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

all it took was a direct order while the invaders weren’t inside the room for her creatures to run through the trap, which would normally prevent them from exiting if there were Raiders in the room.

“Hurry, we can’t let them get away!” the Fighter said as he led the others into the tunnel, where it quickly turned sharply to the right, and then to the left after another few steps.  After a third turn to the right another 20 feet down, the leader – and the others behind him – finally caught up to Tacca’s creatures, who were assembled together towards the end of a tunnel with no outlet.

“Hey, what are you all doing down here, anyway?  Were you…looking for the Core to this dungeon as well?”

Her creatures, she found out quite quickly, couldn’t communicate.  In fact, Tacca couldn’t do anything to direct them, once her orders to run through the tunnel and wait for the Raiders to arrive was complete, because they were now basically under their own control; the same limitation that prevented her from controlling any of her creatures when Raiders were in the room seemingly applied to tunnels as well.

Instead, they immediately attacked – as futile as it was.  The Hill Dwarf and Human Fighter Variants immediately strode forward in their Ragged Leather Armor and Rusty Iron Swords; the Scout fired an arrow at the plate-covered Fighter on the opposite team and it hit him directly in the chest…and then bounced off without any type of noticeable damage.  The Caster and Healer also strode forward, brandishing their staff and mace, because they didn’t have any spells to cast; in fact, none of her creatures had any special Abilities, because she hadn’t paid any DF for them to be part of their repertoire.

“Hey!  Fine, I was going to give you a choice, but not anymore—wait a minute, do they look strange to you guys?” the lead Raider responded to the sudden attack, before looking at Tacca’s creatures a little closer and addressing his own group.

“Uh, yeah, now that you mention it.  They look a little…unnatural, is the only word I can think of,” said the Raider Scout as he readied his own bow to attack.

Now that Tacca could compare the two groups next to each other, she could see immediately what he was talking about.  Her creatures were dressed correctly, made “normal” movements with their weapons, and were anatomically correct – but that was where the similarities ended.  Each of their faces was just a little too perfect, symmetrical, and…bland, honestly; there was no character to them, nothing that made them unique, and that was probably what the other group had caught onto.  Well, either that, or the fact that they didn’t have the slightest expression on their faces and the relatively “dead” eyes in their focused gazes might have given it away that they weren’t quite right.

“I don’t know what they are, but that girl Gnome with the bow over there isn’t normal by any means,” said the Raider Healer, looking closer at someone from her supposed same race.

“They’re some sort of abominations!  I don’t feel so bad about killing them now,” the other Fighter said, one of the few times he had actually spoken throughout the entire delve.  He immediately pushed past the leader and blocked a strike by the Hill Dwarf Fighter Tacca had out front, and his steel sword actually bent the iron weapon of her creature from the impact.  An arrow ricocheted off of his armor as Tacca’s Gnome Scout creature attacked futilely again, and in response the Raider swept his sword out in anger, easily decapitating the Hill Dwarf in front of him.

As the creature’s head flew through the air to bounce against the side wall of the tunnel, each of the Raiders stopped in shock at the sudden “murder” in their midst…until the head, blood, and body disappeared just like any of the dungeon’s other creatures when they were killed.

“They’re not real – kill them!” the leader shouted, before pushing past his fellow Fighter and slaughtered the rest of her creatures with a savagery that made his previous aggravation and embarrassed wrath pale in comparison. When they were all dead, as Tacca had known they would end up from the beginning, their slayers all stood looking at each other in shock and confusion – and anger.

“We have to tell the Minister about this; I have no idea what this means, but I’ve never heard of anything like this before.  Have any of you?” the Elf asked finally, looking at the others.

“No, this is unprecedented as far as I know,” the Gnome said as the others shook their heads.  “I have to say, I was a bit against the destruction of this dungeon initially; seeing this, however, has changed my mind.”

To hear that from the one Raider in the whole group who had seemed almost on her side was a bit of a blow to Tacca, as well as being more than a little disappointing.  I guess that means I shouldn’t be using Humans, Gnomes, Elves, and Hill Dwarves in my dungeon…quite yet, at least.  The Dungeon Core relayed the results of the fight – if she could even call it that – and the resulting conversation to Shale, because the Dungeon Fairy hadn’t followed them inside the tunnel.

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought, but it’s possible you can find a use for them in the future.  It’s still a good thing to acquire the Abilities from them, at least.”

Tacca mentally shrugged, still a little disappointed but understanding.  She would probably feel the same way if Fairies were used as a dungeon’s creatures, and she was very glad that nothing like that had ever happened before; there were some Fairy-adjacent creatures that could be used as defenders, but nothing exactly the same, fortunately.

She was so distracted by this that she nearly missed it