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

Sandra had created, were gone.  Not because the Guards had stripped them off, however, because they were nowhere to be seen; no, the straps holding those items in place seemed to have been cut instead of undone normally.

 

The Elder!  She must’ve cut them when I wasn’t paying attention as I dropped her off!  But why?  There was only one answer that she could determine, which might explain how the Royal Elite Guards knew where and when she was coming – Elder Herrlot had betrayed her somehow.  And despite her attempts at explaining who she was and why she was there, no one seemed inclined to care.

 

It had unfortunately stayed that way even as she was led to her “room” where she was supposedly being kept safe – under guard, of course – but no one had come to talk or listen to her the entire time she was there.  It wasn’t until Elder Herrlot and her crew had come to take her away that she had heard more than muttered voices outside of her cell, and for that she was thankful; what she was still uncertain about was whether she should be thankful to have been relocated.

Luckily, it seemed as if she was going to find out.

“Were you followed?” a voice came from behind her, which meant that it was in front of the running captors.  As usual, she didn’t recognize the voice, but she could certainly recognize the tone of authority.  If she didn’t miss her guess, the voice belonged to an Elite – and a very experienced one at that; from the few that she had known over the years, they tended to develop a certain no-nonsense lilt to their voice that demanded attention and obedience.  Having lived hundreds of years, with many of those years in constant war against dungeon monsters, they were accustomed to being in charge and having others follow their orders just as quickly as they would follow the orders of someone with more authority.  If they didn’t, it was possible that many more Elves would die.

Only slightly out of breath, Echo’s three captors slowed down to a stop, bringing her around and depositing her on the forest floor.  At least, she thought it was the forest floor, but when she finally got a chance to look around at something other than the running and blurred feet of the one carrying her, she realized that they were in a large cave.  She hadn’t noticed because sunlight streamed through the roof through thousands of tiny holes, making it nearly as bright inside the holey enclosure as it was outside.

“Doubtful.”  The one that had carried her at first was visible now, and as she thought – she didn’t recognize him.  By his bearing, the tightly bound black hair nestled over his shoulder, and the hard look on his face, she knew he was an Elite; not as seasoned and old as the one that had asked if they were followed, but an Elite, nonetheless.  “Though I do have some unfortunate news…”

“Where’s Herrlot?”

Echo couldn’t see the speaker, but she could see that he made her captors nervous as they shuffled from side to side in an obviously uncomfortable state at the question.  “Well, that’s kind of the unfortunate news—”

“What are you talking about?  Are you saying my help was unfortunate?” asked a voice that she immediately recognized.

Elder Herrlot was back already and obviously safe.

“Elder—how—?”

“I told you I would catch up, didn’t I?  I made better time than I expected, but then again I’m still getting accustomed to how beneficial these Energy Orbs can be.”

The Energy Orbs!  She must have possession of all that we brought with us, and I remember hearing that she had been hoarding them even before that.  What could she possibly want with all of them?  Is this all part of some master plan?

Before anyone said anything else, Echo suddenly felt a loosening of her bonds.  As soon as her hands were free, she started to pull at the branch keeping her from speaking even as she picked herself off of the floor.  “What have you done?  Why was I captured by the Royal Guards?  What is your plan and what do I have to do with it?  We came here to warn our people about the threat—”

“Girl, don’t make me gag you again,” the Elder said as she held up her hand in warning.  “Your questions will be answered in due time.  At the moment, though, we’re still in danger until we can get to somewhere safe where we can talk.”

The threat of being gagged again was enough of one that it got Echo to stop her questions, though she fumed on the inside.  She hated being treated like a child and talked down to as if she wasn’t important; looking around the earthen cave with thousands of holes, however, she had to acknowledge that of the 5 other people she finally saw clearly, she was practically a baby.  Although it was extremely difficult to tell an Elf’s age from their appearance unless they were so advanced in years that the signs were obvious, there was still an aura of maturity that surrounded those that had hundreds of years of experience.  Compared to what she sensed from them, Echo was far below them in life experience.

 The Elder and the one that had met them in the cave – a much older Elite that had multiple streaks of white throughout his long, dark-blue hair and wrinkles around his eyes – walked towards the back of the cave where there weren’t as many holes in the ceiling, creating a shadowy expanse, the size of which was hard to determine.  It was tricking her eye so much that she watched the two ahead of her disappear into nothing, almost as if they had acquired her knack for making herself invisible.

“What—?”

“Just follow them and you’ll see.”