The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

and secured it into place with a simple tie.  Sandra thought it would stay on okay unless she started doing something strenuous like running but securing it any other way would require help from her father.  He had enough on his plate that she didn’t want or need to add to it.

Ardling had set up their stall so many times over the years that he was practically finished by the time she returned.  Specialty swords, knives, armor pieces, and rare items were their bread-and-butter and her father had been successful enough to make their family fairly well-off.  Not enough yet to retire, she knew, but she was hoping that would change after another year of traveling across the far reaches of the land.  Her father had been buying and selling merchandise in every village, town, and city they came across for more than forty years, and he deserved a break.  And, although she hadn’t technically been at it as long, she needed a break as well.

Being on the road was what Sandra knew; buying and selling merchandise to multitudes of both Heroes that culled nearby dungeons and regular people over the years had made the business second-nature to her.  Unlike her father, though – and from the little bit she remembered of her mother – the merchant life wasn’t for her. No, her passion was something else entirely.

She was so excited that they had finally visited the small mountain village of Shardenvale, because it was where her hard-earned information led her. According to her contacts, the source of the Vampiric Siphon technique was located nearby.  In all actuality, the one who had discovered it might be standing only a short distance away and she wouldn’t even know it.  Because all she had was a name: Dramien.

That was it: Dramien in the village of Shardenvale.

Sandra had had less to go on when tracking down her targets, but she thought this one might be tricky.  There was no description of the source whatsoever and it was only vague mutterings that had been heard through her father’s merchant contacts that led her to this place.  She wasn’t dissuaded, though, because this was one of the last techniques that she had yet to learn.

“I’ll be back, father.  I’m just going to look around for a little bit – this place it so enchanting, isn’t it,” Sandra told Ardling when he was finished putting the last item out.  It was the same ornate knife that she had almost dropped earlier, but now it was displayed precisely next to another one just like it on the short wooden counter he had placed at the front of the stall.

“Ok, but don’t take too long because I need your help to close whatever sales come our way.  I don’t know how I let you convince me to come to this backwater…” he mumbled in reply.

Normally, they would’ve bypassed the small village in the mountains, as it didn’t really support the population for making great sales, but Sandra had convinced him to come so that she could do her investigations.  There was very little that he would deny her – and she knew that – so she rarely asked for anything. Since they were still going to sell their merchandise, she didn’t think it was that much of a hardship to journey there.

As for closing the sale, Sandra was more than aware that she was considered attractive – as long as she didn’t display her hands.  Some men liked her long black hair, or blemish-free skin, or thin, athletic body with a bit of perkiness to it…but it was rare to find someone that could look past her deformed hands and not be turned off because of them.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), she had gotten fairly used to the looks over the years and it didn’t bother her…much.

Regardless, she told her father that she wouldn’t be too long and left the relatively small marketplace quickly, heading for the one place she knew she could gather some information: the local tavern.

The village was comprised of no more than 30 buildings – half of which were small houses – so it didn’t take long to find the tavern.  A sign above the doorway read, “The Stinking Goathoof”, which didn’t sound appetizing – but she wasn’t exactly there to eat.  As soon as she walked through the door, however, she was surprised to see that the inside appeared entirely different from what she had expected a “Stinking Goathoof” to look like.

A long, well-kept bar ran across the entire right-side of the room, with sturdy-looking stools lined up neatly in front.  Equally hefty-appearing tables and chairs filled the rest of the room, and a small stage at the left-side corner (opposite of the entrance) hinted that the small village apparently got more business than she thought if they had a place for entertainment.  The wood-plank floors were clean and virtually spotless, which was definitely not the norm; she had been in a lot of taverns, inns, and common rooms in her life and it was a rare sight indeed.

It was still early in the morning and there weren’t very many people in the tavern, which made sense – most of their business usually came later in the day and when the sun went down.  The only ones who frequented the tavern that early were travelers like her, Heroes, or drunks.  From the smell as she walked by, the two men she saw in sitting/sleeping at a corner table were most likely the latter.

“What can I do for you this morning, lass?” the bartender asked as Sandra walked up and comfortably sat at the bar.  While she didn’t drink (her father said it was just expensive poison and wouldn’t let her touch it), she had been in enough seedy places looking for information that the current, well-tended place she now found