The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (the false prince TXT) 📕

him of anything of value; we don’t condone cowardice in the Cohort.”  The organization was a hard bunch, having done some more-than-questionable things in the past, but the few things they couldn’t handle were cowards or those that couldn’t follow orders.  As for Marvus, he couldn’t abide by others disparaging his abilities.

The others leapt to obey, stripping the protesting Thief of everything but his clothes.  “Get out of here, you fool.  You had better disappear, too, because if I see your face again, you’ll only live long enough to regret crossing me.”  Marvus kicked him hard in the side, before turning his back on the disgraced Cohort member. He heard Squab get up painfully and retreat, going back the way they came.

“Alright, lead on.”

Now knowing that there were Assassins in the maze, they took their time and watched out for any more threats.  They were quickly joined by the other team, who had run into a dead end a little earlier, and they made their way through the rest of the maze without taking any other casualties.  Of all the Raider Classes out there, they were the most prepared to counter an enemy Assassin-type, especially as the Gnolls were particularly weak when they didn’t get a surprise cheap-shot in.

The next room was a complete change from the last couple, as it was full of trees.  Since Squab wasn’t there anymore, Marvus couldn’t ask if this was how the other dungeon looked, but he had to assume that it was.  There didn’t seem to be any dangerous monsters inside the room, however, or at least none that they could see.  They did find some traps that were so obvious in their placement and easy to bypass that they barely even needed to Detect them, but they Disarmed them anyway.

“Hey, that is one fine-looking woma—ahh!” Marvus suddenly heard next to him, only to see Derf looking up into the trees, an arrow embedded in his shoulder.  A second one slammed into his other shoulder as he tried to avoid it, and then chaos figuratively rained down on the entire group.

“Take cover!  Counterattack!”  His words were unneeded, as everyone scattered and hid behind trees, blocking them from the line of fire from above.  Marvus caught a sight of their attackers, which seemed to be women with fiery red hair holding bows, which didn’t make sense to him; when he saw the bushy tail behind one of them, he knew what they were: Kitsune.

The Cohort leader dragged Derf away under a hail of arrows, taking one in his upper left arm as a reward.  He wasn’t giving up their trap specialist without a fight, however.  When he was back behind the safety of the nearest tree, Marvus pulled out some of his throwing knives and took aim around the trunk of the tree, tossing his projectile weapon straight for the throat of the Kitsune across from him.  His knife flew true, only to have the humanoid-fox creature dodge it at the last moment, barely nicking its cheek as it pulled away.

How?  It turned out that the archers in the trees were fast and quite agile, bounding from tree branch to tree branch in an effort to avoid more projectiles, as well as moving into a better position in which to fire onto those below.  They weren’t the only ones that were agile and at home upon the branches of a tree, however.

Half of the Cohort started to climb the trees, nimbly pulling themselves up, and started to chase the Kitsune around.  While they were occupied, the others of the Cohort continued to throw knives above themselves, hoping to strike the fleeing archers while they were distracted.  Just as Marvus managed to hit one in the knee, he felt a pain in his own knee, which nearly caused him to collapse.

Looking down, he stared right into the eyes of a brown fox, which blended into the roots of the tree he was hiding behind so well that he could barely distinguish between the two.  The dungeon monster was currently trying to bite through his leather pants, and he could feel a trickle of blood coming from where it had managed to penetrate the tough material.

“Get off!” he shouted, slamming his knee – fox and all – against the tree, where he heard the crunching and hollow *pop* of bones.  Fortunately, it wasn’t his own bones, but the body of the fox, which crumpled to the ground, disappearing moments later.

An impact from behind threw him forward and he slammed his head hard against the trunk of the tree.  When he recovered a moment later, he looked over his shoulder to see an arrow sticking out of the flesh of his upper back, though it didn’t penetrate far because of his natural resistance.  Yanking it out, he looked around him to see that those that had stayed on the ground were nursing wounds by even more foxes that had attacked, and a few fighting on with arrows stuck in them in various places.

Fortunately, all of those foxes appeared to have been slain, and the Kitsune in the trees were quickly being corralled together, where they couldn’t withstand the speed and deadliness of Raiders on a mission.  In less than a minute after he slammed the fox on his knee into the tree trunk, the last of the attackers were dead, allowing them to recover and move on.  Half of those that had accompanied Marvus needed to be healed using Potions, but there was a silver lining: 4 Minor Healing Potions dropped as loot from the Kitsune up in the trees.

If I had more of a legal bent to my life, I might consider this place good for farming these Potions and selling them.  As it is, I’ll think I’ll have to pass.

When everyone had recovered, he was pleased to see that no one else had died, though a few had been severely