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

dove over the second, slipped underneath the third, and then continued on through all the rest with the most spectacular exhibition of acrobatics that he had ever seen.  She even effortlessly navigated her way through the moving lines of fire without difficulty, landing at the end of her run through the room with a typically unnecessary flourish and looked back at them.

“See?  Simple.  Now, I’m sure some of you might not be able to do that as well as I can, so—” she began, not even out of breath from her crazy stunt, when something landed next to her with a *clink* and rolled to a stop in front of her feet.

“What is--?”

The copper-colored object suddenly exploded in a massive ball of fire that sent a shockwave that Wyrlin could feel all the way back where he was near the entrance of the room.  A brief wave of heat washed over him as well, showing how hot the explosion was, though at that distance it wasn’t horrible; the flash of light from the explosion dotted his eyes, however, and when they finally cleared, he looked out to see if Fyola had survived – but something else caught his attention in the corner of his eye.

“Heads up!” he shouted and raised his bow to fire.  There were more Goblins on top of the previously empty rooms near the ceiling and they were holding similar copper-colored spiked balls in their hands.  Almost as one, they tossed them towards the group of Orcs and Elves just outside the entrance of the room, just as he and a few dozen others released their arrows, striking the Goblins all over the room with precision.

Rothgar shouted in Orcish, but it wasn’t hard to understand that he was telling everyone to run back.  Wyrlin did just that, following the others as they retreated, though he was knocked over when multiple blasts went off behind them.  He tumbled forward, barely protecting his bow in the process, and he hit his head pretty hard, but otherwise he was largely unhurt.  He was just getting up when a few more explosions went off, from inside the room; looking back, he saw one of the Goblins that had been shot had been hit in its neck, though it was positioned in such a way that it didn’t kill it right away.  As it struggled to figure out how to get the arrow out, it kicked some more of the copper balls off of the wall and into the room, causing a few more explosions, before following them down itself as it tripped and fell with a painful crunch on the stone floor.

When they recovered, they found three Orcs that hadn’t made it out of range of the explosions and had been practically ripped apart from sheer proximity.  There was nothing to do for them, however, so they were left where they were – though their weapons were taken by some of the other Warriors.  Apparently, their iron weapons were notorious for breaking, so they were always looking for replacements.

“What is going on in this dungeon?  What were those things?”  Mercyll asked, obviously a little shaken up.

Wyrlin couldn’t blame him because he felt the same way.  “I have no idea, but we need to get moving.  We’re wasting time.”

“Wasting time?  But those things just killed Fyola!” he said angrily.

“Not…quite.”  Wyrlin looked towards the end of the room and was disappointed to see Fyola standing there, though she appeared to be scorched in multiple places, and half of her hair had been burned away on one side.

Mercyll sucked in his breath in shock.  “How—?”

“No…time.  Let’s go kill…this blasted dungeon,” she panted out, obviously injured but determined to destroy the thing that hurt her.

For once, Wyrlin agreed.  Now that there didn’t seem to be any other threats, he and the others made their way through the traps, with only a few of the less agile Orcs getting scorched in a few places when they overestimated their abilities.  Wyrlin was glad that he hadn’t touched any of them because he could certainly feel the heat from the fire lines; looking at the severe burns on those unlucky Orcs, he was almost positive that it could’ve taken off a limb if he had touched one.

They all caught up to Fyola, who looked even worse when seen up close.  For a half-second, he felt a little bad about what had happened to her, but that was quickly squashed by the disappointment that she hadn’t died.  He overheard her mention to Mercyll as they walked down the tunnel that she was almost entirely out of Fire energy now, after she had created a quick shield of Fire that had undoubtedly saved her life.

When they came to the next room, it also looked basically empty – which he didn’t take as a good sign.  He wasn’t necessarily experienced in dungeons, but he was beginning to realize that threats could be around every corner – and he didn’t like not being able to shoot what he couldn’t see.

This is going to be a long night.

Chapter 39

Wyrlin looked down at his leg and he thanked the Creator that the blood had finally stopped flowing out of the jagged wound in his thigh.  It wasn’t terribly deep, but it hurt tremendously whenever he put any weight on it – but he could at least still walk inside of the nightmare that they called a dungeon.  He was one of the lucky ones – if he could consider himself lucky, he supposed – that was still alive, especially when 95% of those that had walked through the entrance weren’t still walking around.  He wasn’t the only one that had been hurt, but they were entirely out of any way to heal themselves; they still had Mercyll and one other Orc Warrior that could heal, but both of them were entirely out of the Holy