The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (the dot read aloud TXT) 📖

speed as it happened before she took her lengthy nap.  Then she tried again, and then again when her Fairy Mana regenerated, and again and again – she started to lose count of how many times she tried to Bond.  Every single time, of course, the connection was severed, and Tacca was starting to become numb to the snapback of the cut connection so that she barely even noticed it any more.

But she didn’t stop; approximately every 10 minutes she tried again with maddening regularity as her Fairy Mana regenerated.  She was hoping for some kind of reaction if she kept doing it, though by the time she must’ve Bonded four to five hundred times – with three short naps when she became too exhausted to go on – she started to lose focus from the regular expenditure of her power.  In fact, she was so lost in a haze of routine and disappointment that she only realized that something was different a second before she touched the Core again and activated her Bonding ability.

The pure rage and anger coming from the Core and directed towards her was so powerful that she was knocked off of her feet, though not before she completed the Bond.

“Why do you torture me so?! I just wanted to be left alone, to fade into oblivion for my crimes…but NO!  You have to come here and do whatever it is you’re doing…looking so like my sister…that this couldn’t be anywhere but Hell.  Begone, demon, and torment me no more!”

The Core – a male apparently – screamed at her through their Bond, which made Tacca both surprised and hopeful that she could get through to him even after such a long silence.  That, and for the first time since she had arrived, he hadn’t broken off their connection.  “I’m not here to torment you.  My name is Tacca and I’m here to be your Dungeon Assistant—”

“I don’t care what you call yourself, how dare you wear Hannah’s face!  It’s bad enough that I’ll torture myself for all of eternity down here in Hell, but I don’t need to look at her to know it’s my fault she died!  If I hadn’t been in such a hurry, if I hadn’t been anxious to get home so I could get back to the football game...then maybe I would’ve seen that truck coming and swerved to avoid it.  Why?  Why must I remember every single moment of her death so vividly?”

Tacca didn’t know what to say.  She had been told that the exact circumstances surrounding the death of the Dungeon Core’s previous life was essentially wiped from their minds, as it would be too traumatic for them.  What this Core seemed to be talking about had to have happened before he had died, and he was apparently regretful of the events that led to the death of his sister; she had no idea how to comfort him, but she figured she could at least start some sort of working relationship with him.

“I’m…sorry about your sister, but you’ve been reincarnated into a Dungeon Core and I’m here to help as your Assistant.  This isn’t your…Hell, or whatever you called it…this is your new life—”

“No, I don’t believe you!  How could I, the one that had caused the death of my only sister, be allowed to live when she isn’t?  This is Hell, and you’re a lying demon sent to trick me into believing I might have a chance to repent for my sins!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can assure you that I’m not a Demon – because they look quite different from me – because I’m a Fairy—” she started to explain but was cut off again.  A series of “No’s” and “I’m not listening” filled her mind as she tried to get a word in, but she gave up after about five minutes.  Eventually, when she stopped trying to talk, the incessant noise coming from the Core slowed down and eventually stopped.  The anger coming from him started to diminish as well, and Tacca started to believe that his temper was starting to normalize – which would lead to being able to reason with him.  Ok, I think this can happen…

She was further encouraged when she felt the anger and fury practically disappear from the Core, followed by what she immediately recognized as hope – because she was feeling the same thing.  “Are you ready to listen now?”

There was silence for almost a minute as the Core’s – she realized she still didn’t know his name – emotions bounced around wildly, before the “hope” grew so strong that it was almost overwhelming.  Something unexpected joined it, though: satisfaction.

“I can see it now.  This…connection between us is strange, but wonderful.  Do you realize what it can do?”

Her optimism for a successful turn of events was diminished somewhat by what he was saying.  First, she had no idea what he was talking about; second, the way he said it sounded…ominous.  “Uh…the Bond allows us to communicate and share information, and when it gets stronger and more-established, it—”

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about.  The connection goes deeper than that, I can feel it reaching down to a fundamental level.  If I believed in all that mystical ‘mumbo-jumbo’, I’d say that we’re linked all the way down to our souls.”

Tacca thought for a second, thinking about what he was saying.  She had never thought about it that deeply before, but it would certainly explain how painful having a Bond broken was; it was like something was tearing away another part of her soul and left a void in her body, which only really felt complete when she was Bonded again.  It also explained why most Fairies died after they were Bonded for a while and their Dungeon Core was destroyed – because that connection was strengthened to a point where it was