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

– but once he pushed up to a sitting position, a weakness hit him like nothing he’d ever felt before.  Thirst and hunger ate away at his throat and stomach, as the need for sustenance hit him harder than Razochek’s kick to his side.  His vision swam a little once he was upright, but when he could see again, he looked around at the rest of the room.

A white, cylindrical shape was stuck in the corner across from him, which he couldn’t see before because his feet were pointing toward it.  It appeared to be made all of one piece of whatever it was made of, but the strangest part was that it seemed to be hovering an inch off of the floor.  It didn’t take any notice of his movements, so he assumed it was harmless.

On his left, now that he could see it better, he could see another entrance to a tunnel leading off somewhere, directly opposite of the previous one he could see.  The presence of another direction to go made his eventual escape a little more difficult, as he didn’t know which way was out.  The rest of the room was rather plain, just stone walls, floors, and ceiling; other than the metal poles and the cylindrical white thing in the corner, there wasn’t anything of note.

It took him a little bit of work to force his weak body to get to his feet, but Kelerim eventually succeeded in balancing well enough that he didn’t think he would fall flat on his face.  He did move enough that he could see down the tunnel nearest him, which made him freeze as he saw a shape standing there, completely unmoving – and not showing any signs of breathing either.  It was shorter than himself, but it appeared to be some sort of monkey that he had heard of but never seen before; that would be weird enough, but it also appeared to be completely made out of iron – which was a material that he was thoroughly familiar with.

It’s just a statue of some sort, he thought, chastising himself for freaking out over a silly piece of art.  Maybe I made it all the way to the Gnome homeland – I’ve heard they like to make things like this, as silly as it seems.  That seemed like the best explanation, because the only other thing he had vaguely heard was similar to this place was a dungeon, and there weren’t any of those close enough to the wasteland—

A faint screech of metal rubbing on metal brought him back to the present; Kelerim jumped as the sound reached his ears, and he looked to where he thought the screech came from.  He didn’t see anything behind the metal monkey statue, but he could’ve sworn it came from that direction.  Then the former Blacksmith looked closer at the statue – and quickly noticed that its head was tilted in a slightly different angle than it was before.

Kelerim started to back away from the statue – moving statue – and stepped cautiously backwards, using the same method he just remembered he used against the Bearlings.  This time, though, he made sure to look behind him and avoid anything that he might trip over, including the scattered metal poles.

* Hmm…I wouldn’t do that if I were you. *

 

The sudden introduction of voice in his head shocked him so much that he stumbled backwards anyway, landing hard on his back – and then the whole world went white.  He didn’t close his eyes fast enough against the blindingly bright light, and as a result, he felt a sharp pain jabbing into his head through his eye sockets.  Darkness descended on him – a stark contrast to the bright white light from before – as he squeezed his eyes closed; belatedly, he realized that it probably wouldn’t make a difference, as no light tried to peek through his eyelids.  A few blinks proved his theory correct – he had been rendered completely blind.

* Oh, good!  You can hear me!  I was hoping the bond would help with communication, but I wasn’t counting on it.  Anyway, sorry about all that – I didn’t feel like taking that Holy trap down, because it worked so well before as a defense.  Experimental distractions kept me from seeing you were awake, and it was only my Ironclad Ape that informed me of your situation.  It’s good to see that you recovered alright. *

 

“What?  Who are you?  Where are you?  Never mind, it doesn’t matter – because I’m blind!” Kelerim shouted out, as he struggled to his feet, when he promptly fell back down from his weakness.  It was hard enough standing before, but without his sight, he couldn’t visually focus on anything to regain his balance.

* Don’t worry, the white light will go away soon, I can’t keep it going for long before it has to recharge the Mana powering it.  Just wait for another thirty seconds or so and then you’ll be able to see again. *

 

“What white light!?  I have my eyes wide open and I can’t see anything!”

* Oh…I guess the light was more powerful than I thought if you were completely blinded by it.  No worries, I’ll have my Repair Drone fix you right up. *

 

Literally none of that made any sense to Kelerim, but as he was practically as helpless as a newborn baby right now, he had to take…her?...word for it.  He collapsed back on the ground after futilely trying to stand up for the third time, when he heard more rubbing of metal against metal, though this time it was much more than just a faint screech.

* Okay, now don’t panic. My Ironclad Ape needs to remove you from the trap triggering section so that you don’t go blind again. *

 

“Wait, what—” he started to say, before he felt