The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (large ebook reader TXT) 📖

Sandra had no idea how to get past it, however, as her construct forces were a mere fraction of what it had been when they first entered.  She had 6 Pythons, 3 Apes, 5 Wolves, 4 Jaguars, 6 Blademasters, and exactly 250 Shears left from her original small army, and it didn’t look like she was getting any further with what she had.  She was just glad that the massive Dungeon Monster was so large that it wouldn’t fit out that access tunnel where the Ancient Saurians exited earlier, unless it was widened quite a bit beforehand.  Then again, if it had exited with them, it probably wouldn’t be there protecting the Core from her constructs.

She paused while she was trying to figure out what to do; fortunately, the hydra variant monster didn’t move from where it was, and it was too far away to attack her constructs.  It was always possible that she could try to draw it out from the tunnel, which would allow her to slip through some of her faster constructs to destroy the Core – but she doubted it would be deliberately drawn out like that.  Sandra had to find another way to—

The Elven Elites chose that moment to enter her dungeon, and most of her control over her dungeon was muted.  Luckily, the connection to her constructs facing the massive multi-headed snake monster was still operational and unchanged, but she left them for the moment with simple orders to attack anything that attacked them – and to not attack the hydra-thing.

“…hope this dungeon isn’t that fully-developed yet,” Sandra heard one of the Elf women say as the Elite group strolled unconcerned through her entrance.  She was dressed in unassuming-looking white-and-red robes that were cinched tight against her lithe form.  “The rush here drained me a little, and I would love some rest.”

“We always need rest, Alanthia,” the leader said back to her as he – naturally – took the lead.  “But with so few of us left, there’s just too much work to be done to rest for long.  The journey here was enough of a vacation for us compared to the fighting we usually have to do that you should be thankful for it.”

“You’re right – it was nice not having to watch my back every second of the day like the forests—hold up, Porthel.  I can feel the Nether energy coming from the room ahead; let me negate it and we can pass through,” the woman she assumed was named Alanthia told the leader, which Sandra now knew was called Porthel.

The white light of Holy energy illuminated her hands for a moment before shooting forward into the room, hovering in the center for a moment.  A few seconds later, it shot unerringly for the trap’s activation trigger near the entrance, smothering it in Holy energy.

“We’ve got about a minute before that negation spell wears off, so go do your thing, fearless leader,” Alanthia said, with a playful wave of her hand at Porthel’s face.

He returned a mock salute back at her and stepped inside the room with his beautifully crafted Titanium sword at the ready – where he was immediately descended on by the eight Martial Totems she had stationed on either side of the entranceway.  Sandra saw his entire form briefly illuminate with a pale-yellow Air elemental energy before he became almost a blur, moving so quickly that he avoided every attack and circled around to the farthest Totem away from him.  Another small expenditure of the brown energy of Earth surrounded his sword and he swung away at her construct, slicing easily through the iron shell of it like it was nothing.  In less than a second, one of her defending Dungeon Monsters was destroyed – and the others soon followed.

Sandra kept expecting her Nether strands to come out and grab ahold of him, but nothing happened.  Apparently, whatever spell the woman in white and red had cast using her Holy energy had deactivated the trap – at least temporarily.

How is she doing that?

“What?  Who is doing what?” Winxa asked, confused.  Sandra hadn’t even had a chance to pass on what was happening to her because it all happened so fast, and by the time she explained it to her, the Elite group of Elves was already heading to the next room.

“I told you that the Elves are masters at manipulating the elements in which they have access to, didn’t I?  Apparently, that also extends to being able to somehow sense other elements and be able to counter them.  I…think you might be in a little trouble here,” the Dungeon Fairy said sadly.

I couldn’t agree more.  The first room caused exactly zero damage to the Elves and they appeared to not even consider it much of a threat.  With the trap completely out of play, the Martial Totems had no chance against the leader; the Air energy he controlled sped him up so fast that they couldn’t touch him, and the Earth energy had strengthened and likely sharpened his sword to the point where it could cut through even Iron without any issues.

Porthel didn’t have any outward signs of what his elements were, but if she went by the colors that the others were wearing, they had every element covered – and then some.  In addition to Alanthia in white and red, the other woman was dressed identically but the robes were colored black and green.  The two other men were dressed in leathers and carried masterfully crafted bows; subtle accents of grey, blue, green, and white were easily seen on their leather armor, which meant – if she was correct in her assumption – they had every single element covered between them.

This wasn’t a specialized Nether-Core-destroying Elite group that Winxa had theorized might come to try and kill her.  No, this appeared to be a group that specialized in destroying dungeons…period.