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

“Was this your doing?!” the Minister fumed.  “This had better not be another Arcundia attempt—”

“What happened in Arcundia?” Gwenda suddenly asked, her curiosity obviously getting the better of her.  Or she had some other reason for asking, which Sterge couldn’t fathom.

“Go on, tell her, Jesper.”

As the crowd continued to swell and become louder – and possibly violent soon, if Sterge was any judge – Jesper shook his head quickly.  “Of course not, Minister.  We don’t have time for this—”

“They killed 20 of our own and then shattered our dungeon’s Core, that’s what they did!” the important Merchant yelled, spittle starting to foam at his lips as he got worked up.

“Look, I had no part in that.  Besides, it was only in retaliation for your own attack and destruction of the Core in Greenville—”

“Lies!  Just because you can’t look after your own, you shouldn’t be blaming—”

“ENOUGH!” Sterge heard someone yell…and then he realized it came from his own throat.  The yell shocked him and the others enough that they paused in their argument, but the Hill Dwarf recovered quickly and continued before they could resume.  “None of that is important right now; from what I heard, there were Raiders from both of our people up there, so this has to be from a different source.  And if I’m understanding your argument correctly, none of us would benefit from this attack – since the dungeon and its Core do not belong to either of you.”

Sterge was gambling on whether or not that would make sense, but it obviously did enough that there weren’t any other arguments.  Gwenda cleared her throat loud enough to be heard over the crowd, and said, “Now, let’s see if we can get everyone under control and find out some answers if we can.”

It took longer than anyone would’ve liked, but within a couple of minutes Jesper and the Minister managed to corral everyone into some semblance of order, and they both took turns questioning the wide-eyed group that brought the news in the first place.  After no more than a minute, it was clear that they really didn’t know more than what was known to everyone already: That they had found the slaughtered remains of everyone waiting up at the dungeon; they had only gone up because they were on the list to delve within the next 4 or 5 hours, and they were eager to get up there in case the wait was shorter; even the Clan rep organizing all of the people was among all of the dead – though it was apparently hard to tell, given the description of her remains.

“Myra was powerful, Minister,” Jesper explained after the questioning was done.  “She was only here helping out because she was taking an extended leave from her group; they had just lost one of their group members to an unfortunate accident within a dungeon, and she felt this was the best way to deal with it.  When you’re at Raider Level 72 and have been with the same group not only for years, but decades, such a loss is difficult to get over.  If someone or something killed her, this could be bigger than it sounds.”

Sterge wasn’t aware that Myra, a relatively quiet Elven Raider that he had met as part of Jesper’s helpers, was Raider Level 72.  Being that high of a Level was nearly inconceivable to the Hill Dwarf, and if she really was dead, then he shuddered at the realization that something even more powerful must have killed her.  Looking around the entire Village, he could see the wave of information pass over the scared and angry crowd, creating an immediate murmur as they just heard that such a high-Level member of the Clan had been killed.  Sterge hadn’t known her that well, but she had always been kind to him and to others when she actually deigned to speak; he felt like the world had lost a good one with her death, and it would behoove them to find out what happened to her.  And possibly even exact justice, not only for her death, but for the deaths of everyone up at the dungeon.

Yes, even the Merchants.  If they perished within the dungeon, that was one thing; the outside of the dungeon was supposed to be relatively safe.  Sterge just hoped that it hadn’t been the actual dungeon that had done it, though from what he’d learned over the last few months, he thought that would be quite impossible.

“It was this blasted dungeon that did this!” the Minister abruptly shouted, almost as if he could hear Sterge’s thoughts.  The Village Chief looked at him and saw that the angry spittle and foam was back on the head Merchant’s mouth.  “It’s more powerful than anyone suspects; we lost an entire group in there that shouldn’t have died—”

“What are you talking about?  I didn’t hear anything about a full-group wipe.”  Jesper may not have heard about it, but Sterge and Gwenda certainly had – and it had been straight from the source, too.  Common sense told him that he shouldn’t mention that right now, even though the Minister had essentially admitted it; revealing the origin of his information while all of this was going on probably wouldn’t be the smartest idea, especially as he heard more angry rumbling from the crowd as they reacted to the Merchant’s words.

“Oh, uh, I just mean that we’ve lost a full group of our people over the last few months, that’s all,” the Minister tried to backtrack.  Fortunately for him, everyone else was too worried about what had happened to those that just recently died outside of the dungeon to care too much about how insincere he sounded.

“Yes, well, given how…well-funded…your people are, I’m surprised you lost anyone at all,” Jesper responded doubtfully, before continuing and addressing the entire crowd.  “I’m heading up with my