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

she made the walls 2 feet thick, though as she expanded outward from there she only made them 10 inches thick; if that wasn’t enough to stop them, then she expected them to at least stop whatever was trying to get inside long enough to formulate some sort of response.  She also knew that she’d probably be able to repair some of the damage that was done from the outside, though not all of it; it was better than it being made of stone at least.

Once the main dungeon was complete the next morning – which was everything except the Boss room in her Roc tunnel – the four Cores had stretched their tunnels nearly half of the way to either her dungeon or a section of her Roc tunnel.  She estimated that they would probably reach far enough to bust through a stone wall by the time night fell again, so she spent all her energy towards finishing everything else.  It was going to be a tight race to see who would finish first, though if she absolutely had to, she would raid her treasury for more Mana, or else make the Steel walls thinner at first and then fill them in later.

Sandra was more than half done with the tunnel by the late afternoon and was making good progress – when she received a bit of a nudge from her Shears that were hovering over the Orc village of Grongbak.  All of the mercenaries were out by the Beast dungeon entrances, so that wasn’t what alerted her Shears, nor was it another Warband looking to enter the village and do an exchange with those there.  In fact, it wasn’t anywhere near the village, but instead was near the southern forest border near the Elves.

* Hey, Kelerim…what does your father look like? *

Chapter 36

Wyrlin wasn’t as exhausted as he had been when the Orcs had force-marched them to Rothgar Bloodskull’s traveling encampment, but he was still tired.  Fortunately, every night just after darkness fell – because the Orcs were apparently masochists and wanted to run all the way until they couldn’t see anymore – they would set up their camp and rest for the night, which meant that he and the other Elves with him could sleep more than a few hours.  Of course, 6 hours was just about all they received because the entire camp woke up again before the sun even came up to break it down and get moving again.  Sure, it was exhausting, but at least he didn’t have to help set anything up or tear it down.

Strangely, he found that after nearly a week of moving towards the wastelands after their meeting with the Warlord, he was getting used to the speed of their travel and his feet didn’t feel like they wanted to fall off at the end of the day anymore.

But now they had finally arrived at the edge of the wastelands, just himself, his band of five dozen Rangers and whatnot, the Elites including Fyola and Mercyll, Rothgar Bloodskull, and…nearly 3,500 Orc Warriors that were part of the Bloodskull Warband.  If this wasn’t enough of a force to destroy the dungeon, then they were doomed already.

“We’re avoiding Grongbak because I don’t want any questions of what we’re doing out here,” Rothgar had told them earlier, which was why their force was hugging the treeline to the south of the border village.  “There are very few…shall we say, rules, in our land of what we can and can’t do.  One of those would be not to take a force outside of our lands to attempt to invade somewhere else, because we can’t afford a war with the Dwarves, the Gnomes, or even you Elves.  This isn’t precisely the same thing, but it could be seen that way if we’re not careful.”

Wyrlin couldn’t care less if the Warlord got in trouble from what they were doing, as long as he and his army of Orc Warriors – the apparent equivalent to Elven Elites, though not quite as powerful individually – helped him destroy the blasted dungeon in the middle of the wastelands.  That time, fortunately, would be coming very quickly; if he judged the time and distances right, they would be there at least by the time dusk settled over the wastelands, and hopefully an hour or less after that the task would be done.

They had avoided nearly all contact with any other Warbands as they made their way to the border with the wastelands, and that trend continued as they transitioned into the barren land of the area separating the four different lands nearby.  Though he couldn’t see it yet, Wyrlin looked off to the south where he knew Avensglen was located; I’ve come full circle here, now it’s time to end this.

For most of their journey, the entire force had been at a steady jog as they traveled, but soon after they entered the wastelands they slowed to a fast walk.

“What’s wrong?  Let’s go finish this,” Wyrlin asked, directing his attention towards the Warlord.

“You’ve never destroyed a dungeon before, have you?”

He thought about lying, but figured it wouldn’t help matters.  “No, I haven’t – but I’ve killed thousands of monsters, so this can’t be much different.”

Rothgar laughed cruelly, before mocking him.  “This can’t be much different?  Oh, how wrong you are.”

Fyola chimed in then, to Wyrlin’s annoyance.  “Dungeon hearts can somehow sense when a group is coming to destroy them, so they tend to do anything they can to stop them from even arriving at their dungeon.  It’s better to go slower so that we don’t run into an ambush and unnecessarily get some of us killed.”

That made sense, but as they were so close he was getting impatient at any delay.  There was no way for him to speed them up, however, so he fumed inside his head while he walked quickly