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

that now.  She told Felbar and Violet that she had that covered, and when Felbar had strapped himself in, she finally got a chance to see if both her tunnel and her new Dungeon Monster were going to work as well as she hoped they would.

* Alright, hold on!  We’re not going up to the sky yet, but we need to get this Roc up to ground level. *

Technically, she probably hadn’t needed to have the two Gnomes strapped into the harness right then (they could’ve met the Aerie Roc up above by traveling through the dungeon normally); nevertheless, it was a good opportunity to see if everything was working in the relatively safe environment of the large access tunnel instead of up in the sky.  She didn’t tell them that, though, but she was sure that one or even both of them would get that before too long.

Sandra directed the Roc to the hole to the long tunnel she had made, and she watched as it moved quickly to the access point.  Its abrupt movement caused a startled yelp to emerge from Violet, but it came and went so fast that the Dungeon Core almost missed it.  The young Gnome’s eyes were open as wide as they could go, and her hands were gripping the straps so hard that they were practically white from the strain.  Sandra felt a little bad about that, though she hoped that time and experience riding on the back of the giant bird would help her ease up a little bit.

As soon as the Roc was above the hole, it crouched down a little and tipped itself forward, pulling its legs up so that they were lying against its body.  Past the tipping point, the humongous avian smoothly fell into the hole – and started sliding down the relatively steep incline.

“Whaaaaaaaaa—!” Violet screamed out as the Roc practically rocketed down the slide, picking up speed quickly.  It was short-lived, however, as the tunnel gently bottomed out before too long and started to gradually rise, slowing the slide until they came to a complete stop.  With their momentum halted, the Aerie Roc got back to its feet and started to quickly run up the tunnel, arriving at the first junction that allowed it to turn left, going south.  In what felt like no time, another large junction room led to the east, heading further into the wasteland.  Then there was the longest tunnel section of them all, which eventually rose enough to emerge a bit south and east from her dungeon entrance.

She was pleased to see that the harness didn’t shift even a little bit in all of the running the Roc did, and the two Gnomes were still very secure; Violet was still freaked out, of course, but she also seemed to relax her grip a little when they finally emerged from the tunnel out into the bright sunlight.  Felbar looked like he rode on the back of a 100-foot Monster every day, as his expression hadn’t changed one bit; well, other than to look a little concerned over Violet’s well-being.

While they walked over to her dungeon entrance, Sandra started getting everything ready that needed to go with them.  Basically, as soon as the tunnel had been completed, she had started on the process of packing up most of the supplies that were originally going to go with the two Gnomes via a Hauler and a wagon.  With the creation of simple wooden crates, she included some samples of pure Copper, Iron, Gold, Steel, and Titanium metals, Ironwood and Yew planks, and – naturally – a cache of Energy Orbs of different elements.  It was a bit diminished from when it was originally loaded onto the wagon, as Sandra had needed to use more than half of it for different emergency projects when combating the Undead Core, but it was still enough to offer a good selection.

She also had a few smaller crates that contained food such as thin meat strips and fruit, which was easy enough to pack and store inside of another plain wooden box that had a simple lid that just nestled into the top of the box without being secured.  Some water to take along was a bit harder, especially as it was going to be traveling at high speeds and had the potential to spill.  She thought about just making some oiled leather pouches that would contain it, but that still had the potential to jostle around enough to spill everywhere.  Instead, she came up with a different solution that was simple in design and required the minimum of crafting to accomplish.

As the Roc arrived and backed up to the ramp that her constructs had recently hammered out that went from the workroom to the above wasteland, through the hole in the ceiling that the Gravitational Devastation Sphere had exposed, she explained how to get water from her new containers to both Felbar and Violet.

* My constructs are loading up the Roc with crates of metals and wood, as well as some Energy Orbs.  Once they’re secured to the rear of the wide leather strip you’re attached to, they’re going to bring you some small boxes which will be tied next to you; this contains some foodstuffs for your journey, as well as water in a wooden container.  To break it open to drink, all you have to do is pull sharply on the top stone tab and it will break off the very thin covering of wood keeping it closed.  I haven’t figured out how to close it from there, so you should just drink it all right then if you can.  There should be three of those for each of you, but you may not even need them all if you get to where you’re going quickly. *

They nodded their understanding, and although Violet had calmed down somewhat, the closer they came to actually leaving, the