The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (the dot read aloud TXT) 📖

It couldn’t be that important, right?  I mean, they’re only Level 2 and barely know how to hold a mace, for goodness sake.

Trevelyan put them out of her mind as she finished up her missives and called for a pair of runners.  As the two messengers left, she sat back down at her desk and put her head in her hands, thinking about everything else she needed to arrange.  And so it begins…

Chapter 31

You’re Lily MageDaisy, and you can’t allow yourself to panic.  She kept telling herself not to lose it after the last few months of disaster.  What had started as a few hopefully isolated incidents of unexpected Dungeon Core destruction had turned into a full-scale epidemic.  In the entire world there were thousands of dungeons scattered around, which helped to regulate the Raider population and power to keep the world in balance; however, starting with the destruction of a Core almost ten months ago, over a dozen middling-to-low powered Cores had been destroyed for no explicable reason.

To make things worse, the frequency of such occurrences seemed to be increasing.

“Where was this last one?” she asked, looking towards the Council’s leader, Malachite.  For being nearly 15,000 years old, the stern-faced Fairy looked remarkably good for his age and moved as quickly as a sprightly youngster.  She watched him descend from the viewing platform and silently point to a spot to the northeast of the continent of Abenlure, where there was now an empty space.  He placed a red flag there, joining the other flags that were dotted all over the rest of the continent.

Lily flew up above the massive Core Map and tried to see if there was any correlation between them.  Thousands of glowing lights showed where Cores were located, with their intensity indicating how powerful they were in relation to each other; she had been told at one point that the “trackers” that Raiders used to find new dungeons were based on something similar, but the ones that the Fairies used were much more detailed and inclusive.  The only thing that the Raiders’ trackers had over their Core Map was the ability to see if a dungeon was already open to the surface, but then again, they reportedly had to be fairly close to determine that information – so she didn’t really see the benefit.

“I see absolutely nothing linking any of these incidents.  Do you?” Lily asked after looking at everything over the last few hours.  Each dungeon that had been destroyed was located in wildly different areas, were fairly different in their construction and the creatures and traps that they consisted of, and they were of varying strength; the only thing that they all had in common was that they were all on the Abenlure continent.  That didn’t really mean much, though, as 95% of the world’s population of intelligent races and 99% of all dungeons were located on the giant continental landmass.

Malachite said nothing as he shook his head and none of the other three Council members had any other suggestions, either.  Lily looked worriedly at the large rectangular indicator that floated 15 feet above the Core Map, otherwise known as the Balance Bar.  It glowed with a direct link to the primordial forces that permeated the world, and was a way for them to see how “in balance” everything in the world was at the moment.  Currently, it was tilted slightly in one direction, which from experience she knew was towards the intelligent races of the world.  It wasn’t dangerously unbalanced yet, but it was sure to get there unless they figured out why everything was happening – and somehow put a stop to it.

As she was staring at the map, out of the corner of her eye she saw a Core light flicker.  Less than a second after she focused on it, she saw it disappear.  “Ok, this is getting out of hand.  Can anyone tell me which one that was?”

One of the other Council members flew over to their Core List located off to the side, where she began flipping through sheets of paper.  “It looks like it was—”

“Excuse me, Council members,” Lily heard from behind her.  It took her a moment to recognize Azalea, who was keeping an eye on the waiting room.  “There’s a frantic Assistant by the name of Dahlia here to see you.”

Lily looked back down on the Core Map and sighed; Dahlia is Bonded with a Core right around where that light just disappeared; or maybe I should say was Bonded to a Core there.

“Tell her I’ll be there in a moment,” Lily said sadly without even turning around as she watched the Balance Bar tilt the tiniest fraction more.  A hesitant throat-clearing from Azalea caused her to finally look at her before she snapped out.  “Yes?  Is there something else?”

“Uh, there’s also another Assistant named Shale here with a report of some kind?”

Shale…Shale…oh!  “Tell him that I’m not really concerned about Tacca’s death anymore – we have much bigger problems.  If he says his Bonded Core’s development is progressing well enough, then he can continue doing what he’s doing and not to worry about the investigation; you might mention that I may need to keep him there longer than originally planned, however.”

“Umm…but he mentioned something strange about Tacca’s death that you should probably—”

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW!” she yelled without thinking.  She took in a calming breath and let it out slowly as she closed her eyes.  She wasn’t sure what color her Mood Dress was at the moment, but the silence that descended over the Council chamber and her own raging emotions probably meant it was a murderous red color.  The stress of the situation was starting to get to her, and she had to take control of herself before