The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (miss read books .txt) 📕

arm in his direction from the Golem was proof of that, which he easily blocked with his shield, though he had to take a step back to maintain his footing from the impact.

The Dwarf continued his attack by stepping forward and using his axe to slice off the lower half of the arm that just hit his shield.  Now missing a portion of the arm keeping it upright, the Golem fell forward again onto its chest – but it also kept up a flailing assault on Gerold.  Fortunately, the attacks by the intact and amputated arms were mistimed and awkward and he was easily able to avoid them completely; he almost took a foot to the face when the entire Monster seemed to shift itself and a leg came flying at him, but he ducked under it and sliced it off.

After that, it was just a matter of finishing the Golem off by removing the arms and the featureless protrusion on top of its shoulders that he assumed classified as a head, before cutting the torso in half.  Once all that was done, the dungeon monster completely made of dirt melted into the ground, leaving behind a small gold sphere as Loot.  Gerold sighed as he picked it up and stuffed it in a small pocket behind his breastplate, wishing that it had been steel instead; gold was a metal that was practically useless in Blacksmithing weapons and armor, as it was just too soft to make anything that would last.  He had heard that other races prized it because of its shiny appearance and even traded it for goods and services, but to Dwarves it was little better than dirt.

Overall, what he picked up as Loot out in the forest didn’t really matter – unless it was somehow something really rare – because that wasn’t what the Shieldmen (of which Gerold was a relatively new member) were there for.  There was plenty of metal to be found in their mountain homes, so collecting Loot was only a secondary purpose; their real purpose was to cull the Monsters from the surrounding dungeons so that the village of Nurboldar could grow food on the extensive farm it possessed.  Such areas of land not already overrun by monsters was extremely rare these days – other than Dwarven mountain strongholds, of course – which was why they were at the back end of nowhere trying to grow food that didn’t take to the environment very well.

That was in part because they were so close to the wastelands that were dry, barren, and dangerous.  It rarely seemed to rain, and even when it did it was fairly light; if there hadn’t been a major river nearby that years ago had been partially diverted for irrigation, then they wouldn’t have been able to grow much there.  There were only two other places around their entire land that could grow food outside of the mountains, but Nurboldar was by far the largest of them.  While certain types of food could be grown and animals could be raised for their meat inside their strongholds, it didn’t provide a lot of variety – and the most important ingredients to one of their staples was only able to be grown outside.

All of which was why Gerold felt honored to be assigned to the farming village – though it wasn’t like those in charge had much choice.  The ranks of the Shieldmen were getting thinner and thinner over the years as fewer and fewer of the Dwarven population were willing to leave their comfy and safe mountain strongholds to brave the dangers of either farming or culling dungeon monsters.  It wasn’t a glorious position, but Gerold felt like he was really making a difference – and I should probably get back to it.

He was about to venture further into the forest when he felt something strange and yet familiar at the same time.  Gerold immediately recognized it as something related to the Nether element he had access to; he had always been uniquely sensitive to the darker elemental energy for some reason, though he didn’t know why he was different from most other Dwarves.  Some of the older generations were concerned that it boded an ill omen, but Gerold and his family had dismissed it at superstition – though it had prevented him from having any friends outside of his immediate family.

Luckily the Shieldmen didn’t care about things like that, so Gerold was happy to leave the mountains and be out where things like his particular affinity to the Nether element didn’t matter so much.  In fact, it seemed like it was coming in handy that day, since he could sense some where there shouldn’t be any coming from the trees near the forest’s border with Nurboldar’s farmland.  As he turned around to investigate, he followed the traces of Nether with his senses, finding that it was moving around fairly quickly; despite that, within 15 minutes he had found the source – or at least he thought he did.

Some rustling of leaves was the first thing that alerted Gerold to the presence of something, and he jumped back in surprise when a small rat emerged from beneath a tree root and stared at him.  He assumed that it was staring at him, though it was hard to tell – because it was missing all of its flesh, including its eyes!  Essentially, it was a skeleton of a small rat walking around, though he figured it could be a large mouse; however, the shape was enough like some of the rats that had infested the long-abandoned tunnels back home – that he used to explore as a kid – that he couldn’t picture it as anything else.

Reacting instinctively, Gerold swung his battle-axe at the frozen skeletal rodent and split it right down the middle.  He knew it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see it dissolve into the ground and leave behind