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

unconscious, but still breathing.  That was honestly the best that they could hope for, and looking around at the celebrating Heroes, he knew she could get healed up quite quickly by them.  His own body, however, was just…done.

Clay watched as the monster’s form seemed to disappear right before his eyes—do souls have eyes?—and he found his remains amid the wreckage of their store, the only home he had ever known.  He thought that he would’ve felt…something…when he saw his dead body, but it had been so flattened and torn apart by the building being slammed into him that there was nothing he recognized.  It was like looking at a pile of blood and flesh that didn’t really fit together; disgusting, certainly, but he didn’t feel any sadness or sorrow at seeing it.

What he did feel sadness over was never seeing his family again.  Well, not in any meaningful way, of course, because he was seeing his sister right now and…with a thought, he was looking at the evacuees on the road, who were already heading back to town.  His mother was traveling with them, moving as fast as she could, tears running down her face in worry.  He felt horrible about leaving her right now, especially with the destruction of their store.  At least I was able to save Nina….

Thoughts of his sister caused his viewpoint to transfer back to her still form, but he wasn’t too worried; he saw that one of the Heroes had already seen her lying there and was calling for a Healer.  While he was glad that she had survived, and while he didn’t blame her for his death, Clay just wished that she had just left Spark there in town, because at that moment he was probably sunning himself halfway across the town without a care in the world—

The next second, he spotted the black and red-spotted cat peeing on what he estimated used to be his face.  His anger rose to a crescendo, and all he wanted to do was wrap his insubstantial and non-existent fingers around the cat…but he let the anger slowly leak out of him like a pierced waterskin.  Hating a cat for being a cat was a fruitless endeavor, and he’d rather not leave his last few moments of the world with hatred in his heart…even if the cat seemed like he was half-demon at times.  It was at that point that he finally acknowledged his own demise, as before it had seemed somehow surreal.

Goodbye, Nina.  Goodbye, Mother.  Goodbye, Father.  At the thought of his Father, Clay abruptly found his viewpoint whipping through the world until it settled on a small warehouse dozens of miles away.  His father was there, entirely oblivious to what had just happened to Clay and their store, negotiating a deal with a maker of various leather goods.  Clay wished he could’ve seen him in person one more time, given him a hug to tell him how much he appreciated everything he had ever taught him about being a man…but it was too late for that.  It was time to move on to the afterlife, where everyone’s souls ended up after they died, waiting for a time when they could be reborn into the world.  At least, that was what he had been taught.

But…nothing happened.  I’m ready!  Take me away!  Nothing seemed to answer, nor was there any type of light that supposedly awaited souls to take them to the afterlife.  What do I do—?

Suddenly, there was a wrenching of his vision as he felt something ripping at his soul.  It felt like someone had taken knives and was chopping his ethereal spirit into pieces, before gathering them up and shoving them into a deep, dark hole.  He tried to scream in pain, imagined or otherwise, but nothing seemed to erupt from his consciousness; instead, it was as if his thoughts just drifted into an endless void.  And then abruptly, as quickly as it had come upon him, the pain and horrible sensations he had felt faded away in an instant.

The deep, dark hole was still there, but it turned out to be just his imagination.  He opened his “eyes” and looked around, seeing that he was inside a small rocky cave…somewhere.  I’ll just go back to my family and—

Clay tried to move his viewpoint back to his mother and Nina, but it slammed up against the wall of the cave and wouldn’t move any further.  He tried going a different direction and was stymied by every inch of the rocky walls of his prison – I can’t get out!  All of that pain and now this?  Is this some sort of punishment?

“Oh, quit your whining.  I’m sure you’ve felt much worse dying inside of a dungeon, and it didn’t even last that long!”

At the sound of a voice, Clay whipped his viewpoint around, seeing the entire cave for the first time.  In the center of the cave was a tiny red gem floating in the air, suspended by some sort of mysterious means he couldn’t fathom.  And next to the red gem was…a dragon!

“I’m not a dragon, though I do appreciate you thinking me of one.  I am a dragonling, though – so, fairly close.  A baby dragonling, not like the ones you’ve seen in dungeons before; I’m so much smaller than they are, and I’ll stay this size forever.”

The dragon is talking!  What is going on?

“Again, I’m not a full dragon—oh, never mind,” the dragon responded, as if it were reading his thoughts, looking directly at the red gem in the center of the room. The deep-red colored, scaled, and winged lizard was flapping its wings leisurely, easily keeping itself aloft as it stared at the gem like it was going to eat it.  “What I am isn’t important.  What is important is that I’m here to help you get acclimated to your new job.  I’m Dwight,