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

an issue, it was secondary to the lack of effective shelter in the area.  The freezing temperatures were enough to kill even the hardiest, warmly clothed people if they stayed outside for more than a few minutes at a time.  Right now, there were thousands of Raiders and even non-Raiders sleeping outside in nothing more than tents – and sometimes not even that.

As soon as winter fully hit the area, all of the inns and residences they had built wouldn’t contain them all, even if they were shoved inside with no more than a space to lie down.  Being who the Raiders were, with tempers that were at best a little cranky to at worst thoroughly volatile, keeping them trapped and packed in a building for a month could only spell disaster.

Ideally, it would be best if everyone went back up north for the season, as it was horrible during the winter month, but not everyone comprehended the danger they were in; the winters were much more mild anywhere else on the continent of Abenlure, other than in the far north, which were similar in extremities as their current location.  Not only that, but many of them didn’t have another place they could stay, as most villages and towns couldn’t sustain their numbers, either.  As a result of all of those different factors, it was quite likely that they would stay, disbelieving of the danger, and be found dead one morning because the very blood inside of their bodies seemed to freeze from the extreme cold.

“Do you truly believe this dungeon will help?  It seems both far-fetched and risky, you know.”  William was against the plan from the start, if only because he was a lot more cautious than any of the others.  Speaking of the others, they followed Sterge and Gwenda up the mountain, having just arrived about a week ago from other parts of Abenlure.

I’m very glad they got our messages; it’s a shame that we hadn’t been able to do anything together until now, though.  Sterge glanced back at Evy, Mordecai, and William, smiling at them in reassurance.  “We can but try; I’m hoping that it can and will, because otherwise we’ll have a lot of needless deaths coming up.”

Their Healer, William – now a Battle Medic – just shrugged and didn’t say anything else.  All three of their returned group members had been a little quiet since they had arrived, but Sterge had learned from them why that was.

They had joined up with another pair of Raiders after they had left The Village, progressing steadily until they reached Raider Level 10, where they had obtained the ability to choose another Class.  William chose to become a Battle Medic, which had more healing spells that were designed for quicker casting, though lesser effectiveness.  He also mentioned that he had a spell that could be used offensively, which would allow him to poison the blood of anyone he touched with his hand – but that would likely only be used as a last resort, because if their healer was that close to a monster, then they were all in trouble.

Evy, their other Melee Class, was now a Sword Dancer, who used her inherent speed as an Elf to “dance” around her opponents and strike out with her sword with deadly efficiency.  Unfortunately, she lost some of the rugged physical defensiveness that a Melee Class usually had (which Sterge still possessed), so she wasn’t necessarily what could be classified as a “tank” anymore, but she still had some lightweight leather armor that provided some protection.

Mordecai the Gnome, their knife-throwing Scout Class, was now a Trickster.  Sterge still wasn’t exactly sure what this meant, but apparently it helped him with his knife-throwing skills, and he had some interesting abilities to stay hidden or “trick” the enemy into attacking someone other than himself.  Either way, it seemed to fit the Gnome quite well, and Sterge was fairly certain his skills would come in handy.

Unfortunately, after they had all acquired their new Classes (including their two new group members), their confidence grew entirely out of proportion to their Raider Level.  Emboldened by their new skills, they had attempted a dungeon that was way too hard for them, and their new partners had sadly lost their lives as a result.  Since then, they had been wandering around, beating themselves up over their failure, and were unable to find a new group without breaking themselves up to go alone.  They were just about on the verge of doing that, apparently, when the message Trevelyan wrote for Sterge and Gwenda reached them.

So, Sterge could empathize with Evy and the others, and he understood why they were quiet.  He had personally seen – from all of the Raiders in The Village – how the loss of a member could affect the morale of a group, and the fact that they hadn’t been inside of a dungeon since that day seemed to weigh on them quite a bit.

They eventually arrived at the gathering place in front of the two entrances, where there were a little more than 50 Raiders arranged in two main groups. One group of 25 (comprised of 5 parties of 5 Raiders each) was lined up in front of the easier dungeon entrance, which Sterge was the most familiar with, and they were visually the weaker of the two groups.  The second, which Sterge and the others were heading for, were better armed and armored, and there was an air of confidence about them that said that they had some experience with delving through dungeons.

“Hey there, Yervan.  We’re here for our delve we cleared with Jesper last night.”

Yervan, one of Jesper’s helpers in charge of regulating the groups going inside the dungeon, checked her list after Gwenda spoke to her and marked something off.  “That’s fine, you’ll be the next up.  The previous group went in about an hour ago, and