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

explore outside.  “There are some really new Raiders out here that are just about to come inside; I don’t think anyone else knows about your dungeon based on what they said, though.”

“I already—I mean, thank you for letting me know.  I’m prepared for them at least – and I’m really excited!  My first Raider invasion!” she sent back to him as he rushed in ahead of the two Hill Dwarves.  Her response was strange; it sort of sounded like she already knew what they had said before Shale told her – which he was told was impossible.  The souls inhabiting Dungeon Cores weren’t from this world and couldn’t understand the languages that everyone spoke; it was only after years of hearing it spoken that they began to learn it themselves.  The only reason Assistants and Cores could easily communicate was because they were Bonded, otherwise it would be extremely hard to teach the Dungeon Core what it needed to know to survive and succeed.

Just another strange thing to add to the list…

 

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Sterge led the way into the dark tunnel in the side of the mountain, with Gwenda following close behind.  He took a couple steps inside before he realized he should probably be armed – just in case – so he pulled the shortsword from his waist and held it with both hands in front of him.  It was theoretically light enough that he could hold it in just one hand, but he still wasn’t very confident in his skill with the blade and it felt better and more stable to have both hands on it.  I can’t even imagine how some Raiders wield a longsword with one hand; I have a feeling that I would be knocking it into everything but an enemy.  Of course, his small stature as a Hill Dwarf meant that the sword he was wielding was practically a longsword to him, so that might be why it felt better with both hands.

The darkness fortunately didn’t last long, because the tunnel ended after about a dozen feet when it opened into a brightly lit room.  At first, Sterge couldn’t understand what he was seeing, because it almost looked like he had stepped outside again; two trees flanked the entrance to the room, their roots in the soil that seemed to spread throughout the entire space.  The length of the room was much longer than the width, which he immediately saw when he walked a few steps inside and looked off to his left; ferns and shrub bushes lined what appeared to be some sort of pathway leading to another tunnel at least a 100 feet down the room.

This soil looks really rich; I wonder…how well our crops would grow in this kind of stuff?

Two more trees similar to the ones flanking the entrance stood tall next to the tunnel leading farther inside, which seemed inviting more than the ominousness he expected of a dungeon.  If it was indeed a dungeon, of course; the colorful wildflowers dotting the pathway onwards was making the whole thing seem surreal.  “A-are you sure this is a dungeon?  This isn’t at all what I was expecting,” he asked, and he could hear a bit of the awe and confusion he felt making him stutter.

“I…think so?  I honestly don’t know, but where else could you find a forest inside a mountain?  If it wasn’t for the stone walls that surround the room, I could almost picture this place being outside – it even smells fresh and full of nature,” Gwenda said, walking past him as she took it all in.  The size of the ferns and bushes spaced throughout the room made it a little difficult to see far because of their height; it was only the flower-strewn pathway that gradually wound towards the end of the room that allowed him to see the trees in the distance.

Movement out of the corner of Sterge’s eye made him stiffen up in surprise, and he quickly turned to see a small four-legged beast emerging from the roots of the entrance trees and practically launch itself at him in a single bound.  He brought his sword up just barely in time to block the root-brown-colored animal, though instead of it being skewered on the point of his rusty weapon, all that happened was it got knocked aside to his left.  The fur on what looked like some sort of strange fox was tough and he could see that he had thoroughly scratched it, but he hadn’t done any serious damage.

As he recovered from his surprise and turned toward the brown fox as it landed, Sterge heard Gwenda cry out from behind him.  He whipped his head around to see his best friend on the ground, another one of the strange fox-like beasts on her chest and looking ready to bite or scratch her.  His protective instincts kicked in and he whipped his sword around as he turned, smacking the four-legged creature in the side with the flat of the blade – as if he was holding a big stick instead of a relatively sharp deadly weapon.

The impact was powerful enough to launch the fox away, at least, where it collided with the stone wall and slid down to the dirt floor.  Sterge wasn’t even sure he had hurt it, but the beast got up slowly from where it fell, wobbling a little in the process, so he knew he had at least done something to it.  He readied his sword again as it ran towards him…and something unexpectedly hit him from behind hard enough that he stumbled forward and tripped over a wildflower.

Luckily, he instinctively held his sword out above his head as he fell so he didn’t impale himself; he had wielded plenty of sharp farming implements over the last few years to know how a simple accident like tripping could end up having serious complications unless you