The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) Jonathan Brooks (read me like a book .txt) 📖

Chapter 7

“See, I was right!”

Squab pointed towards the small cave opening on the cliff face in the distance, seeing what appeared to be some sort of small animal at the entrance.  Right where it was reportedly supposed to be.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t exactly mean anything,” Marvus remarked sarcastically.  However, now that he was close, his Valuation Sense was telling him that there was something nearby.  It wasn’t nearly as much as what he had felt back in Heftington, but whether or not it had yet to be mined could make a huge difference.  His Sense typically only pinpointed finished products with set values, and chunks of gold ore inside of the walls of a mountain were anything but finished products.  Quite valuable, naturally, but nearly impossible to locate using his ability.  “Wasn’t this dungeon supposed to be destroyed—?”

He cut his own question off as they neared the flatter portion of the trail leading upwards, where he saw the scraps and bones of dozens of Raiders that had reportedly been massacred outside of the entrance.  Those same reports also said that the dungeon itself hadn’t been responsible, and had been destroyed by whatever had killed so many of the Clan.  As a result, the area had been off-limits for nearly half a year.

Not that he overly cared, as he hadn’t really followed most laws or orders for a long time, especially once he joined the Pilfering Cohort, a sub-branch of the Raider Delving Clan.  However, he hadn’t been willing to risk going into danger if whatever had done this was still around, but it had been extremely quiet this far down south.  When he heard that the two Hill Dwarves had recently visited and returned whole and healthy, he was fairly certain it was safe; as a result, he had already been planning on visiting with his own group, if only to loot the bodies that were said to have been left rotting in the sun after the sudden attack.

That was before his Valuation Sense started going crazy while he was getting his group ready in the nearby town.  Not the relatively small village down at the bottom of the mountain range – as that had been empty of anyone since the night of the massacre – but in Heftington, which was also the nearest outpost of the Clan.  While there was wealth inside of the town, there wasn’t a lot except inside the coffers of the outpost, which was heavily guarded.  Neither he nor anyone else in the cohort would steal from the Clan, though, because it would almost be like stealing from their siblings; there were some that would do even that if it netted them some money, but even they would follow the rules.

Even thieves had some honor, after all.

The sudden appearance of large amounts of wealth apart from the Clan’s coffers was a curious-enough happening that Marvus was almost forced to investigate.  What he found was both interesting and exciting: Sterge and Gwenda, the two Hill Dwarves that used to run the village further south, had somehow obtained large chunks of raw gold, which they were turning into coinage.  It was these gold coins that he suddenly detected, but that wasn’t all; his Sense told him they had more than just gold, though it wasn’t quite finished product – but it was strong.

From experience, the only thing he could think of that would cause that kind of reaction to his Valuation Sense was an uncut gemstone of some kind.  He’d Sensed a small uncut emerald hunk before, though he’d had to be within 5 feet of it to detect it.  As he had recognized the particular feel of uncut gemstones from nearly 50 feet away while he observed them in the small-town marketplace, he knew that they were likely carrying more than a small uncut gemstone.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as they arrived back in town, they were under the watchful eye of the outpost leader, Trevelyan.  The Elf was extraordinarily powerful – not to mention influential – and getting on her bad side would be a death sentence; it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that he had made the trek with 19 others of the Cohort to see if they could find where the two Hill Dwarves may have obtained the raw materials.  Stealing from those two would’ve been so easy that he could’ve done it blindfolded, but risking the wrath of the outpost leader was something all of the Cohort would like to avoid.

“Check the bodies; see if there’s anything left of value.”  From the information he had dug up, he was fairly certain that no one had looted the corpses of those that had fallen to whatever it was that attacked; the only ones that had been up since the evacuation were Sterge and Gwenda, but they didn’t seem the type to go rooting around dead bodies.  Besides, they had come back with raw gold and gemstones, which were certainly not being held by the bones and scraps of clothing he saw littering the mountainside.

Marvus didn’t bother to check any of the corpses himself, as he was after a larger payday, but he did notice that none of them looked particularly disturbed.  The accuracy of which was proven moments later when the Cohort members started finding caches of coinage, as well as over a dozen bottomless bags that had been abandoned.  Re-keying them so that they could be opened was an expensive operation, but the rewards were almost always worth it.

“Your cut, sir.”  Squab held out a pouch to Marvus, which he took absently, not bothering to count.  Most likely he was being cheated out of his fair share, but he didn’t really care at the moment.  Instead, his focus was on the dungeon entrance; correction, on the dungeon entrances.

“Squab?  Since you’re the only