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

shaped outcropping above her thankfully threw some shade on her hiding spot, which helped to keep her a little cool even in her light, light-brown outfit she was wearing that day.  The first day had been miserable as she had worn her leathers and was almost cooked alive during the heat of the day; after that, though, she had borrowed some light and airy cotton pants and blouse from one of the growers back in Avensglen.  It would do absolutely nothing to protect her if she was attacked, but she’d rather not die from heat exhaustion in the noonday sun.

She was fairly well hidden behind some other rocks as she kept an eye on the entrance of the dungeon she had found just under a week ago, so she didn’t keep her camouflage active the entire time.  Echo couldn’t possibly do that, of course, even if she wanted to; her capacity for Holy elemental energy wasn’t enough to sustain it that long.  She knew that as she grew older and learned some of the techniques that the Elites employed, she would be able to expand both her capacity and even find new ways to employ her energy, but for the moment she was stuck where she was.  The miniscule energy increases she received from hunting the local monster population just didn’t do much for her.

She knew that the stronger the beast – or slime, or whatever the dungeon’s monsters were – the more you would absorb a portion of their “soul” when you killed them.  It wasn’t necessarily a “soul”, of course, because everyone knew that those monsters didn’t have anything even resembling a soul, but it was named that because it was the easiest way to explain what happened.  It wasn’t visible or tangible, but whenever you slew a monster, you received a small portion of its life force as a kind of reward; it was what made the Elites so powerful compared to those who didn’t fight back the dungeon’s expansions for a living.

That life force or “soul” was automatically converted into additional capacity for holding energy, though killing easy beasts like she had been for the last decade and more didn’t do much for her.  There wasn’t necessarily a number associated with how much elemental energy someone could hold, it was more of a feeling; even given that, however, she estimated that she had only improved her capacity by…maybe 5%?...since she started hunting in the nearby forest.  It wasn’t much, but it was an improvement.

Therefore, she tried to conserve her energy as much as she could; it would regenerate from the nearby environment slowly, though it wasn’t nearly enough to sustain her active camouflage all the time.  It would fill up completely after a few hours of sleep, fortunately, but that wasn’t a luxury she could afford to take advantage of while deep into enemy territory.

After watching for almost five days without seeing much of anything happening outside the dungeon, however, she was reevaluating how much of an enemy it was.  There weren’t any outward signs of aggression, and even the few times she knew she had been spotted when she wasn’t in her active camouflage – she wasn’t attacked.  She was ready to flee and use her Holy energy to hide herself, but it wasn’t needed.  In fact, she thought that the strange undead monsters were entirely aware of her presence but didn’t care for some reason.

That fact alone was enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck.

What is going on in there that is more important than attacking?  It was extremely strange, and nothing seemed to make any sense; while the monsters themselves were unusual, none of the other characteristics of a dungeon were making themselves known.  The strange, metal-looking skeletons weren’t roaming around looking for something to kill – they appeared more as some sort of scouts or defenders more than anything; the strange metal objects in the sky floated around in pre-arranged patterns with precise movements that were unnatural and strangely non-threatening; and not once had she seen an additional monster leave from the dungeon’s entrance to join those outside.

That last aspect of the strange dungeon…worried her.  Echo had seen the entrance to the nearby beast dungeon many times in her journeys through it and almost every single time she saw it there was another monster emerging from it.  That was one of the main reasons she was out there in the first place – to keep the constantly renewing population of monsters down to a manageable level, along with accumulating the loot they left behind when they were killed.

If it isn’t sending out more monsters…then what is it doing?  Echo didn’t know the answer to that, which was why it worried her.  She wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the dungeons themselves to know what it was capable of, so she had passed on her concerns to the Elder back in Avensglen.

“As long as it doesn’t seem to be expanding or sending any monsters in our direction, just keep doing what you’re doing and keep an eye on it.  I haven’t received back a reply from my request for aid yet, but I suspect it will be soon,” was what she was told in response to her worry.

She understood it, of course; even if she had known what was going on, there wasn’t much that they could do about it.  It was the same reason they didn’t try to destroy the dungeon themselves – because it was much too dangerous.  Therefore, she did as she was instructed and just…watched.

Echo was shocked out of her lazy crouch and lean when she saw something finally emerge from the entrance of the dungeon.  Her legs slid out beneath her in surprise – depositing her ungracefully on the ground of the barren wasteland – and she hastily scrambled to her feet as she initiated her active camouflage.  She slipped her bow off of