The Dungeon Fairy: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (read novel full .txt) 📕

Chapter 18

Sterge hurried to steady the plow being pulled behind the oxen before it could fall over into the dirt, wishing for the hundredth time that they could afford a new one he’d seen in town that had wheels.  The one they were forced to use had to be constantly controlled by the hardy Hill Dwarf unless he wanted it to fall over, which was normally fine – but Gussie, their oxen, tended to speed up her plodding pace just when his attention wandered.  It was almost as if the beast knew when he let his hands grow slack on the handles of the plow, so it was annoying to say the least.

He grunted at Gwenda as she passed by in the other row he had just plowed, quickly planting and covering the wheat seeds they were going to try to grow before the cold weather poured out of the Wentrylock Mountains nearby.  She smiled tiredly at him, which made sense because they had both been working nearly non-stop all day to get everything done; another hour or so should see them finished, at least.

Luckily, the particular wheat crop they were planting only took a week to grow – which was actually rather slow compared to some he’d heard about in Heftington, the town approximately 25 miles to the north.  The village that Sterge and Gwenda – along with 45 other rugged Hill Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, and even Elves – lived in was technically unnamed, unless you counted “The Village” as a name.  That was okay, though, because they didn’t need a fancy name to farm and raise livestock, which was their main profession and source of income.  We do a darn fine job of it, too.

They weren’t wealthy by any means, but they all got by in the southernmost village on the continent of Abenlure; even so far south, the weather was relatively temperate most of the time, though for nearly a solid month the frigid cold from the nearby mountains made working outside nearly impossible.  Fortunately, the – thankfully short – winter was the only real drawback from living that far south, and the regularity of the cold season’s arrival and departure every year meant that they could work around it easily enough.

Sterge hastily wiped the sweat from his brow as Gussie got to the end of the row, where the oxen automatically stopped right where she needed to without instruction. I swear she’s a lot smarter than we give her credit for.  As he looked up from his work, eyeing where he was going to start the next row, he caught sight of someone heading in his direction.  At first he thought it was Evandurel, one of the few Elves they had farming in “The Village”, but after a moment he realized that it was someone of the ridiculously tall, pointy-eared race he didn’t know.

He went to grab the simple – yet sharp – iron knife he kept at his waist…and quickly found that he had forgotten it in his cabin.  Again.  It was rare that they saw any sorts of threats so far down south, with local rabbits eating their crops being the main culprit, so it wasn’t often that he had to defend himself.  Sterge glanced around and saw Gwenda at the opposite end of the field, with plenty of space for her to run if something happened to him.  Of course, if this Elf striding purposefully towards him was a high-powered Raider, then it probably wouldn’t matter how far away she was; he’d heard that some of them could run as fast as one of the rabbits around The Village, or perhaps even faster.

Sterge didn’t interact with Raiders very often, though he knew many of their crops went to the small Raider Delving Clan outpost in Heftington; higher-Classed members of the Clan tended to eat a lot more than normal people, so there was always a market for the food they grew.  Despite not having much to do with Raiders, he knew to be inordinately deferential to them whenever he saw them, because they were so much more powerful than him – or anyone else in The Village, for that matter.

“Hello, good sir.  Can I help you find something?” he asked, as politely as he could.  The Elf looked up from something he was holding in his hands and his eyes locked onto Sterge immediately.  It occurred to the Hill Dwarf only after he spoke that the leather armor-clad and bow-wielding Raider wasn’t specifically heading towards him – Sterge just happened to be in his path.

“What village is this?  I don’t have it on my map,” the Elf asked in his race’s normal sing-song voice using Common Tradespeak, though his tone spoke with stern authority – and annoyance.

“Uh…we don’t actually have a name for our village.  It was only developed just over three years ago, and we didn’t really feel there was a need—”

“Whatever, I don’t really care about your backwoods village.  I just needed to know for my report to the Clan what the nearest habitation is to a new dungeon,” the snooty Elf said, before turning his attention to what was in his hands again.

As he began to walk off, Sterge couldn’t help but ask, “Dungeon?  There aren’t any dungeons around here; we’re too far south for any of them to pop up.  That’s why this land was literally dirt-cheap to lease from the crown, because there’s nothing of import around here.”

For a wonder, the Raider stopped and answered the Hill Dwarf, though he didn’t take his eyes off whatever he was fiddling with in his hands.  “Normally, you’d be right; I just happened to be in that town…Halflingtown or something strange like that…when my tracker caught the barest hint of a dungeon nearby – one that wasn’t already known.  Finding new dungeons is extremely