The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Chapter 22

  If Sandra was honest with herself, the “invasion” of the reptile army was less of an invasion and more of a slaughter. She had watched them break from their cohesive formation and race inside, which was their first mistake. Or, she should say, the Core’s first mistake by being too eager to get inside and to the Gnomes that were within. Obviously, it hadn’t really considered that she would be prepared with traps and defenders; then again, she wasn’t sure how long the other Core had existed, and it was doubtful it had ever been up against another. It had probably grown complacent over the years and didn’t consider much – if anything at all – a significant enough threat to employ any great strategy.

  The lizards that came in first were practically useless against her Bashers and her Apes; they had deadly claws and teeth, but no real force behind them. Sandra was sure they were deadly against other beasts and even an unwary Hero – or whatever the Gnomes called those who culled the dungeon monsters – but they couldn’t do more than scratch her constructs superficially. What they did have going for them was speed, and dozens were able to escape the clutches of her Nether “vines” and make it to the second room – where they were instantly blinded and tossed about the room by the special Holy-based spheres she had made. Most of them were sliced by the Singing Blademasters that guarded the room, but six somehow made it through even that gauntlet.

  The lizards were so fast that they – despite being blinded – flew over the shallow water in the third room and two of them luckily were missed being impaled and killed by the ice spikes that shot up out of the water as they passed by. The relatively slow Small Armored Sentinels holding their steel swords didn’t even get a chance to swing before they escaped to the tunnel leading to the next room. Of course, those “lucky” lizards that made it to the fourth room were burnt by the massive flame jets that shot out of the floor, ending their attempt to reach the end of her dungeon.

  The crocodiles were next, and they proved to be more of a challenge – but not much of one, for all that they were bigger and deadlier than the lizards. The Nether vines wrapped them up one by one as they came in and secured them in place, but failed to secure their heads – and jaws, especially. Two of her Bashers had their arms ripped completely off before they were able to pulverize their crocodile victims, and an Ape had its left foot snapped off from the pure force behind the reptile’s snapping jaws. There were a few other minor damages to her constructs in the first room, but overall the casualties were almost completely one-sided.

  The giant turtles also proved to be tougher, but in a different way. They moved much slower than the others, and by the time they arrived all but two of the crocodiles had been dispatched – and none of those deadly reptiles had even made it to the second room, technically doing worse than the initial lizards. The turtles were more difficult because they were almost impossible to grab – let alone hold onto them – with Sandra’s Nether vines; either their size prevented them from wrapping completely around the turtles, or there was something about its shell that was…slippery, was probably the best word for it.

  Regardless, Sandra’s Bashers and Apes did their best to slow them down, but the turtles moved forward without even caring about defense or fighting back; the few times that one of her constructs got in front of one of them, the shelled reptiles struck out with their snappy-beaked mouths and took chunks out of them – but kept moving seemingly without a care. Dozens of the turtles fell in the first room through the sheer fact that – with enough hits in the same place – even their hard shells couldn’t withstand heavy sledgehammers of force smashing into them. After around ten or so bashes from a Basher or Ape, the shell would crack like a walnut and it was easy to finish them off after that.

  However, as a result of the shelled monsters not sticking around to fight back, 20 of them made it to the next room, where they were bounced around and blinded, but ultimately couldn’t be hurt that much because her Blademasters had trouble targeting anything but hard shell. One was bounced so hard against a wall, though, that its shell cracked and fell apart – which her constructs took advantage of and finished it off; other than that, 19 turtles moved on to the third room.

  Ice spikes didn’t really do much to the hard shells of the turtles other than launching them through the air, and the Sentinels were relatively ineffective with their short Steel swords, though a few managed to slice up a few legs pretty good. Two of the shelled reptiles ended up on their backs after being flipped by ice spikes, however, and were stabbed repeatedly by her constructs through their leg holes; the one time a Sentinel tried to attack a turtle head, it was snapped at and destroyed with one hit by the sharp-beaked reptile.

  Seventeen of the enemy walked into the fourth room and sixteen walked out, though they were all singed in places; the flame jets only managed to catch a single turtle full-on and baked it alive in its shell.

  The poison clouds in the fifth room seemed to do just about nothing, but the Segmented Centipedes that fell from the ceiling had been surprisingly the most effective construct (in terms of cost and size) at defeating the turtles. The Centipedes were small enough to land on top of their shells – which they couldn’t break through – but they were able to crawl towards the turtles’ leg openings and chew their way inside the exposed soft flesh. Just like the Centipede that had chewed up one of the Orcs from the inside, they were able to burrow inside and slice up the shelled monsters’ vulnerable internal organs.

  Only half of the sixteen that had entered the fifth room survived to tackle the sixth room, which was also not really a problem when all of the air was removed from the room – if Sandra remembered correctly, they could survive a while without breathing because they had a very slow breathing rate. The Articulated Clockwork Golems with double-bladed axes managed to gang up and chop off the legs of one of them, but that still meant that seven turtles were able to make it to the seventh room.

  Web illusions through the use of the Spirit trap and Clockwork Spiders did absolutely nothing to faze the turtles; the Spiders couldn’t even penetrate the softer leg tissue when they managed to get close enough.

  Therefore, seven of the enemy entered the last of Sandra’s original dungeon rooms, where they were greeted with stone spikes jutting out of the wall and a rotating funnel of Small Animated Shears. Of course, whoever was controlling the turtles didn’t care to try to go around the funnel and instead drove the turtles straight through them, where only one managed to get three of the Shears – which were destroyed as a result – through its neck; it continued on for a little while, but the Shears dissipated and it bled out from the wounds shortly thereafter. Learning from that, the rest of the shelled monsters kept their heads inside their shells and made it through with only a couple of superficial wounds to their legs.

  Which brought them to Sandra’s brand-new room that hadn’t been tested…and it was over in less than a minute. The extreme heat in the room literally cooked the turtles alive as they attempted to navigate the Steel-walled maze. Their feet sizzled against the floor and the softer, more-vulnerable flesh in their leg and neck holes were cooked like tender meat in an oven.

  She was strangely disappointed that they hadn’t gotten any further, because she wanted to see how her other rooms would fare against them – but she supposed that a positive test of one of the newest rooms was a good result.

  While the turtles were still navigating through the rooms to their demise, the snakes that had come with the group had finally entered…and were squashed or pounded flat by her constructs in the first room. The Nether vines didn’t even really have to restrain them, because they actually went for her Dungeon Monsters for some reason, though their venom and sharp fangs were no match for metallic bodies. In fact, the snakes that came in were actually defeated before the turtles met their end, so as soon as that happened there weren’t any more of the reptilian army to worry about.

  Other than the two Ancient Saurians on their way, but that was something that she wouldn
’t have to worry about for a while.

  She waited to see if any more were hiding nearby and waiting to enter her dungeon, but after a couple of minutes she didn’t see anything moving out there. Echo had finally showed up at some point, however; she was covered in sweat and looked exhausted as she attempted to hide in the shade behind some rocks, but since she didn’t have her invisibility thing going on, she was more than visible to her AMANS up above.

  Overall, there were some repairs to many of her constructs that needed to be completed, which her Repair Drones that she had stashed just inside the topmost VATS room immediately went to work on as soon as it was all clear. Only one of her Small Armored Sentinels had actually been destroyed, in fact, which she immediately replaced – though she waited to send it back up until she was sure enough of the Gnomes that were brought in earlier were safe enough to trust. She’d have to take down her flame traps in her Home in order to do that, and a single Sentinel wasn’t enough of a reason to do that quite yet.

  While she was thinking of that, she checked back in with them and saw that they had already finished eating and were sitting around talking.

  “…not sure what we should do. The voice in my head said that we were free to go anytime, but can you really trust a dungeon? Sure, there are some very strange things here, but I can’t help but think we’re being held captive here like the other races hold livestock – so that it can eat us later when it’s hungry,” one of the Gnomes was saying to the others. She wasn’t sure of the male Gnome’s name yet because she hadn’t yet had a chance to learn them; while she had a listing of their names through her Non-threat Visitor’s List, she hadn’t been able to put a face to each of those names.

  “Let’s just wait a little bit longer before we start throwing out wild theories; I have an odd feeling that this dungeon is quite a bit different from every other one,” Violet responded. “For one, the fact that it spoke to us shows an intelligence there that is utterly unlike the others. And two, look at this place! This looks more like a home than a dungeon; granted, it’s made completely of stone, has monsters made of metal, and it’s a bit dreary and drab, but I’ve never heard of anything like this anywhere else. It’s unique, and that might make all the difference.”

  The others still didn’t look completely convinced. Sandra eavesdropped on their conversation while she waited for her Mana to refill; when she was Human, she would’ve felt a little bad about it – especially since they were mainly talking about her – but now she was more interested in what they thought of her dungeon. And, to be frankly honest, she was a little worried about the two Ancient Saurians that were still heading towards her dungeon. Well, she was worried…until she checked on their progress and saw that they turned around and were heading back towards where they came from.

  Winxa, why would those Saurians be turning around? I would’ve thought that the temptation of the Gnomes here would keep them coming, Sandra made sure to send her thoughts towards the Dungeon Fairy alone.

  “I tried to tell you before, the other Cores are insane and homicidal, but they aren’t stupid. You completely annihilated his force back at the Gnome village and then destroyed their reptile army here without suffering many casualties yourself; after getting a look at your dungeon and your traps, they probably decided it was a lost cause. I’m sure they ended up gaining more Mana today than they had in the last decade, so it makes sense if they want to pull them back,” Winxa said matter-of-factly. “Especially if they are ready to upgrade their Core Size; you probably eliminated many of their actual ‘dungeon monsters’ defending their dungeon but having two massive Ancient Saurians standing guard outside will go a long way to defending themselves.”

  She hadn’t thought about that before; it was still strange to think of the other Cores as thinking beings instead of mindless homicidal floating stones, especially given what she knew about them and their history. And not “throwing good money after bad” was a common expression while she was a merchant; the other Core had already wasted a significant amount of Mana with the failed invasion of her dungeon. All of the Monster Seeds left over from the reptiles dying had already been collected and deposited in her upper VATS room, where she was planning on bringing them down later. Unlike in the Gnome village, the reptile Dungeon Core wasn’t able to collect them for reuse.

  So, with that threat at least temporarily off the table – for now – she turned back to her immediate problem: Gnomes. Sandra had some ideas of what she’d like to do with them if they were willing, but she knew that she would have to explain a few things to them first. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

  Before she could interrupt them and broach the subject, however, a woman’s scream from somewhere captured her entire focus and attention. She discovered it immediately aboveground near her entrance, through one of her Mechanical Wolves standing sentry nearby. Sandra immediately instructed two of her nearest AMANS to propel themselves downwards, where they sliced cleanly through the snake latched onto Echo’s calf muscle, destroying all three in the process.

  The Elven woman fell to the ground and convulsed a few times; Sandra could see her struggling to rise but failing to find the strength. Judging by the coloring of the snake, she guessed that Echo only had minutes to live; the Gnome that was bitten by it back at the village had been struck in the face, so the venom inside the snake’s fangs had gone straight to his more vital areas. The Elf wasn’t foaming at the mouth quite yet, so Sandra thought she might have a little bit longer before it was too late.

  One of her Ironclad Apes quickly ran out of the dungeon’s first room and threw her over its back in a hurry; Sandra didn’t have time to be gentle. It ran back inside and went immediately to the VATS room Sandra had opened up and deposited her a little more gently on the floor.

  Is there something about my dungeon that draws unconscious people, or am I just lucky?

  Chapter 23

  Sandra knew she didn’t have a lot of time; as soon as her Ape put her down, Echo started to foam at the mouth. Thinking quickly, she had the Golem still there walk to the Elemental Orb pile; Sandra had to guess correctly because she didn’t think she’d have more than one or two tries to get it right. Thinking about the Elven woman’s abilities and what type of elemental energy she used, Sandra remembered seeing the white of Holy energy dissipating after she had dropped her invisibility; her superior speed had to be either an infusion of Earth to her body to increase her muscle strength or an outward application of Air to reduce the resistance as she ran.

  Remembering what Winxa had said about Elves being the masters of manipulating the elements – but not necessarily inside their bodies like the Orcs did – Sandra reasoned that Air was the likely one. Grabbing an Air and a Holy Large Elemental Orb, she brought them over and placed them on Echo’s chest – which she immediately bucked off as she convulsed violently again. Picking them up via her Golem, Sandra looked for a solution; the woman was in her death throes and she didn’t think she could get them to stay anywhere on her body…well, almost anywhere.

  Knowing that she probably couldn’t breathe anyway, Sandra shoved them in her mouth and pushed them to either side of Echo’s inside cheeks. Then, before they could escape or be involuntarily spit out, she activated the Dungeon Visitor Bond for the third time on someone unconscious in her dungeon, hoping for the woman’s sake that she had guessed correctly.

  Just like the bond with Kelerim, 1,000 Mana and 5,000 Raw Materials flowed out of her Core and into Echo’s still-convulsing body. The now-familiar bright light erupted from around her face and even Sandra had to look away; when it was done, the Elven woman was completely still – and with a bronze-colored gear tattoo visible on each cheek. She didn’t bother to check, but she wouldn’t be surprised to see white Holy flakes in one and grey Air flakes in the other.

  Immediately, a Repair Drone had its arms out and pads pressed against Echo’s inert body; bright white and grey light flowed in between the pads and the Elven woman, though it s
tarted to fade after a little bit. Sandra hoped that she wasn’t too late; she had placed two other Drones in the room previously, as they had just finished repairing the constructs that had been damaged by the reptiles. With a quick order in their direction, she ordered them to help, which they immediately floated over to do.

  As soon as they joined in, Sandra could finally see a change come over Echo’s body. The pant leg covering the puncture wound had been dragged up as a result of moving her unconscious form, and she could plainly see a thick liquid being rapidly expelled from the holes the snake had left in the flesh. It was actually quite a bit more than Sandra had expected, as it created a sizable puddle on the stone floor by the time it was all removed from the Elven woman’s bloodstream. As soon as it was all out, the wounds closed over in an eyeblink, and the color started to come back to Echo’s skin – and her breathing resumed normally. Sandra breathed a figurative sigh of relief that she had been able to save the woman.

  Of course, she was still thoroughly unconscious.

  Regardless, Echo hadn’t died and would be ok; better yet, Sandra would be able to speak with her and be able to explain who she was and that she wasn’t a threat to the Elves – or any of the sentient races. Granted, the Gnomes – and Orcs, for that matter – could partially refute that statement based on how many had died since she arrived as a Dungeon Core, but nothing that had happened was intentional.

  Just to ensure that everything was indeed okay and that the woman was indeed alive – despite the physical evidence that she was fine, Sandra couldn’t help but realize that Echo had been extremely close to death, if not actually dead for a short period – she checked the list for her name.

  Non-threat Visitors List (Currently Present)

  Name

  Race

  Elemental Access