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

They stared at each other for a moment, neither side giving into the other.  Finally, Kelerim glanced at the swords in the warband leader’s hands.  “You’re holding the proof of my claims right there, Razochek Bloodskull.  Where do you think those steel swords came from?  Right here, is where – from the dungeon that made them.  We have plans to provide enough quality swords to arm every Orcish Warrior in Orcrim; not only that, but we can produce armor and other crafts as well, making our survival a much more likely outcome.  And from there, we can help the other races fight against—”

“I see now.  You’ve been sucked into this dungeon’s conspiracy to reach all the races, where it can kill all of us and take over.  I don’t know how it’s managed to brainwash you, but I suspect it means to make slaves of all of us to do its bidding.  Do you think it would just give us weapons out of the goodness of its own nature?  I know dungeons, and a dungeon’s nature is to kill and get more powerful; this one also seems to have figured out how to lie to you and turn you against your own people!” Razochek shouted back.

Confusion and worry crossed Kelerim’s face, but Sandra was back in her head as something finally clicked.  Bloodskull!  That was the name her friend used for the warband leader, but why did it seem so familiar?  It only took a few moments of contemplation, when she remembered it from the Dungeon Visitors List where Kelerim’s name was added.

Kelerim Bloodskull.

* Why does he share your same surname? *

The confusion replaced any sense of worry on Kelerim’s face.  “Umm…what?”

“I said that you’ve been brain-washed—” the warband leader repeated, before being interrupted.

“I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to—you know what?  Never mind.”

* You both have Bloodskull as your surname.  I can see it plain as day on my Visitors List, and it seems to know things that I wouldn’t have any clue about. *

“If you’re done talking to yourself, then get out of my way—”

Kelerim seemed to enjoy cutting the larger Orc off in their conversation.  “Are you related to me?  You’re entirely too young to be my father, so that must mean you’re my…what?  Brother?”

The look of shock on Razochek’s face was all the confirmation that Sandra needed, and she could see that same shock soon reflected on Kelerim’s face.  “…Why?  Why did you do all this to me?”

The warband leader recovered from his shock quickly.  “Because you never should’ve been born!  You’re an abomination, and our father falling in love with a weak Dwarf woman goes against everything our family stands for.  It’s only out of respect for him that I didn’t kill you as soon as I learned of your existence, but you don’t deserve to live in the same land as his greatness.  At the first opportunity, I ensured that you were pushed back out to the wasteland where you came from – but without the stigma of fratricide stuck to me.”

Sandra was speechless, and so was Kelerim.  To do that to your own brother was something she just couldn’t understand.  She had always wished to have a sibling, but her mother died before it could happen; and now Razochek was talking about essentially sending his brother out to the wasteland to die – it was unfathomable to her.  And all because of who his mother was.

“But now…I don’t think I care about any such stigmas.  You’re in my way and intentionally keeping me from destroying this dangerous dungeon!” Razochek shouted, before he sprang forward, aiming directly for Kelerim.

The warband leader was intercepted by her Ironclad Apes, however, and he stopped to face them as they got in his way of his objective.  Despite being wounded earlier, Razochek practically danced around the clumsy-looking swipes of her constructs, and the two Steel short swords in his hands – which looked like knives in proportion to him – flicked out with elemental energy-enhanced strength, which used the weapon’s superior material to cut through the joints of her Apes’ arms, knees, and necks.  None of that actually destroyed her constructs, but a veteran of as many battles as he seemed to be learned quickly the vulnerabilities of his opponents.

The glowing energy source inside her Ironclad Apes were what animated their heavy metallic appendages, and Razochek quickly learned that if he struck that glowing light, it would stop them from moving, and they would collapse and dissolve soon thereafter.  Her constructs fell one after another, and the ease at which he survived the brutal assault was astonishing.

Of course, it was still seven against the solitary warband leader, and he didn’t get through the fight unscathed.  A blow to the side of his right knee that he couldn’t avoid practically crippled the joint, and his left forearm had crumpled under a joint attack by two of the Apes before their internal glowing energy source was stabbed.  Down to only one hand that could hold a sword, and favoring one of his knees, he still managed to come up on top.

That was when Kelerim finally entered the fray, but his inexperience immediately showed.  He had a long Steel sword with a better reach, so he should’ve had an advantage over the marginally crippled warband leader, but on his first strike he missed and over-extended, bringing him in range of Razochek’s shorter Steel sword.

Kelerim’s life was saved by the vambrace on his arm, which the Blacksmith raised by happenstance as he was falling forward from his over-extension.  The strike he unknowingly blocked was so powerful, though, that it bent the Steel armor and sent Kelerim’s arm into his face and shoving him to the side and slightly backwards.  Razochek took advantage of the situation and jumped