The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Either way, even if they had been able to reload and fire again almost instantly, the Saurian turned away before they could’ve gotten a shot off. It continued to drive itself forward towards the short village walls, undeterred, and Sandra tried to get it to attack the same way again by attacking its flanks a second time. Ten, then twenty, then thirty attacks went by without any result and – while her attacks were beginning to wear away some of the skin and caused the massive lizard to bleed a little, it completely ignored her efforts.

  They had less than a minute before it was in range of the village, so Sandra threw everything she had at the Saurian to get it to turn. When nothing seemed to work, she grew frustrated and worried for the still-living Gnomes.

  “You have to remember that it’s likely being controlled by the other Core right now; while they might be insane, murderous psychopaths – they’re not stupid. It knows by now that your constructs are worth nothing to it, so the only objective it has is to kill the other sentients nearby – even if it has to sacrifice its own monsters to do that,” Winxa remarked after listening to Sandra get frustrated.

  That’s…a very good point. It seemed as though the Core was now so focused on the Gnomes just sitting there, ripe for the killing, that it was ignoring everything else. And if that was the case, then maybe she could get it to pay attention to her…

  Instead of her constructs trying to get it to turn, Sandra instead had them all attack its front: legs, chest, face, and neck. Her Wolves and Jaguars latched onto its legs, ripping out chunks of skin little by little; her Basher Totems started pounding on its chest, doing their best to break something internal; her two remaining Blademasters went right up into its face and started attacking its vulnerable eyes and likely-sensitive nose; finally, her Apes jumped up and caught hold of its neck, where they secured themselves and started pounding away, using their Iron-fueled strength to try to rearrange the bones underneath them.

  It worked – for better or worse, she wasn’t quite sure yet. Sandra thought it was the spinning Blademasters aiming for its eyes that snapped the Core out of its single-minded pursuit of the Gnomes; the Saurian immediately snatched both constructs out of the air and bit down on them. They were destroyed instantly, and though they probably ended up cutting the inside of its mouth in the process, the damage done to the massive lizard was superficial.

  It then did something she hadn’t seen it do before. The Saurian bent down its front legs momentarily, shaking a few Wolves off in the process, before extending them quickly, causing its entire front end to launch off of the ground and raise almost 30 feet into the air. Most of her constructs were still hanging on through the use of their teeth or arms – in the case of her Apes – but her Basher Totems were still on the ground waiting for the large lizard to come back down.

  And it did, though it extended itself slightly forward and sped up its descent with a bunching of its muscles; the impact when it hit the ground – and flattened her Totems – caused some of the village’s walls that were damaged previously to crumble apart. Most of the Gnomes lost their footing as well, but her constructs had taken the worst of it.

  All but one of the Apes were shaken off the Saurian from the impact, and her Mechanical Wolves and Jaguars were thrown to the ground and most of them were slightly damaged – but still able to attack. Her Totems were completely destroyed and one of the Apes that fell off had one of its arms sheared away, exposing its vulnerable glowing light at the center of its chest.

  Before they could climb back on, the massive lizard surged forward, displaying more speed than it had previously; Sandra suspected that the lizard was utilizing elemental energy for some sort of special ability. It managed to move the remaining 40 feet to the village walls – and the Gnomes that suddenly stepped back in fright – within a couple of seconds, far faster than her constructs could plan for. And, despite her remaining Ape pounding away at its neck – to only mild effect – it reared its head back to strike at the closest group of Gnomes…

  …and it suddenly froze at the apex of its strike. The Saurian’s eyes glazed over, and its neck fell forward, narrowly missing the house where the Gnomes were standing with their Steel knives out. It hit the stone wall nearby, causing it to crumple under the weight of its neck, while the rest of the Saurian collapsed to the ground in death.

  Within a few moments, the massive lizard had dissipated, leaving behind a remarkably small blue Monster Seed in its place – as well as a single damaged Steel Python where its belly used to be. Unbeknownst to the Ancient Saurian, her three remaining Pythons had crawled inside its side wound while it was distracted by her other constructs. They were searching for its heart – which turned out to be a bit farther back in its body than she was expecting – though when the massive lizard reared up, the pressure and bones inside the Saurian rearranged themselves a little, which ended up crushing two of them and damaging the third. Fortunately, it was able to continue its search and struck at its heart just in time to save everyone.

  Well, save everyone who was still alive…all nine of them.

  Nine out of just over eighty Gnome villagers (if she counted the bodies right) were still alive; not necessarily a good result, but at least some of them survived. What made it worse for Sandra, however, was that she knew that her presence was what was ultimately led to that outcome, regardless of what she did to save them. It was her connection with the other Core that allowed the reptiles to attack in the first place; she only wished she had known about the danger sooner, so that none of them would’ve died.

  With the massive Ancient Saurian dead, the remaining Gnomes and her constructs stood staring at each other. She hadn’t thought that far in advance, so she wasn’t sure what to do; she still couldn’t technically communicate with them, though she was hoping that her demonstration of their defense would do the talking for her.

  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), being unable to communicate didn’t matter in the end. The one she thought was called Violet stepped forward to speak, but her eyes caught on something in the distance and opened wide. Sandra turned her Shears’ attention to where the little female Gnome was looking, and her figurative heart dropped.

  Standing on the edge of the forest were two more of the Ancient Saurians, as well as a hundred or more smaller crocodiles and turtles.

  Well, that’s not good.

  Chapter 17

  “Look, I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but I’m willing to bet that you aren’t here to try to kill us. I do know that staying here is out of the question, unless you have another army of ‘friendly’ monsters nearby,” Felbar asked loudly, the pain in his broken leg he had been trying to ignore up till then now plain in his voice. Violet couldn’t help but wince whenever she looked at his bent-out-of-shape lower appendage – she knew that she would’ve likely passed out from the pain long ago.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Felbar continued, when the strange…things made no indication otherwise. She still couldn’t believe that they were monsters from a dungeon, despite their fantastical appearance; however, she couldn’t deny that she had seen them fade away just as quickly as those darn lizards and crocodiles, leaving behind some dungeon loot in the process. Most of them that had been destroyed had been leaving steel behind, which was the village’s main purpose for being on the edge of the wasteland in the first place. “Then, what do you suggest we do?”

  Violet looked at the old Gnome in surprise; that was the first time she had heard Felbar ask someone – or something – else for advice. He was the one in charge of their operation there in the village, and he always seemed to know or have an answer for everything. She was glad that he had survived the attack, even if he was wounded. Although, she knew he would probably blame himself for the deaths of everyone else, even if it wasn’t his fault and he did everything he could to save them – that was just the kind of leader he was.

  The strange monsters obviously couldn’t speak, being made of m
etal and all that, so Violet wasn’t expecting any type of verbal response. Before they could do anything else, however, something else arrived before they could react. Six weird white cylinders floated in from beyond the village and parked themselves next to the metallic monsters. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, two thin arms emerged from the cylinders with squarish metal pads on the ends.

  Violet tensed up for a moment, before she saw them approach some of the strange metallic skeleton wolves, where they placed their pads upon the places most damaged. Before her very eyes, a veritable rainbow of colors was transferred between the two, and the wolves’ bones repaired themselves quickly – almost like a miracle. With a mental click in her head, she realized the cylinders were healing the others; the only elemental energy she knew of that could heal like that was Holy energy, so she reasoned that the monsters couldn’t be all bad.

  And if they can heal their own like that, maybe they can heal Felbar.

  Looking at him again when he didn’t speak anymore, she realized there was a small pool of blood underneath his broken leg. It wasn’t a life-threatening amount yet, but unless he got some care soon, he was going to die. She knew of a few runes that could be used to heal him, but she didn’t have any of the materials needed to place the enchantment on; there were a few in the village, but they didn’t have time to find what she needed and save his life before the new lizard monsters could arrive.

  Stepping up and making the decision for him – mainly because he had gone super pale and appeared to be struggling to stay upright – she called out in just loud enough of a voice to carry to the strange monsters waiting below, “If you can bring us somewhere safe, we would be forever grateful. And if you have some way of healing Felbar here, we would be even more grateful.”

  “Girl, don’t worry about me – take everyone else and run. Leave me here…I’ve not got long, but I’ll do everything I can to delay them,” the old Warmaster weakly told her, before collapsing back as his strength finally left him.

  Violet ran to his side and checked him over quickly; she sighed in relief as it seemed that he had just passed out and hadn’t passed on. Still, though, if he didn’t get help, she didn’t think he would last more than a couple of hours. She didn’t know what kind of internal injuries he had sustained from the horrific crash his War Machine had undergone, so it could be even less.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Violet saw a line of the metallic skeleton wolves who had been miraculously healed by the white cylinders bend down so that they were lying flat against the ground. She counted them and saw that there were eight of them – exactly the same number of Gnomes that were still standing.

  “But what about—?” she started to protest, before one of the metal monkeys – she thought it looked like it was made completely out of iron – patted its chest. It ran over to the wall in front of her and jumped up, catching the edge of the roof and easily pulling itself up.

  Everyone else but her pulled their knives again and held it towards the metal monster, but it ignored them and gently picked Felbar up in its arms, cradling him like a baby. If he ever finds out this happened, I shudder to think how he’ll react, Violet couldn’t help but think. Of course, he’s got to survive first.

  The monkey jumped off the roof with Felbar still cradled in its arms and moved to the front of the column of skeleton wolves. Knowing there wasn’t much choice, she jumped off the roof as well, tumbling forward as she hit the ground; she used to practice that move as a child when she was growing up in the ELA – or better known as the Enchanters Learning Academy – but it stopped when her tutors found out she was jumping off of houses for fun.

  Approaching with what she hoped was visible confidence, Violet walked up to the first skeleton wolf and placed her hands on its back. Rather than feeling like old bleached bones like she briefly thought they would, it instead felt warm to the touch, though only on the side facing the warm sun; it was a hard-but-smooth metal that was unfamiliar to her, but she definitely knew it wasn’t steel. She – as well as everyone else in the village of Glimmerton – knew their steel, and this certainly wasn’t the same metal.

  Without thinking about it too much, she lifted herself onto the top of the skeletal wolf – though, now that she was closer, the “bones” were looking more and more like metal bars with gears connecting the joints – and settled onto its back, gripping on tightly to its ribcage for support. She looked back over at the others still on the roofs looking at her with horrified expressions on their faces.

  “C’mon, what are you waiting for? If they wanted to kill us, they could’ve done it at any time. Besides, I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t want to get eaten by those giant lizards over there,” she told them with a little admonition in her tone. They were being ridiculous; they had been saved and were being given a way out, and still they hesitated.

  Her words must have convinced them, however, because first one and then all of them quickly jumped down and ran towards the…mechanical? wolves. Only a few of them hesitated more than a moment, but they were soon all on and as ready as they were going to be. It was just in time, too, because the other monster army was almost upon them.

  I wonder if that had anything to do with their decision to come. She thought it was her words, but it could’ve easily been the sight of monsters out for their blood that spurred them on. Regardless, they’re coming – that’s all that matters.

  Without any type of signal that they were starting, the iron-looking monkey started to run, still holding the unconscious form of Felbar in its left arm – the right one was used to help the metal beast move and support itself, because it couldn’t run very well on just two legs. The wolves followed immediately after it, and she was almost knocked off of the back of her strange ride when it stood up and sprinted forward at full acceleration. Luckily, she had grabbed on tightly beforehand and was able to hold on – though just barely.

  Settling herself into its surprisingly gentle stride, she looked back to see the others following behind, expressions of fear and wonder warring with each other on their faces. She thought that the same was probably on her face as well, though she had to admit that wonder and even a little enjoyment was at the forefront of her experience. She’d never moved that fast before – at least when she wasn’t sealed up in a safe Mover box back in the capital; the unique and handy people-transportation system utilizing the Movers – that the Master Enchanters had created centuries ago – were great, but they barely even felt like she was moving. Here, though, the air from their passage whipped her long brown hair back and every which way, and the steady movement of the metal wolf beneath her was almost hypnotic.

  Looking farther back, she saw the other strange metal monsters following after them, though they held back as if they were presenting a screen of safety against the lizards and crocodiles that had turned to follow after them. Fortunately, those dangerous reptiles were quite slow when compared to their rides, as well as the steel snakes and metal monkeys joining them. The white healing cylinders weren’t left behind, either, as they were either picked up by one of the monkeys or placed on the back of one of the metal cats, where they appeared ready to topple off at any moment. Fortunately, none of them actually did, which was encouraging for their survival.

  Even farther back, she saw the metal monkey that had gotten its arm ripped off and another white cylinder with its tiny arms pressed against it. If she wasn’t mistaken, the arm was actually growing back, which was just…crazy awesome. However, she realized that unless they moved in the next few minutes, they would soon be overwhelmed by the following horde of reptilian flesh.

  There was nothing that she could do about it, and she wondered why she even cared. They were dungeon monsters, after all…right? Despite that reasoning, though, she couldn’t help but hope that they escaped before they were swarmed over and destroyed. It might have been gratitude from being saved by them, or even that one of them seemed like primarily a healer and not a fighter; regardless of the cause,
though, she didn’t want them hurt.

  They were moving very quickly over the wasteland and none of the strange metal monsters seemed to have any difficulty navigating their way around the hills and valleys and devastated land. In fact, they were so efficient that Violet didn’t even realize where they were going until they started to slow down; she had expected them to keep going, perhaps even into the Orcish-controlled lands of Orcrim, which was where it appeared they were going.

  She was okay with that, if that was where they were going; the Orcs wouldn’t kill them outright for passing into their lands, though it would be difficult to stay safe there. She had heard that the dungeons had expanded even farther there than they had in her own land of Gnomeria, though with the sudden expansion of the reptile dungeon back near her village she wasn’t so sure anywhere was safe anymore. It had caught them completely unaware and unprepared; even if they had left the dungeon alone and stopped culling its monsters for years, it still wouldn’t have reached their village. Felbar and the two other War Machine pilots had been culling in the forest when the attack started, in fact, and she was sure they were just as surprised as everyone else.

  Thoughts of those that had died filled her with sorrow, but she tried to push it away as she took in where they were. The time for mourning was for later, once they were all safe; being one of the few Apprentice Enchanters that had survived the destruction of the ELA meant that she was technically in charge of the well-being of the village, especially since Felbar was down. She would’ve given anything for him to be there to help make the kind of decision she had to ensure their safety – he was a salty old War Master, but he always had their best interests at heart.