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

Echo knew he had access to Nether energy, which at first made her a little wary of him because of that fact alone, but she eventually ignored it.  Now, though, seeing him do something she’d never heard of before surprised her – mainly because it almost appeared as if he was casting some sort of spell like she and others of her kind were able to.  That’s very strange…but also very useful, if that is indeed where the trap trigger is.

The Dwarf stood up and waved everyone forward in a hurried gesture.  Already she could see the smoky essence starting to dissipate, so it was obvious that it wouldn’t last long; now that they knew where it was, though, everyone avoided it on their way through to the next room.  She gave him a thumbs up when she passed him, letting him know that she was appreciative of his help, despite it coming from a source of Nether.

His ability to locate the trap triggers wouldn’t have mattered in the fifth room unless he went first, because it was set off shortly after 5 each of the Apes and Angels entered the room.  From what she could see from behind the crowd down the tunnel, dozens of large black orbs appeared from across the room and shot towards the entrance of the room where the trigger apparently was.  They slammed into the unfortunate monsters who set the trap off at high speed, extinguishing the light coming from the Angels after 4 or 5 hit them one after another; the Apes were hit so hard that they were launched backwards against the near wall and were basically flattened, while one was sent down the tunnel again and collided with some other Apes, causing major damage to a half-dozen of them.

After everyone pulled back a little and they were able to fix the damaged Apes – including the one that was hit into the tunnel – Gerold walked forward cautiously and inspected the ground ahead of him.  After a quick look, he boldly walked towards where the trap was likely triggered…and nothing happened.

Good to know it has been deactivated, but he better not get too cocky.

With the trap now used up for the moment, they were able to enter the room, which was large enough to hold them all easily and then some; there didn’t appear to be any undead in the room at all, which was strange, but it also gave the next round of Shapeshifters to shift into more Echos, though 4 of them were forced to stay naked and weaponless.  Just as the 6 that actually did have clothes started to put them on as the Dwarves nervously hefted their axes, talking softly amongst themselves – probably at the lack of undead monsters in the room – when Gerold suddenly bent his Deep Delver’s head back enough to look up.

Echo didn’t have time to think, she just reacted instinctively as she pulled up her bow and nocked an arrow all in one motion and fired above her head without aiming.  Her arrow released and she barely held on the bow as it snapped back straight, but her focus was all on where she had aimed.  Barely visible in the dim light, dozens or maybe hundreds of Specters were starting to descend from the ceiling; it was hard to tell how many of them were there because they all seemed to blend into each other.

Her explosive arrow went straight through them because there wasn’t anything substantial to them, but the undead had barely started moving when it smashed against the hard stone ceiling.  A large explosive fireball erupted from where it hit, enveloping the nearby Specters and burning them completely away.  Less than a second later, another 10 arrows shot upwards from the Echo copies who did exactly what she did, though they fortunately didn’t aim exactly where she shot; instead they too shot straight upwards which meant that there was a painfully loud explosion that blanketed most of the ceiling in temporary flames.

Small shrapnel from the arrows fell back down at high speed, though fortunately no one was hurt – though she could hear some *pings* as some hit a few Apes and bounced off.  When her vision cleared from the sudden brightness of the explosions, she saw that very few of the Specters were actually still alive, and they continued to descend.  She didn’t bother to fire another arrow because it wouldn’t do much good, but before she could start to gather the Holy energy to launch a Lightstrike spell, Felbar and Gerold had already raised their left arms and blasted some quick flames in their direction, burning them out of the air.

When the rest of the Specters were dead, they all stood around in the deafening silence as they all tried to wrap their heads around the pure destructive power of the arrows Echo and her doubles had shot.  It was one thing experimenting with them outside in the wastelands, but it was something else entirely to use them in a confined space – and so many at the same time.

She reached up to her ears as she felt something warm trickling down it; she briefly wondered if she was wrong about no one getting hurt from the shrapnel…when she realized it was coming from both of her ears.  Those explosions certainly were loud, I guess. 

The healing Drone stopped by her and the Dwarves to fix their blown-out eardrums, though it seemed as though the Deep Delver had protected Gerold and Felbar enough that they didn’t require help.  When she could hear again, she looked around and smiled at all of the others, who hadn’t been expecting the destructive power of all of them shooting together.  I don’t think I was either.

She shrugged as if to say, “What are you