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

The explosions from the Drones being hit from her and her copies’ exploding arrows were smaller, though no less destructive.  Massive swathes of the undead were destroyed in seconds leaving behind their Loot sometimes in piles as the monsters were packed so closely together.   Hundreds were killed as a result of the attack…but there were still dozens of undead outside of the blast radius heading their way.

Looking behind them when the light disappeared from the detonations, she saw that the two abominations were starting to dissolve into the ground after being destroyed by the intensely bright destructive light of the Angels exploding, though the Giant was still alive – and falling forward, its bottom half essentially obliterated.  On a person or even another living beast, that kind of damage probably would’ve been enough to kill or incapacitate them; since it was a zombie the rules were a little different.  It didn’t feel pain and wouldn’t bleed to death – losing its legs was more of an inconvenience than anything.

It slammed down, luckily squishing the middle portion of the undead still racing towards her group.  The others all fell down as a result of the massive impact, and Starlight 2 danced around for a second before flapping her wings to bring her off the ground. Echo made ready to launch her remaining arrows towards the 50 or so random undead heading their way (with no Liches she could see, fortunately), but was stopped again as Felbar picked himself up and saw the situation.

“Echo, berchke!”

Obviously, she had no idea what “berchke” meant, but as he pointed off to the tunnel with his weapon she figured it out fairly quickly.

“No, I’m not going to leave you—”

“Berchke!” he repeated, so loudly that it was almost as painful as listening to an arrow exploding in a confined space.

Rather than argue anymore, and since Sandra had obviously put him in charge for a reason, she directed Starlight 2 to head towards the tunnel; before she got a few more feet upwards, though, she noticed that the other Echos were trying to follow her.  “Follow Felbar’s orders now!” she shouted at them, before urging her Pegasus onward with speed.  She looked back to see them returning back down to just over the Dwarves’ heads, and they shot their arrows into the undead that were just on the edge of being too close to do so safely.

Whipping her head around at something out of the corner of her eye, she barely ordered her flying mount to dive as a wooden club wider than the wingspan of her Pegasus whipped over their heads.  The disturbance in the air was so great that she felt them both spiraling out of control, so she used the little Air elemental energy she had left to stabilize them.  Finally looking around after the recovery, she saw that the zombie Giant had lifted itself up and was balancing itself on its left arm as it started swinging its tree club with its right.

Luckily, the Giant moved relatively slowly and it was easy to see where the club was going to swing, so she was able to avoid one, and then another before she was able to fly past its range; she figured that it would have to find some way to turn itself around before it could hit her again, and that she was in the clear.

Of course, looking back, she saw at least a dozen Specters that had survived the explosion earlier closing in on her.  As she directed Starlight 2 to keep flying, she turned and launched Lightstrike spells in their direction, which rapidly expended her Holy elemental energy.  They didn’t even try to avoid her casts, so she ended up destroying 8 of them – but she counted 5 of them still there…and they were closing in fast.

Urging her flying mount to move faster, she contemplated her options.  She was out of essentially all of her energy, though it was regenerating – but it wouldn’t be in time to save her.  Her arrows, if she shot them, would just pass right through the insubstantial undead, so that was also out.  The only thing she had left was her Pegasus and its Nether-negating Protection Aura special ability, which she had used sparingly and even when she did, it wasn’t as effective as she would’ve liked.  The original Starlight had the aura on while negotiating its way through the trapped area that had ultimately killed her, though she was sure it had some effect on the trap.  With no other choices she had Starlight 2 activate it and prayed that would be enough.

The first Specter hit the aura and made it approximately two feet before it dissipated, dropping a small black stone as Loot.  The second and third hit the same spot moments later, carving out a large portion of the 15-foot aura radius before disappearing.  The fourth was there less than a second later and it managed to progress through the quickly fading Aura until it reached to within inches of Starlight 2’s tail.

The fifth one was right behind the fourth, however, and as the previous Specter was destroyed, it pressed through the Aura to hit the Pegasus in the rear end.  Starlight 2 neighed loudly – the first time she had ever heard it make a noise and it shuddered underneath her; in a matter of seconds they were falling out of the air, rushing towards the ground at dangerous speeds.  Just as they entered the dark tunnel, a last-second wing-flap prevented them from both being smashed flat, though she could feel that Starlight 2 was almost out of the energy that was being sucked out of her.  The Aura disappeared as they crashed, and Echo tumbled over her mount’s head; she heard and felt a pop in her left wrist as she fell, and by the time