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

were.  As in, 80 feet tall, holding clubs made from uprooted trees that looked capable of destroying one of their Haulers in one hit.  To say that they were totally unexpected by the Defensive Force would be an understatement.

“Oh, no – what have we gotten ourselves into?” she asked herself, suddenly worried that all they had prepared wouldn’t be enough.

The giants could simply walk over their Burning Darkness Defenses, their Flame Thumpers likely wouldn’t even shift one of the Giants, and the Ice and Absorption Bombs would be practically useless against something that size.  Even the War Machines wouldn’t be much more than an annoyance to such a large monster, as much as it pained her to say so.

That left their Mass Accelerators, with their powerful bolts that flew so far and punched so hard that they might have a chance of hurting the Giants, as well as their Shredder Cones.  Either one was potentially a weapon that could be used to great effect – but they had to figure out how to do so while still keeping the other monsters at bay.

Not that Violet had anything to do with the actual defense, as she was waiting on one of the Haulers, observing things as they happened.  In fact, the only reason she was there was to help if any of the enchantments suddenly had some issues that she could fix, as well as—

The Aerie Roc!  Violet rushed to the side of the Hauler and looked up past the roof of the transport vehicle, seeing the massive bird circling overhead.  I can use it to attack, but will it do any good?  Those Giants look extremely dangerous.  It was definitely large enough to do some serious damage to one of the giant monsters, but would it be able to do enough before it was clubbed out of the sky by a swing of one of those uprooted trees?

She was unsure, and with it being the one access to speedy transportation back to Sandra’s dungeon, she was hesitant to send it into the middle of battle.  She would, though, if it came to that, in order to save their lives; the enormous bird would be useless if they all died, after all.

The 5 other War Machines had already returned to their defensive line, preparing to engage the horde of incoming dungeon monsters flowing after Felbar, and the grizzled Warmaster was nearly back himself.  He was only about 10 seconds ahead of the lead elements of the ambushing force, which was plenty of time for him to take his place on the right-hand side of the line.  Their formation was very simple. The Burning Darkness defenses created three-quarters of a circle around the Haulers, which held the Mass Accelerators that could fire at quite a distance away; the Shredder Cones were lined up on the left and right of the semi-circle (2 on each side), giving them enough space to spin and maneuver; the War Machines were on the far flanks (3 to each side), which would help to contain anything trying to circle around.  The large Gnomish machines were agile enough that they could intercept just about anything making their way around, and it was their job to keep those inside safe.

Just in case, there was a squad of the Defensive Force that was stationed in the rear open space of their Burning Darkness fence with Flame Thumpers and Bombs, and at least a half-dozen of the Mass Accelerators could be swiveled around to fire at anything attacking from that direction.  Plus, there was something of a surprise in the rear waiting for such a thing to happen, buried underneath the dirt. It was a good defense, and could handle just about anything that attacked them – except for the Giants, unfortunately.

The first clash of the monsters versus Gnomes was anticlimactic, as the first wave of the horde ran directly into the defensive fence of darkness, seeing the Haulers inside from a distance and thinking them easier targets.  Dozens of beasts and plants attempted to cross over the Gnomes’ threshold, only to burst into flames (and turn to ash) or freeze solid (only to fall forward and shatter against the ground). At least 50 of the enemy had died, and the Gnomes hadn’t even done a single thing.

Those were the only easy kills they were going to get, however.

As if the dungeons had seen the folly in continuing that avenue of attack, the remaining horde of monsters split in two, dividing their forces to either side of the fence of darkness.  As soon as this happened, Violet heard, “Take aim…steady…FIRE!”  The unique *crack* of the Mass Accelerators releasing the tension in their large bows was followed by an equally unique *pop* as the negative vacuum was applied to the released bolts.  Faster than she could follow, 60 bolts from the mounted crossbows zipped across the distance to the racing monsters, all but a few finding their targets.

Violet couldn’t watch everything at once, but from what she observed, the bolts had been even more devastating than she expected.  She saw a bear, a hulking 800-pound monstrosity, take a bolt through its shoulder, the force of the projectile so powerful that it came out the other side of its body and pinned the monster to the ground.  Another hit an Oak Basher in the middle of its trunk with enough of an impact that it split in half, the two sides of the walking tree falling apart.  From the carnage and the disappearing corpses after a few seconds, most of those that were actually hit by the bolts were killed in one hit.

Even with the threat of the Giants slowly heading their way, lagging behind the others, Violet couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride at how her people were effectively fighting back; and, without too much modesty, it was because of her own efforts and ideas that they