Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (interesting books to read TXT) 📕

“Luckily, I don’t think we’re going to have to leave.”

What does he mean by that? she wondered, just as the ball of light melted into her own hand.  Seconds later, she didn’t have to wonder anymore.

As soon as the Orb was entirely absorbed into her body, there was a sudden rush of knowledge being pressed into her mind, and streams of confusing informational images zipped through with alarming speed.  She could only get glimpses of them, though she now somehow knew that she could pull them up later to peruse them at her leisure.  However, that wasn’t the only thing that was being forced into her mind, and it was the next thing that made her twitch and shake like she had seen her brother do only moments ago.

Memories of the day and evening before were shoved into her consciousness so fast she could barely process them.  She saw herself, Arcen, and Rosara venture into a mysterious cave that had appeared in the cliff face; she saw them discover the strange torches and glowing ceiling inside of that cave; and she saw the glowing red gemstone at the end of their journey, which Rosara touched, despite the inherent danger in doing so.  That was a Dungeon Core.  She wasn’t sure how she knew now what it was, but it seemed to come from her new knowledge – just like she now knew that the cave was indeed a dungeon.  I got that right, at least.

Jeska saw the explosion of nearly invisible force erupt from the Core, pushing her back down the hallway, and her weakness as she tried to get up to check on the others…but everything after that was blank.  She still didn’t exactly know how she had ended back at her house, in her bed, still in her dirty and stinky clothes from the day before, though.

That wasn’t all.  Vague recollections of her dreams last night came back to her as she felt the presence of a gigantic threat to not only Chardelia, but her entire island.  Her new knowledge indicated that it was a World Threat, something that she had heard mentioned before, but had always dismissed as something irrelevant.  They didn’t have these massive monsters attacking Sunfall Island, after all – it was something that the mainland had to deal with, but it didn’t really apply to her, her family, and their business dealings.

But now it felt like there was a real looming threat to her island, her city, and her family.  It wasn’t defined, per se, but she couldn’t help but feel that some sort of catastrophe was on the horizon if she didn’t step up to the challenge of being a Hero.  At least I’ll have my brother with me.

Suddenly, the knowledge flood stopped, and her head felt full – though not as pained as she thought it would feel.  She opened up her eyes after she realized she had closed them, only to find herself looking up at the ceiling of her room, the wooden beams and dried palm thatch staring back at her like they did when she couldn’t sleep at night.

Her brother’s face abruptly appeared in her vision, startling her for a moment.  “That was intense, wasn’t it?” he asked, an even bigger smile than before stretching across his face.

Jeska could only nod, still trying to filter through all of the new knowledge she had gained.  “You could’ve warned me, you jerk.”

“Ha, what’s the fun in that?” he laughed. “Besides, I don’t think I could’ve accurately portrayed all of that information without sounding crazy.”  As he offered his hand, she gladly took it as she sat up, feeling a bit disoriented from the whole experience.

Jeska begrudgingly agreed with him; if he had mentioned dungeons and Dungeon Cores and World Threats before she had absorbed the Orb, she would’ve thought he was nuts.  Now, though, she had experienced all of that information for herself, and it was hard to deny the truth of it.  She still wasn’t convinced about all of it, but enough of it made sense that she would take it as fact unless told otherwise.

“I guess we should probably tell Father.  Do you know if he’s here?” she abruptly asked, worried about how their remaining parent would take the news.  “I remember him being gone when we came back yesterday afternoon.”

“I think I heard something downstairs while you were spasming uncontrollably like a fish flopping around on the deck of a boat,” Arcen said nonchalantly as he turned away, though she could see the hint of a smile on his face.

Great.  To think, I’ll be spending even more time with him and his attempts at humor.  What have I gotten myself into?

Chapter 9

Clay took some time to explain to Dwight what he experienced when time had suddenly stood still, but even that didn’t seem to help either of them understand what had actually happened.

“Nothing like that should have happened in the first place,” the baby dragonling concluded.  “Touching or trying to damage a Dungeon Core should have elicited absolutely no reaction from either party.  What happened here is unprecedented, as far as I can tell.”

Yay!  More unusual stuff! he replied sarcastically.  Clay was really getting tired of all this stuff happening that shouldn’t be happening; he figured that if he was in this situation against all reason, the least the world could do was accommodate him with a “normal” development.

“That is true, and I have no explanation.  But now we have to consider what this means.”

I’m assuming you mean the fact that what happened here will likely be seen with some mistrust?  I would certainly understand some distrust; if a dungeon had popped up next to Renton and something like this had happened to people I knew, I would’ve