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

her back and nocked an arrow – one of the remaining Ironwood ones she possessed – as she got her first glimpse of the monster that emerged.

It was unlike anything she had seen before; essentially, it was a thick pole made of dull metal that had big, beefy arms emerging from its sides ending with closed fists.  There was no visible head or feet – it seemed to just float above the ground with no obvious means of locomotion.  The monster immediately zoomed off towards the southeast; she briefly thought it was heading straight towards her village, but the angle was all wrong.  In effect, unless it turned or stopped at some point, it was aiming directly towards the Gnome homeland.

That wasn’t the end, however.  More of the strange poles with arms and fists emerged and joined the first in its journey to the southeast, followed by other monsters who were spitting out from the entrance.  Large beast-like undead – made from what appeared to be weirdly flexible metal as well – came out next, looking like some sort of large monkeys.  They used their powerful-appearing arms as almost another set of legs as they bent over and loped quickly in the wake of the first monsters.

Next came long, thin poles that floated through the air – again without any visible means of movement – which were draped with something hanging off of them.  Echo wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but she didn’t think it was decorative.  They moved quickly through the air and easily caught up with the first groups, who were remarkably far away already.

Soon after that, a half-dozen long, shiny, metallic snakes shot out of the entrance and slithered after the others with surprising speed.  They undulated back and forth, gliding over the surface of the dried and cracked ground with insane speed, moving so quickly that Echo thought she might have trouble running from them even with an application of her Air elemental energy.

They were swiftly lost to the distance as more of the skeleton-like wolves and cats emerged from the entrance – dozens of them – and joined the race towards something to the southeast.  A noise behind her startled her and she spun around in panic.  One of the undead cats already outside jumped down from above her head and landed five feet behind her camouflaged form.  She braced for an attack and readied to fire as she turned back around to the new threat, but the cat only stared directly at her for a few seconds before it raced to join the others.  Looking around, she discovered that the hills were emptying of even more of the cats, and the wolves that had been roaming outside joined them on the run as well.

Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest as realization dawned on her.  Those undead cats were above me the entire time!  They obviously knew I was here, because I was out of my camouflage for hours.  …But why didn’t they attack?

Seeing the different monsters that had emerged from the dungeon, she realized that if they were all made of some sort of metal like she suspected, then she wouldn’t have much chance against them.  Her Holy energy hadn’t seemed to do much against them, and arrows wouldn’t necessarily have anything they could impact and penetrate.  So, obviously, they didn’t really consider her a threat, nor were they concerned with what she was doing there; it was almost as if she didn’t exist.

If they don’t care about me being here, then what do they care about?  She emerged from her shadowed hiding place and turned towards the southeast; she took a step to follow them when a swarm of metal objects flew out of the dungeon and shot quickly in the same direction of the previous monsters.  They were moving so quickly that she barely got a glimpse of them, but from what she could see, they appeared to be some sort of scissors or even shears.  What the…? 

Before she could finish that thought, a half-dozen white cylinders floated – seems to be a common theme with these monsters – out and started their journey to the southeast as well, though they didn’t move nearly as quickly as the others.  Echo waited a few heartbeats for anything else to emerge before she followed slowly after the odd-looking white cylinders.  Climbing up a short hill for a better vantage point, she could see the farthest of the monsters were definitely not heading towards her own homeland; on the contrary, they were definitely heading towards the Gnomes.  With the kind of monster army that had departed for the southeast, she briefly considered trying to investigate the likely-empty dungeon for additional information.

However, not knowing what was left behind stayed her feet from heading in that direction.  Echo was curious – not stupid.  She almost headed toward her village to warn them that the dungeon was finally making a move – but she wasn’t exactly sure what that move was yet.  Are they heading towards the Gnomes to destroy them?  If that was the case, then it was plain that the dungeon had expanded more than enough to reach Avensglen, as well as the other races’ villages that were lined up near the perimeter of the Wastelands.  Although she had never visited them, she knew they were there because she could vaguely see them sometimes from afar when she climbed a tall enough mini-mountain in the Wastelands.

Why hadn’t they attacked before that then?  That was just another question she didn’t have an answer to.  With quick feet aided by her Air elemental energy, Echo chased after the dungeon’s monster army, determined to discover the answers to some of those questions.

Chapter 14

Sandra emptied out half of the constructs in her dungeon, leaving only the smaller and slower Dungeon Monsters in her defensive rooms.  She also quickly created a half-dozen Repair