The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (english readers txt) 📗

only way for them to regenerate that energy – they arrived at the battle only semi-full, which led to them fighting at a severe disadvantage.

Felbar took matters in his own hands when he saw the first – and then the second of the Dwarves fall near him – and opened up with his Flame Cone, shooting out a large swath of flames that blanketed dozens of incoming undead…as well as the barley field behind them.

“Those are our crops!  What do you think you’re doing?” one of the Shieldmen next to the War Machine asked, distracted enough that he got smashed by a massive bone club from his blind side.  Needless to say, Felbar didn’t answer him – not that he could understand it anyway.

But the Gnome didn’t stop there, as he continued to light up everything he saw, including more of the field; the Undead still making their way through the field ended up getting burned, showing the real intent behind the fire attack.  Those that made it through – which, granted, was still quite a few – were on fire, the elemental attack doing continuous damage that helped to drop them faster.

The Undead Core wasn’t done with its strategy, however; the Specters that survived the attacks by the Phoenixes – approximately a score of them – had held back at that point, and Sandra hadn’t even noticed until they started moving. As they shot downwards from behind the line, Sandra reached out to the two that could hear her.

* Gerold, Felbar – the Specters are moving in! *

The warning came too late for a dozen Dwarves, as the Specters went right for a gap in the Shieldmen’s armor and disappeared; moments later, the Dwarves’ armor started to break apart, as the energy inside of them was literally sucked out by the mostly transparent undead.  Only two of them survived the next couple of seconds as they collapsed, and before the others could react they were overrun.  Those two that survived just happened to be next to Felbar, who had responded to Sandra’s warning by shooting his flames up in the air and burning some of the Specters out of the night sky, before turning to those around him and protecting them as well as he could.

Unfortunately, he had held his flames going for far too long, and the warhammer began to literally melt and drip from the end, sort of like a candle.  When the head of the hammer was almost gone, the enchantment lost cohesion as what it was enchanted on disappeared, and the flames shut off abruptly.  Luckily for Felbar, there was no backlash from the cessation, but the enchantment had collapsed so thoroughly that it would have to be completely built up from scratch.

The sacrifice of two of the War Machine’s weapons was worth it, though, as it had helped to clear out dozens of Undead and left a large space in the middle of the line where the Shieldmen could retreat to after their losses all along the line.  At that point, Sandra counted only 22 of them left after what appeared to be over 50 – and the battle had only been going on for just under two minutes.

Then, inevitably, the Liches arrived.  There were a dozen of them bringing up the rear, as they always appeared to instinctively stay behind the others.  As the survivors were gathering together to put up a last defense against the scores of Undead still looking to kill them, the robed Monsters started to gather their Nether energy for their deadly attack.

A dozen Pegasi shot down from the sky behind the spell-casting Undead, diving straight for them as the rest of her forces arrived and streamed through the trees, running for everything they were worth.  Everything seemed to be in slow motion as Sandra continued to observe from up high, and some quick calculations showed that her flying horses wouldn’t arrive in time to stop everything.

* Gerold, tell all of the Shieldmen to jump on the War Machine or get as close to it as they can! *

Gerold immediately shouted the order, knowing that Sandra was keeping an eye on things from above.  The other Dwarves looked extremely confused, and only just over half of them followed the strange order – including, miraculously, the stubborn form of Bregan.  When the older, white-haired Shieldmen leader saw that there were a handful still fighting, he added his own order for them to move towards the War Machine.

As the stubborn ones turned to obey, they were hit from behind by a mass of dark clouds that almost appeared to consume the armor straight off of their body; the energy drained from their bodies so quickly that they didn’t even get knocked unconscious – which made the next part hard to watch.  The Nether-energy attack, having consumed all of the elemental energy inside of them, next started to consume their bodies…leaving the 7 Shieldmen to scream as their bodies started to age rapidly, before being eaten away from the inside.

Felbar, for his part, took the cue that Sandra had given him and activated his Holy Protection Shield as soon as everyone who could make it was close enough.  The shield made of light lit up the village and burning fields nearly as bright as daytime, and the Nether-based attack – that the Liches managed to get off before having their rotting brains bashed in by Pegasus hooves – splashed ineffectively off of the powerful protective bubble and dissipated a few seconds later. The thirteen remaining Shieldmen looked around in shock as they were saved by the powerful enchantment, before the light disappeared and they were once again back to defending themselves.

Gerold had also activated his own personal Shield, though it was only just large enough for him.  As he let it fall as well, he joined the other Shieldmen in a wavy defensive line with