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

going to do,” before settling herself with a small smile.  The panic that had set in earlier was all but gone as she realized she was doing what she had always wanted to do: be a part of an “elite” team of individuals that had the express duty to cull Monsters and destroy dungeons.  It also helped that it was an undead dungeon that they were bent on destroying, as that would make success that much sweeter.  In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that they were trapped underground with no chance of escaping, she would say that she was having a good time.

Without further ado, the others turned toward the exit and Felbar ordered the monsters he controlled forward.  Echo and her cadre of copies followed after, and for the first time since she stepped foot into this dungeon, she was actually looking forward to testing herself against whatever was upcoming.

*          *         *

Echo wasn’t having a good time anymore, nor was she looking forward to destroying any more undead.  She couldn’t be quite sure because she had lost track of how many times her Shapeshifters had switched forms, but she was pretty sure they had been making their way through the dungeon for at least 6 or 7 hours; it could be longer, but she was starting to get really hungry even after having a huge breakfast earlier – and no one had thought to bring food along in what was supposed to only take a couple of hours.  Then again, her extreme hunger could be because she had to be healed a few more times and had used her entire reserve of Holy elemental energy reserve at least once, though fortunately it had been regenerated by the Energy Orb around her neck.

The others looked ragged as well from the constant stress of killing undead and worrying that the next room would have a trap that could kill them all.  Luckily, through some sort of miracle, no one had died; well, that wasn’t quite true – no living person had died.  Their force of monsters was now whittled down to a fraction of what it had been at the start.  From a small army of powerful dungeon-created constructs and monsters, they barely numbered more than herself, Felbar, and the Dwarves.

She had the most left on her team, in fact; 10 Shapeshifters – whittled down from 40 – was all she had left, which meant that only 3 or 4 of them were in Echo form every 45 minutes, with a 15-minute overlap where there was more.  The smaller number of them was probably good, because they only had 5 Pegasi left – including Starlight…actually Starlight “2” because the original Pegasus she had been riding had been killed by a trap a few rooms before.  She was a good flying horse…

She didn’t have the opportunity to mourn, however, because their supply of Apes and Angels was also dangerously low.  They only had 8 of the Apes wielding their special warhammers and 4 of the Celestial Authorities left, as they had paid the price for traps that were unable to be identified in time, or because of attrition due to fighting undead.  In fact, the only one of Sandra’s monsters that had survived intact were the healing Drones, mainly because they always stayed at the back of the group and no one wanted to risk them not being there when they needed them.

The reason they were still inside the dungeon when they doubtless should’ve been done by that point was a point of contention between them all and had led to some heated arguments; they were made all the more stressful because precise communication was still an issue because of the language barrier between them all, so it had devolved into a lot of finger pointing and gesturing to get their points across.

The issue was that the dungeon didn’t seem to have a straightforward path to where the Dungeon Heart/Core was located.  The first indication of this had been in the seventh room, where similar-looking tunnels led out from it to the left, right, and straight ahead.   After a few minutes in which they had all pointed off to different tunnels, they had finally settled on straight ahead, which made the most sense to Echo and obviously Felbar at the time; she figured that the others were just distractions and if they wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible, then straight would get them there.

She was horribly wrong.

They took the straight route, which slowly began to angle off to the right as they went, though it wasn’t completely noticeable at once.  Still, Echo was marginally sure they all thought that was the way it was supposed to be and didn’t turn back.  After fighting through more zombies, skeletons, a large contingent of ghouls that emerged from a cleverly hidden pocket beneath the floor in a room, more Specters that filled a pit on either side of a narrow walkway, and scores of the black-armored undead that were lined up in ranks, they finally emerged into a large room after 3 or 4 hours – to find it was the exact same one they had needed to choose their pathway from earlier.  The straight path had led around in a circle, ending up in the right-hand tunnel…with nothing but the loss of some of their monsters to show for it – not to mention their mounting exhaustion.

Echo remembered Sandra saying that she could “see” the outside of the dungeon from underground, so the Dungeon Core probably could’ve told them that going down the left tunnel was the correct way to go without wasting time – but how were they supposed to know?  After a few minutes of silence followed by accusatory finger-pointing and arguing in different languages that the others couldn’t understand, they eventually went down the left tunnel, hoping that their destination was close at hand.