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

around before making a final decision on that, as well as potentially talking it over with her Visitors later when they woke up.

Meanwhile, she now had constant observation over the Orcs, which was revealing some interesting happenings of their own.  The first thing Sandra thought they would do once they destroyed the Unicorn-based Core was go to the nearby village, but that appeared to be the last thing on their mind.  Instead, they immediately camped in the middle of the forest that once contained the now-destroyed Core’s Monsters – and probably still did have a few roaming around somewhere.  When they finally stopped moving and lay down to sleep, not even bothering to have someone keep watch for potential Monsters, she was finally able to get an accurate count: 973 Orcs.  Most of them still had swords, but 72 of them appeared to have nothing but smaller daggers now, as their shoddily crafted Iron swords were now gone.

What was even stranger was that not a single Orc said a word the entire time.  Sandra briefly thought that something might be wrong with them – as she had heard of elemental energy being used in the past to subtly influence someone’s mind – but as she initially observed them setting camp, that notion went away.  It appeared as though the force was just tired and had worked together so much that no words needed to be spoken.  They were efficient in their movements and did everything with a minimum of fuss, so there was apparently no reason to communicate.

That all took place just past mid-morning, and they were up again approximately 8 hours later as the setting sun was very nearly touching the horizon.  The darkness didn’t seem to deter the Orcs, however, as they exited the forest and made for the road to the village.

Except…they kept going instead of heading for the settlement.

Winxa, the Orcs aren’t stopping.  I can see them going straight for the other dungeon to the southwest of them. 

Throughout the day, something had been bothering her about the whole situation, and it took the entire day to figure out what it was: the Warband that had taken over for Razochek and continued the culling process of the nearby forests was nowhere to be seen.  It was only when she looked closer at a few of the Orcs in the army that she thought she recognized one or two of them integrated with them.

Why would they accompany the new army when they could just tell what happened to Razochek?

Then she remembered that the others of Razochek’s warband that hadn’t perished with him didn’t actually know what happened to Kelerim’s half-brother, only that he disappeared in the wastelands.

Winxa backed that thought up for her a moment later.  “They could be pleading ignorance and be blaming his disappearance on something else.  It’s quite possible that they don’t know what happened to the Orcs that died in your dungeon and would rather seem incompetent rather than complicit.”

That was true, but the Orcs that had come from the Bloodskull Compound had to have been informed that a dungeon had killed Razochek – otherwise what they were doing didn’t make sense.  Sandra figured it was only a matter of time before they put things together and determined that something in the wasteland killed Razochek and went hunting for it – even if it didn’t turn out to be a dungeon, for all they knew.

As the Orcs entered the trees heading towards the Avian dungeon, Sandra had her flying Shears follow along for as far as it could before something unexpectedly dive-bombed her construct and destroyed it nearly instantly.  She didn’t bother sending any more into the forest after that, because she already knew where they were going.

The Avian-Classification Core and accompanying dungeon were apparently a little tougher, because it took some time for anything to happen.  While Sandra was waiting, most of her guests were starting to wake up and look for food, which she easily supplied from a small kitchen she had replicated down below near the Dwarven bedrooms – though she didn’t really have a dining area set up quite yet.  The villagers and Shieldmen were happy enough to be eating meat and especially fruit, as it was apparently quite the luxury for them, sitting on the floor wherever they could find space to eat.

She took that opportunity for Gerold to come forward and finally fess up and tell them precisely where they were and who Sandra was – and she promptly freaked out half of the villagers with her voice in their heads.  The Shieldmen were a bit more stoic about the whole thing, but that could also be because they were all still reveling in the Energy Orbs embedded in their palms to care that much one way or another.  Luckily none of them started screaming and demanded to be let out immediately, though she certainly let them know that they weren’t prisoners and could leave at any point.

They calmed down even further when she showed them the growing room she had created to plant their crops, and that they could produce as much as they wanted – and do it much, much quicker in the process.  She also found out that a few of the villagers had extensive experience back in their strongholds brewing and distilling, so the potential for making the drinks that they so desired was now a real possibility for the future.

She also talked to Violet, Felbar, Echo, Gerold, and the Shieldmen about the new development concerning the destroyed Dungeon Cores.  She would’ve included Kelerim, but he was still sleeping, and he seemed like he needed it more than he needed to be awkwardly introduced to the others to take part in the conversation.  Besides, he probably didn’t want to hear about what a mess he had caused with his actions immediately after waking up.

* …and that’s pretty