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

of our Royal family.”  The Princess choked up a bit at that last part, and the Elven Queen actually got up and sat next to the Gnome, putting her long, slender arms around her comfortingly.

There was silence as Celeste shed a few tears, but they didn’t last long.  The Royal Gnome cleared her throat, wiped her eyes, and with a hoarseness to her voice, asked, “What do we do, then?  I’d ask for help to save my people, but everyone seems to be suffering as much or more than us.”

* That’s what I wanted to speak to you all about.  You see, I think I’ve found a way to—hold on, our last guest is almost here.  Everyone, I’d like you to meet Palzerk, soon to be a Warlord in Orcrim, and Owchet, one of the volunteers who has been helping the Elven Rangers hold back the tide of Slimes and Beasts from the nearby dungeons. *

As soon as Sandra saw that the important personages in her dungeon were waking up, she sent her High Peak Roc to fetch Palzerk; she had been keeping tabs on him in case she needed him, and this was definitely a time where she required his assistance.  While he wasn’t the “leader” of Orcrim, he was the closest thing she could get in the limited time she had.  On the way back, she picked up Owchet from the village of Grongbak, because she wanted him along to support his soon-to-be Warlord.

Palzerk walked into the room and nodded to everyone still seated at the large table, without the least bit of surprise on his face at seeing so many different races together.  Granted, it helped that Sandra had warned him, so he smoothly got his own plate of food and sat down in between the Dwarven King and the Gnome Princess.  Before he started to stuff his face, he said, “You may proceed.”

She didn’t need his permission, necessarily, but she figured following his suggestion and a nice meal was the least she could do for yanking him away from his Warband again.  As the others openly watched Palzerk eat, curiosity more than suspicion in their faces, Sandra finally came to the heart of the matter.

* As I had mentioned to some of you before, I completely agree with all of your concerns.  Even in Orcrim, which is soon to get a major influx of supplies that will help them immeasurably, the growth of the dungeons within 130 miles or so is too much for them to handle.  A veritable army of Dire Wolves nearly wiped out Palzerk’s own warband, so I’m sure he can vouch for that assessment. It was only the first, and won’t be the last. *

 The Warband Leader just nodded, his mouth full of meat.

* So, if we can’t contain them – and we can’t go around just destroying more Dungeon Cores, as that will make everything worse – we need to do something else.  Through some experimentation and application of various things that I’ve learned recently, which has helped me overcome my own issues related to this whole situation, I’ve developed something that I think will be the solution to all of our problems.  Now, don’t be afraid, this is just one of my constructs. *

So saying, she brought one of her Apes inside of the kitchen, which created a little stir from those that hadn’t seen any of her constructs before (the Sentinel she kept in the kitchen as a catalyst for the traps in the room was in the corner, out of view at the moment), but when it didn’t threaten anyone, they settled down.  She had her Ape place the object it was carrying in the middle of the table the leaders were seated around, before squatting silently along the edge of the room.

* This is what is called a Resonating Prismatic Core.  With it, I am hoping to ‘Bond’ with another Dungeon Core. *

“What purpose will that serve?” Violet asked, the first time she had spoken up since she had brought the Princess to the kitchen.

* If I am correct, and if it functions the same way it did with the Dungeon Core soul fragment in my mind, it will help to ‘calm’ the urges of the other Core.  While it’s hard to predict what this will ultimately mean, I feel confident that I can influence a foreign Dungeon Core to curb its out-of-control expansion, and perhaps even prevent it from sending Dungeon Monsters out into the world. *

There was complete silence in the room and everyone froze, the stillness so deep that even she thought every person had stopped breathing.  A few seconds later, however, the room seemed to let out a deep breath all at the same, as they recovered from her stunning revelation.

“How--?” the Elven King started, breaking the silence, but he couldn’t seem to finish his question.  The Queen picked up where he had left off, though.  “How is such a thing even possible?  And what makes you so sure that it will do what you claim?”

Without going into too much detail about the exact nature of her creation of the Prismatic Core, as she didn’t want to reveal the secrets of Mithril and the connection between the Dwarves and their armor, Sandra described a little about how she had created the special object and about her internal struggles with a remnant of a destroyed Dungeon Core inside her mind.  They all still appeared skeptical, but they appeared willing to grasp at any hope of such a thing actually working.

“What’s the catch?  This seems too simple otherwise.”  King Mynag asked the question that she was dreading, but it was also why she had brought them all together.

* The catch.  Yes.  Well, in order for this to work, this Resonating Prismatic Core needs to be in direct contact with the other Dungeon Core, so that I