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

when dealing with other people, especially other Raiders.  And thirdly, I’m much more comfortable being your voice and decision-maker, because I wouldn’t have as much leeway to do what I need to do if I were ‘in charge’.”

Sterge wasn’t sure what difference that would make, but he assumed she knew more about it than he did.  “So…how come they stood up for me?”

“Because you’re one of them, a Raider, as opposed to these Merchants.  There’s some bad blood between them, or so I’ve found from some discreet questioning, and though many of those we saw arrive are technically Raiders in the fact that they registered with the Raider Delving Clan, they are almost their own separate entity.

“And not only are you a Raider, but nearly everyone who has been in The Village has seen you working tirelessly to build these Inns with your own two hands so that they could be comfortable.  While you and I may not be very powerful as far as our Raider Levels are considered, your strength of character can go a long way in their estimation.  It’s one of the reasons they despise the Merchants so much, because the Merchants try to buy their strength through their wealth instead of through hard work and dedication.”

Sterge was still a little confused and shocked that they had made this decision about him being a Village Chief without him, but he could start to see the wisdom behind it.  He could also understand where their viewpoint towards the Merchants came from, as he had seen it firsthand.  Then again, he had also experienced firsthand the sheer savagery and disdain for non-Raiders that the Clan could display, and it was probably due only to the fact that they didn’t own or control the nearby land that they were behaving themselves.  Oh, he was well aware that not all of them were bad, just like the majority of the Merchants were probably decent folk, but both factions were capable of doing things that could hurt the common people of the world.

As much as it seemed like the majority of the Raiders were on his side, that didn’t mean they would always stay that way.

After the assault on the loud-mouthed Elf, both Sterge and Gwenda were expecting some sort of response from the Merchants.  Oddly enough, nothing seemed to come of it other than an underlying tension between the two factions.  There were a few scuffles the next day, but nothing that required more than some basic spells from a Healer to patch them up.  Things seemed to calm down after that – until later that evening, when some bodies were found on the side of the dirt road halfway from The Village and Heftington.

“Who were they?  Do we know how they died?” Sterge asked Gwenda as soon as he heard about them.  Worries about bandits or highwaymen attacking travelers along the pathway leading to Heftington ran through his head, as none of them had really been present before; there hadn’t been much of value traveling that far south, but that apparently had changed.

Gwenda told him about who they were – a group of Clan Raiders, not Merchant Raiders – and she knew very little about what had actually happened to them.  The only thing she knew for certain was that very little of their valuables had been stolen – as few possessions as they had for a beginning Raider group – and that they had been dumped there unceremoniously after they were killed somewhere else.  What was the strangest part of it all, however, was that they were seen entering the dungeon earlier that day, and had even been quickly Analyzed before they went inside to verify that they were indeed who they were supposed to be.  It had happened more than once where another group had tried to “jump the line” and pretend to take the place of a different group, so everyone was Analyzed (the same Ability the Clan Outpost leader had used on him and Gwenda) to verify their identity.

Even stranger was the fact that they never came out.  No one had remarked on it other than to be more cautious for the rest of the day, because while a full-group wipe wasn’t common for beginning dungeons – again, so he had been told – it wasn’t unheard of.  That first group of drunken Humans nearly had their full group wiped, so everyone thought something drastic had happened to this group to precipitate their demise inside the dungeon.  Obviously, something had – though the mystery of how they ended up outside the dungeon was currently unsolvable.

Reportedly, the Merchants were also missing some of their own, though without any bodies that turned up that news was more of a rumor than anything.  Even that much information was only gathered from a few of the Merchants that traded goods with the Raiders on the perimeter of their camp; despite their animosity, business continued on between the two factions, regardless of feelings towards each other.  Having them there was slightly hurting the business of their own Delving Supply Store, but not enough to make that much of a difference.

The next day after the bodies of the five Raiders were found, tensions between the two factions rose even higher. The Raiders that hung around The Village all seemed to blame the Merchants for their deaths, even though there wasn’t even the slightest shred of evidence naming them the culprit; the Merchants, as if in response, took affront to being accused of doing something they didn’t do.  Other than some minor trading done on the fringes of their camp, interactions between them ground to a virtual halt.  All of the Merchant members who had previously visited the Inns for food and drink – if not for accommodations – no longer frequented them.  In fact, the only time they were seen outside of their camp was when they would come to