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

 Here and there – especially in the shade of various rocks – the snow that had completely blanketed the mountain could still be seen despite the rising heat of the day, and in spots the dirt was a bit muddy where more snow had melted recently.  For the most part, though, three weeks after the winter storm ended they had seen at least 95% of the snow melt away, otherwise they wouldn’t have attempted to climb so far up.  They weren’t afraid of a little work – in which the climb certainly was – but trying to make their way through snow at the same time would’ve been crazy and unnecessary.

“According to that Elf’s really well-drawn maps, the dungeon should be right around…here,” Gwenda finally said after having looked at the papers they had “acquired” for the last few minutes.  Sterge still felt a little guilty about taking them, but he realized they wouldn’t do much good if they just let the Clan have them; this way, they could get some sort of reward for “finding” the dungeon.  They had agreed that whatever they did earn would be split between the entire village, because all of them would probably suffer when hordes of Raiders arrived.

Sterge looked around and didn’t see the entrance of any dungeon, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it would look like – having never seen one before.  Regardless, it appeared as though nothing was there, so they might as well leave before it got too hot and check back later—

“There it is!” Gwenda shouted in excitement, rushing past him.  Sterge couldn’t see what she was talking about, until he took a few more steps forward and noticed a tunnel cleverly cut into the side of the nearest hillside at the base of one of the mountains.  From his previous position, it blended so perfectly with the rest of the stone-covered hillside that he had completely dismissed it.

“Yep – good eye!  Ok, now that we’ve confirmed that it’s open, let’s head back and—”

“Wait!  Um…we should probably go inside and check that it’s an actual dungeon, and not just a hole in the side of a hill leading to an empty cave or something,” Gwenda said hurriedly, with a serious expression on her face.

Sterge knew that he wasn’t the smartest Hill Dwarf around, but he wasn’t stupid.  “You’ve been planning this ever since you heard about a dungeon here, haven’t you?  That’s why you made me wear this ridiculous armor, isn’t it?”

She had the decency to look a little sheepish as she nodded.  “Yes, I thought it might help if we earned a little bit of coinage before we reported this to the Clan for the finder’s fee.”

“Why?  That Elf was talking like the reward would be super good, so we shouldn’t need to worry about that.”

She put her hands on her hips and looked sternly at him.  “Yes, but how long do you think it’ll take to get that reward?  Do you remember the year and a half it took for all of us at the village to get permission to lease the land we’re farming on right now?  That was just for a simple land deal; I can’t imagine how long it would take for something this big to be resolved.  Besides, maybe we’ll make enough to get you that wheeled plow in Heftington you’ve had your eye on.”

She had a point – at least as far as the wheeled plow in Heftington went.  All that other stuff about the finder’s fee taking a long time to get to them could be correct as well, but he wasn’t really sure.  All he knew was that Gwenda looked determined to go into the dungeon, and there wasn’t much that could dissuade her when she had her mind set on something; Sterge wasn’t about to let her go inside on her own, so that meant he had to go in to protect her.

Sighing, he gave in.  “Ok, let’s go in a little ways, but if it looks too dangerous we’re turning back.  We have no idea what’s in there, nor have either of us been in a dungeon before; there could be fire-breathing dragons that could roast us both in a second for all we know.”

“I doubt that, but you’re right; we can take it easy and then leave if it gets to be too much for us,” she agreed…a little too quickly.  He didn’t bother to beleaguer the point, though, so he led the way up the slight rise towards the dungeon entrance.  At least, he hoped it was the dungeon entrance; he’d feel silly if he walked into a normal cave and found a hibernating bear or something inside.

Well…not silly, actually – more like dead, but it was a risk he was willing to take to keep Gwenda safe.

Chapter 21

Finally!  Shale flew above the entrance of Tamara’s dungeon, reveling in the early morning sunlight on his skin.  He’d been taking to exploring a little of the surrounding land ever since the temperature warmed up enough that his wings didn’t fall off.  It was quite strange how the weather went from full-on blizzard with frigid temperatures to “normal”, pleasant temperatures; he remembered hearing something about how the mountain ranges to the north and south of the main continent on Gairth had some funky weather, but it hadn’t really interested him at the time.

He never thought he’d say it, but he wished he had paid a little better attention at DAPS.

The amount of knowledge that Tamara seemed to have was insane, especially since it had originally come from Tacca.  That the now-deceased Fairy had managed to convey so much information in such a short amount of time was nothing less than astonishing to Shale; he was beginning to wonder even more how the Deliverer had managed to get herself killed with how much she apparently knew.  Was it really