The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (ebook reader with android os TXT) 📗

because it could certainly help him right now.  However, anything that was associated with a dungeon was anathema to him, especially when he thought about how his parents had been killed when he was just a young boy – from a surprise invasion by dungeon monsters in their small village.

Wyrlin had managed to hide in their small arborent while the adults in the village had banded together to fight off the sudden incursion by a veritable horde of large insects, including massive spiders about half the size of the arborent he hid inside, Elf-sized centipedes with deadly sharp mandibles, swarms of ants the length of his arm, and many more.  The dungeon had expanded its territory and reach secretly, and had obviously waited until they were unprepared.  If they had been attacked at night instead of the day, it was quite possible that they all would’ve died; as it was, the adults in the village managed to hold back the sudden attack while a luckily passing group of Elites heard the commotion from over a mile away and came to their rescue.  Unfortunately, his parents had been killed before they even showed up, and he was left an orphan afterwards.

The angry Ranger put aside thoughts of the next few years of his youth of moving from one village to the next, all while mourning his parents as he tried to make his way in the world; instead, he concentrated on what was in front of him at his current time and what he could do about this new dungeon that seemed to be controlling the minds of anyone connected to it.  He was convinced that everything it was doing was prelude to its own invasion, as it was making everyone back at the village – and many of the people he had met who knew about it – put on their blinders to make them more susceptible to attack.

Wyrlin stopped his angry stomping as he came up next to Ferio, one of the first Rangers that he had met on his self-imposed journey to fight against the dungeon who had captured Echo.  The older Elf was of a like-minded attitude towards dungeons, as his entire family (parents, wife, and his young boy) had been killed in a similar attack on his own village some time ago.  In fact, as Wyrlin looked around at those lounging around the camp, he realized that they all had the same types of stories – and some even had more heart-wrenching stories than Ferio’s.

“Is there any sight of…those others…following us?” Wyrlin asked softly, afraid of the answer.  They had been chased out of multiple towns when they started to recruit for their cause by the local Elite teams, and rumor had it that they had caused enough of a stir that some from the capital had been sent to deal with the problem.  Whether that meant a simple order to disperse and get back to work, imprisonment, or being killed outright was unknown; none of them thought that they would be killed, however, as there were just too few of them that killing even one of them would be a severe blow to their people’s defenses.

However, being backed by some powerful people – who were greedily taking what the dungeon was giving out for free – could mean that just about anything could happen to Wyrlin and the “rebels” with him.  It was better to be prepared to flee if anything did find them, because he didn’t want to risk the potential consequences to himself before he got his revenge.  The others…well, the others were important to his goals, but he didn’t actually care for them as individuals; all but Ferio, whom he felt a kinship with that he didn’t feel with anyone else.  They had remarkably similar viewpoints and had no real family to speak of because they had been wiped out by dungeon monsters; that connection made him trust the older Ranger more than anyone else, so much so that Ferio was in charge when Wyrlin himself wasn’t around.

“No sight of anyone, thank the Creator.  We’ve had a couple other Rangers trickle in from the nearby village, as they learned of our existence here, but nothing particularly threatening,” the experienced Ranger whispered just loud enough for Wyrlin to hear, maintaining his constant scouring of the nearby forest for anything out of the ordinary while he talked.  “You should probably decide what the best course of action is from here on out; are those that we have here enough to destroy that dungeon, do you think?  We need to move on soon, as I doubt we can stay hidden here—”

“—at all,” a voice from behind them interrupted what Ferio was going to say.  Wyrlin immediately slipped his bow off his back and turned while reaching for an arrow from his quiver; the voice wasn’t familiar at all, and had been arrogant-sounding enough that he could guess who—or what—it was immediately.

“I really wouldn’t shoot that if I were you,” another voice spoke up near where the other had come from, and Wyrlin saw that Ferio had already swung around and was preparing to fire before the younger Elf could even draw out an arrow.  The confident and almost amused tone from the new voice gave him pause as he completed his turn and saw what was behind him.

There were 8 Elves standing so close to them that it felt almost impossible for Wyrlin and Ferio to have not heard them approach, but there they were.  Half of them were dressed in expensive-looking robes that he immediately recognized as similar to the ones some of the Elites that had come to Avensglen to destroy the dungeon had been wearing, while the others were dressed in leathers similar to the ones Wyrlin himself was clothed in.  There were a few differences, however; for one, their leathers looked pristine and well-taken care of, unlike his own which had been