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

the…?  Horncke, are you alright?” Razochek looked back at the fallen Orc and turned his body over to see what the issue was.

As soon as he flipped the dead Orc over, a Segmented Centipede crawled out of – Horncke, Sandra supposed his name was – his mouth, having just finished its burrowing inside and destruction of the larger being’s heart.  With disgust, Razochek stomped down on the metallic insect construct, and managed to destroy it within two separate stomps.

The warband was down to just the leader and two others, but none of them seemed to hesitate when they approached the sixth room.  A part of Sandra admired their determination, while the other part despaired at her necessity of doing what she had to in order to snuff out that same drive.  And the killing was somehow worse when she knew their names; she almost stopped her Centipede from killing Horncke, but at that point she was more than aware that the situation had degenerated into one of kill or be killed.

And she didn’t want to die – again.

The sixth room was essentially a vacuum inside of a bubble, which made the fight between the Orcs and her Articulated Clockwork Golems more difficult, but not overly so.  The remaining warband members were too determined to let a little thing like lack of air bother them, and they ruthlessly slaughtered her constructs, though all three of them broke their Iron swords against the double-bladed axes her little Golems carried.  They were forced to use some of the Steel short swords against her defenders, but their reach still far outweighed her constructs’.

As much as Sandra saw they wanted to collect the fallen axes after the Golems dissolved, they pushed on and gasped for breath when they made it to the next tunnel.  No words were spoken as they entered the seventh room, a Steel short sword in each of their hands at the ready.  Razochek was in the lead now – whether as a sign of impatience or leadership, Sandra wasn’t sure – and he was the one that ended up triggering the Spirit trap in the middle of the room.

She couldn’t see what they saw, unfortunately, but she could definitely see them all struggling to “free” themselves from the illusionary webs her trap made them think was keeping them stuck in place.  And not only that, but she could see the 100 Clockwork Spiders hiding near the ceiling drop down on or near them.

The panic they showed was in direct contrast to the bravery they had shown earlier, and all three of them started wildly hacking away at illusionary webbing and real Spider constructs without caring about what they hit.  Unfortunately for one of the other members of the warband, Razochek accidentally sliced cleanly through the arm of one of his subordinates with an uncoordinated swing, though neither of them really knew how it had happened.  The Orc with a missing arm collapsed to the ground, where every surviving Clockwork Spider converged and poked and bit at the fallen warband Warrior on every exposed shred of skin, until he screamed out in terror.

They didn’t do much damage by themselves, but by the time the Spirit trap illusion ended, the Orc was already half-dead from blood loss from his severed arm.  Freed from the “webbing” the other two easily managed to kick, slice, or otherwise dispose of the remaining Spiders still attacking their friend.  Alas, it was too late, as he had expired from his wounds before they had finished.

Razochek looked crestfallen as he realized what had happened.  The blood on the edge of his sword was a clear indication that he had been the one to sever his subordinate’s arm, as none of Sandra’s constructs bled; for the first time that they had been in the dungeon, the warband leader bent down and closed the deceased Orc’s eyes, murmuring “I’m sorry, friend,” as he did so.  Sandra thought that the care that he showed for his warband was touching, even if it was completely at odds of what she knew of him through Kelerim.

The eighth room took out the last of the warband members, when a stone spike shot out of the wall, impaling the unlucky Orc as he tried to squeeze his way past the swirling tornado of Animated Shears.  Razochek ended up taking hundreds of small cuts over his face and hands as he elected to brave the rotating mass of constructs, but he made it to the ninth room with only superficial wounds, leaving the rest of his warband dead behind him.

And waiting for him was Kelerim – along with seven Ironclad Apes and one super-quick Steel Python.

Chapter 39

“You just couldn’t leave me alone, could you, Razochek?  What’s your deal, anyway?  I could never understand why you had it out for me in particular,” Sandra heard Kelerim ask as soon as the warband leader walked through the tunnel.  He obviously still couldn’t figure it out after all his time inside the dungeon, and he just as obviously had to know.

“Out of my way, Hafanorc, this is much more serious than what’s between you and me.  I’ve seen the different types of elements this dungeon seems to possess, and this kind of thing can’t be allowed to exist; it could potentially be strong enough to wipe us out if it’s allowed to grow stronger.  You don’t know what you’re doing—”

Now it was Kelerim’s chance to interrupt the warband leader.  “No!  It’s you who doesn’t know what you’re doing!  This dungeon is our only chance of surviving!  With the weapons and armor this place can make, we can finally fight effectively and push the throngs of roaming monsters back to their dungeons!”

“What are you talking about, boy?  I told you, dungeons only exist to kill us, not help us.  Come, help me destroy this dungeon and you’ll see that I’m right; I’ll even let