The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (great novels to read txt) 📗

help but be warmed with a bit of pride, because it really was a novel idea.  The Healing Paralysis was a little known and universally overlooked Enchantment Trap, mainly because it was something that would help Raiders, rather than hurt them; that was only one of the reasons she wanted to see how she could include it in her dungeon, with everything else he said being the majority of the rest. She was glad that it had worked out, but she was starting to worry a little that they would continue being “lucky”…and somehow make it all the way to her Core Room to destroy her.

It was highly unlikely that they would get through her Boss Room, but she had to acknowledge that stranger things had happened when she was Bonded to those other Cores.  She started adding some small-but-deadly traps to her Core Room just in case her “bad luck” came back to haunt her, though she desperately hoped she wasn’t going to need them.  They would take about a half hour to fully form, but the two Raiders were going slow enough that they would be built before they arrived.

“That was just the first of many different ideas I have for my dungeon; all it needs is for these two to share the news of my location, get a lot more Raiders here and provide me with Points, and then I can start to implement them.”

“Tacca must’ve taught you really well before she died, then; I’m really interested in seeing what you’ve got planned in the future…though I’ll likely be gone before you can take advantage of what you’ll accumulate over the next year or so,” Shale said a little sadly.

Tacca was forced to admit to herself that she would actually miss her Dungeon Assistant when he left, if only for the benefit of having someone to talk to.  At first, the entire experience of being a Dungeon Core was so new that she was consumed with learning her boundaries and expanding her dungeon, but even a month into it she had been missing something; it was only after Shale had arrived that she realized she was missing contact and communication with…well…anyone.  She was beginning to think that Assistants weren’t just there to provide information and instruction in how to be a Dungeon Core, but to also be there as emotional support and a source of conversation.

If that was indeed the case, then it made certain parts of her schooling take on a whole new meaning; all of those classes about working with different personalities weren’t just for the initial meeting and learning how to work with difficult Cores – they were meant to instruct Assistants in establishing a longer-term relationship with their Bonded.  That was always a given, of course, but there were certainly different aspects of that relationship that she hadn’t even considered before.

All of which came back to Shale leaving; she had wanted that to happen at first because of the risk of exposure of her unique circumstances, but now she wasn’t so sure.  The risk was still there, granted, though she thought it might be worth it to have someone she could talk to – even if that person was essentially a sort of spy for the Council.  As long as she knew Shale was a spy, then she thought she could work around that for the benefit of companionship.

That was all in the future, though – the two Hill Dwarf Raiders were in her dungeon now.  Accordingly, she turned her attention back to them as they entered the fifth room; more accurately, the male Raider entered the fifth room while the Caster stayed near the entrance, just barely inside the tunnel.  Smart move, though it doesn’t really matter as much in this room.  She had eliminated the Spiked Pit Traps that were in there, after all; if she had kept them there, as well as not having removed more than half of the Forest Wolves in there, then they’d likely be dead.

The entire room was full of scrub bushes that were taller than the two Raiders by approximately a foot, with very little room in between to squeeze by.  In the middle of the room was a large circular space that was free of Environmental Objects, and instead used to contain the two Pits that she removed; at the moment, though, all that was there was essentially a ring of packed dirt.

As the mace-wielding Hill Dwarf stepped into the circular “arena”, two Forest Wolves emerged from their frozen state next to two bushes to join him with deep growls.  Normally, she had five Wolves in the room, which would attack from all sides and corral the Raiders with their pack tactics so that one or two might end up falling in either of the two pits; even with those gone, her two creatures could still be quite deadly.

“Gwenda!  Need your help!” the Raider in the middle of the room shouted to the female spell-caster.  There wasn’t really any need, though, because she was already on the move after hearing the growls.

“Sapping Fog!” the caster-type yelled as she ran quickly through two bushes, which threw out a pale, translucent orange blanket over half of the dirt circle.  Her Forest Wolves had been crouched and stalking their prey, looking for the perfect opening to attack – which the leather-armored Hill Dwarf was doing a good job of protecting by presenting a stable defense with his shield and mace; they ended up splitting up so that they could come at him from opposite sides, which meant that only one of them got hit by the robe-wearing Raider’s spell.

The spell drew the attention of both Wolves, who immediately shot forward to attack the now weary and less-protected Hill Dwarf; well, one of them “shot forward”, while the other advanced at a slow walk because of the slowing spell.  As the faster one closed on