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

by Jonathan Brooks

Violet looked horrified at Sandra’s explanation, which was honestly mirrored by the Dungeon Core herself.

  * Hopefully, we have a while until that happens; given enough time, I can help the nearby villages enough through crafting or other support until they can adequately defend themselves. Of course, I need to survive that long – which I may not if those Elites arrive and try to kill me. *

  Everyone was silent as they considered Sandra’s words. Finally, Violet broke the silence. “If you want, I can try talking to them.”

  Sandra immediately shut that idea down – she had almost lost Junipar to the unprovoked attack by that Elven man that found Echo’s bow, and she didn’t believe that another visit would be any more effective. Nothing had really changed since she first learned about the pending attack; she still had the same barriers to communication that she had previously, with no real solution to prevent it from happening.

  The only hope she had, unfortunately, was if there was something in her Advancement Options that would help. A Gnoll, Kobold, Ember Giant, Cyclops, Nymph, Dryad, Shadow Goblin, Hobgoblin, and even a Crystal Golem were all available now, but none of them seemed any more suited for communicating and stopping the impending attack than anything else she had considered. However, that didn’t mean they were useless for crafting purposes and enchanting, which was what she’d wanted when she decided to advance her Classification – but they weren’t what she needed now.

  There was only one new option that – might – fulfill that role: Unstable Shapeshifter.

  Chapter 38

  Violet was tired of looking at stone walls and eating fruit and dried meat – as delicious as it was. She missed the sun, missed feeling the wind blowing through her hair, and also missed the company of others; the last nine days or so had been extremely boring with just herself as company – the “constructs” that Sandra had that just stood there and ignored her didn’t really count as another person. They were Dungeon Monsters, after all, and not really ones for conversations.

  So, she spent most of her days in the Enchantment Repository, using her rather meager skills at enchanting to continue the work that Sandra had wanted help with. She didn’t really have anything better to do, and as much as she enjoyed looking at the different crafting workstations around the dungeon, none of it interested her in the slightest. If she really thought about it, Violet had to admit that the Repository idea of keeping every enchantment known in one place that could be used as a place of learning really appealed to her. If something like it had existed before now, maybe her parents wouldn’t have been so caught up in running or teaching at the ELA that they might still be alive.

  That didn’t help the fact that it wouldn’t and couldn’t work, however. Already, the Stasis Fields she had enchanted that first day were starting to lose energy; within another few days, the Fields would fail and the temporary enchantments that the others had placed upon them would likely fade before she could establish another Field. While there were ways to enforce and recharge most other enchantment runes, Stasis Fields – due to their nature of frozen entropy – couldn’t be maintained and recharged once they were established. Even though she knew that from her learning, she did at least try to recharge it – to no more success than she expected.

  She had lots of practice recharging and repairing enchantment runes – that was essentially her job back in Glimmerton, after all. The runes on the War Machines would get damaged or start to fade after a while as the energy was used up in their use, and it had been her job to fix and recharge them. Which was why she thought it was a shame that the Fields in the Repository couldn’t be done the same way. Regardless, she still did what enchanting she could and established more Stasis Fields over the rest in the room, finding as she did so that she could enchant four large fields before she was wiped for the day, as opposed to the three she was initially able to do. That meant that her capacity had increased quite a bit in even the short time she was practicing her enchantments in the dungeon, which only made sense; the more energy-intensive enchantments she did, the more energy she would be able to hold and use for even more enchantments.

  It was more than tiring, though; such constant and intense enchanting was frowned upon usually, mainly because it frequently harmed the body with so much energy passing through it – unless you already had a larger capacity and your body was used to it. Violet’s body was definitely not used to it, but the presence of Sandra’s strange “repair” monster was able to fix all of the damage she did to herself after expending so much elemental energy. It was a fabulous training program that could revolutionize how quickly she could become stronger, though she would’ve easily traded it to have someone to talk to.

  Which was the main reason she had gone looking for the reason for Sandra’s silence. Even though the Dungeon Core wasn’t actually “present” for her to talk to, even a voice in her head would’ve been preferable to the silence that permeated the dungeon. After a while it was starting to feel like some sort of prison that she could wander around in but never leave, and that was another reason why she had dared to go against Sandra’s instructions and venture lower than the Enchantment Repository and adjacent storage room.

  Any moment she thought she might be killed by some trap that was set up to stop her, but to her relief nothing did. She ventured lower and lower, until she came to a room that was much larger than the others nearby; in fact, in some ways it was larger than the room up above that they had used to assemble the Hauler and wagons. A large clear spherical object she guessed was about the size of her head was suspended in the middle of the room, glowing brightly as it shone down on a myriad of different small Dungeon Monsters slowly wandering around both on the ground and in the air.

  There was a large tunnel leading off somewhere to the right and a smaller tunnel leading somewhere else on the opposite side of the room, though she couldn’t see where either of them led from her vantage. She wasn’t really interested in where they went, however, as all her attention had been on the glowing crystal-like ball in the middle of the air.

  I’m assuming that’s…Sandra’s Dungeon Core?

  She had heard about what they looked like from stories, but the descriptions just didn’t give the Cores justice; instead of being some sort of menacing orb of evil, Sandra’s Core looked…beautiful. She walked forward until she was standing staring straight up at it for who knows how long before Sandra finally spoke to her.

  The revelation that the other races – including the Elves, who thought of most Gnomes as just slightly prettier goblins – were in danger really worried her; not necessarily because she was worried about the others, but because if they were killed the Core would become more powerful and spread its influence to engulf more of Gnomeria. The dungeons farther inside her homeland – that had expanded practically out of control – were already stretching their War Machines to their breaking point even by keeping them at a stalemate; if this one suddenly started reaching out and attacking from an unexpected direction, that could prove disastrous for her people.

  As much as she still didn’t completely relish the idea of working with Sandra because of her role – however accidental it was – in the deaths of her friends and destruction of Glimmerton, Violet was starting to realize that the strange dungeon might be their only option for survival. That was one of the reasons she had volunteered to go try speaking with the Elves, as Sandra’s death would remove any possibility of help from the dungeon. The other reason was semi-selfish – she didn’t think she could lift Felbar to move him away before the dungeon collapsed after Sandra’s destruction if he didn’t wake up from his (hopefully) temporary coma.

  When that was shot down, she was partly relieved because she didn’t want to be filled with arrows. The other part was at a loss of what to do, until Sandra surprised her with a potential solution.

  * I may have something that might work, but I’m not sure exactly what it is yet. If it doesn’t work, there aren’t many other things I can think of that might, so I’
m crossing my non-existent fingers that it’s a success. Now, don’t be alarmed by what you might see. *

  Sandra’s warning was barely enough to keep her from screaming as a large figure materialized out of thin air 10 feet away from her. It was as tall as an Elf but much wider; it wasn’t even vaguely person-like in shape, however. Instead, it looked like a large solidified slime in a rainbow of swirled colors, with bright sparkles emanating from it like the night sky. It was strangely intriguing and almost hypnotizing at the same time, because when she looked at it the colors moved around in an unending downward cascade of ribboned colors.

  Suddenly, it moved; what she could only categorize as an arm reached out from it and touched one of the metal “constructs” walking along the ground. Both paused for a moment, before the little metal monster resumed its original path.

  * Apparently, my shapeshifter cannot copy the shape of inorganic material – or at least that’s the notification that I received. Do you mind if it touches you? *

  Violet took an involuntary step away from the strange monster. “Uh, why? Will it hurt?”

  * I…don’t think so. I’m not really sure, because this is the first time I’ve had a chance to use this monster; I just unlocked it through a special Advancement system, and I’m kind of just going on instinct here. When I’m directing it, I get the feeling that it needs to touch something in order to acquire its form – though how that exactly works I’m not sure… *

  She hesitated for another few moments as she stared at the multi-colored monstrosity, but after seeing that it did no harm to the little metal construct, she shrugged and nodded her acceptance. The monster didn’t even move from where it was; it just extended its arm until it was a long, thin sparkly spike that moved towards her left arm slowly. Violet flinched as it touched her skin, before a small – and very brief – jolt of pain ran through her entire arm that caused her to yelp, but that was all. The multi-colored arm retracted quickly back into the large form of the monster, before disappearing completely.

  Violet briefly looked at her arm where she felt the little jolt of pain and saw a tiny drop of blood from an equally small puncture wound. By the time she wiped away the blood to see if any more damage had been done, the bleeding had already stopped. That’s not too bad.

  She looked back up at the strange monster and saw that the colors had frozen in their cascading effect; that didn’t last long, however, as the effect returned – but much faster than it was before. The cascade became so fast that it was like a blur, and it was distracting enough that it took a moment for her to realize that the entire monster was shrinking, almost condensing in on itself. Within a few seconds, it was approximately the same size as Violet…and then the same shape…and then the colors evened out until it matched her skin tone, hair, and even her eyes exactly. It was almost like looking in a mirror – except for the fact that the form in the “mirror” was naked.

  Violet covered her own self up in an automatic reflex, as if that could somehow cover the naked body in front of her. She felt herself blushing profusely as the other “her” blinked and started to move around as if testing its limbs.

  * Wow! That worked better than I thought it would! Why are you—oh, dang it! I guess this Shapeshifter can’t copy clothes – good to know. *

  A sheet of beige-colored linen fell from above her twin with a slit cut into the middle of it, and the Shapeshifter managed to pull it over…her?...head so that it was draped over her like some strange poncho-looking article of clothing. It wasn’t really any type of clothing by any stretch of the imagination, of course, but it at least made Violet feel a little better not having to stare at her own naked body. “What…what just happened?” she asked, still a little shocked and confused over what was going on.

  * This is my new Shapeshifter Dungeon Monster that I just acquired. I’m hoping that it will allow me to craft, enchant, and hopefully even talk to the Elves so that I can convince them not to attack. I probably should’ve warned you, but I was too excited to test it out to think how strange it must be to see something that looks like you appear before your eyes. I apologize…but isn’t it neat? *

  Neat is not the word I would use…creepy, maybe? Disturbing… distressing… alarming… upsetting… frightening… those are much better words. She didn’t say anything to that effect, though, as all she could do was stare in shocked surprise as the other Violet opened her mouth to talk – and a noise that sounded like some horrific combination of every beast she had ever heard before talking at the same time came out, startling both of them. She took a step back as the mouth opened and closed multiple times and the same horrifying noise came out, making her even more frightened.

  * Dang it! Of course it couldn’t be that easy! I guess that verbal communication is out of the question for now. I wonder if it would be any different as an Elf—oh! I’m sorry if I frightened you! I had no idea it would sound like that; here, let me have the Shapeshifter change back to its normal shape because I can see that it’s making you uncomfortable. *

  The other her suddenly lost its normal color and practically disappeared before her eyes as the form rapidly expanded, tearing the hole in the sheet even wider as it extended upward and outward. In less than two seconds, it was looking as it had before it had touched her, and she had to admit that as strange as it was, she did prefer it to be in that form as opposed to her naked twin.

  “Uh…please don’t do that again. That was just too strange,” she said to the floating crystal sphere above her. She heard another apology from Sandra and then a promise that she wouldn’t do it again. “Thank you…but if the monster there can’t talk, what good will it do?”

  * Oh, there is plenty that it can do; unfortunately, like you said, I can’t use it to talk to the elves, but there are other useful things I can think of it being able to do – crafting and enchanting, for instance. *

  “How will that help?”

  * Oh, it probably won’t, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for a solution to the communication problem. *

  Violet sincerely hoped that she found another solution, because what she had just presented was liable to make the Elves want to destroy Sandra’s Core even more.

  Chapter 39

  Although she was severely disappointed that the Unstable Shapeshifter was unable to talk – at least as a Gnome – Sandra was still looking forward to seeing if she would have any more luck with enchanting than she did with the Goblin Worker from before. Given that the new Dungeon Monster she had purchased for 5 AP cost a whopping 16,000 Mana to create (and had to use her last Large Steel Orb as its Monster Seed), she had been hoping that it had much more elemental energy to work with. Fortunately, she was right.

  Unstable Shapeshifter

  Current Form: Base

  Current Elemental Energy:

  Air – 2000 energy

  Earth – 2000 energy

  Fire – 2000 energy

  Water – 2000 energy

  Nether – 2000 energy

  Holy – 2000 energy

  Natural – 2000 energy

  Spirit – 2000 energy

  Natural Ability:

  Shapeshift: 0 energy

  Special Ability:

  None – adopts the special ability of whatever form it Shapeshifts into (if applicable)

  Not only did the Shapeshifter have energy from every element, but when it changed into a copy of Violet, Sandra was able to look at it intently again and found that the elemental energy actually changed from what it was before.

  Unstable Shapeshifter

  Current Form: Gnome Female

  Current Elemental Energy:

  Natural – 8000 energy

  Spirit – 8000 energy

  Natural Ability:

  Shapeshift: 0 energy

  Special Ability:

  None – adopts the special ability of whatever form it Shapeshifts into (if applicable)

  Sandra had a feeling that the base form of the Shapeshifter had all the eleme
nts equally divided up based on its total, and then when it shifted into something else it would convert all that energy into whatever was able to be used by the form. She also figured if she were to use some of that energy while in a certain form, the remainder would be equally divided up again. The only question now was whether she needed to shift in the first place in order to enchant something.

  Instead of going and getting another knife to enchant like she did with the Goblin Worker, she instead just created a flat piece of Steel that would work well enough for a basic enchantment and had it lie on the floor. Thinking of the simplest enchantment rune she could remember, Sandra concentrated on bringing forth a little Earth-based elemental energy and…found that she didn’t really have any appendages to direct the energy. Taking full control of the Unstable Shapeshifter to better direct the flow, the creation of an arm, and at least a single finger revealed – at least in part – why it was called “unstable”.

  First, directly controlling the new Dungeon Monster felt like she was dizzily spinning around and around until she started to feel like she was getting a headache (or mindache). Second, whenever she deliberately tried to create some sort of appendage – when she could focus enough to do so – the arm (or whatever you wanted to call it) would stay solid for about five seconds before it dissolved back into the mass of multi-colored solid goo that comprised the Shapeshifter. Third, when she quickly tried to call forth Earth elemental energy before her arm went away, what came out instead was a strange mixture of Air, Nether, and Spirit – no Earth at all.