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

the greyish-green spell was so bright that Sandra couldn’t even look at it before it was released; as it left the Elf’s bow, however, the glow faded a bit and she could see massive vines expand out from the arrow, which fully enveloped the charging Behemoth.  Her construct crashed to the ground as it was tripped up and the vines began to tighten, making the Iron plates of the Behemoth start to screech in protest.  But even that didn’t actually kill her construct – it just immobilized it.

The man didn’t fall to his knees, but he did bend over like he wanted to throw up.  “I’m fine – let’s get going,” he said, following – slowly – after the others as they easily climbed the feebly struggling construct all wrapped up in nature’s rope.  Looking back at the previous hallway, Sandra could see Alanthia had recovered somewhat and got back up, though she didn’t rush forward.  By the time she caught up with the others, Clovera – the other woman in black-and-green robes – was just finishing up flinging a roiling green-and-black spell that rapidly aged the Iron metal of the Behemoth heading their way, until it rusted and fell apart.  Just as the others had been affected, so too was Clovera; she fell to her knees but ended up on her side as her strength momentarily gave out.  The others looked at her in concern, but she waved them on as well, stating that she’d be along in a moment.

The archer who hadn’t attacked yet led the way into the final section of the room where five behemoths awaited them.  Without pausing, the man who could control Water and Holy energy charged the arrow he pulled back on his bow with a spinning vortex of blue and white.  Sandra could see him shaking from the strain of putting so much energy into it, and he sighed in relief – and likely more than a bit of exhaustion – as he released the arrow into the closest construct.  As soon as it left his bow a massive glowing icicle essentially enveloped his arrow and it spun around so quickly it was a blur as it impacted the Behemoth like a giant drill.  Sandra’s construct rapidly had a hole five feet wide drilled through it, which made it collapse and disappear in less than a second afterward.

There were still four of the Behemoths, however, and they immediately attacked following the destruction of the first.  What followed was a chaotic maelstrom of spells being flung at the constructs from the three Elves, as they worked together to destroy them one after another.  Clovera joined in after a few seconds and added her flagging energy to the fight, which helped them destroy three more in rapid succession.  Sandra couldn’t help but notice that all of their subsequent spells were only a fraction of what they had initially started with, and by the time the third Behemoth went down they were all practically lying on the floor.

The very last construct, the final obstacle in between the Elves and Sandra’s Core bore down on the worn-out figures without pause.  The Elite group was able to struggle to their knees at least, where they threw everything they had at the Behemoth; a large icicle “arrow” impacted its side, breaking apart a small chunk of the Iron-plating but ultimately not doing fatal damage; another arrow landed on the stone floor in front of the construct, and two sharp tree trunks sprouted pointing in the direction of the charging Behemoth – but were destroyed when they were crushed under the weight of the metal monstrosity; bands of black and green twined together wrapped around the construct’s two “front” legs, which caused them to rapidly rust and lock up – but then the Behemoth just turned itself around and kept moving using its back legs as its new front legs, dragging the stiff and locked-up rusted legs behind it; finally, Alanthia pulled deep from her reserves of energy and blasted out another super-heated beam of Fire and Holy energy, which severed the front-facing flail-tail – but ultimately ended up doing nothing to stop the construct.

All of them fell down afterwards, too weak from the rapid expenditure of elemental energy to fight their impending doom.  They weren’t unconscious or half-asleep like Porthel still was in the other room – which may or may not be a bad thing for them; if Sandra was in their place, she wouldn’t want to see her death coming.  A few more minor spells shot out from the prone forms but ultimately did no damage to the Behemoth, as it was too durable for the minor uses of energy that would’ve likely killed something flesh-and-blood.

The metal nature of Sandra’s constructs was ultimately the Elves’ downfall; while they could’ve theoretically helped throughout the rest of the dungeon – freeing their leader up from having to expend all of his elemental energy to tear through her Dungeon Monsters – only the strongest (and therefore the most expensive energy-wise) of their spells could have any type of lasting effect or end up damaging them.  Sandra could well see how effective they would be working as a team in any other dungeon, but she still couldn’t help but think that there was still something lacking with their setup, nonetheless.

With them essentially out of elemental energy – or so depleted that most of their spells didn’t really do anything effective – the Elite Elves could only wait for their doom.  Sandra’s Behemoth dragged itself forward and raised its massively heavy Iron-plated foot above the prone form of Alanthia and stomped down—

“STOP!” a voice shouted from the exit leading to Sandra’s Home room.

And with that simple word, the foot of the Behemoth stopped an inch away from making an Elven pancake.

Chapter 46

Violet woke up with a jolt and sat up in her smelly-yet-comfortable bed and blinked away sleep.  She