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

Sterge would bundle up so much in thick clothing he could barely move or see and check up on the beasts, and sometimes he would visit Gwenda or one of the other villagers – though walking more than the 50 feet to see to the livestock pen was strenuous in the severe cold.

I hope that Elf got out of the mountains before winter hit.  There’s no way anyone – even for a powerful Raider – could survive that kind of weather for long.  Sterge and Gwenda hadn’t seen him leave the mountain range before they were forced to close up for the season, though it was entirely possible that he left from some other section of the foothills and they missed the Raider leave.  They hadn’t mentioned their encounter with the Elf to the other villagers, however, because they didn’t want to start a panic unnecessarily; Sterge still wasn’t convinced that there was a dungeon in the mountains where there hadn’t been any before, so they decided it wouldn’t do to worry their fellow farmers.

The month of extreme cold went by in relative boredom, with Sterge sleeping most of the time to pass the time.  He liked to think that he was catching up on all of the sleep he missed during the rest of the year when he had to get up early to plow, plant, or harvest crops – even if he knew it didn’t really work like that.  Still, it was a nice “vacation” from the constant hustle-and-bustle that usually consumed the villagers’ lives, even if it was boring most of the time.

The transition from frigid weather to their normal temperate climate took place over only one day; in the early morning, the cold would still be as intense as it was all month long and over the next 24 hours the temp would gradually increase until it was the same as it was the rest of the year.  The snow in the mountains – which had to be dozens of feet deep – quickly melted over the next few weeks and the massive amount of water runoff it created flowed down the massive Lockspeed river nearby, as well as hundreds of other tributaries; there was so much, in fact, that it helped to provide water to most of the southern continent all year long.  While most of the water shortly disappeared down the swollen river, there were multiple dams and diversions along the way that maintained a healthy supply for the millions of people inhabiting Abenlure.

Normally, everyone in the village waited for the temperature to completely return to normal before venturing far from their cabins and livestock enclosures – not much could be done while it was too cold to move around safely.  Unfortunately, as Sterge was doing his daily walk to the enclosure to check on the beasts there, something caught his eye as he looked over the empty expanse around his cabin, contemplating the work he would get started on the next day.  A formless hump of something was lying in the middle of the nearby field, which was unusual enough to catch his attention; he thought at first it was some sort of animal, but no animals were stupid enough to brave the weather around here, unless they were starving and about to die already.  Even the bunnies – who terrorized their crops the rest of the year – were absent as they were warm and safe far underground in their warrens, eating stored food stolen from the village’s plantings.

He was dressed warmly enough, and the temperature was slowly starting to rise enough that a few minutes outside wouldn’t hurt him, so Sterge went to investigate.  As soon as he got within 20 feet, though, he instantly recognized what the shapeless hump was: the Elven Raider that had gone up into the mountains nearly six weeks before.  He hesitated before he got any closer, but practicality won out over reluctance to touch what he assumed was a dead body.

His assumption, as unfortunate as it was, proved to be entirely correct.  Sterge managed to drag the corpse of the Elf – which was surprisingly light for one that was over twice his height – back to his cabin, before closing the door and warming up by the fire.  When the ambient temperature was back up to normal, he removed his warm clothing and went to look at exactly what he had managed to drag inside.

The Raider had been dead for quite a while it seemed.  Even though the frozen weather managed to preserve his corpse fairly well, Sterge had seen enough dead beasts over the years to tell that at least three weeks or more had passed since the Elf’s death, but it could’ve been even longer.  The Hill Dwarf could only assume that the Elf had gotten caught by the unexpected start of the snowstorm and had tried to flee before it got too bad; the swiftness of winter’s arrival was no joke, however, and he probably made it down out of the mountains and foothills, before finally succumbing to the cold in the middle of Sterge’s empty field, only a couple hundred feet from his warm cabin.  So close…and yet, so far. 

He hated to think ill of the dead, but he couldn’t help but consider that the Raider was foolish for ignoring his warning.  Sterge stared at the corpse that was slowly thawing in the middle of his cabin as he thought about what he should do; thinking about these things weren’t really his specialty, though – he was more of a doer, not a thinker.  Someone nearby, however, would know what to do…

“We’ll have to take him to Heftington tomorrow and deliver him to the Raider Delving Clan there.  It’ll probably mean borrowing Dasper’s wagon, but he won’t need it right now anyway.  Of course, our work will be a little delayed, but this is the right thing to do,” Gwenda