The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (android pdf ebook reader TXT) 📗

inability to move all of the treasure from his previous score in a timely manner that led to his tragedy, so it was only prudent to get this done in less than a day if at all possible.

After sliding down a very long passageway, which wasn’t scary in the least (meaning that the others were being frightened little babies), he ended up slowing down in a very large room, and it took him a moment to realize that it was still inside as opposed to having exited the dungeon.  A miniature mountain range spanned across the back of the room, the blue “sky” behind and above some sort of bluish-white stone flawlessly covering the bare stone of the otherwise austere walls that he normally saw in dungeons.  A fake “sun” sat off to one corner of the room, another bright-colored yellow-white stone that he couldn’t identify.  He was positive that they weren’t precious gemstones, however, and likely more of a rare-colored granite or marble.  Rare didn’t always mean it had value, however, unless he was somehow able to carve out massive slabs of the stuff – and someone was interested in blueish stone, of course.

He wasn’t here to gather that kind of stuff, though they all had mining tools to extract ores or gemstones, which Marvus was now increasingly sure was what happened.  This first room, with the unique mountain range and colored stone just screamed literal “goldmine”, and those were few and far between.  Heck, a dungeon that provided anything other than iron and copper ores was almost unheard of, and those that had gemstones or gold ore were usually much more dangerous.  As in, Level 70 or 80-type dangerous, but by that point most Raiders weren’t as concerned about wealth as they were about increasing their own power.

At the base of the mountain range, behind some miniature foothills, were 5 obvious passageways, with nothing to indicate where they were supposed to go.

“Teams of 4!” Marvus called out.  “Check it out for traps first, then take a safe peek to see if you found the way forward.”  While he wasn’t too concerned about the difficulty of this dungeon, stupid mistakes could and did happen for those who were overconfident.

While they all broke off into teams of 4, he joined a trio of the Cohort as they cautiously approached the tunnel leading to the far right of the room, and he pulsed his own Detect Traps ability. Although it wasn’t as developed as his Valuation Sense, it was still adequate enough to handle whatever he found inside this dungeon.

Strangely, there wasn’t a single trap that he could detect.  Nor did anyone else, which was a good sign.  Walking into the tunnel, he noticed that it was down towards the end; he wasn’t the only one that brought out an Amulet of Illumination and held it up, lighting the corridor until it was as bright as day.

“Looks like it turns to the left, though for how long I’m not sure,” Gerthin, one of those that had joined him in investigating this direction, remarked as they looked down the tunnel.  Without direction, the Assassin inched his way through the passageway, checking for traps the entire way, and Gerthin watched him disappear around the corner.  The next moment, he saw a hand appear, gesturing them forward.

The rest of the hallway was equally empty of any threats, but it was also where their progress stopped.  The tunnel ended with a blank stone wall, with no obvious way through.  “Guess this isn’t it.”

They made their way back out to the main room, only to find 3 other teams waiting for them as well.  “Nothing?”

All of them answered in the negative, but there was one team that wasn’t back yet: the one that had gone to the left.  With only the slightest hesitation, he gathered everyone up and headed for the entranceway, only to see Squab emerge from the left tunnel and nod in his direction.  “Looks like this could be the way through.”

It certainly did, and it was unlike anything he’d seen before in a dungeon – which was becoming a bit old by that point.  Marvus didn’t like surprises because they were too hard to plan for.

A large cliffside at least 100 feet tall greeted them, with an obvious switchback path up the face of it.  While they fortunately didn’t have to climb it, there was always a risk of falling if they weren’t careful; luckily, each and every one of them was quite agile and had a superb sense of balance, all benefits from their Class selections.

“Trap!  I can’t tell what kind it is, but if the rumors about this place were true, it’s probably some sort of enchantment that’ll mess with us,” Gerthin called out to the rest as they were walking up the switchback, and it was easy enough to pinpoint once Marvus got close enough with his Detect Traps ability.  There was a foot-wide strip near the edge of the pathway that wasn’t included in the trap, which made it the obvious choice for where they could bypass it altogether.  Too obvious.  One didn’t survive for years delving through dungeons without learning some of the tricks these nasty places liked to pull to take advantage of the unwary.

Marvus wasn’t the only one that thought so, and everyone prepared for the inevitable surprise.  Gerthin easily walked to the side of the trap, avoiding it altogether, but when the attack came no one was caught off guard.  Despite the fact that a large cat the same color as the cliff suddenly appeared no more than 10 feet above Gerthin, the Assassin managed to avoid all but a few cosmetic scratches along his dark leather jerkin as it flew past him.  If he hadn’t been prepared, he might have been knocked off the cliff itself, injuring him severely.

The greyish-brown cat – some sort of Lynx if he wasn’t