The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

* Chryla, I don’t know how they’re doing it, but I’m convinced these Dungeon Cores are working together.  I’m readying some transportation in case you have to flee. *

That…wasn’t good.  Chryla had thought that it might have just been coincidence that they both emerged from their dungeons around the same time, though from what she was seeing she couldn’t help but agree with Sandra.  It seemed impossible and she hadn’t heard of anything like that before, even in legend; there was no denying that something was up, though, and the strange way that both hordes of beasts and slimes were just frozen into inaction had to be an indication that there was coordination of some sort.  Unfortunately, that inaction didn’t last long, as a minute after she and the other remaining Rangers got prepared to defend their village.

She briefly thought about Grehre and Lowan and their sacrifice as both hordes of monsters streamed forward at the exact same time, though it wasn’t a full-out rush.  Instead, the entire group stayed relatively together, moving slow enough that the slowest members of each horde could keep up.  It showed an intelligence that she wouldn’t have thought possible before she created the bond with Sandra, which just made the situation even more frightening.

She checked her bow again for the twentieth time, a nervous habit she couldn’t quite break.  Not that there was anything she had to check on it, because the “string” was technically a line of invisible Spirit energy, but she couldn’t help herself when she became nervous.  To take her mind off the hundreds of monsters headed their way, she looked around at their defenses, nodding when she saw that everything seemed as prepared as it was going to get.

They all returned with fewer Wyvines than they had when the day started, after losing 10 of them in the breakout from the dungeon entrances.  Still, the 32 remaining weren’t something to just brush off, as they could be extremely deadly when they worked together as a team.  In addition, 60 of their overly loud, spinning blade constructs from Sandra had been destroyed by the beasts, but they still had 60 left to help defend the root wall they had grown the day before, which were split up between either the northwestern or southeastern sections, where the monsters were coming from.

They also had a handful of metal snakes that Sandra had provided which had done awesomely against the slimes, but they were few and far between now; the 5 they had left were now hiding in the field around their village outside of the walls, so that they could strike and attack anything that got close enough to threaten their wall.  Beyond them were more roots that were sharpened at one end that stuck out of the ground at an angle, making a defensive circle that would hopefully do some damage; if not, it would hopefully slow down their enemies enough that they could attack them.

Then, of course, were Chryla and the rest of the Rangers.  Their new bows that Sandra provided were extremely powerful and could shoot up to 500 feet away and perhaps beyond, but even their skills in shooting had trouble being accurate in anything farther than 300 feet – and that was pushing it even then.  To ensure they hit what they were aiming at, the root spears were placed about 200 feet out from the root wall, signaling to the Rangers when it would be ideal to shoot.  Fortunately, there was no real worry about running out of bolts because Sandra had provided thousands of them, though there were only about 50 explosive ones for each of them – though Chryla had at least twice that at her disposal.

Not because she thought she was special, but she had recently learned how to manipulate her Fire energy to enhance the size and power of the explosion caused when the bolts impacted something.  It wasn’t world-changing or anything, but she estimated that she could double the effectiveness of the explosive bolts at the cost of about 5% of her Fire energy.  It was expensive, but the red orb embedded in her palm helped it to regenerate quite quickly, as well as the external one hanging around her neck.  Unless she drained it unthinkingly, she could fire another enhanced explosive bolt every minute without suffering any loss to her normal energy levels.

The others all had something special to add to their attacks, though how effective they were depended on what they were attacking.  Some were more suited for beasts as opposed to slimes, where the opposite was true for others, so they had already separated themselves so that they were attacking what they were most effective against.  Chryla could utilize her explosive abilities with either and be effective, so she was positioned in between the two approaching forces.

At about 250 feet away from their root wall, the measured pace of the two hordes suddenly broke as they rushed forward, surprising her and the other Rangers for a moment, but they were prepared for whatever surprises they had in store.  The beasts on her right smashed into the root spears without even trying to avoid them, leading with a trio of large grey monsters with long noses and what appeared to be hard bony armor covering their bodies.  Their weight and protection snapped the roots off at their bases, leaving the way clear for the others to follow behind.

That would’ve been a minor disaster if they hadn’t been ready for it.  At the first sign of the charge, four Elves popped up on top of the wall and flung out their hands and their Natural energy, regrowing the root spears just as a wave of more vulnerable beasts slammed into them, impaling themselves on the sharp defenses.  Dozens were trapped on the spears and died, but because it took a few seconds for the beasts to disappear and free