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

The small red/orange-colored snake – despite its size – must’ve been highly deadly; the Gnome, after ripping the fanged reptile away from his face – tearing his cheek badly in the process – started to convulse violently after a few seconds and began foaming at the mouth.  The movements were copied by the construct, which luckily managed to squish a few more snakes and even a large crocodile in the process, but after about a minute it lay still as the Gnome succumbed to the deadly venom racing through his veins.

The two other constructs waded in without fear, despite seeing what happened to their friend.  Unfortunately, after learning what it took to take one of the massive wood-and-metal machines down, they were also quickly swarmed by the hard-to-hit snakes as they started to climb up and wrap around their appendages.  Luckily for them, Sandra’s Singing Blademasters had arrived.

The whirring sound of two dozen of them spinning at the same time filled the Gnome village valley, as they split up into two distinct groups; one broke off to help the Gnomes on the wall, while the other group split up again to help remove the snakes preventing the larger constructs from moving.  They were highly effective as their spinning blades tore into the snakes, chopping them apart with ease; the only problem was that – when an arm or leg was freed – the large construct started to lash out in response, which ended up smashing and destroying a few of her own flying constructs.  In the end, though, she was able to remove all of the snakes from the two constructs and helped to eliminate the few more that were trying to climb up, including another one of those deadly red/orange-colored snakes trying to sneak in and bite another Gnome.

The group that fought to keep the walls free had just as hard of a time, though it wasn’t through accidental attacks by the Gnomes.  While the smaller lizards that climbed up were fairly easy to attack – by essentially running into them, slicing them into bits – the crocodiles that climbed up weren’t really afraid of hurting themselves a little in order to destroy her constructs.  Massive jaws clamped down quickly on her Blademasters – even when they tried to avoid the front and attack from the rear – which tore the crocodiles’ mouths up quite a bit, but also completely destroyed her constructs.  One after another they fell to the powerful attacks of the large reptiles, until the only ones left were near the Gnomes’ massive enchanted machines.

The respite her Blademasters provided for the beleaguered Gnomes was invaluable, however.  Instead of freezing up in confusion again, they took advantage of the surprise attack and fought back even harder, pumping out bolt after bolt in a barrage that whittled down their attackers’ numbers.  They were actually making fairly good headway towards keeping them off of their roofs – firing into the reptile-made staircases and collapsing a few of them with some lucky shots – when the first defensive position ran out of bolts.  When that happened, all of the Gnomes at that position stood on the edge of the wall and did their best to fend off the lizards and crocodiles climbing up.

For the first time (at least that she observed), Sandra could see them use their elemental abilities, infusing their weapons with a quick temporary enchantment.  She saw what appeared to be a Fire-based one that super-heated the edge of a Steel knife without melting the metal; another one used an Air-based one that caused the knife to launch from her hand to strike at whatever she was pointing her hand at, before flying back into her hand, its enchantment depleted.

She even saw an ingenious use of a Nether enchantment, which could extend a solidified shield of darkness around the knife, which the Gnome used to block a snapping attack by a crocodile; when the crocodile struck the shield of darkness, it disappeared, but it also blinded the monster temporarily – which the gnome took advantage of and stabbed deep into the back of its head, killing it near-instantly.

All of the enchantments were temporary; she had only rarely seen temporary enchantments before because Humans tended to like permanency – or at least long-lasting effects.  Sandra recognized some of the quick and dirty runes thrown on them, but other ones were completely new – and they were more that she desired to learn.  It wasn’t as though she needed another reason to save the Gnomes, but the prospect of learning even more enchanting runes from the race that seemed to use them for everything was a driving force as she encouraged her constructs on their way to run even faster.

Sending her scouting pair of Shears up high, Sandra did a quick count of how many of the enemy was left; she was encouraged to see that there were probably less than 100 left assaulting 8 positions on the house roofs.  Another two of the crossbows had run out of bolts and the others were dangerously low, but the Gnomes fought tenaciously with their temporarily enchanted Steel knives, making the encroaching reptiles fight for every inch they progressed up the walls.  Along with the two remaining Gnome machines attacking from behind, she thought that her own constructs would only arrive to help mop up the remainder.

That was, until she saw another wave coming from the forest, accompanied by something…large.

Chapter 15

What…is…that?  How?  Where did that come from? 

“What are you talking about?  What do you see?” Winxa asked, as Sandra stared in shock through her Shears at the gigantic lizard-thing that stomped out of the trees, following in the wake of the other reptiles.

It’s…a massive lizard at least 20 feet tall and perhaps twice that long.  The head on that thing looks bigger than one of my Apes, and those jaws look