The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (read novel full .txt) 📕

could transmit emotions – and for some reason this Dungeon Core was scared out of its mind.  Pulling up her Dungeon Assistant Information (DAI), Tacca saw that she hadn’t yet regenerated enough Fairy Mana to use her Core Bond, but it was slowly going up now that she had turned off her Invisibility; she needed to Bond with the Core as soon as she could to find out what was going on, as well as stopping it from breaking through to the surface while it was nearby – instead of safely down below in a defended Core Room.

When she didn’t do anything else – because she was waiting for her Fairy Mana to come back – the attention of the Core turned away from her again and she breathed a sigh of relief as the emotional assault stopped.  After a few more minutes, she finally obtained enough to perform the Core Bond – and so she could get to the bottom of what was going on.

“I need to form a Bond with you so that we can communicate with each other—” she said slowly as she fluttered forward, before she stopped mid-flight as another wave of pure terror flowed over her.  Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and she felt the Core’s attention turn away from her within seconds – which hinted that the fear it was experiencing wasn’t caused by her but was from something else entirely.

The Core didn’t react as she continued her short flight towards it, before placing her hand on the top of its glowing gem-like form.  Tacca marveled at how warm it felt – as she was never taught that kind of information – and she briefly wondered what else she hadn’t been taught while at DAPS.  Forget about that for the moment; it’s time to do what you’ve been training for most of your life.  It’s time to Assist a Dungeon Core.

After activating her Core Bond Ability, she felt the Fairy Mana being pulled from her body and given form; a thick dark-black and bright-white (which reminded Tacca of her appearance a little) cord formed between her chest and sunk into the Dungeon Core, disappearing somewhere inside of its glowing form.  The cord floated between them for approximately a minute before it suddenly flashed brightly once and then faded away.  As soon as it completely disappeared, she could feel the Bond complete and was aware of someone else in her mind – which was quickly made obvious as she held her head between her hands because of the incessant mumbling and screaming that she couldn’t block out.

“Aaahhhh!  Let me out!  Let me ooooooout!  I can’t take iiiiitttt!  Need to dig, need to dig, need to dig…  Aaaahhhh!  Let me oooooout!”

Now that they had a Bond between them, the Dungeon Assistant and the Dungeon Core could communicate and understand each other – though now Tacca wished that wasn’t the case as she tried to talk to the freaking-out Core.  “Slow down and stop screaming for a moment – it’s going to be okay,” she said, trying to be as calm as possible.  “I’m here to help you, but you have to tell me: what’s going on and why are you doing this?”

The Core paused its internal monologue long enough to quickly answer her in a male-sounding voice.  “I have to get out of here.  Won’t stop, need to keep digging until I’m free.  I can’t deal with enclosed spaces.  Aaaaahhhhh!  Let me oooooout!”

Tacca could tell that she wasn’t getting anywhere with that, so she started with something a little simpler.  “Ok, then…my name is Tacca and I’m your Dungeon Assistant Fairy, here to help you.  What is your name?”  The Core hadn’t stopped his tunneling yet even while he was communicating with her, so she was trying to establish some sort of rapport with him to get him to stop what he was doing.  Tunneling was fine, but if he were to break through to the surface without any type of defenses in place, he could be destroyed within minutes; Raiders had the ability to locate new dungeons as they were getting close to breaking out of the ground, and it was entirely possible there was a group nearby that would invade immediately.

“Name’s Jeremy Miller, but I can’t talk – need to dig!  I told the other tiny flying thing that I can’t stay – I need to get out!”

The Core seemed to have some sort of irrational fear towards being underground, which, if she heard him—Jeremy—correctly, then the DPRC obviously knew this; his reference to the “other tiny flying thing” was likely another Fairy that had come to be his Assistant probably as he was being formed into his Core. That Council Member sent me here deliberately knowing or at least hoping I would fail.  Well, I’ll just have to see what I can do to prove her wrong.

“Jeremy,” she said as calmly as she could while using the Core’s strange name for the first time out loud, “you need to stop tunneling so close to the surface as it will be dangerous for you.  You can do all of this from the comfort of your Core Room, and you’ll be better protected from any Raiders—”

“NO!  I’m so close that I can almost feel it.  The other flying creature mentioned something about Raiders, but I don’t really follow football.  Let me ooooout!” Jeremy interrupted Tacca, his coherent thoughts interspersed with screaming to be let out.  As crazy as it sounded, it also felt like he was breathing heavily in between screams – despite not having any lungs.  “Ever since I was trapped in an elevator when I was five, I can’t stand being in enclosed spaces – help meeeeee!  Get me out of here!  Aaaaahhhhh!”

Tacca had no idea what an elevator was, but it had clearly traumatized Jeremy as a child.  She had been taught that the consciousnesses of all of