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

drenched in dried blood – and nothing else, though it held a wooden club in its hand that looked suspiciously like a tree that had been ripped out of the ground.

None of the undead so much as twitched as they entered the room, though once everyone was inside there was finally some movement – though not from the monstrosities.  Behind the towering giant was a very large tunnel that she presumed was that big to let that particular monster through; emerging from that tunnel was a horde of undead that made the rest of the dungeon seem tame.  There were more skeletons, zombies, ghouls, armored undead, Specters, Liches, and even a few smaller ones that she had never seen before anywhere.

As soon as they passed within range of the two abominations, the “healing” aura that she had heard about surrounded them, indicating that they were now even harder to destroy. Hundreds of undead streamed into the room and took places in front of the three monstrous undead, lined up and ready to attack.  When the flow finally stopped, she looked over at Felbar and Gerold, seeing the same hopelessness in their gazes that she was sure was in her own.

In preparation, Echo wearily looked over at their supplies and saw that she and each of her copies had exactly 5 more exploding arrows to shoot – and that was even combining everything they had left from the other Shapeshifters.  They all had a small amount of Holy energy with which to cast spells, but it wouldn’t be much; she briefly tried to get the unshifted ones to change into her form, but she belatedly realized they were all still on a cooldown – with the next batch nearly 30 minutes away from shifting.

Nothing in the room moved as both groups just looked at each other, waiting for some sort of signal to start the attack.  With a big sigh, Echo raised her bow and figured she might as well get it started, watching as the 4 other shifted Echos did the same.  I think the explosions should be powerful enough to negate any healing they might receive, so I might as well try to destroy as many as possible right away. 

Just before she was about to release, she saw Felbar waving his arms back and forth in a gesture she had learned to translate as “stop”.  Echo lowered her bow, confused, and shot him a questioning look.  He didn’t say anything, but he looked at the others and then at the monsters they had left; she had noticed that whatever commands he would give them he could practically whisper and they would hear it, and he was obviously doing so now as she barely saw his lips moving in the construct he was controlling.  No sound reached her even though she was only about 10 feet away, though it was obvious that Sandra’s monsters could as they quickly started to move.

Their movement must’ve alerted the undead that something was up, or the Core had somehow heard him, because they immediately ran, shambled, or flew forward.  Echo froze at the scene in front of her, with hundreds of undead rushing towards her with killing intent.  The floor rumbled under the first step of the massive zombie Giant, which amazingly had the effect of snapping her out of her fear-driven paralysis.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the three Angels rushing forward as fast as they could; without a thought, she used her Air elemental energy to cast a spell that reduced the air friction in front of them and pushed them forward like she could do to herself.  She started to get an inkling of what was planned, so even though it rapidly drained that particular element, she was essentially full of it since she hadn’t used it all during their experience so far.  Right after she did that, she shouted, “Spread!”, which was an order she had designed that would spread out the attacks of her Echo copies – or in this case, spread their Air spells in between the three Celestial Authorities.

They shot forward and closed the distance between them and the approaching undead horde within seconds, spreading out so that there was one in the middle, one on the right, and one on the left – exactly where the massive giants were behind the ranks of the smaller undead.  Instead of attacking, though, they used the extra boost to their speed to leap high into the air and over the heads of the undead horde – which didn’t stop and kept rushing forward.

Meanwhile, 8 white cylindrical objects flew through the air towards the approaching horde, as the Apes dropped their warhammers, grabbed one of the healing Drones, and then threw them with their enormous strength over the heads of the leading wave of undead as well.  “Echo!” Felbar shouted, and she instantly knew what he wanted.

Letting go of the Air-based speed spell on the Angels while they were in mid-leap, she nocked one of her arrows and released with just a modicum of aiming, before doing so again just under a second later.  Her copies followed suit, launching their own barrage, and 10 arrows flew through the air towards the 8 thrown Repair Drones.

The Angels seemed to explode in a bright light a fraction of a second before the arrows hit the Drones.  She had been briefed on the abilities of the Authorities by Sandra just as much as the others were, though Echo thought Felbar had apparently forgotten about any of them, as the Angels were primarily used in melee instead of tossing out their Arrows.  That meant that they were still almost completely full of Holy elemental energy; the resulting Divine Light Explosions were so bright that the Elf had to look away, but she could sense that they were large enough to encompass the majority of the abominations behind the