The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) Jonathan Brooks (books that read to you txt) 📖

Her people didn’t spend as much time on cosmetic appearance as they did on function, but the palace was definitely an exception.  Form played as much a role as function where the King, Queen, and ruling council ruled, as if all of Gnomekind reserved the right to show off their abilities somewhere. 

The palace spanned thousands of feet in every direction, and rumor had it that nearly 300 people worked or lived in the magnificent building.  From the times she had been there, Violet thought that this rumor had a ring of truth to it (though she hadn’t really been counting at the time).  Regardless, if anyone could assemble her people to work together with Sandra to prevent disaster, this had to be the place to find them. 

Flying over the top of the palace, she could see a few guards stationed along the parapets on the towers, next to the enchanted ballistae that were set up as precaution.  She vaguely heard yelling as she and the Roc were spotted – whether in alarm or curiosity, she could not discern.  Nothing shot at them, from what she could determine, at least; so she figured they were more curious than anything.  Behind the gorgeous building was an impressively large garden and open space, where she verbally directed the Roc to land, hoping that it wouldn’t crush anything important.

A minute later, after circling once, the Aerie Roc descended quickly, making Violet’s stomach feel like it wanted to eject out of her mouth, the sensation making her doubly glad she hadn’t consumed any food during their long journey.  At the last moment before they landed, Felbar shouted, “Don’t forget the War Machine!”

Oh, crud!  Seconds before they would likely have crashed down, as the Roc didn’t have any feet available for landing, she instructed the giant bird to release its weighty package.  Hearing a heavy *thud*, she looked behind her to see that the War Machine had hit the ground. It chewed up a large row of flowers as it dug a furrow in the soft dirt.  Her attention was pulled away as the Roc’s wings flapped quickly, slowing their speed and allowing the bird to land, awkward and jarring at the same time.

When everything finally stopped, Violet shook her head and let out a huge sigh of relief.  “Finally!  I can’t wait to get off this thing!”

Looking back, she saw Felbar unstrapping himself from the harness, before attempting to make his way over to her.  “Attempting” was the right word, too, because he was having trouble moving.  “Uh…I think I had the straps on too tight,” he said sheepishly.  “Hold on, the numbness is going away.”  Now that he mentioned it, she felt – or didn’t feel, as it were – the same sort of numbness in her lower half, strapped to the only thing keeping her on the Roc.

She started unstrapping herself, and the tingling as blood flowed through her lower extremities again was practically painful.  As it became unbearable at one point, she nearly screamed; fortunately, after a few minutes, the tingling stopped and she was able to move again, though still a little cautiously.  Joining Felbar as he made his way down the back of the Roc to the ground, it was only then that she heard the heavy *thump* of familiar-sounding footfalls.

As soon as she touched the ground, they were surrounded by a ring of a dozen War Machines made by the Enchanters of Gnomeria.  All of them had their weapons poised to strike the Roc, who was squatting down on the ground, unmoving, where Violet had instructed it to stay.

“NO!  It won’t harm you!” she shouted, which shocked the Warmasters piloting the War Machines enough that they stopped. 

“What?!  Who are you?”  From his surprised tone, Violet suspected that the royal guards protecting the palace hadn’t even seen her or Felbar on its back.

Felbar stepped forward confidently, not even worried about all of the deadly weapons now pointed in his direction.  “Vernel?  Is that your squeaky voice I hear?”

There was silence for a moment, before the same pilot opened up the hatch on the front of the War Machine.  “Felbar?  How in the name of the Creator did you get here?  And on the back of a…bird?”

“It is you, Vernel!” the grizzled Warmaster said abruptly, stepping even closer to the now-opened War Machine.  “Listen, we don’t have time to explain, we need to see the King—”

The others, who seemed to have been relaxing after understanding that there wasn’t as much danger as they had supposed, seemed to tense up as they shifted in place.  “You haven’t heard, have you?”  Vernel’s voice was harsh, though she could hear some sense of grief in there as well.

“Heard what?  We just came in from the wasteland—”

The front hatch on Vernel’s War Machine abruptly shut as he and the others stepped forward, threateningly.  Violet shrunk back and hid behind Felbar, not knowing what was going on. 

“You’re going to have to come with us.”

And that was the last “freedom” she had experienced since she had arrived.  Surrounded, confused, and with nowhere to go, she and Felbar were led away to the palace.  Before she got too far, however, she verbally instructed the Aerie Roc to lift off and stay near, though whether one of them would be able to call it back was a whole other problem; regardless, whether or not they even got the chance to call it back, she didn’t want it to be killed unnecessarily.

No one would respond to them as they questioned why they were being led away, nor about what was going on.  The next thing she knew, she was being led into the palace by a contingent of other royal guards not inside War Machines, but