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

shattered half of its ribcage.  Three more explosions followed in quick succession, blowing off a leg, an arm, and finally its skull shattered, sending bone fragments everywhere – before they dissipated as the last Undead that had assaulted the village was finally destroyed.

* It’s about time – what took you so long? *

Echo was seated on the back of a Pegasus, her bow still held out in front of her and to the side of the flying horse’s neck, trying to avoid being smacked in the head by a flapping wing.  “It’s not my fault this thing is so slow; you’d think being able to fly would make it quicker somehow, but I swear I could’ve ran here by myself even faster,” she said with a sneer to the open air, looking at the pair of Shears Sandra had brought down to talk to her. “Besides, it was your idea that I ride it, so it’s ultimately your fault that I’m late.”

Her sneer went away, however, as she patted the side of the Pegasus fondly.  “I have to admit, though – this is quite the steed to ride into battle.  I think I might even name her.”

* Her?  I don’t think my Monsters are either a him or a her. *

 “Doesn’t matter, I can just think of her whatever I like since you gave her to me.”  Echo smiled as she waved down to a couple of Dwarves that were staring at an Elf sitting on the back of a pure-white flying horse that had a faint light aura around it.

I guess that’s something you don’t see every day.

Chapter 29

By the time the pre-dawn light was brightening up the barren landscape of the wastelands, the villagers and the surviving Shieldmen were already on their way towards Sandra’s dungeon.  Actually, Gerold told them it was – not inaccurately, even if not the whole truth – a safe haven and refuge for them; apparently, the only ones that had known where Gerold had actually gone had perished in the battle overnight, so his report that there was somewhere safe they could go made it much easier to convince them to evacuate than it probably would’ve been otherwise.  Even the Shieldmen hadn’t argued about it, though that was likely because they were practically dead on their feet, their energy levels so low they couldn’t think straight.

With a third of their fields burned, 80% of the Shieldmen dead (including their leader) and facing the possibility of another attack by the Undead, it wasn’t really that hard to get everyone to pack up everything they could carry and bring it with them.  In all, every single one of the 62 villagers had survived, but of the 53 Shieldmen that had been alive at the start of the night…only 11 of them had made it through – if she counted Gerold in that count.  It was a dour bunch that shuffled slowly across the wasteland, their exhaustion from the night obvious as they walked into the unknown.  She had asked Gerold if any of them wanted to ride on one of her Apes or Pegasi, but none of them trusted her Monsters enough yet despite the fact that they had been saved by them.

Sandra couldn’t blame them, really; they had lost a lot over the last couple of hours and it was undoubtedly hard to trust Dungeon Monsters so soon after such a tragedy.  Fortunately, the villagers – as well as the surviving Shieldmen, veterans as most of them were – looked towards Gerold as an authority figure that they were happy enough to follow…for the moment, at least.  When the shock of the events wore off and everyone got some sleep, that could change, but as the one that supposedly “brought reinforcements” Gerold was ostensibly in charge.

All of which was a good thing, because Sandra expected some further attacks against the Dwarven village.  Half of her forces were currently escorting the Dwarves to her village, while the other half had gone back to the Undead dungeon entrance; while they had been absent going about their reinforcement duties, however, the few Shears she had kept back keeping an eye on the entrance had seen scores of Undead streaming out – and there was nothing she could do to stop them.  The flow of Undead only increased as over 40 Shieldmen were killed, and now they were scattered over the forest with Sandra unable to keep track of them.

Sandra also got an equal amount of Mana from those deaths, as unintentional and unwanted as it was; since it had occurred in her Area of Influence as well as the Undead Core’s, she received half of the resulting Mana – as much she’d rather not benefit from the deaths of sentient people, she wasn’t going to waste it.  The flow of Mana coming from their deaths “dwarfed” the previous amount she had received from the deaths of the Gnomes for some reason, though – especially when Bregan, their leader, had perished.

“It’s because of their greater capacity to hold and use elemental energy compared to those who haven’t trained that part of themselves,” Winxa informed her.  “The Gnomes weren’t Enchanters that had constantly worked on building up their elemental energy, so they weren’t…‘worth’ as much, as callous as that sounds.  If those Elite Elves that were in your dungeon not so long ago had died, you’d probably have seen even more from them.”

Sandra guessed that made sense, though putting a value on someone’s life like that was indeed callous.  But it also explained how she was able to fill up her entire treasury with Elemental Orbs and Cubes while the battle was ongoing.  She didn’t have enough focus to funnel the Mana into anything more productive at that time, so it seemed like the best idea; now it was going to come in handy when all the Dwarves arrived, because she had plenty