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

estimated that there was a 99% chance that trying to use one of their Healing Amulets would kill her.  If only we had someone that had some healing spells, like the Elves, or—

Looking up, she saw the Roc circling overhead again, no visible signs of being worse-for-wear after its near death at the hands of a Giant.  Glancing down at the Princess again, she wondered if they had enough time.

“Do it, Violet,” said a voice from behind her.  She whirled around and saw Felbar, limping a little, but otherwise okay.  She ran to him and threw her arms around him, thankful that he had survived, but feeling guilty for being happy when so many had perished.  The Warmaster patted her on the back, before continuing what he was saying.  “We’ll be okay.  I think we still have enough here to stop any other small attacks, and it’ll take those dungeons a while to recover from this loss and field another horde of monsters like that.  Go…and bring back some more Energy Orbs or even Cubes for us – we can really use them now,” he said sadly.

Violet knew exactly what he was talking about.  While they didn’t have enough Master Enchanters anymore to create more War Machines, that didn’t mean that production of the constructs had halted.  At the moment, there were literally hundreds of them completely built and ready to go – the only thing they were lacking were enchantments.  And Warmasters to pilot them, because they were becoming scarcer; fortunately, the way Sandra could enchant them meant that they could be piloted by anyone, not just Warmasters.

Without a moment to spare, she got everyone who could help moving.  Calling down the Roc, she had those available strap the Princess as securely to the massive bird’s harness as they could; luckily, she had passed out a minute or so before, so all of the ministrations that were likely causing more pain were missed.  After getting herself strapped in as well, she ordered the Roc to take off and fly to the northwest.  It was only when they were thousands of feet above the ground that she realized she hadn’t been scared in the least during the takeoff, and her fear of heights was currently pushed to the back of her mind.

It was probably because all of her concentration was on getting to Sandra as soon as possible, and utilizing the healing of the Dungeon Core’s drones in time to save the Princess.

Chapter 24

Echo followed as silently as she could behind the lead elements of what she was mentally calling “The Rebels”, because it made her chuckle internally thinking of the strict, proper Elder Herrlot as a “rebel”.  It wasn’t really fair to label them rebels, she knew, because they weren’t really “rebelling” against the King and Queen; nevertheless, they were looking to subvert the technical authority overseeing the Elven people (even if it shouldn’t be the Chamberlain).  If that wasn’t rebellion, then…well, she really wasn’t sure what would qualify as a rebellion.

To make their whole plan of action even worse, Echo still didn’t know if she should be doing it.

After all, she only had the word of the Elder and Churven as proof that the Chamberlain was doing all of this.  True, there was the whole deal with him not allowing Energy Orbs to be distributed to all of the Elites.  Plus, the fact that she had been apprehended as soon as she arrived without explanation was a bit suspicious.  Additionally, not having seen either the King or Queen in more than a brief visit over 20 years ago to the Royal Tree, Echo couldn’t say if the Royal family was acting strangely or not.  Those things, added to another 3 or 4 incidents she heard about over the years, were all pointing toward the Chamberlain pulling the strings of authority.

All of that could be explained, however; she could think of a half-dozen reasons for each individual thing happening the way it had.  The problem was that everything had happened together, which was entirely too much for coincidence.  At least, that was what the Elder and the others wanted her to believe.  She couldn’t disprove any of it, though, especially when she was stuck in a hole in the ground at the back end of nowhere.

So, she would accompany The Rebels to their destination, mainly because it ultimately led to her purpose of coming back to the heart of Symenora in the first place.  She would see the Royal family one way or another, she figured.  Either she would be saving the King and Queen from the Chamberlain’s machinations, thereby bringing the Royal couple to Sandra’s dungeon to see first-hand how things were going to quickly spiral out of control unless they did something to stop it.  Or, which she still thought possible but hoped wasn’t true, the King and Queen were perfectly fine and this was some sort of coup as she figured; at that point, she would at least try to pass on her message before they were all killed.  It was the least she could do to save as many of her people as possible, and if she had to die to get the word out, so be it.

Naturally, she did not want to die, but this was bigger than just what she wanted; if her people fell to the dungeons, which would be tragic enough, the world was likely doomed in the near future, as well.  Not that she thought that the Elven people were the only thing keeping the world from collapsing to the might of the dungeons, but many of their people had been around long enough to know how even a single powerful dungeon could threaten everyone. One didn’t have to look any further than the wastelands to see that truth; if the Elves fell, there would be an entire land filled with dungeons that no one was culling or