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

“Uh…I don’t think we should venture in there.  It doesn’t seem like it’s part of the dungeon, and we were told not to poke around outside of this last room.”  Tacca was on edge again when she saw them seek out and venture down the tunnel leading from her Boss Room to her Core Room.  She silently urged the group to listen to their Healer, who was pleading with the leader to exit from the dungeon.  The Core had very little doubt that they would all perish if they progressed any further; they had shown their inexperience and lack of powerful gear throughout their delve, and even the traps inside of her Core Room would kill them easily.  Granted, they could be tricking her by demonstrating a lack of competence and experience, but she didn’t think so.

“What if there is some more loot just waiting here for us, though?  I don’t see the Core that they were talking about that is supposed to be here, so it probably couldn’t hurt to check—” the Human Scout of the group had started to suggest, before he stepped inside and immediately fell into the pit that was revealed as the stone façade crumbled apart on top.  He barely had time to scream before he hit the iron spikes down below, dying instantly as one of the sharp protrusions entered through his mouth and pierced through the back of his head – in addition to the half-dozen spikes impaled through his body.

“Barton!  NOOOOOOO!” shouted the Caster, another Human who rushed forward when the Scout (Barton, Tacca assumed) fell in the pit.  She managed to catch herself from falling inside with him, but she was also unbalanced as her feet skidded to the edge of the pit.  The others were too shocked at everything happening to react in time, so the robe-wearing Caster was forced to throw herself to the side of the pit.  She caught on to the edge with surprising alacrity, pulling herself up even as tears ran down her face.

The others were just starting to move towards the edge of the pit when the Caster stood up near the edge, looked down into the pit, and then stepped back sobbing with her hands against her mouth.  “Barton!  Why—?”

Suddenly, her foot triggered the Blade trap that Tacca had placed there, and 3 sharp, circular blades flashed out of the nearby wall, passing through the grieving Human woman before retreating back into the stone edifice in less than a second.  Her body seemed to freeze for a moment in shock, and the others just stared at her, trying to figure out what had happened; the next moment, her body slowly collapsed into four different pieces as the blades had sliced completely through her knees, her waist, and her neck all at the same time.  Actually, it’s more like 6 pieces since she had her hands around her mouth in shock at the time. 

Wisely, the other three Raiders screamed and ran away back up the tunnel, fleeing out through the Boss Room’s exit staircase in shock and fear.

“Do you think they will tell the others what happened here?” Shale asked.

I certainly hope so; maybe they will understand not to venture any farther than the Boss Room, now.

Her Dungeon Assistant smiled sadly.  “One can only hope.”

Indeed.  Tacca started to restock the Boss Room with creatures while she cleaned up the…mess.  It was actually a bit more difficult for her than usual because for the most part the deaths in her dungeon were a bit cleaner than this – and typically in one piece.  She didn’t feel bad for those that had died, because they were venturing somewhere she now knew they were specifically told not to go; but she did regret that they had to die because of their curiosity and greed, instead of testing themselves against her regular dungeon.

Indeed, she repeated to herself.  One can only hope.

Chapter 13

The next week and a half went rather smoothly, with no one even attempting to infiltrate her Core Room again, nor making any overt threats or indications that they were there to destroy her.  In all, despite another half-dozen Raiders dying to her traps and creatures, it was rather calm.  It was so calm and relatively routine, in fact, that Tacca nearly missed her monthly countdown.

“Tacca?  How long do you have until your countdown is complete for the month?” Shale suddenly asked one day.  “I can barely keep track of the days, anymore, with how these Raiders come at all hours of the day and night.”

Huh?  Oh, well I have…2 hours!  I completely lost track of time, myself!

Looking around her dungeon, Tacca realized that she had been in a sort of daze, automatically restocking her dungeon when the time required it and directing the Raiders inside when it was ready.  There hadn’t really been anything over the last few days to break up the monotony; she really wasn’t complaining about that, however, because lately boring meant safe.  Therefore, she had easily lost track of what was going on with her Core.

There was currently a new group of Raiders starting their delve through her dungeon (at least, she hadn’t seen them before – so they were new) and one just exiting via the staircase tunnel, and she had just a little over 500 DF at her disposal to play with if she needed it.  She began to place additional inexpensive traps in one of her empty rooms, but stopped in surprise after just over a dozen; the familiar strain of having too many traps was pressing at her Core again, and she didn’t want to deliberately crack her form any more than it already was.

What?  I only have about a dozen of them throughout the rooms above, including my Core room.  How could I—?  Oh.  Looking at the room