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

Subsequent rooms fared no better against the infiltrators, no matter what stood in their way.  Since most of her traps were Enchantment-based, with clear access to Disarm them, they basically did her no good; her creatures were then forced to take on the role of the sole defense, which they weren’t capable of doing against such adept opponents.  As they got closer to the Boss Room, however, the Level difference between the two groups started to shrink, which meant that her creatures were finally able to do significant damage.

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This is one of the strangest dungeons I’ve ever seen.

Marvus nimbly dodged a vicious swipe from what appeared to be a green-striped tiger as it emerged from behind a fern, hoping to catch him unawares.  Unfortunately for the monster, the Plunderer had seen it crouched behind the plant, so he wasn’t surprised when it attacked; it took a lot more than that to surprise him, and the monsters within this dungeon were comparatively weak.  As he slashed with his knife at the large cat, which came up to his chest in terms of height, scoring a direct hit on its jugular, he quickly found out that things weren’t quite so one-sided anymore.

His attack only injured the beast; he didn’t kill it like he expected.  It was severely wounded, yes, but far from dead.

It was unexpected, to say the least, which was probably why he failed to avoid another swipe by a huge tiger paw.  Marvus was hit so hard that he was flung sideways, landing in a sprawl of limbs; he was in such shock that it took him a second to gather his wits – which was when an abrupt shot of pain careened into him.  Looking down, he saw that his leather chestpiece had been shredded, and there were deep furrows raked across his side, bleeding profusely.

Luckily, before the tiger could take advantage of his fallen state, two of the Cohort jumped in and finished off the beast.  Taking a Minor Healing Potion from his bottomless bag, he popped the cork and took a swig, thankful that his injury didn’t seem too serious, mainly just a flesh wound.  A deep flesh wound, but he didn’t think there were any broken bones or internal damage.

“You alright, boss?” Gerthin asked, extending his hand to help Marvus back up.  The Cohort leader ignored it, instead getting to his feet on his own – he didn’t need anyone thinking he needed help, after all.

“Perfectly fine.  We all clear?”

His side was still a little painful, but the wounds had closed up and stopped bleeding.  He realized that he really should use another Potion, but he also figured he could wait until he wouldn’t seem weak to the others.  Marvus had learned that half of the secret of leading a crew of the Cohort successfully was showing strength, never letting those you led see you struggle.  Everyone got hurt every once in a while, but as long as you didn’t let it seem worse than it was, your subordinates would think you were unbeatable.

The other half of the secret was understanding the motivations of the crew.  In this case, it was fairly easy to understand what motivated the Cohort: Greed, plain and simple.

“It’s clear, but we lost Yates.  One of them tigers practically tore his head off his shoulders.”

On the one hand, another death meant that there was more wealth for each of them when they found their payload; on the other, there were fewer hands to fight against the increasingly difficult rooms of the dungeon.  That, and there would be fewer people to do any mining – a chore that always went better when there were more to do it.

“Grab whatever valuables he had on him and then move on; I can feel that we are getting closer.  It shouldn’t be long now.”

It had already been a profitable trip to this dungeon, despite the Potions they were forced to consume.  His Valuation Sense had sniffed out a hidden treasure chest, secreted behind a wall in the last room; it hadn’t been hard to find once he knew where to look, as it was simply behind an outcropping of stone on the eastern wall, but if he didn’t Sense that it was there, they would’ve missed it.  It had contained a Minor Physical Resistance Enchantment Scroll, which usually sold for a gold or two, as well as a handful of silver coins; even split 18 ways – 17 now – each person had already made a small profit, especially with all of the loot from killing so many creatures.

But they weren’t here for a small profit – they were here for a huge profit.  A profit of which was suddenly on the horizon, Marvus realized, because his Valuation Sense suddenly went wild.  Either they had progressed far enough to get a better read on what they were after, or…that’s it!  Looking at his Raider Status, he saw that his ability had increased to Level 30, breaking through to the next threshold; from what he had learned from others in the Cohort, at this Level, his Sense could now detect valuable materials that weren’t finished products.  He wasn’t sure what it was, quite yet, but he knew there was a lot of something down below – and it was relatively close.

Excitement rushed through Marvus as he followed the others to the next room, which took him back a little.  It was a large space, at least 100 feet wide and long, and it had a…castle?...along what he considered was the southern wall.  It wasn’t really a castle, more of the front wall of a castle, with ramparts up above complete with merlons, a portal leading inwards down below – and defenders.  A stone pathway led up to the castle façade, with perfectly trimmed green grass to either side of it, along with a small tree