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

Health: 6/10

Oh no!  She wasn’t sure what had done more damage to his “Health”, but she was worried that it was the 10 or so stone slivers stuck in his chest.  When she looked over at his tunic, she could see red splotches where they had impaled him, though she doubted they had gone too deep; nonetheless, he was hurt, and Jeska and Kelty were just standing there and doing nothing.  Time to change that.

“Kelty!  We need to take out that Fern!”  Without checking whether the former seamstress was following her, Jeska sprinted through the other ferns in the room, uncaring as she recklessly floundered through.  Ahead of her, she could see the Stone-tipped Fern bending back another of its fronds, even as the previous frond was apparently starting to regrow its stone projectiles.

“Nooo!” she screamed, at the same time using her long training weapon as a sort of vault.  She slammed it into the dirt-covered floor, propelling herself the last few feet between herself and the plant, before whipping it around and pounding it into the Fern to stop it from hurting her brother.

Well, she tried to, but ended up missing the frond about to launch its stone shards, instead hitting the one that was somehow regenerating its stock of stone shards, shattering the entire frond in the process.  Unfortunately, she was positioned in such a place that she was right in line for the bent-back frond ready to launch, and she had a split second to brace herself and partially turn away.

The sound of stone hitting wood startled her for a moment as she closed her eyes to the impact, just as pain sliced through her back and side.  She rolled with the impact of stone hitting her, only to see Kelty standing there breathing hard with her eyes wide, her Training Weapon embedded with half-a-dozen stone shards that she had stopped from hitting Jeska at the last moment.  Of course, another half-dozen shards had hit Jeska, and she looked down to see sliced rents in her tunic, which were quickly being stained with her blood.  Looking through the holes, she winced as she saw the wounds…but they weren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been.  They had barely penetrated the first few layers of flesh, but they still stung – and bled profusely, of course.

“Thanks, Kelty—watch out!” she yelled, as another frond was being pulled back.  Kelty, the shock of having stopped the previous attack wearing off, started beating at the Fern with her stone-embedded Training Weapon, destroying the frond about to launch another attack.

That was when a flash of bright light came from the glowing fern next to the Stone-tipped Fern.  It partially blinded her, but not before she got a look at its information.

Shining Fern ★

Attack Type: Magical

Element: Light

Magical?  What does that—?

“What’s going on?  These stupid rats are somehow healing themselves!”

Jeska couldn’t look back at her brother and the others battling the rats from where she lay on the ground, but she could see the same thing happening to the Stone-tipped Fern as its fronds seemed to glow with an inner light as they rebuilt what Jeska and Kelty had done and were still doing to it.  The same glow now pulsed out from the Shining Fern, and it didn’t take a genius like her father to figure out what was going on.  I need to destroy that other Fern!

Climbing to her feet, pushing past the pain in her side and back, she noticed for the first time some numbers at the bottom-right corner of her vision: 8/10, similar to what was above Arcen’s head.  Ignoring that for the moment, she ran awkwardly forward, raising her Training Weapon above her head (which hurt as it stretched her wounds, but not as badly as she feared).  As soon as Jeska was within approximately 3 feet of the Shining Fern, there was another blast of light, this time so powerful that it did blind her temporarily.  However, knowing where she was in relation to the plant, she stepped forward another time and then slammed down her wooden Weapon, hearing the cracking of fronds in the process.

Still blind, she picked up and smashed her Training Weapon again and again, hearing more fronds and leaves breaking in the process and then—

Her vision cleared in an instant.  One moment, everything was basically white in her vision; the next, she could see clearly again.  And below her on the ground were the now-dead remains of the glowing Fern she had blindly smashed into broken pieces.

Looking around, Jeska could see Kelty finishing off the rest of the Stone-tipped Fern, which didn’t seem to have any real defenses against someone so close by.  Turning completely around, she saw Arcen raise up his Weapon again and then pound it into something below him, followed by a wet squishy sound.  The Health above his head read 4/10, while both Pascale and Rosara were at 8/10 – and all of them were breathing hard and sweating, as if they had just run a mile in full sun.

As for herself, she was still at 8/10, but she could feel the wounds on her body stinging and potentially still bleeding.  “Is everyone alright?” she asked, now that it seemed as if everything attacking them was dead.  She saw Kelty with wide eyes still, but she didn’t have any Health numbers above her head, so Jeska assumed she hadn’t been hurt at all.

“Ouch.  Those little buggers have a mean bite,” her brother said, even as he was inspecting his chest.  As he started pulling out the imbedded stone shards, he winced and commented, “And who knew that plants could throw sharp rocks at you?  I certainly didn’t.”

“Here, let me help you with those, Arcy.” Rosara quickly stepped up to Arcen and slapped his hands away.  “You’re going to tear