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

looked up to the outpost leader to see her looking intently at both of the Hill Dwarves.  It was a bit unnerving to be the object of her focus, and he suddenly knew that he didn’t want to cross her.  Like, ever.  Such a thing would almost guarantee a short life.

“I need you two to go back to your village, hire whoever you can from this town and the ones nearby to help, and get things going again.  I’m going to send Jesper again to arrange things with the Raiders that’ll be coming, but it’ll be a few days until he’s able to arrive.  I think you’ll be fine until then, but in the meantime concentrate on putting all of the accommodations back together.”

“What?  Just like that?  And why us?” Gwenda asked, obviously confused by the sudden decision.

“Because you’re not only still leasing the land from the crown, but you have experience running your little village,” Trevelyan said, before she chuckled.  “Though, from what I’ve heard, it’s not so little anymore.”

“How—?” Sterge started to ask, but was cut off.

“I’m going to convert your gemstones into gold at a reasonably fair price from my own reserve, and I want you to use that to build up what you already have in place.  Hire whoever you need to get things rolling, sparing no expense, because this is almost as important as what is going on in the north.”

Both of them were silent as they stared at the outpost leader.

“We have many more lower-Leveled Raiders than ones that would be effective against these six-armed people your dungeon warned us against.  It would probably be suicide to send anyone below Level 10 that haven’t even unlocked a new Class, for instance, so perhaps this could allow them to get stronger and therefore be more of use.”

Sterge hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense.  If someone like him or Gwenda went up against these powerful individuals, it would be like asking a toddler to fight a full-grown person; naturally, the outcome would be fairly certain.  By allowing them to “grow up”, even a bit, their chances of survival dramatically increased.

“Therefore, as this place is as far south as you can get from the conflict up there, I’m putting you both in charge of operations down here.  This will be our ‘safe area’ where we can train our people and help them grow into fighters, because I have a feeling we’re going to need all that we can get.”  She paused for a moment.  “Treat this as a farm, which I know you have some experience with.  These Raiders are your seeds, the dungeon is the field, and as they are planted in the field they’ll begin to grow.  Sunshine and water are needed, of course, which is where you, the village, and Jesper come in.  The dungeon will also ‘weed’ out all of the bad crops, allowing only the best to be harvested for the coming war.”

It was strange hearing the current situation with Raiders coming to the village being compared to farming, but he had to admit that it made sense.  “War?  What do you mean?  And why won’t you be in charge of everything here?”

“I…don’t readily know, exactly, but I feel it in my bones that this isn’t just a handful of isolated incidents.  I could be wrong and there is no war coming, but something tells me I’m not.”  Trevelyan sighed, looking tired.  “As for why I won’t be in charge, it’s because I won’t be here.  If things are as dire as they sound, I’ll be needed up north, to defend against the advance of these monstrous ‘people’ you learned about.”

That was worrisome, especially if it meant losing their biggest supporter.  Sterge had been happy enough to pass on the information they had learned to someone with more authority, but with the outpost leader gone, who would they turn to for help?  “Who will be in charge here, then?”

The outpost leader was silent for a moment, obviously deep in thought.  “I’m not sure.  Ideally, I would love to have Jesper fill the post, but as he’ll be helping you organize things in your village, that really won’t work.  I know!” she said excitedly, before turning on Gwenda with a serious expression.  “This is asking a lot, and could cause some trouble with the Ministry, but would you be amenable to moving this outpost down to your village?”

That was asking a lot, especially as it would seem as though they were playing favorites.  Regardless, it seemed like the right thing to do, considering that they really did favor the Raider Delving Clan over the Merchants.

Gwenda negotiated with the outpost leader, who started writing up the Writ of Transference as they spoke.  Sterge tuned out most of it, since it was a bit boring and over his head, but in the end both seemed satisfied.

“Since I’m pretty sure you didn’t catch most of that, Sterge,” Gwenda said to him when they were done, “I’ll explain it to you in simpler terms.  First, we pay to operate the outpost since it is out of their jurisdiction; meaning, they don’t own the land around the outpost, so they won’t pay to maintain it.  In return, we owe nothing to the Clan other than the simple upkeep of the building and those that maintain the outpost, as well as an annual fee of 5 gold.  This includes, and get ready for this,” she appeared excited as she spoke, “the loot tax.  Since there was an agreement before that the Raiders operated from this outpost, which is in Clan territory, they owed a tax; now that it is in our territory, we aren’t required to pay a loot tax. This will help those that are just starting out, because their take is usually much less.

“Of course, this means that we won’t be gaining anything from them either through the