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

short sides somehow folded down, presenting a completely flat piece of stone now.  Furbrea shook her head a few times, amazed at the strange platform; she knew the Elves could manipulate the elemental energy – that everyone possessed – outside of their bodies to perform unusual effects, but this was something else entirely.  All that Furbrea could do was utilize the Holy energy she had inside to heal herself from minor injuries; it wasn’t all that great on anything more than a scrape or shallow cut, and did nothing against the ravages of old age.

“I see you have returned.  I’m sorry to say that we don’t have any Warbands looking to take you up on your deal quite yet,” Furbrea stepped forward to say distractedly, after she finally got a chance to see what the metal-looking things were standing up.  They were so still that they looked like statues; they appeared to be some sort of monkey or ape creatures that she had heard about over the years that were seen around Orcrim.  Other than the fact that they were made completely out of metal, of course.  None of the “normal” monkeys she’d heard of held weapons like these metal hammers, either.

Suddenly, she realized that what she had said might not have been understood and she moved to try again another way – perhaps I can use hand movements or something – but the Elf beat her to it.  Echo just nodded and pointed to her ear, and then shook her head and pointed to her mouth; Furbrea understood immediately that the Elf was conveying that she could understand what the Orc was saying, but not actually speak it herself.

Furbrea was waved forward onto the platform, and the Orc warily approached and stepped up on top of it; at first she thought she might feel something from the platform because of its strange ability to float, but it just felt like regular, ordinary stone under her feet.  She was quickly distracted from that by what she was being called over to look at, though.

Food – crates and crates of food.  There appeared to be enough inside of the crates to last months, if not a year for all their villagers – even the ones that were out finding Warbands.  It was entirely too much, though; 90% of it would spoil before they could even hope to eat it.  However, that didn’t prevent her mouth from watering as she spotted what appeared to be fresh-baked bread loaves instead of the flatbread she was used to eating, another crate full of what appeared to be potatoes which she hadn’t had in years, a crate full of cut-up chunks of raw meat, and – impossibly – two crates full of different kinds of fruit.  She remembered eating a nearly dried-up apple that she had found on the street when she was a young Orcling living with her parents, but not another single fruit had passed her lips since then.  What fruit was grown and cultivated in Orcrim was reserved for Warchiefs and important members of Warbands, so it was unlikely that any of the others in the village had even seen fruit before, let alone tasted it.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Furbrea said after a moment, her amazement and shock causing her to be speechless for a few moments.  “Don’t get me wrong, we appreciate the food – and we really need it – but this is all going to spoil before we can eat it; unless multiple Warbands start to arrive within the next few days or so, I’m worried a lot of this will spoil.  I can have a lot of it placed in my supply hut cellar, but even there it might go to waste before it will be consumed.”

The Elf seemed to understand because she nodded and held up a hand.  Echo reached into one of the crates to pull out a loaf of delicious-looking bread, and she held it up with one hand; with the other, she caused two fingers to shrink down indicating something small.  When she put it back in the wooden crate, she held her fingers again and expanded them, using both hands to indicate something large or…lengthy?  She wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to mean, at least until she was prompted to reach into the crate herself.

A slight tingle met her hand as she reached her hand toward one of the loaves and suddenly she understood; if Elves could make a stone platform fly, then why couldn’t they do some sort of elemental spell that could preserve food inside of a box?  She had no idea what exactly it was, or how it worked, but she wasn’t going to question their good fortune.

“I…think I see.  There’s some sort of…something…on this crate that preserves food?” Furbrea asked.  Echo nodded a couple of times, confirming her guess, before the Elf pointed to something else.

She had been so distracted by the bounty of food that she didn’t even notice the large pile of steel swords and another of what appeared to be some sort of leather chest armor.  Aha!  This is what the Warbands will be getting in exchange for “volunteering” their least-wanted members.  Furbrea wasn’t exactly sure that the Elf understood that the mercenaries she would be getting were likely individuals that were at the bottom of the importance ranking.  Not that they would be useless, because no Orcs were accepted into a Warband without being at least marginally useful, but there were differing levels of usefulness.

The old Orc bent down and picked up one of the steel longswords; she didn’t have the most discerning eye, but she recognized high quality when she saw it.  The edges were extremely sharp, the metal was shining so much she could practically see her reflection in it, and it felt extremely well-balanced in her hands.  Again, she wasn’t an expert, but she could tell that this