The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) by Jonathan Brooks (e ink epub reader .txt) 📕

its raving need to fulfill its urges and desires.  Looking and inspecting it with every sense she had at her disposal, it seemed almost dormant now.  Not gone, but…asleep, if such a thing were possible.  It seemed as if the Bond she established with it had quieted the instinctual urges that had been driving it to take control; without those, it didn’t have enough of a soul left to do anything else.

She emerged slowly from her mind-space, as if she was waking up, only to see Winxa fluttering spastically around her Core, muttering, “Come on, Sandra, come back to me.  You can do it, Sandra—”

Hey.

“Sandra!  What happened?  One second we were talking, and the next second everything just seemed to stop.  It was almost like you were holding your breath, as crazy as that sounds.”  Winxa sat on top of Sandra’s Core, talking almost incessantly.

It took the Dungeon Core a few minutes to get her thoughts together, as she checked on everything around her and what she had knowledge of aboveground, restarting the process that seemed to have stopped during her internal experience.

Well…I think I’ve finally taken care of the little passenger in my mind.  Not only that, my dear Fairy friend, but I believe I know what use the Prismatic Core has.  As strange as it seems, it might just be our only help for salvation.

“Really?  How?  What?  Why?  I have so many questions—”

And I’ll do my best to answer them.  Besides, it will help pass the time until everyone wakes up. 

“Everyone?  You mean…?”

Absolutely.  They’re in for a big surprise; whether or not they’ll like what I have to tell them is hard to say, but it just might end up being the solution they’ve all been looking for but never knew existed.  Granted, I didn’t know it existed until now, so I can’t fault them for not knowing.  Either way, I’m going to need their help.

“So, are you going to share what this is all about?”

Absolutely.  So, you know how we were talking about soul fragments….

Chapter 41

Violet woke up groggily, her mouth feeling like she had just been snacking on sand, it was so dry.  The only thing she could think of as she was opening her eyes was going down to the Royal Palace’s kitchens and getting something to drink to slake her thirst.  Perhaps even get something to eat while she was at it, because her stomach rumbled as soon as she sat up.

When her eyes cleared and she looked around, her mind had trouble reconciling what she was looking at compared to what she was expecting.  Stark grey stone met her vision, which was quite a bit different from the beautifully decorated walls of the room she was staying in at the Palace.  Her hands on the relatively rough cotton sheets under her body felt much different than what she was used to, but familiar all the same—

The events of the last day flashed through her mind in a rush, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep immediately.  The journey to the northwest to find the ambush site, the discovery of another ambush waiting for them, their deployed defenses, the slaughter of thousands of Dungeon Monsters, and the surprise appearance by 4 Giants.  Then a flight back to Sandra’s dungeon, accompanied by—

—Princess Celeste.  Violet whipped her head around, seeing the unconscious form of the last surviving member of the Royal family on a bed nearby.  The Journeyman Enchanter scrambled off of her own bed and staggered to the Princess’ bedside, her body not quite acknowledging being awake quite yet.  When she managed to make it over to Celeste without falling on her face, she sighed in relief to see that she appeared healthy and whole, breathing regularly in a deep, coma-like sleep.  Violet was confident that she would eventually wake up, just like Felbar had, so she wasn’t too worried at that point; the important thing was that she was safe.

Wasn’t she?

Their arrival had been a bit strange and awkward, as was the silence from the Core afterwards.  Wetting her mouth with whatever saliva she could scrounge up, she asked (a bit hoarsely), “Sandra?  Are you there?”

 

* Good morning, Violet!  I’m so glad you were able to get some rest; the both of you seemed a bit of a mess last night.  The others also seem to be waking up right around now, and I have some delicious sustenance prepared for you all in the kitchen when you’re ready. *

Violet audibly sighed in relief as she heard Sandra’s voice, sounding as normal as she remembered.  When she arrived…yesterday?...she had been a bit afraid of what had happened with the Dungeon Core while she was gone; it was very good to hear that Sandra seemed relatively unchanged.  Perhaps I was just exhausted and imagining things?  That was entirely possible, of course, because she had practically collapsed on the bed when she made sure the Princess was settled as comfortably as possible.

Speaking of Celeste….  “Is she going to be okay?” she asked worriedly, before something else that Sandra said penetrated her brain.  “What was that about…the others?”  She had looked around the evening before, and she hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone staying in any of the rooms; she supposed that if Gerold was back, he’d probably be down below, and Kelerim the Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc was either sleeping or working at his forge, so she could be wrong.

 

* Echo and Gerold came back just after you did yesterday, and have been sleeping off their own experiences.  Why don’t I catch you up with what has been going on around here and you can tell me a little about why you brought a Princess back with you. *

Violet couldn’t help but feel strange about bringing Celeste to the dungeon, but it was, after all, the only viable way the Princess was going to