The Dungeon Fairy: Two Choices: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (online e reader TXT) 📖

plea – and the noticeable wetness running out from the bottom of one of the Raider’s pant legs – made Tacca want to pull her creatures back so that he could exit, but her figurative hands were still tied.  She could absorb the Wolves, of course, but that would take a few minutes…which the Human certainly didn’t have.

As he backed up against the wall, waving his sword around at the approaching creatures – who were soon joined by the other 3 when they were finished with their victim – with increased desperation, Tacca noticed that the wall he was trapped against was (as luck would have it) where the Rotating Stone Bridge leading out was located.  When the Wolves suddenly streamed forward as one to finish the Raider off, he jumped backwards in surprise and slammed against the wall.  As she had designed it to do, the wall rotated rapidly backwards and up against the ceiling of the short tunnel leading to the exit staircase, causing the Raider to unexpectedly fall to “safety”.

The safety of the exit tunnel turned out to be true, because the 5 Forest Wolves stopped their advance at the threshold leading to the exit tunnel, letting the Raider scramble further into the passageway in relief and confusion.

Wow; I didn’t expect that, but I guess it makes sense.

Shale seemed almost as confused as the Raider did.  “Why did they stop?  That tunnel is technically part of your dungeon, is it not?”

Yes, that is true; however, it’s also a trap.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Tacca thought about it for a moment while she watched the Raider get to his feet while keeping his sword pointed in the direction of the creatures still growling in his direction.  Well, my creatures won’t trigger my Enchantment traps if passing through their activation range, but physical traps can be activated if the requirement is met.  We’ve already seen that when I was testing these traps out, of course, but without direct orders they won’t venture into an activated trap.  Just like they wouldn’t just leap into one of my Pit traps, they won’t cross the threshold of this Rotating Bridge trap. 

It wasn’t something that she had been planning on being the case, but now that the quirk made itself known, Tacca thought it was probably a good thing.  She didn’t need her creatures chasing fleeing Raiders up the staircase of the exit tunnel, after all.

After 30 seconds of a tense stare-off between the frightened Raider and the 5 Forest Wolves, the trap quickly closed and effectively sealed off the exit tunnel from the rest of her dungeon.  The Raider exhaled loudly and dropped his tense shoulders in relief as he finally looked around his whereabouts.

“What is this place?  Is this a secret entrance or something?”  Nothing answered him, of course, nor did he seem to expect any response.  He ventured onto the staircase and looked both up and down, where they curved out of sight.  “I guess up would probably be the smartest idea; the sooner I can get out of here, the better.”  Tacca couldn’t help but think that the smartest idea would’ve been to not come to her dungeon tired and intoxicated, but she guessed it worked in her favor on that one.

It took about 15 minutes of walking up the stairs until he reached the surface, mainly because he was taking his time and being as cautious, if not more so, as he should’ve been the entire time inside of the dungeon.  As he emerged from the exit – which was hidden around the corner from the actual entrance – she lost sight of him as he quickly ran away, shouting, “I’m alive!  I’m alive!”

Meanwhile, down in her fourth dungeon room, her creatures immediately ventured back into the fifth room when the Raider was completely out of sight; they calmly took their normal places where they would wait to ambush the next group to enter.  However, Tacca noticed that one of the Forest Wolves was still injured and bleeding from the initial attack on the Raider leader.  Since Shale didn’t have access to the Healing Aura ability yet, Tacca transported her Core into the room and started to heal it.  She figured it would be better to heal it instead of waiting for it to die and replacing it then, especially as the rest of her killed creatures and traps were already being reset in the first few rooms.

“Wait!  There’s still one left alive!” Shale said shortly after she popped up in the fifth room and started to heal the Wolf.

What?  Where?  She was going to tackle absorbing the bodies of those Raiders who had died next, so she hadn’t really been paying attention quite yet.  A quick look at her CIPs told her that her Dungeon Assistant was right; she had only received 15 Points instead of the expected 20.

“Uh…he’s in the pit.”

Looking down into the spiked pit, she noticed that one of the Raiders had somehow managed not to have the sharp protrusions lining the bottom of the trap pierce through anything vital – though he had hit his head hard enough that he was currently unconscious.  There were still enough spikes through the rest of his extremities and lower torso that he was quickly bleeding out; Tacca didn’t think he would last much longer. She finished her healing of her Wolf and stared at the slowly dying Raider, feeling nothing more than revulsion and…impatience.  As a Dungeon Assistant first and now a Dungeon Core, she was well aware that one of the main ways for a Core to obtain CIPs was through the deaths of Raiders who delved through a dungeon; seeing it happen because of something she did was a bit disturbing and disgusting, however.  She just wanted it to be over so that she could absorb them and move on – hence, the impatience.