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

to create something like that.  In their smaller forms – such as the one settled on the ground like a pool of mucky water – they could eat away at metal, cloth, and flesh effectively, though at a much slower rate.

An Ooze wasn’t the worst choice for a new Core’s initial creature – she’d have to place the immobile non-poisonous demi-Fungi at the top of the “Worst” list – but it was definitely going to be a challenge to Assist her Core in creating something that would be effective in killing Raiders.  With the extra expense of Dungeon Force in having darkened rooms, as well as the Oozes as a creature to work with, Tacca had her work cut out for her.

She reasoned that the Dungeon Core had moved its Core Room further down the dungeon, which was the smartest thing she’d seen so far.  Protecting the vulnerable Core by placing deadly rooms with traps and creatures was the whole point of having a dungeon, after all, which made it all that much more important to make it as hard to get to it as possible.

Before she moved away from where she appeared, Tacca activated her Invisibility, which – combined with her Repellant Shield – consumed all of the Fairy Mana that was regenerating every minute; as she increased in Rank Stages, she knew her maximum Fairy Mana and regeneration rate would also improve, so it would hopefully only be temporary.  As she felt the Ability flow over her body, making her invisible to the traps that could potentially activate as she passed by, she felt much safer exploring and looking for the Dungeon Core.  She could still be hurt if she wasn’t careful, but now no creatures should automatically attack, and traps would essentially ignore her.

 The Dungeon Assistant Preparatory School – for all of its faults when it came to dealing with her – was actually a great place to learn everything there could be taught about dungeons.  One particularly useful training she and the other students had participated in was navigating through a mock dungeon; the dangers were illusionary and made from Fairy Mana, of course, but it also allowed them to practice traveling through a potentially unsafe dungeon system.  There were multiple tidbits of knowledge that went along with that exploration, but one that came in handy in the present circumstances was being able to tell which way to go when trying to find the end of the dungeon.

Looking for the signs along the walls, as well as the tunnels linked to the two different entrances to the small room she was in, she could immediately tell the direction the Core had constructed the dungeon by a few subtle details.  Confident in her assertion, she followed the tunnel that led deeper down into the unknown Core’s Ooze dungeon.

She saw a few more Oozes in the rooms she passed through, but they weren’t varied; nor were the rooms, for that matter – they appeared to be constructed in almost exactly the same way, with dark ambient illumination and strange angles cut into the walls of the similarly sized spaces.  After passing through six rooms, she began to question her assumption that she knew the way down further, despite the obvious downward slope to the tunnels.  Where is that Core?

Finally, after counting past ten rooms, she arrived at the eleventh and emerged into a much larger space; it was at least five times the size of the others and it had relatively smooth stone walls, a tall ceiling, and multiple places where she could just imagine traps being placed to effectively protect a Dungeon Core.  Now this is what I call a Core Room.

Except…there was no Core.

What is going on here?  Tacca flew up close to the walls, using her better-than-average Fairy vision to search for any hidden crevices, tunnels, or secret compartments where a potentially paranoid Dungeon Core might be hiding, but after nearly a half-hour of searching she found absolutely nothing. To put it shortly, she was thoroughly confused; to her, this was obviously the final room in the dungeon and should theoretically be the Core Room, but it was missing the Core.

The only other explanation she could think of was that this was the original Core Room and that – for some inexplicable reason – the Core had gone up instead of down, where it was safer.  As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she immediately turned towards the exit tunnel and shot back up through the rooms she had passed on the way there, not even bothering to be cautious anymore about potential traps since she was invisible.  Tacca quickly passed the room she arrived in and kept going, searching for the Core; she tore through an additional 5 small identical rooms before she finally saw a glowing light coming from ahead.

Slowing down, she emerged into another familiar room, only to see the softly glowing Dungeon Core floating in the middle of the room, surrounded on all sides by tiny Oozes that were frantically undulating around in strange patterns along the floor.  On the far side of the small room, the dirt and rock was being eaten away as a new tunnel was being constructed as she watched.

Tacca dropped her invisibility so that the Dungeon Core could see her, though she kept her Repellant Shield on so that she wouldn’t inadvertently get attacked by the dozen Oozes below her.  “What are you doing?!” she practically screamed out in shock. This was such anti-typical behavior for a Dungeon Core – or so she had been taught – that she barely knew how to react.

She somehow felt the Core’s attention focus on her, and she shivered at the intense sensation as an overwhelming feeling of dread and fear fell over her mind.  It couldn’t directly communicate with her using any type of understandable language unless they were bonded, but it