Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

coming from where the Giant Ogress was slowly making her way towards Renton, which caused everyone to yell out in surprise and duck down as if to avoid them.

What was that?

“Keep moving!  We have some of our Support members directing the evacuees to a secure location a dozen miles up the road!” he suddenly heard a strong male voice yell out ahead of them.  A man was standing there in a full set of some sort of metal armor, covering his body from head to toe with only his face exposed, with a massive battle axe attached to his back without any visible means that Clay could see.  Next to him was a woman in brown leathers holding a bow in her left hand as naturally as an extension of her arm, who was watching the Ogress in the distance with intense focus.

“Meltar – it’s getting too close to the town.  We need to hurry this evacuation up,” the woman said loudly enough to the armored man that Clay could hear it from where he was in the crowd.  The man nodded, but didn’t immediately do anything other than turn towards the World Threat that continued to advance towards the town.

“You’re right, Shock – we need to slow it down even more before the others arrive,” the man finally said.  The next moment, the battle axe was in his hand and the man and woman took off like a shot, racing across town in the space of a couple of seconds.  Clay couldn’t see where they went after a few moments as they disappeared out of sight, but he knew they would be fighting the gigantic monster ravaging the forest…somehow.

That was what Heroes did, after all.

There was a deafening bellow of garbled pain that Clay figured came from the Ogress; he looked back as he ran, and saw above the rooftops that the Threat had taken some serious damage to her belly, with a large patch of her skin and flesh almost melted away.  However, instead of slowing her down, the Ogress only seemed to be enraged as she picked up and slammed her club down from side to side, destroying hundreds of trees in the process.

Another minute saw them running down the road towards Chespine, the closest town to Renton.  The energy of many in the town was beginning to flag already from the sudden evacuation, and Clay stopped to help Ms. Wenderlynn, an elderly widow who normally ordered from their store in the middle of the month, up from where she had tripped over the uneven road.  A sound made him look down the road they were traveling, and he was amazed to see a massive group of people, armed and armored in a multitude of different materials and designs practically flying down the road, their feet barely touching the ground as they ran.  They passed the evacuees without saying anything, practically blowing them over with the wind of their passage, and Clay started to think that their town just might be saved with so many Heroes appearing.

“Clay, where’s Nina?” his mother said from next to him in a panic.

“What?  She’s right—” he began to say, when he saw her bag sitting on the side of the road.  Looking back towards Renton, he could barely make out her small figure running towards town, her mimicry of her mother’s ponytail bouncing as she ran. Oh, no…

“I see her.  I’ll go get her before she gets hurt,” Clay said to his mother, knowing that he could run much faster, as she had hurt her right knee a couple of years ago.  My parents are falling apart, he couldn’t help but think as he pulled his bag off his back.

“No!  It’s too dangerous!” she cried, though she didn’t expressly forbid him.  He could tell that she was worried for his sister, but knew that she wouldn’t be able to catch up to her in time before…something bad happened.   “Why did she run away?”  Clay’s sister had never been one to be disobedient before, other than for small things that really didn’t matter; this, however, was quite different.

“It’s that stupid cat; I better go get her before she gets herself killed!” Clay said, giving his bag to his mother and taking off down the road.

“Be careful, Son!” she shouted after him, even as he pumped his fists and ran for everything he was worth.

I’ll try, Mother, I’ll try.

Chapter 2

Nina was faster than he gave her credit for, but he was always faster still.  Plus, Clay had longer legs than his little sister, and his strides ate up the distance between where he left his Mother and the rest of the evacuees on the road and the town of Renton.  He couldn’t see her after she disappeared behind the first building – which just so happened to be the home of the Perkins family, in fact.  He knew where she was going, however, so he took a shortcut to arrive to the west of the store, keeping his eye on the battle now raging against the World Threat, the Giant Ogress.  The Heroes who had passed them on the road at full speed were now laying into the massive monster, and he had to admit that the sheer power they presented was a bit intimidating.

He had seen hundreds or possibly thousands of Heroes passing through Renton on their way to other towns and cities throughout the land, but none of them had used their abilities that came with their Classes in town – other than the occasional Fast-travel ability, like what they had used to zoom by the evacuees on the road.  They didn’t have that kind of swiftness in combat, he was told, though the Scout-based Classes did move faster than most people – or so he had observed.  Use of any other type of ability was forbidden and strictly enforced by the