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

a small copper sphere as Loot, but the presence of something undead – that really shouldn’t be there – threw his mind for a loop.  He knew what it was, of course, because there were at least two dungeons that had undead monsters around the Dwarven Kingdom, but he had never seen one in person before; now that he had, though, his mind struggled to comprehend what it meant.

There must be a new Nether dungeon around here!  Gerold hadn’t ever heard of two dungeons being so close to each other before, but the fact that he had only seen a very small dungeon monster likely meant that the dungeon was new and didn’t have much stronger than that.  He briefly wondered why he couldn’t sense it since it should be fairly close by; then again, he had never been near a Nether-element dungeon before, so he didn’t know if he could sense them.

Regardless, he knew that he had to let Second-shield Bregan know about it right away, because having another dungeon nearby could cause some trouble if they needed to start culling that one as well.  Either that, or they might decide to destroy it, though they hadn’t done it before to either the Goblins or Golems because the risk to the farm was too high if they failed.  The Shieldmen were strong, but they definitely weren’t invulnerable – they were as likely to fall to traps and overwhelming dungeon monsters as anyone else.  It was decided that culling and keeping them contained was the best option based on their own numbers – but a smaller dungeon should be relatively “safer”.

Again, it wasn’t his decision, so he started to jog out of the forest, intending to head straight for the village and let Bregan know what he had seen.  However, as soon as he got to open land and traveled past the last trees, he was hit by an overwhelming miasma of Nether…that was coming straight from the wastelands in the distance.  He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t felt it before then because it was so strong; in fact, its presence to his senses was so deep that he felt inexplicably drawn to it.  Against his volition, his feet immediately turned towards the source of Nether he identified, and he left the village and the other Dwarves behind.

He was halfway to the barren wasteland when he forcibly stopped himself and took a deep breath.  What am I doing?  I have to go warn Bregan and the others about this!  Unfortunately, the seductive pull of the Nether-based elemental concentration in the distance was too much for him to resist.  I should probably just check it out and give them a full report; if there’s an undead dungeon in the middle of the wastelands then they need to know that.  Besides, seeing a small skeletal rat doesn’t really say much, does it?

Gerold used that rationale to start jogging again, and as he stepped into the dry, broken land he could feel himself getting closer and closer to the source of what he was sensing.  He didn’t see a single beast or monster anywhere, though, despite hearing that the wastelands were dangerous and infested with groups of creatures that could kill a dwarf in minutes, if not seconds.

Finally, following the draw of the concentrated Nether element ahead, Gerold carefully climbed up a small craggy hill and reached its apex; as soon as he did, however, he ducked back down and hid himself behind an outcropping when he caught a glimpse of what he was sure was the source he had heading towards that entire time.

Below him in a broken valley of dust, desiccated wood branches, and broken stone, was a veritable army of undead – and they scared the armor off of Gerold.  There were skeletons and zombies of all shapes and sizes, but there were also some undead covered head-to-toe in black armor, robed figures that seemed to pulse with Nether energy for some reason, and even some misty-like undead monsters floating in the air.  That was bad enough – especially with their sheer numbers, which had to top 8 or 900 by that point in two equal groups – but what really frightened him was a huge…thing…in the middle of the two groups.

Gerold couldn’t even look at it long, because it was disturbing to look at.  The best way he could describe it was if you took the bloodless corpses of hundreds of various people and beasts and shoved them together into a massive blob, which apparently moved by either rolling or oozing over the ground.  It was just a guess, though, because it was frozen in place, just like the other undead he saw; they seemed to all be facing the same way, either towards a small uniformly dug cave about 500 feet from him or a second larger, naturally created cave which was just below and across from his location.

Ok…I think I’ve seen enough…I should be going now—

Before he could inch himself back down the mountain and hopefully not call attention to himself, Gerold glanced up and saw a trio of the mist-like undead above him descending in his direction.  Looking back down at the other monsters, he saw that those nearest to him were now looking in his direction, though fortunately none of them were moving – only those undead above his head.

Judging by the speed they were moving, there was no way he could outrun them – even if he could run quickly in all of his armor; the most he could maintain was a slower jog, but that wouldn’t do much to get him away.  Therefore, knowing he had no other choice, he unstrapped his battle-axe from his side and readied it and his shield to defend, using his Water element to coat the edge of the axe and the face of the shield with ice.  He was pretty sure that his Nether element was