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

like Darlene had been destroyed after hoarding so many rewards in her Core Room, Cores in the past had ended up being destroyed when Raiders – in their greed – became angry when they already took all of the riches from the walls and couldn’t find any more.  To prevent anyone else from acquiring the same as they had, they would shatter the Dungeon Core before they left.

Overall, not a good situation.

Tacca wasn’t planning on challenging those rules, because that would be deliberately flirting with danger – which she certainly didn’t need.  That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t add some…accents…here and there that couldn’t be removed, however.

The main reason she wanted access to the Mountain Environment wasn’t for that, anyway.  No, it was to be able to creatively shape rock and basic stone into whatever she could think of.  Before this, what she had access to create was a basic gray stone, suitable for lining the walls of her dungeon and creating blocks to trap pesky Raiders that wanted to kill her.  The caveat with that stone was that she was very limited in what she could actually build and construct with it; lining the walls of a room or creating any size blocks was just about it.

The most stretching of that limitation that she had been able to achieve was when she used the floor of her old Core Room to cover her Fairy body, but that was basically just an extension of the floor over an inanimate object.  While it was possible to abuse the limitations in a way to create some interesting designs, such as when one of her failed Core Bondings had made some strangely uniform decorations, that took a lot of work and it wasn’t as custom as it could be.

With her new Mountain Environment, though, she was basically only limited by her imagination and available Dungeon Force.  She was planning on using as inspiration her outer locale to decorate her dungeon and create some unique scenarios that the Raiders would have to navigate their way through.  That, and her creatures could use the rocky and mountainous terrain to their advantage.

Thinking of creatures, now that she had access to the Mountain Environment, it was time to unlock the Gnoll so that she could see if it would mesh well with her Echoing Hyena.  She used the last of her available Core Improvement Points – all 400 of them – to select another creature.  The menu appeared before her and she immediately picked the Bipedal Category, skipped past the Fae and Goblinoid options and selected Semi-humans.  Once in there, she found Gnoll and…she hesitated before selecting it.

Wait.

“What’s wrong?” Shale asked at her hesitation.

I…can’t believe I didn’t even think this through.

“You’re…changing your mind about the Gnoll?”

If Tacca still had a hand and a head, she would’ve slapped her forehead.  She had been so focused on Gnoll, Gnoll, Gnoll and her previous plans for the creature that she didn’t even think of the opportunity she was missing.

No, not exactly.  I just forgot that I’m not limited to a single Variant any more.  Actually, I was more than conscious of it because I was excited that I would have every Gnoll Variant available.

“So, what’s the problem?”

Well, I was just going to select it…but then I realized that the Gnoll is part of a family.

Her Dungeon Assistant’s face went from confusion to wide-eyed shock with his mouth open in an “O” shape.  Tacca shared his shock as she started going through the implications of her sudden revelation.  Going backwards on her creature selection menu, she selected the Semi-human family as her creature and confirmed it with a bit of nervousness in her non-existent stomach.

I…can’t believe that worked.  Well, she could believe it, because she had already done it with Canines and Felines, but this was on a whole new level.

Creature List (Select for Variants) (Partial)

Satyr

Harpy

Gnoll

Werewolf

Minotaur

Kobold

Kitsune

Lizardmen

Ratunda

Ursino

Pachyd

Slothar

The addition to her repertoire was so impactful that she wasn’t even sure how to react at first.  Not only did she have access to the Gnolls, but to every other Semi-human available.  They were all essentially creatures with humanoid features, similarly to how the Gnoll was part hyena and part Human.  The Satyrs were part goat; Harpies were part bird; Werewolves were, obviously, part wolf; Minotaurs were part bull; Kobolds were part dragonoid; Kitsune, part fox; Lizardmen were part lizard; Ratunda were small rat-like creatures that walked on two feet; Ursino were part bear; Pachyds had elephant in them; and, regretfully, Slothar were part sloth.

Out of them all, the Slothar were essentially useless as creatures, because they moved so slowly they would be cut down within seconds without being able to do anything, even at higher levels.  Not even Tacca, with her intelligence, years of research, and the application of thousands of scenarios could think of a use for them other than as a way to delay a Raider for a few seconds.

The Slothar aside, every other Semi-human was useful in some way or another.  For now, though, the Dungeon Core didn’t want to change her plans too much for the next section; she still had to determine whether or not her information about the hyenas and the Gnolls was accurate.  Then…well, then the possibilities opening up for her were incredible.

“That’s amazing, Tacca.  I thought you were fortunate to have access to so many Canines and Felines before, but this is something else entirely.”

I agree; I can’t believe I never even thought of this.  Now, let’s test this out.

Tacca created an Echoing Hyena in her Core Room, and let it form before she checked out her Gnoll options.

Gnoll Variants

Gnoll Scout

Gnoll Assassin

Gnoll Brawler

Gnoll Warrior

Gnoll Guardian

Gnoll Mage

Gnoll Shaman

Gnoll Cleric

Gnoll Archmage

Gnoll Champion

There were quite a few options, and they were all