The Dungeon Fairy: Three Lives: A Dungeon Core Escapade (The Hapless Dungeon Fairy Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (the false prince TXT) 📕

into them, was a dirt floor that encompassed at least 200 feet on each side of a huge square.  Now that he could see further, he could see that there were multiple tunnels underneath each of the multi-colored sections, though their purpose was still a mystery.

Anton and his group were the only ones that had ventured around the column, and Sterge watched the 5 of them cautiously walk out into the center of the cleared dirt space.  As soon as they passed through the center, the Hill Dwarf was startled when he suddenly felt a sudden thump underneath the large stone section he was standing on, accompanied by the sound of stone striking stone.

He wasn’t the only one that heard it, as Anton and the others with him turned towards the green section and brought their weapons to bear, looking at a spot underneath where Sterge and his group were standing.  From below, 10 shapes shot out onto the dirt, heading straight for those waiting for them, and the Hill Dwarf immediately recognized them as foxes, very similar to the ones he’d first seen when entering the dungeon for the first time.

This is some sort of trap!  An ambush!

Anton thought so as well, stepping out in front of the others as they prepared to defend themselves.  An arrow shot from one of his group found its target and instantly killed one of the foxes, followed quickly by another, and another, killing 3 of the monsters before they could even reach the group.  A spell from their Caster took out two more, meaning that more than half of them were dead before they had even gotten within 50 feet of their target.

A fourth arrow just barely missed a fox, but a second spell – which appeared to be a jet of flame that shot across the distance – burned up the sixth fox in mid-stride.  The remaining four engaged Anton as he shouted, banging on his shield, and they jumped toward him with intent to harm in their strike.  Another of Anton’s party intercepted one of the foxes in its airborne trajectory, slicing it in half with an axe, while the three remaining bounced off Anton’s shield and armor without inflicting any kind of damage.  In fact, one of them appeared to have hurt itself as it impacted the shield, as it landed awkwardly, its neck broken.

A few seconds and some simple slices by Anton and the group member wielding the axe was all it took to finish them off.  The corpses of the foxes all disappeared within moments, leaving behind some copper coins that even Sterge could see from up where he was.

Realization finally occurred to him as everyone stood in hushed silence at what they had just witnessed.  “This…this is an arena, isn’t it?” he said unconsciously loud, awe in his voice.

“That’s what I was thinking, but I couldn’t be sure until I saw it,” Gwenda replied just as loudly, so that other people could hear.  “And these different-colored sections are the stands where everyone can watch.  This is for our entertainment.”

Suddenly, the message the dungeon had written made sense.  Shouting to be heard on the arena floor, he said, “Ask for something a little harder!”  Sterge was positive that the foxes that had come out had been the “least challenging”, and that they could request something more difficult.

There was a slight hesitation from Anton, before he yelled, “Give us something a little harder!”

There was another sound of stone striking stone, and from beneath the yellow stands Sterge could see a few Gnolls and what appeared to be hyenas emerging from a slide, rushing towards the group in the middle.  The Gnolls had on basic leather armor and were wielding swords, and the hyenas were laughing as they ran, but overall they didn’t appear to be too strong for Anton and his group.

An arena, indeed.

Chapter 24

The arena idea Tacca had designed had been taken with extreme caution by the Raiders at first, but that soon changed to excitement.  As they began to explore what it was all about in the first few hours, with different groups cautiously trying it out with some of her weaker or lower-Level creatures, the Dungeon Core reviewed everything to make sure it would all run smoothly, as it would require her attention more than anything else in her dungeon had, if only so that she could respond to their requests of less or more challenges.

The message she had left for her two Bonded Hill Dwarves had been a bit obtuse, because she didn’t want to spoil the surprise.  Nevertheless, they seemed to understand it well enough, or at least well enough that they weren’t entirely shocked about what they had walked into at the end of the tunnel.

The night before, as soon as everything was settled in the Hall and the town outside, the snow had rushed in to fall in earnest.  It wasn’t particularly thick at first, but she knew that within a few days it would be so deep that no one could move, or at least move easily.  She wasn’t sure if it would be deep enough where the Hall was located to cover the entrance entirely, especially as it was at the bottom of the mountain range instead of where her own dungeon entrance was situated.  It didn’t really matter, though, because even if it were only a few feet, the cold itself could kill those unprepared for it, or if they stayed out in it for more than a few minutes.

Therefore, once she was sure everything was going well, for the first time ever, Tacca closed her dungeon down.  Sealing up both her original and her secondary entrance with stone, she was relieved to have them inaccessible until she opened them up again.  The one and only reason she did that at all was because she didn’t want to have to worry