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

they made their way back to the central governmental building.  “I doubt he’s making as much as he would if he really did control the lease, but that probably doesn’t matter at this point.”

Sterge could only shrug.  “I guess when…his other plan…didn’t work, he decided to settle for this.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t do the same thing for all of the food we have to purchase for our Inns.”

“Don’t even put that out there, Sterge!  It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s already working on that, and if that happens we’ll be even more beholden to him and the rest of the Merchants.”

Strangely, Sterge felt a little better than he had before and finally felt like he could relax.  Sure, they probably weren’t going to be raking in a whole lot of money now, but they had set all of this up to survive the influxes of Raiders invading their land.  They would survive, it sounded like, even with the Minister trying to gain as much control over things as he could.  The fact that the Merchants didn’t seem like they wanted to destroy the dungeon anymore was like a giant weight being taken off his back, and it was unlikely they would be looking for anyone that knew about the failed attempt.  That didn’t mean he – or the others – could go about blabbing what they knew about the entire situation, of course, but he wasn’t as paranoid as he was before.

The Merchants weren’t out to get them anymore; no, they just wanted their money.

*         *         *

“Um…Tacca?  Why would you choose that for a Specialization?  Isn’t that a bit…limited?”

The Dungeon Core took a mental step back from what she was doing to try to figure out what Shale was talking about.  She hadn’t even consulted with him about what she wanted for her new Trap Specialization, because she had thought her choice was obvious.

Limited?  Well, I guess you could look at the Life Trap Specialization that way, but it’s the only thing that I believe will keep my Core safe.

“How?  As far as I know, you’ll only be able to help anyone trying to get to your Core – not hurt them.”

What her Dungeon Assistant said was technically true, but he was either forgetting about some things he had learned about Life-based traps at DAPS or he never dug that deeply into them.  The Specialization wasn’t a popular choice, granted, but there had been a few dungeons in the past that had chosen it for various reasons.  It was for one of those reasons that Tacca was planning to use it – but she wanted to talk it over with Shale before she fully explained .

Tell me – do you think that any trap I could place would’ve stopped those “Merchant” Raiders from reaching my Core, let alone ones in the future that actually know what they’re doing?  Remember, I only managed to kill them because of trickery and making them suffocate, and not technically due to a trap of any kind.

“Well, I’m sure there would be something…like a deep enough pit that they couldn’t get out of?” the Dungeon Fairy ventured.

Sure – but that might only catch one or two, and it probably wouldn’t kill them.  Since they would be in the same room, I couldn’t recover the trap to make them suffocate, and they might bring enough food or other supplies to last for months.  Don’t forget that there are some Minor Levitation enchanting scrolls that Cores have as part of their higher-Tier rewards, so they could theoretically get out if they have that enchantment on their gear.  Just because the ones that came before didn’t have Levitation enchantments, that doesn’t mean ones in the future won’t.

“Good point – but it’s impossible to cover every single enchantment that might be out there; there are counters available for just about every trap.  Physical Resistance, Mental Resistance, Elemental Resistances – they are all covered.  Someone with enough time and resources could theoretically develop something that would protect them from just about everything – at least up to a certain amount.  Your intense Enchantment Traps in the next room have a good chance to affect just about anyone, though how severe is still unknown,” Shale said, waving towards the nearby room where Tacca had hundreds of small Enchantment-based traps set up for her defense.

 All very true; it’s one of the reasons why even the most powerful of Dungeon Cores are susceptible to being destroyed, because there are some Raiders that are specifically geared towards mitigating the damage caused by traps.  Just like these “Merchants” were…but do you know what they weren’t enchanted against?

“I’m assuming you’re going to say Life-based traps?  That makes sense, though – because there isn’t any reason to.  It would interfere with the spells that their Healer classes use, after all.”

Shale was absolutely correct.  Life-based traps were unique in the fact that they weren’t designed to kill things; they instead were designed to promote life, obviously.  They worked much better and faster at healing people than her Healing Paralysis Enchantment Trap – and didn’t paralyze them in the process – and could practically bring a person back from the brink of death.  Life traps could also cure poisoned, diseased, or otherwise debilitated states unlike anything other than the most powerful Healing and Cure Potions available as rewards.

But Life-based traps could also promote the strengthening and growth of living things.  Placed in one of her rooms up above, a trap could trigger and strengthen the bark of a tree so much (for a limited time) that it would be impossible to chop down.  It could also cause a wildflower to grow large enough that it could fill an entire room, or harden the fronds of a fern so that each leaf was as strong and stiff as a hardened piece of steel.  It worked for her environmental objects because