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

through his body, dulling the pain in his knee and other wounds to the point where he couldn’t even feel his extremities anymore.  What is this trap doing?!  Is it designed to paralyze us while we get eaten by the beasts inside this room?  He kept waiting for something to jump on him and start chewing on his head, which he couldn’t prevent in the least; every part of his body that had the slightest injury – including his face that he had earlier smashed with his own shield – was frozen into immobility.  In short, he was helpless…and he didn’t like the feeling.

Turning or lifting his head enough to see if Gwenda was alright was also impossible, so all the Hill Dwarf could do was wait.  Wait for what, he wasn’t sure, but he was rewarded an eternity later when the paralyzing numbness all over his body disappeared abruptly.  One moment he couldn’t move, and the next he had full control over his limbs.  Without hesitation, he pushed himself up with his arms and looked to see where his best friend had fallen when he dropped her earlier.  He saw her ahead on her back, her limbs sprawled awkwardly; he sighed in relief as he saw her chest rising up and down as she breathed, so at least she was still alive.

Sterge began to drag himself forward because he didn’t dare to put any more weight on his knee; as soon as he pulled himself with his arms and his good knee, he realized he didn’t feel any pain anywhere.  Not in his arms, not on his side, not on his face, and especially not in his knee; with a quick check, he turned on his good side and lifted his knee up carefully, bending it ever so slightly, but it felt…great.  Practically brand-new.  A few seconds of checking all of his other minor wounds showed that they were all healed up, with the few bite marks on his skin from those dog-wolf thingies in the previous room all sealed up; his armor still had punctures marring it, but as far as his skin went it was smooth and unbroken.

He saw all that in the time it took him to stand up and was amazed that his leg would support him again, before stumbling in shock to Gwenda’s side.  A quick rearrangement of her limbs and clothes showed that his best friend had been healed as well, though her robe was still spattered with her blood.  Her left wrist, which had been mangled horribly, as well as her leg, was perfectly put back together and unblemished – other than the dried blood caking the outer skin.  The only thing that was still wrong with her was her unconsciousness.

What is this place?  Sterge could hardly even believe that he and Gwenda had been healed; he wasn’t an expert on dungeons by any means, but he’d never heard of one actually helping Raiders before.  Again, it wasn’t as if he’d spent a lot of time learning about dungeons over the years, but he thought something like that would’ve been mentioned at some point.  Despite it being strange, he wasn’t going to complain.

He sat next to Gwenda for a few minutes, while he tried to decide what to do.  Should I carry her out now, or wait until she wakes up?  Will moving her even more right now hurt her?  His head was a little clearer now that he wasn’t overcome with pain, and he began to remember a little of what happened in the previous room; when his memories showed his Caster friend sending out what he thought was a half-dozen of those blue lights, he began to suspect what had happened.  Gwenda had told Sterge that it made her exhausted when she used the “magical force” inside of her body, so what he was likely seeing was a result of being extremely exhausted.

When he considered that was all it was, he almost picked her up and left right then…but he worried about what might meet him on the way out.  He wasn’t knowledgeable enough about dungeons to know if there might be more beasts that might attack on the way back, or if the traps might be reset; he hadn’t even thought about it before, but now that he had time to think, his previous thought to carry Gwenda out without knowing the dangers ahead of him was foolish.  Therefore, he decided to wait to see if she would wake up soon, then they could both go out together; and if she didn’t wake up in an hour or so, then he’d take the chance to bring her out himself.

With that decided, he prowled around the bright room full of wildflowers cautiously, looking for any types of threats he may have missed before.  He more than realized that he wasn’t sure what he could do even if he found a trap to prevent activating it, but he knew he could at least kill things with his sword if he saw them.  A quick loop around the small 20ft X 20ft room showed nothing but flowers, however, so he went back to waiting near Gwenda.  After 20 minutes of staring at her while she slept, his thoughts drifted towards the previous room and the uncontrollable fear that accompanied it; he didn’t really want to think about it, though, but thoughts of the room made him remember that there was probably some rewards still there.

It took him another few minutes of arguing with himself to decide to cautiously go back and see if it was still there; he didn’t want to leave Gwenda along for long, but he wasn’t planning on taking too long.  Besides, I need to see if anything has changed in there since we left the room; if everything is reset for some reason, then I’d rather know now than try to leave while carrying her.  It was a flimsy justification,