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

 “Get up!  I’ll hold them off!”

Unfortunately, Echo was still face-down and couldn’t see what was happening, but the Elder’s voice was certainly recognizable.  From what little she could actually feel and sense, there was a great rending of tree branches near her, almost as if some giant had come in and swiped away the nearby foliage.  It didn’t go away, however, but was reassembled further up the main branch walkway – or so it sounded.

The cracking of even more branches hinted that some sort of barrier had been erected and was in the process of being assaulted, but that was all she could really tell from her position.  A moment later, she felt herself being handled again, though she had the distinct feeling that it was someone else now carrying her bound body.

As she was settled on another shoulder, she was able to look back a little to see a thick wall of intertwined sticks and branches from where they had come from, blocking the pathway down.  Echo suddenly had the realization that she didn’t know if she was hoping it would fail as it was heavily impacted from the other side.  On the one hand, she was being stolen away by the Elder, whom she suspected was involved in some sort of conspiracy to destroy Sandra’s dungeon despite being aided by the dungeon’s heart.  On the other hand, well…she had been held captive without any word about why, and now the guards were throwing out spells towards the fleeing criminals without thought that it might harm her.  In fact, if I didn’t know better, it almost felt like they were aiming for me. 

But that would be ridiculous…right?  They didn’t have any reason to kill her – at least, not that she knew about.

“Ugh…keep running!  I’ll catch up!” the familiar voice of the Elder said, though her tone sounded a bit strained.  An explosion of *cracks* and the sound of splintering wood echoed through the entire area, and Echo felt a whoosh of air flow around her, as if pushed by some mighty hand.  The restrained Ranger thought she heard Herrlot’s voice cry out in pain behind the running captors, but she couldn’t be too sure; within seconds, the slight hollow sound of their feet beating against the wooden branch faded as they reached the ground, only to be replaced by more shouting in the distance.

But by that point, they had escaped the majority of the bright light that had illuminated the shadowed forms of those escaping, and the blurry darkness settled over them like a cloak of obscurity.  Faster than she had expected, they had escaped into the denser foliage surrounding the Royal Tree, disappearing from those pursuing them with relative impunity.  In short, they had successfully gotten Echo away from her forced captivity…

…but would this just be trading one problem for another?

Chapter 7

Now that she wasn’t afraid of falling hundreds of feet to her death if she tried to escape, Echo attempted to free herself from her restraints.  Unfortunately, the run of luck that her captors had employed in their escape with their prize was maintained while in the dense forest environment that categorized the center of Symenora.  It was one of the things she loved about her homeland, and she had missed it when she had been confined to Sandra’s dungeon. That love was severely tested, however, as the constant up, down, and jerky motions her captives took to navigate through the mass of trees made it hard for her to concentrate on manipulating her elemental energies.

As a result, the uncomfortable run to their destination was so full of distractions that she couldn’t figure out a way to escape.  Even what little she learned from Sandra and the other offensive spells she had knowledge of were of no use, since she couldn’t really see her targets.  The darkness surrounding each of her captors was so strong that any Holy-based elemental attacks she might be able to use would be swallowed up by the concealing cloud of their powerful Nether-based ability.  Huh…I wonder how they are maintaining such a strong spell?  It has to be that strong if it’s covering them all at the same time; I know that the Elder doesn’t have access to Nether energy, so it’s most likely that only one of them is maintaining the spell.

Despite her inability to escape, for some reason Echo felt a lessening of danger the further they traveled from the Royal Tree.  This came as a surprise.  She had imagined it would be the opposite, since she was being carried all trussed up like some sort of roast, as well as being near at least one of her captors that had access to Nether energy (which wasn’t forbidden, but its use was occasionally suspect and fairly well-regulated). Regardless, she nearly felt like she had been rescued rather than captured.

The verdict was still out on that, though, especially considering who had been leading them.  Echo wasn’t sure what had happened to Elder Herrlot after fleeing from the vicinity of the brief fight at the Royal Tree, because she only heard 3 sets of footsteps as they ran along – but she had secretly been hoping that the other woman had been captured.

It was the Elder’s fault that Echo had been rounded up and detained “for her safety”, after all.

As least, that was what the Ranger assumed by her strange actions when they had arrived via the back of a giant bird.  There were very few places that they could land such a monster inside of Symenora near the capital, so the large open space approximately a mile out from the Royal Tree had been their destination.  The only problem was, the Elder interrupted that plan by asking to be let off a few miles away from the clearing.

“Are you crazy?  There isn’t anywhere to land over