She didn’t even really see where the jet of water came from; all she knew was that – at least in the first room – there were no obvious defending Dungeon Monsters to contend with. Knowing that her larger constructs were currently more valuable to her, she sent another dozen pairs of Small Animated Shears inside the dungeon to “test the waters” again, and they survived long enough to see that the water jets were coming out from various holes in both side walls – and that there were at least three dozen holes that she could see. The only other thing that she noted was that the Tiny Copper Orb that the first pair of Shears had dropped upon its destruction was already gone – absorbed by the Dungeon Core.
I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.
Chapter 42
Sandra’s orders to her constructs were almost useless, as they didn’t know how to avoid traps that well; they were more suited to going up against other creatures, people, or even other Dungeon Monsters – not testing their wits against dungeon traps. Fortunately, she found that the holes blasting out strong jets of water were stationary and couldn’t move to target her constructs, so the best alternative was to have everything move through the room as close to floor height as possible. The jets missed most of the Shears when they did that, and the Steel Pythons made it through without even getting wet, but the others took a few dents and a crack in their metal shells here and there. The jets were powerful, but they couldn’t shift something such as her Ironclad Apes more than an inch or two when they were blasted.
She lost another dozen Shears in the process with some unlucky movements of her constructs, but overall they came through rather unscathed. She could only imagine what those jets would feel like if her constructs were flesh-and-blood; if they were powerful enough to crumple metal – granted, it was a softer metal – then against skin or even clothing it would probably feel like an extremely powerful punch.
The next room was through a long downward-sloping tunnel, which emerged into a huge room that had two very large tunnels on opposite sides across from each other. A very slow-moving stream was exiting from the short tunnel on the left and flowing across a gradual slope of smooth rocks that led to the other large tunnel. There wasn’t anything else in the room, and by looking outside of the dungeon with her AOI view, she could see that the way leading to the next large void was heading to the right.
This room was obviously supposed to be filled with Dungeon Monsters, otherwise it wouldn’t be this easy. Wary of sneaky traps, she sent a dozen of her Shears forward and had them spread out throughout the room, hoping to trigger the trap – if there indeed was one. Nothing happened, so she sent them down the large tunnel on the right. Still nothing happened as they flew down the passageway, until they came to a sharp left turn that led a short way to the next room. Without any obvious danger, she sent the rest of her force forward into the right tunnel so that they could progress to the next room.
Halfway down the passageway, she heard a loud roaring sound behind her constructs. One of her Apes was just turning the corner to the next room when it managed to look behind the rest of Sandra’s construct army; a huge wall of water was emerging from the short left-hand tunnel in the previous room, heading straight for Sandra’s forces. She tried to get all of them to run quickly into the next room, but the delay between her command and their action was entirely too slow.
The rushing wall of water slammed into the back of her forces and the sheer power of it flung her constructs around like they were made of wood and not metal. Thousands of her Small Animated Shears were picked up and slammed against the tunnel wall leading to the next room and were instantly destroyed, along with more than half of her Singing Blademasters. She lost two of her Basher Totems as they were smashed top-first into the wall and crumpled like an accordion, and six of her Ironclad Apes slammed up against each other in succession, their heavy weight doing most of the damage to themselves – and doing enough to damage them so much that they couldn’t move.
Her Mechanical Wolves and Jaguars were mostly okay after the wall of water hit them, as a lot of the water just passed through them and only carried them along the wave instead of smashing them apart. A handful were damaged fatally when they impacted other constructs – like an Ironclad Ape or two – but overall they came out relatively unscathed.
The only constructs that didn’t sustain any damage at all were her Steel Pythons. They were picked up and flung away, of course, but their Steel bodies were more than a match for the impact that destroyed so many others.
In all – if she considered her vast quantity of Shears as part of her force – she had already lost over 75% of her constructs…and she had only progressed through two rooms! Sandra wasn’t sure what she could do to be more careful to avoid a disaster like that, but she knew she had to destroy the Core at the end of the dungeon so that it wouldn’t harm any more people. Thankfully, the majority of her remaining constructs were fairly powerful, and she still had over 1,000 Shears that had made it around the corner and slightly into the next room before the wave had hit them. Using them as more sacrificial pieces, she sent them into the smaller third room and saw them freeze halfway across to the exit. A barely visible frost covered them at first before expanding quickly, and soon enough she could see that a column of frigid moisture was filling up a square middle portion of the room.
The frozen water adhered to her constructs and froze them so solid they couldn’t move; within 15 seconds, they were practically covered with ice – and then Sandra heard a series of cracks as the ice apparently contracted and snapped her constructs apart. As soon as they disappeared, the trap deactivated and their Monster Seeds dropped to the floor, only to be absorbed just like the thousands that had dropped a few moments ago from her destroyed constructs. Actually, when she turned to look at the Monster Seeds that had dropped from the results of the big wall of water trap, they were still being “consumed”; she knew from experience that she could only absorb them so quickly, and the amount that was there was quite a meal.
Avoiding the trap in the third room was blessedly easy after she knew about it, so she was able to direct the remainder of her constructs around it. The fourth room was almost as easy, as there were more water jets similar to the first room that needed to be avoided – though there were more of them (and more powerful) in this long, hallway-like room. She lost another two-dozen Shears when one of the jets appeared to be able to shoot downwards to the floor where her constructs were trying to sneak by, but only a few dents and cracks were evident on the rest of her larger forces.
The fifth room required her to sacrifice another half of her Singing Blademasters, as the trap inside the room was a line of unending sharp icicles that would shoot straight down from the ceiling, impaling anything that crossed the line. Even her Apes with their Iron shells weren’t immune, and she lost one when an icicle slipped through a gap in its body and shot straight into its internal power source, killing it instantly. The only solution she could come up with to get the rest of her constructs through was to have some of her Blademasters spin and impact the icicles, throwing them out of line. The act, of course, was too much for her spinning constructs and damaged many of them beyond repair, but it was worth it to get the rest through relatively unscathed.
The sixth room was filled with a foot of water that didn’t seem that dangerous, and after a little bit of investigation she couldn’t trigger any traps. Sandra then used one of her Mechanical Jaguars to wade through the water and test everything out to the exit; when nothing seemed to happen, she ordered the rest to enter the room and make their way across the mine-lake of water in the long, 100-foot-plus room. Of course, that was when the reptiles that had turned back from the advancing army headed toward the Elven village arrived at the dungeon and immediately rushed inside. She couldn’t see where they went after that, but they were near her constructs’ location within a minute and coming through a hidden passageway in the tunnel they had just passed through, so she was forced to fight them on t
he reptiles’ home turf.
Fortunately, the order to attack was given in plenty of time, and her constructs didn’t need any further instruction. Like she had thought before, it was obvious that they knew exactly what to do against an enemy they could see – it was just the hidden traps that tripped them up so much.
It wasn’t quite the slaughter she was expecting it to be – like when they met outside of the Gnome village. Instead, the crocodiles used the water extremely well, and even the giant turtles and lizards were able to dive under the water to attack from below; her Blademasters and Shears were next to useless because the water fouled up either their speed of impact or their spinning. Legs were ripped off of her Apes as two or even three crocodiles latched on and pulled them apart; her Basher Totems had trouble hitting the quickly moving reptiles through the water, which also softened most of the blows they were able to land. Her Mechanical Jaguars and Wolves actually had the best luck in fighting back, as the water didn’t hinder them as much as the others and they were able to quickly maneuver around to get the attackers before they could strike at the other constructs.
Despite being in hostile territory and literally in the reptiles’ element, her constructs still prevailed. She ended up losing 7 more Ironclad Apes – bringing her remaining total to 8 – and 5 more Basher Totems – bringing them down to 7 – but the rest of her constructs fared much better. Although she lost over 100 Small Animated Shears during the fight, she only lost 3 Singing Blademasters and one each of her Mechanical animals. With a dozen of those, 15 Blademasters, and just under 900 Shears, she was still well equipped to take on the rest of the dungeon. She was just glad that the entire reptile army hadn’t turned back; otherwise she wasn’t sure she would’ve had many survive an encounter like that with more opponents.
From what Sandra could tell by looking at the outside dungeon void, she looked to be over halfway done with the rooms before her constructs would arrive at the final Core Room – where she assumed and hoped the other Core was located. Five more rooms separated her forces from the target, and she was determined to get there before they were all destroyed.
It was when they entered the seventh room that the first sign of a defender made an appearance; Sandra assumed that the other Core was making good use of all the Monster Seeds that had dropped from all of her constructs’ destruction and the fight in the sixth room. That’s what she would’ve done, after all – use whatever resources were available to replenish the defenders. Fortunately, it was just a few giant turtles that greeted her constructs, which were no match for the might of all her constructs combined together.
What was a match for them, however, was the trap in the room; there were rope-like whips of water that extended out from the walls and snatched up a few of her constructs up as they solidified around them. Three more of her Basher Totems were lifted into the air and smashed into the ground, completely demolishing them within five or six hits. Fortunately (or unfortunately – she wasn’t quite sure), her other constructs completely ignored the traps and hurried to the exit, though one of the Apes got snatched…and was held in place because it was too heavy to lift. Sandra daren’t try to free it with another construct, because the other “whips” were done with their Basher beatdown and were liable to snatch something else up.
Therefore, she left it there to struggle trying to free itself, and Sandra could only hope that the Mana used to establish the trap would eventually run out – at least temporarily, until it recharged – and free her construct at some point. She felt a little bad about leaving it there, but she had an objective to complete and couldn’t afford to lose any more than she already had.
Her constructs entered the eighth room and Sandra paused as something nagged at her. She looked around the room filled with cascading waterfalls, large pools of water, and nearly a dozen crocodiles emerging from those pools – and couldn’t see what felt off. She sent her constructs in to attack while a few dozen Shears flew in different directions, looking for any type of trap that could potentially spell disaster. They found a trap near the center of the room that made the waterfalls increase their flow, which also made the pools overflow into the rest of the room. Soon enough, the room started to completely fill with water, until all of her constructs were entirely underwater.
Luckily for them, they had already taken care of the crocodiles – losing another Ape in the process when it was ambushed – and they didn’t need to breathe. It was easy enough for them to travel underwater to the exit, though getting through it was a bit more difficult; it was far above where the grounded constructs could reach, though her Blademasters and Shears were easily able to make it through. She also learned that her Basher Totems – in addition to hovering over the ground when they moved – could also hover sideways up walls…and she assumed even ceilings, though she didn’t try that.
For her Mechanical animals and her Apes, however, they were forced to dig and tear into the reinforced dirt wall to make handholds that they could climb up, which consumed valuable time that they didn’t have. While they were doing that, Sandra checked on the progress of the reptile army towards the Elves and found that the force was nearly where she thought they would be – and still about 4 hours out from the edge of the forest. She turned her attention to the other villages around the wasteland, finding that the Dwarves were just shutting down for the day as the light started to wane, and the Orcs were finishing for the day as well.
When she checked the Elves, however, she discovered what had been nagging at her. Just entering the village was a group of five Elves decked out in impressive-looking armor and moving very quickly. Sandra brought her Shears down closer to try to hear what was being said, as there was obviously a commotion in the village going on.
“…surely you don’t want to go tonight? It’s late and it’ll likely be fully dark by the time you get there,” the woman that seemed to be in charge of the village was saying to the newcomers.
A male Elf sporting what appeared to be – at least to her crafting senses – masterwork Platinum semi-plate armor, with basic-looking faded enchanting runes all over the outside spoke up. “We deliberately didn’t stop for the night on the road because of the urgency of the situation. For every hour we delay, that dungeon in the wastelands is getting stronger; we’re going in tonight, despite the late hour. Besides, the dark of the night doesn’t really matter once you’re inside the dungeon, so there’s no point in putting it off. We need to ensure this area is safe before we get back to the capital – there’s a lull in the pushes from the nearby dungeon’s Monsters right now, but it probably won’t last long.”
The others with him, two women and two men with hard-looking faces and a no-nonsense attitude to them nodded their head in agreement but didn’t deign to say anything. An Elf that Sandra instantly recognized as the one that had found Echo’s bow and almost killed Junipar interrupted the conversation between those in charge.
“I can show you exactly where the dungeon is; that blasted evil scourge took Echo almost a week and a half ago, and I aim to get my revenge,” he said with obvious pleasure.
“We’ll take the help finding it, but you’re staying out of there. We know what we’re doing – you do not. We can’t afford to protect you, and in all likelihood you’ll set off a trap that will get us all killed,” the leader of the Elites said.
“But—”
“There is no discussion here. You can agree to show us where the dungeon entrance is and then leave, or you can stay here, and we’ll find it ourselves. It’ll take a little bit longer, but I assure you we’ll find it eventually – this isn’t our first dungeon, as I’m sure you’re aware,” the dangerous leader said with so much authority in his voice that Sandra was practically convinced by his words alone. Fortunately, she didn’t have to listen to him and wasn’t about to let herself be walked over – like the village Elf obviously was currently allowing.
“Fine, I’ll show you where the dungeon is located and then head back here,” he said sull
enly.
They left the village at a slow jog, heading unerringly for Sandra’s dungeon in the distance. By the rate they were moving – not quite a walk, but not a run either – it would take them about an hour to arrive. That didn’t give her a lot of time.
And lest she forget, she still had a Core to destroy herself.
Chapter 43
I think this qualifies as an emergency, Sandra couldn’t help but think. Therefore, she started to liquidate her treasury, which somehow almost hurt her to do. Something about her former life as a merchant must’ve bled through to her current existence because it felt like she was pulling all her life savings out from the bank. Regardless, she wasn’t going to enjoy the experience of accumulating more if she didn’t survive the next hour or so; the wealth of Monster Seeds she’d created when she had plenty of Mana was imperative to that survival.
She couldn’t replace everything she’d originally had in her dungeon rooms because of the cost difference; the Ironclad Apes and Steel Pythons – in their new advanced forms – were much too expensive. Instead, she made do with Martial Totems for where her Ironclad Apes had been and a plethora of Lengthy Segmented Millipedes to replace the Steel Pythons. The Totems were actually a good replacement for the Apes; even if they weren’t as agile, they actually provided more attacking power in comparison.
The Lengthy Segmented Millipedes were a poor substitute for the Pythons, however. They couldn’t move quite as fast and although they had 250 segments to them compared to the original 25 on the Centipede, they were still small and wouldn’t provide much of a threat by themselves. Still, they seemed to be made of stronger metal and were quite formidable when in large groups, so for every Steel Python she was replacing, she created 10 to 15 Millipedes.
The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Page 33