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

A devastating attack, to be sure, though it apparently took almost everything out of Marvus, as he collapsed to his knees.  The others filed in behind him to help kill the rest of the Wolves and Hyenas, which they immediately fell upon, their greed-lust giving them the determination to kill everything with abandon.  The sheer destruction they caused among her creatures was astounding, but their sudden lack of self-preservation and defense led to horrendous wounds that they fought through.  By some happenstance, they also managed to completely avoid the traps Tacca had placed on the floor; in short, they were taking advantage of the “good luck” that seemed to occur for Raiders in her dungeon.

What none of them seemed to recognize, however, was that the Gnoll Archmage stood in the center of the room, completely unscathed by the skill Marvus had used earlier, as a magical barrier had prevented anything from making an impact.  As the 5 Thieves with Marvus started to slaughter the less-powerful creatures, the Gnoll raised its staff and pointed at one of the Raiders.  A small ball of roiling flames appeared at the staff’s tip, before growing to 10 times its original size in no more than 2 seconds – and then it shot across the room with tremendous speed, slamming into the Thief and sending him flying into the wall, flames burning his clothes and his skin.

His screams were drowned out by the rest of the battle going on, and no one but Marvus saw it happen.  Still on his knees, but slowly recovering by the second, Marvus shouted, “Gerthin!  Take out that thing in the middle!”

The Assassin turned from killing Wolves to the middle of the room, and he disappeared from Tacca’s view.  A few seconds later, however, he suddenly appeared – right in the middle of one of her traps.  The surprised look on his face would’ve been comical if his body hadn’t suddenly expanded and then imploded, bursting apart as he collapsed in on himself.

Marvus’ reaction was priceless, though.  He had his mouth open wide in shock as he got to his feet, looked around the room even as another fireball slammed into another one of his group, while a third Raider was suddenly overwhelmed by the remaining Wolves and Hyenas.  At that point, the only ones left alive were Marvus and Derf, the trap specialist, and another fireball by the hooded figure took care of the latter.

Marvus, outnumbered and alone, stumbled as he turned to run, a fireball from the Archmage just missing him as it slammed into the tunnel wall he ducked around.  Howls and echoing laughs from the 20-odd Wolves and Hyenas precipitated the chase as they went after him, but the Raider leader had finally got his strength and speed back, racing far ahead of the creatures chasing him.

“You’re just going to let him get away?” Shale asked.

No, of course not.  Watch.

Marvus was halfway down the defensive room before he hit the first trap, a Disorientation Enchantment trap, which had reset itself after it had been Disarmed an hour and a half ago.  At a run, the disorientation hit the Raider hard, and he stumbled and fell, right into a strong Fear Enchantment trap, which caused him to start screaming.  Scared out of his wits and basically blind from his disorientation, he got up and started running, triggering one of the Poison traps on the ceiling.  Stumbling through a cloud of dangerous poison, he started coughing up blood immediately, even as he accidentally stepped on another trap activation – this time one of the wall-mounted projectile traps.

Dozens of small needles shot out of the wall, piercing through his leather armor and impaling themselves an inch or two into the Raider’s flesh.  The sudden attack disoriented Marvus even further, which caused him to turn around and flee in the other direction – right into the approaching group of Tacca’s creatures.  Poisoned and bleeding from multiple wounds, he was knocked down as one of her Forest Wolves jumped and slammed into him. Even though he was on the ground, unable to breathe from the blood choking his throat, the Raider still had enough presence of mind to draw his long dagger and stab blindly outward, killing one of the Hyenas trying to get to him…but that was his last victory.

Two different Wolves clamped down on his arm and hand, causing him to drop his weapon.  Marvus tried to extricate his limb, but it was no use; the blood loss was already weakening him, and after a few tugs that proved ineffective, he collapsed back in defeat.  Tacca turned away as he was literally ripped apart, the savagery of her creatures a bit much, even if it was against the one that had wronged her.

Well now.  That was quite the ordeal. 

“I’d say,” Shale responded, also ignoring what was happening to Marvus as he flew to meet up with Tacca’s Core.  “What are your plans now?”

I’m not exactly sure.  After I clean up and reset everything, I’m going to start replacing some of these traps with more-powerful ones, because these ones just didn’t cut it.  After that, well, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing some action soon.

“How so?  Those 2 Hill Dwarves are supposed to be concentrating on getting the word out about the threats up north, remember?”  Shale had better information than almost anyone about what was going on with the invaders destroying Cores and killing Raiders, so he was particularly invested in what the two Bonded Raiders were doing.

True, but it probably won’t be for long.  Word will certainly get out about my dungeon being open again.

“From whom?  Oh.”

The Thief that Marvus had backhanded, stolen from, and then sent away in disgrace had managed to find one of her exits hours ago, and he had left her dungeon not long after.  She wouldn’t be surprised if he