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

“helping” the Raiders accidentally fall off the cliff, Tacca added an Enchantment-based trap that induced severe dizziness; the victims would experience extreme vertigo and even suffer from a bout of nausea, which wasn’t the best feeling when trying to scale a tall hunk of rock.  Of course, they could avoid the trap altogether if they identified where it was in time, and by jumping over the relatively small trigger range of the large trap effect area; but then, they would also end up jumping right into range of the Cliff Lynxes.  There wasn’t really more to the room than that, though someone with a fear of heights would probably hate it.  Not really her problem, though, as callous as that sounded; if they wanted to delve through and gain rewards and Power, then they would have to conquer those fears.  You could say that I’m helping them.

Speaking of rewards, she assigned an entire silver coin to three of the Lynxes, which came from Reward Tier 1.  To start dipping into Reward Tier 2, Tacca picked out a Refined Iron Dagger for one room and a Crafted Pine Bow for the other room.

All told, she spent a total of 400 Dungeon Force to create everything that needed to be replaced in each room: 250 of that alone was the Dizziness trap, 20 DF for each Lynx, and 70 for all of the rewards.  Luckily, since Enchantment was her specialization, she only needed to pay a little over 200 Dungeon Force to restock each room – still a hefty amount when she stopped to think about it.  Her maximum DF was only 2,000, so 20% of that alone was going to be needed to bring these 2 rooms back to normal after the Raiders left them.  It was one of the reasons she had thought about closing off the rooms with the Bridge traps, to give her more time while the Raider group was delving through her new section to restock.

Still, it made her think she was going to need to upgrade her DF Regeneration to keep up with the demand.  The only thing she had going for her was the fact that those challenging her more difficult section were likely to be inside for a lot longer; as it was, an experienced group of Raiders (within Raider Level range, of course) could finish her easy dungeon in a half-hour if they were rushing through.  More typically, it took most groups just under an hour, because they didn’t run in and start slaughtering things indiscriminately, uncaring for the traps that were placed in random spots now.  As opposed to that, Tacca thought that her new section would require 5 or 6 hours to complete safely.  With that much time to accumulate Dungeon Force…well, it would still be cutting it pretty close at only 28 DF per minute regeneration.

Tacca started to fill the next few rooms with Environmental Objects, borrowing some from her Forest Environment to break up the monotony of rock everywhere, always conscious of how much each room was going to cost to restock.  She didn’t get very far, however, when she suddenly sensed something very strange at the edges of her perception.  Something outside of her dungeon was causing a disturbance, and she could hear shouting and cries of pain coming from just outside.  What is going on?

Shale answered her quickly, as he was very near the entrance, closely watching another group of Merchant Raiders making their way through her easy section; he had taken to watching them with a keener eye than she could lately, with her so focused far down below.  “I’ll go check.”

He didn’t get very far before Tacca mentally shouted, NO!  Fly back here now! 

“What?  Why?” he questioned her, but at least he stopped.

No time to explain – you have to get out of there now!

 “If it’s that urgent, I’ll just Translocate back to you—what?  My Translocation isn’t working!”

Just fly then!  Hurry before it’s too late!

He obviously heard the urgency in her voice, and coupled with his inability to Translocate, he flew back faster than she’d ever seen him fly before.  It was only when the Merchant Raiders reacted to his flying by, that she realized that his Invisibility had been canceled somehow.  It really didn’t matter, though, because there was a good chance that the Merchants in her dungeon wouldn’t live long enough to tell their tale.

Because just outside her dungeon was a scene out of a nightmare.

Chapter 25

“Tacca, talk to me!  What is going on?”

The Dungeon Core wasn’t sure exactly how to respond at first.  Tacca was still trying to figure that out herself.

When she looked outside of her dungeon entrance – 100 feet out from it and a little down the mountainside – she could see the area where the Raiders would assemble, waiting for their chance to delve through her dungeon.  Most of the time, there were only 5 or 6 groups there, biding their time until Tacca called them in via her Root Fox from the first room, organized by a higher-Level Raider that had this “list” that she had heard tell of before.  Before she had started really concentrating on constructing her second dungeon section down below, the Core used to like looking out and watching the assembled crowd.

Now she wished she couldn’t see them.

There is a group of…I’m not quite sure what they are…that just finished slaughtering all of the Raiders outside.  I have a bad feeling about this – especially since they are running towards my entrance now.  Just my luck….

The Raiders stood no chance against the blue-skinned, six-armed beings that swept through the assembled Clan members like they were nothing.  Each of them were 8 feet tall, were extremely wide-looking because of all their arms, and appeared to be made of complete muscle; their legs looked like miniature tree trunks, their bare torsos (where not covered