungeons in the Wentrylocks, nor should there be.  That’s precisely why this land was so cheap to lease.”  He looked both angry and confused at the same time, which screwed up his face something fierce.  “Where did you get this false information?”

Gwenda went on to explain most of the events that happened over the last few months, leaving out any hint of the special abilities they received, or of their miraculous survival inside of the dungeon, and forgetting to mention that they had found the dead Raider’s locator before they ever returned the Elf’s body to the outpost.  Overall, it was very similar to what they had told the Raider Delving Clan leader.  Sterge was glad that Gwenda had taken over the explanations because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have remembered to leave those parts out from the accounting.  As much as he wanted to be honest and truthful with their fellow Villagers, he was more than aware that there were some things that they didn’t need to know.

To say that the crowd was less than enthused about the whole situation was putting it lightly…until Gwenda offered to split the Finder’s Fee and the coin they received from the dungeon with everyone – which wasn’t an insignificant amount. “This will only be a temporary salve, however, because as this village is the closest settled area to this dungeon…well, I will let you guess what that will mean.  I’m not exactly sure of it myself.  All I know is that things are going to change soon, and it’s up to us to decide exactly how we want to react to those changes.”

“They’re going to descend on us like locusts, destroying everything we’ve worked so hard to build here,” Garthin grumbled loudly into the silence.  “I’ve seen it happen before, and it isn’t pretty.”  The Hill Dwarf was at least a half-century older than Sterge and Gwenda combined, so Sterge was inclined to believe him.  That, and he had heard some similar stories in the past and had felt that same kind of pressure from the Raider community himself.  It was but one of the reasons so many were willing to relocate down this far south: in order to get away from all the chaos that the Raider Delving Clan presence usually instilled in the local area.  Of course, that usually only happened when there was a popular dungeon nearby; from what the outpost leader had said, this dungeon was going to be extremely popular.

“You’re absolutely right…but there’s a difference this time because of where we are.”

Evandurel spoke up again.  “What difference?  Raiders are Raiders, no matter where they are.  Uh…no offense,” he apologized.  Their status as Raiders was still new to them – and truthfully still new to me – so Sterge completely understood.

“That may be true, but we’re in a unique position here.  Most of the settlements near the