The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (top 10 novels txt) 📗

capital were keeping back the dungeon monsters from encroaching on the city’s boundaries and surrounding area, these satellite “outposts” provided the raw materials required for weapon and armor production that were used to arm those premier fighters.

Echo turned 50 later this year, which meant that she was finally eligible to apply for a position in the Elites; although their numbers had steadily declined over the years, they still held with the tradition of only accepting those with a bit of “experience” to their name.  While 50 might seem old to some of the shorter-lived races like the Orcs and even the fabled Humans she’d heard about before but never seen, in comparison she was barely even a teenager by Elvish standards – and a young teenager, at that.

Echo bent down to retrieve her Ironwood arrow and winced as she looked at the blunted tip of the thin iron arrowhead.  She was glad that it hadn’t chipped, at least, because that would’ve been almost unsalvageable; as it was, with a little work and manual labor she could fix it until it was as good as new.  Checking over the shaft of the arrow, she smiled when she saw that the Ironwood had held up quite handily even through all of the abuse that she had put it through over the last couple of weeks.  She knew it would eventually start to crack from the strong impacts it had to endure, but it had been proving its worth ever since she picked it up from their village fletcher about a month ago.

Not that she had any problems using arrows made from Ash wood, but they tended to break at the most inopportune times.  Which meant, obviously, that she went through more of them on a daily basis – thereby decreasing what she could earn by culling the nearby dungeon monsters and hunting the normal beasts in the forest.  Although, now that I think about it, it’s getting harder and harder to find any “real” animals out here.  She was beginning to suspect that the dungeon had expanded its range again and was wiping out the competition.

It might be about time to call up another Elite squad from Lyringlade to cull the dungeon again.  She hated when that happened, because it seemed to take months or years for more monsters to appear aboveground in any large numbers, but it was a necessary precaution to prevent their village from eventually being overrun.  Well, that, and it allowed the local wildlife to flourish again.  The last time it had been needed had been around 6 years ago, and she was forced to travel to the northwest forest that divided their lands from the Orcish land of Orcrim to hunt; she didn’t like going there, because she wasn’t quite suited to kill the various slimes that inhabited the trees – and who could sense her better than beasts that relied on actual eyesight.

At least this is better than fighting off hordes of monsters near the capital.  Sometimes she was almost tempted to forget her dream of joining the Elites and just stay where she was; however, she knew it was important that any Elf that could join the Elites actually did – they couldn’t afford for someone who could fight to sit on the sidelines.  It wasn’t just the elders that could see that their race was in a bit of a decline right now, and the only way to fight against their eventual demise was to do just that – fight.

She didn’t really want to think about that, though.  She shook her head free of the depressing thoughts and bent down again near where she had retrieved her arrow.  A 2-foot-long dark-brown branch was lying on the forest floor, dropped by the monster as loot; she picked it up and immediately recognized it as yew wood, which made her smile in satisfaction.  The dungeon had been stingy lately when it came to wood drops, as she had primarily been getting iron, copper, tin, or even a tiny amount of steel in the last few days.  That was all well and good for those Elites that liked to get up close and personal to kill the monsters, but it didn’t really help her kind – hunters and Rangers.

They specialized in long-range attacks and that made it extremely important that they had the best-quality equipment.  She brushed her fingertips against her own yew bow, which wasn’t mastercraft work – by any means – but she had lovingly crafted it herself…with a little help by another Ranger that had a bit of the Natural element to fuse the quantity of pure, pristine yew wood drops she had stashed away for her own use.  It was to help her with her hunting, so she didn’t feel bad about not providing it above her normal quota.

Her work done for the day and with dusk soon approaching, Echo turned to head back towards the village.  However, rather than taking a direct line there to the west, she instead turned north; she knew she was rather close to the border with the wastelands and she didn’t want to run into any beasts or monsters on the way back.  It was much easier to journey the small distance to the north and walk around the forest to the village – because nothing ever traveled into or out of the dry, barren lands.  It would be a little hotter, but the season was starting to turn a little more towards fall so she didn’t think it would be that bad.

She carefully picked her way through the brush, making as little noise as possible; just because she could see or hear anything around her didn’t mean that an animal or beast couldn’t hear her.  Because she was being careful, by the time she reached the edge of the forest the sky had begun to darken, and the sun was just barely touching the horizon.  She had