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

sign that she was pushing her Core too far as a strange ache infused her entire being.  She pushed through the mounting pain to place another 15 traps to bring her total up to 1,000, and just as she finished a tiny crack appeared on her Core.  Fortunately, there was only about an hour to wait for her countdown to finish, and as soon as she acquired all of those Points she blacked out again.

It wasn’t for too long, though – at least according to Shale, who witnessed the entire thing happening and felt her unfiltered discomfort and pain through their Bond.  “What did you do?!  Are you alright?” he asked, genuinely worried for her when she could finally think again.  The increase in her Level managed to fix all but a tiny crack again, and the strain from having so many traps was thankfully a little less than it had been – but still really uncomfortable.

Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

You have reached Core Improvement Level: 5

You have reached Core Improvement Level: 6

Current CIP Countdown: 0/800 in 30 days

Core Improvement Points earned: 1000 (1000)

Special Characteristic Points earned: 50 (125)

Congratulations, Tacca GloomLily!

You have reached Assistant Rank: Novice

You have reached Assistant Stage: 5

Current Experience Countdown: 0/800 in 30 days

Maximum Fairy Mana: +50

Fairy Mana Regeneration: +2 per minute

Before she chose what she wanted to do with her Points she had earned, Tacca immediately absorbed all of her small Confusion Enchantment traps; as soon as they started disappearing, she started to feel worlds better than just a few minutes before.  I assume this means that I shouldn’t even attempt to do anything like that to get the 800 I need for the next Level.

Theoretically, there shouldn’t be any limit to how many traps she could place in her dungeon, unlike the creature Control Limit; this was made plainly clear by how many traps that her old Core Jeff had, which far exceeded how many Tacca just placed.  She momentarily thought it might be because she spent too much Dungeon Force constantly for too long, but when she considered it more, she knew that it felt completely different than when she used Force recklessly.  This felt more like she was overly full at first, and then overloaded with information in the next moment, and only when she added even more did she start to feel pain.  The fact that the pain lessened after her increase in Core Improvement Level meant that she’d probably be able to handle a larger quantity of traps in the future, but for now she had hit her limit.

“I’m sorry, Shale,” Tacca apologized for worrying her Assistant, before attempting to explain.  “I think I used too much Dungeon Force again when I was making my traps; don’t worry, though, I won’t be doing that again if I can help it.”

“Good, because you scared me there; I felt so much pain and agony sent to me through our Bond, and I was really worried for you,” he said, before fluttering over and tentatively touching her Core – as if his touch might cause more cracks to appear.  “Now that I know you’re safe-ish…did it work?”

She laughed, because she had been concentrating on getting rid of the uncomfortable strain so much that she had almost forgotten what it was for.  “Yes it did; I’m now Core Improvement Level 6!”  Tacca also noticed that she was also a Novice Stage 5 Dungeon Assistant, and was only 71 Experience away from becoming an Adept; she was bummed that she hadn’t been able to add that many more traps, but she knew that she was lucky that she didn’t cause any permanent damage with what she did do.  Fortunately, the 729 Experience that she earned had been banked, so when the next month passed by, she could easily add to that to achieve her next Rank.

Of course, acquiring enough CIPs for her next level was going to be difficult…unless the weather cleared up.  By some fortunate circumstance (whether it was due to her luck or not was still to be determined), moments after she finished Leveling up the blizzard that had been raging for nearly a month outside her dungeon…stopped.  For the moment, at least, she put her decisions regarding her Points on hold, in the hopes that she could finally see what the wider world held for her.

Chapter 20

Snow…snow…and some more snow – that’s what the wider world held for her.  As soon as she could look outside, all she could see for as far as her view could reach was white with piles of snow that had to be at least 30 to 40 feet deep. In the bright sunlight that appeared after the blizzard stopped, she could see what appeared to be massive walls surrounding her entrance, almost as if she was trapped within a frozen enclosure.  It took a few minutes of staring around at the snowy expanse to realize that she was actually looking at tall mountain tops nearby and in the distance.

I’m in the mountains, obviously.

There were only a couple of places where she thought she might be, and all of them would be okay – other than one, which she severely hoped wasn’t the case.  If she was far to the north or south of the main continent where most of the Raiders were concentrated, then she knew that the winter snows would only last a month or so, if she remembered correctly; and if that turned out to be where she was, then it didn’t make much sense because from what she knew there weren’t any dungeons in those two mountain ranges.  Still, if she was in one of them, then she knew that Raiders could reach her, though it might take a while before she was located.

Now, if she was somehow located on the other side of the world, where there was