And once they found the Elves – which was almost a certainty – then another army of reptiles would march forth from the dungeon and attack the village. Simple yet effective.
Winxa – we’ve got a major problem. Sandra explained what she was seeing, and the Dungeon Fairy agreed with her.
“You’re right about what the other Dungeon Core is doing. I’m going to assume when it upgraded its Core size that it no longer has access to your Area of Influence, so it’s exploring what it now has within its own Area,” Winxa said matter-of-factly. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Sandra had to stop and think about it for a moment before she answered. The way she saw it, there were three options she needed to consider. The easiest one – and which may or may not solve her impending problem with the Elites coming to destroy her – was to do nothing. The other Core would find the Elven village and attack it, killing all of the villagers and probably leaving an obvious trail back to its dungeon. When the Elites arrived, Sandra guessed they would either track down the reptile Core’s dungeon and destroy it, or else leave and go back home right away, knowing that there was no point in risking themselves if there were no people left to save.
Sandra immediately dismissed that option; there was no way she was leaving the Elves to die at the hands (or claws and teeth, or whatever) of the other Core. Not only was she morally opposed to that, but their deaths would just be another thing that she would be responsible for – even if it was completely unintentional to begin with. And, selfishly, she didn’t know if the Elites would go home even if they destroyed the reptile-based Core – they might just end up finishing their original purpose for coming there and give her dungeon a visit.
The second option was to defend the village the same way she had the Gnome village, though this time she would be prepared. She could send her constructs in beforehand to get in place before the reptile army even arrived, and perhaps even ambush them on their way through the forest. It would be easy enough to track their movements via her Shears and be prepared for their attack. The Ancient Saurians – if they attacked – would still be a bit of an issue, but since they were a lot slower, she knew she would have some time to plan for their arrival.
It was quite possible that some of her new “advanced” constructs that she could create now were capable of really damaging the Saurians, though her most powerful constructs were a bit out of her price range now that they had increased in cost. Still, Sandra thought it was quite possible that something might be effective, as the names of them appeared to make them quite deadly. Whether or not that was true was something that she’d have to explore later.
There were two problems that she could see with that option, however. One, she didn’t think she would receive the same reception from the Elves as she did from the Gnome village. In the case of the Gnomes, her constructs were a complete unknown and in some way were related to the large War Machines that they operated, so they weren’t completely foreign. For the Elves, though, they already knew about her constructs – at least in general terms, even if their perception of them was skewed – and believed that she was a danger to them. Not only that, but she had “captured/killed” one of their own, so they probably wouldn’t take kindly to her Dungeon Monsters being so close by. In fact, looking at the situation from their perspective, she could imagine them seeing her forces killing the reptiles as some sort of power play over “food” or whatnot.
Two, even if she was able to beat the reptiles back and kill them all, she had no idea when – or if – the attacks would stop. From what Winxa had told her and her own experience with the reptile dungeon, she imagined that the assault on the Elven village would be constant, and she would have to be on her toes every minute in case something slipped through her defense. It would theoretically never end, and she hesitated to think what would happen if she wanted to do something that would take her away from the action – like upgrading her Core Size. To add to all that, the defensive option still probably wouldn’t sway their opinion of her dungeon and the Elites would likely still come looking for her.
Therefore, that left option three. And with that option, Sandra would make the choice to defend the people with the same lesson she learned from when the Territory Ants attacked her Core. Sometimes the best defense was a proper offense, just like the only way to halt the assaults was to destroy the source. And the source in this case was probably going to be just as difficult to get to.
Winxa, I think I know what I have to do.
“And what, pray to the Creator, is that?” she asked.
The only thing I can do in this situation…destroy that other Core before it can kill again.
The Dungeon Fairy smiled, which was not the reaction Sandra was expecting. “I was hoping you’d say that,” Winxa said, weirdly giving her a thumbs-up.
You’re strange, you know that?
“Oh, believe me – I know.”
Chapter 41
Sandra wasn’t taking any half-measures in her assault of the other Core’s dungeon. She was going to send the majority of her larger constructs, as well as half of her AMANS with them; she was a little worried about depleting her dungeon of its main defenders, but almost all of her smaller defenders that couldn’t travel quickly were still there, along with her bevy of traps to defend her Core.
From what she could see, there wasn’t any sign of the Elven Elites, and it was closely approaching evening; even if they arrived within the next few hours it was doubtful they would try to attack her dungeon until at least morning. By that time, Sandra was hoping to replace what she could (within her budget) of her defenders with her more powerful “advanced” constructs, so she didn’t think it would be too bad. If she were lucky, the Elites wouldn’t even arrive that day or even that night, and she hoped that she would be done and gone from the other dungeon before they even showed up.
In all, her army consisted of 14 Steel Pythons, 22 Ironclad Apes, 14 Basher Totems, 15 Mechanical Wolves, 16 Mechanical Jaguars, 45 Singing Blademasters, and – last, but not least – 5,012 Small Animated Shears from her AMANS. She didn’t bring any Repair Drones or anything smaller than them because they weren’t fast enough to keep up with the others, and speed was becoming more essential by the moment. Sandra was barely able to track the quick little lizards that practically streaked through the forest on their exploration, but the ones she followed with one pair of her Shears were already three-quarters of the way to the edge of the forest near the Elven village. She gave them about 10 minutes before they were discovered – 15 if they were lucky.
As for her own construct force, she estimated that it would take almost 45 minutes to arrive at the dungeon as a whole; her Shears could make it there in a fraction of the time, of course, but she didn’t want to go in just with them in case there was something that could stop them easily inside. She had never actually been in a dungeon before (hers didn’t count), so she only had some vague stories of what they looked like to go on; the Heroes back in Muriel rarely needed to actually destroy a dungeon – because they culled them fairly regularly – so it wasn’t often that new descriptions of them emerged.
As soon as they departed, Sandra started the process of replacing them for her dungeon with the Mana she had already accumulated and was still accumulating – though the amount she was receiving from aboveground slowly declined from the initial surge when all her constructs left the dungeon as they traveled farther away. With the increased cost of her constructs since her advancement, the just under 300 Mana per minute she had been receiving almost didn’t seem like enough anymore – and when that number dropped down to just over 200 as the miles separating her dungeon and her Core-hunting force grew, it felt rather insufficient.
For instance, although she used some of the Mana that she already had to create it, the Martial Totem (the “advanced” version of the Basher Totem) took almost an additional 10 minutes for her to accumulate enough to afford its new 8,000 Mana price tag. Starting from almost empty, it
was going to take almost an hour to be able to create another one based on those numbers – but she did have to say that (once she was able to see it) the increase in cost was worth it.
The Martial Totem appeared to be made completely out of Iron as opposed to the relatively softer undefined metal of the Basher Totem; this made it much more durable and should withstand more powerful attacks – as well as having some serious weight behind its own attacks. In addition, the pair of powerful arms it had before were joined by two other pairs along the “totem” part of the construct, facing in different directions and different heights so that it had basically every angle of approach to it covered. Not only that, but each pair of arms appeared to be able to independently swivel around in any direction, though it didn’t look like they could rotate quickly – so no massive “Singing fistmaster” was in store any time soon.
Once it was in place up in the uppermost room, she had it move outside for a moment and practice attacking the surrounding wasteland’s rock formations – she didn’t want to expend any Mana to fix any damage it did to her dungeon. The results were spectacular; stone was practically pulverized into dust with each hit the Martial Totem performed on the rocks, and the damage to its own fists was fairly minimal. She was sure if it kept up the abuse it would get just as damaged as the old one used to, but for a test it performed amazingly. In her opinion, it was just as deadly as five (or more) of the original Basher Totems, which definitely made up for the increased cost.
While she was waiting for her Mana to accumulate so she could create some more, Sandra briefly contemplated converting some of her treasury into Mana and Raw Materials so that she could complete the reinforcements faster, but she ultimately decided to hold off until she was desperate. There was no specific need to rush at the moment, as she was still accumulating more than enough to create what she required to replenish her forces – it was just going to take a bit longer than she was used to. She just needed to have patience and it would eventually come to her – her treasury was for emergencies, and she wasn’t quite at that point yet.
Now, if her constructs completely failed in their objective and were wiped out to the last…then she would panic and dive into her emergency fund. Until something like that happened, though, the smart approach was to keep on like she was doing. What she did decide to do, however, was use the Monster Seeds in the treasury to create the reinforcements so she wouldn’t have to waste her Mana to make new ones.
Using some of those Seeds, Sandra did make a couple of the less-expensive constructs that had ended up leaving for the other dungeon, just in case she needed to change up the defense of anything. To start, she created one of the new Reinforced Animated Shears – and was surprised at how large it was compared to the older version. At about three times the length (approximately 9 inches), it was a lot deadlier-looking – especially since it was made of stronger metal than the last. It wasn’t Iron or anything that solid, but when she rammed it into a nearby stone wall at high speed it only bent a little bit compared being completely destroyed like the original one would’ve been.
The new Roaring Blademaster was slightly longer than its predecessor (at about 2 and a half feet compared to 2 feet), but it was thicker around and had larger blades attached to the spinning pole. Not only did they look like sturdier bronze blades instead of the flimsier metal from before, but they were also thicker – which deepened the higher-pitched whirring “singing” from before and turned it into a lower-pitched “roaring”. She didn’t want to unnecessarily damage anything – including itself – so she didn’t have it attack anything, but she could sense that it was a higher-quality construct well worth the additional cost to create.
She was just about to see what the Mechanical Jaguar Queen (at 4,000 Mana) looked like, but then her Shears keeping an eye on things near the reptile dungeon saw the moment when the Elves were discovered. The little lizard climbed up a tree on the edge of the forest and sat there staring at the Elven village a little over a mile in the distance. Along some of the other trees, her Shears could see a couple other lizards arrive and do the same thing, until there was at least a dozen of them all along the forest’s edge. Less than a minute later, the pair of Shears floating above the reptile Core’s dungeon watched as a flood of larger lizards, giant turtles, and crocodiles flowed out of the dungeon entrance – and headed straight towards where the Elven village was located.
The other Core must’ve learned something from the previous experience at the Gnome village – and the defense that Sandra had contributed to it – because instead of streaming ahead leaving the slower Dungeon Monsters behind, they stayed as a group and only advanced as fast as their slowest members, which was still fairly fast. Strangely, they began to slow soon after leaving the dungeon, and around 200 feet past the entrance they suddenly stopped.
A large hole in the ground was revealed when some vines and underbrush were ripped away, and the two massive heads of the Ancient Saurians that Sandra had seen before emerged from hiding – or guarding. They were still slow, but they moved with determination towards the Elven village with steady steps. At the rate they were moving and the distance they needed to travel, Sandra guessed that they would arrive at the edge of the forest in approximately five hours.
Her own Dungeon Monsters arrived at the edge of the forest a few minutes later, and they quickly ran/flew through without pausing, searching for the dungeon entrance. It was deeper through the trees, however, and moving through the trees was a little more difficult than passing through the wastelands – as strange as that sounded. A couple of times her Steel Pythons got stuck underneath some exposed tree roots, and in some places the trees had grown so close together that it was difficult for her Basher Totems to pass through and had to go around, delaying them even further.
While they were navigating their way through, Sandra finally accumulated enough Mana to check out her new Mechanical Jaguar Queen – and she was definitely impressed. The old Jaguar had been maybe five feet in length from nose to tail and no more than three feet tall; the Queen, on the other hand, was easily twice that – and made from heavy Iron. Despite the size and weight differences, it could still move as fluidly and deftly as a big cat and could easily outdistance all but her Steel Pythons in a race. Its jaws looked wicked enough to pick up and crush a Gnome whole (which she had no desire to do – just an observation). Due to its size, she placed it to guard the Assembly and Storage room up top, as it would make a good door guard for the time being.
That was about all she could do as her constructs finally arrived at the dungeon. Remembering what Winxa had said about some dungeons leaving an open tunnel towards their core so that their larger Dungeon Monsters could pass through, she had one of the Shears that came with the group fly over to the hole that the Saurians exited and checked it out.
After about a minute of exploration, however – and despite the hole going very deep underground, the end was sealed off completely. Sandra could see where the opening to what she assumed was the other Dungeon’s Core Room was closed off, as there was a distinct outline of dirt that was subtly different from the surrounding earth everywhere else in the hole. It wasn’t covered in stone, at least, but then she wasn’t sure how deep the dirt went, either; her constructs could potentially dig a hole, but if it was 50 feet or more to get there that would take entirely too long. She used her Area of Influence to check it out and was instantly discouraged from pursuing that path; the thickness of the filled-in portion of the wall was currently at 30 feet – and growing.
With that avenue closed to her, Sandra directed her force to go through the main entrance. As soon as the first sacrificial pair of Shears passed over the threshold, her connection to it was severely narrowed. What’s going on?
After Sandra quickly explained what was happening to the Dungeon Fairy, Winxa answered worriedly. “Remember when the reptiles attacked your dungeon? And how single-minded they were and didn’t even try to deliberately avoid any of your traps? I thought it mig
ht be different for you due to your unique circumstances, but it seems that the limitation affects you as well. While your constructs are inside another dungeon, the influence of the other Core sort of mutes your control over them.”
What does that mean, exactly?
“I’m not exactly sure, but I assume it means that you at least can’t control them directly. It might also limit how much you can actually order them to do other than very basic actions like ‘go forward down the tunnel’ and ‘attack’. You’ll have to play around with it to see what you can and can’t do.”
Sandra didn’t have too much time to do that, however, as she was on a bit of a time constraint – because the other thing that happened when her construct passed over the threshold was a complete halt to the reptile army heading towards the Elven village. Her Shears were watching as half of the lizards, crocodiles, and turtles turned around and headed back very quickly towards its dungeon, while the others (including the Ancient Saurians) kept their plodding pace. The other Core obviously thinks its defenses in the dungeon are enough for me. Either that, or it didn’t exactly know what Sandra had to bring against it.
With a quick experimentation, because she didn’t have a lot of time, Sandra gave orders to her pair of Shears that had entered first…and found that it was delayed by nearly ten seconds. After that, though, the construct flew down the tunnel at a quick pace, crossing into the first room (which looked fairly plain with dirt walls and crudely carved-out angles) – where it was immediately shot with a powerful jet of water. The force was so great that her Shears actually bent at the impact with the water and was flung against the surprisingly firm dirt wall, cracking fatally and her connection to it was lost.
The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Page 32