Sandra didn’t have time or the available Mana to change or improve any of her existing traps – with the constructs being so expensive – so she left them alone. There also wasn’t enough time to carve out any additional rooms or set any other new defenses, so she was basically stuck with what she had at the moment. She just hoped that they were enough to keep the Elites away from her Core; she didn’t want to kill them, but if they were aiming to destroy her, she didn’t want her defenses to hold back any of their lethality.
By the time she was done with replacing all of the absent constructs, her treasury was almost bare. She had a handful of random metal orbs in different sizes left in there as Monster Seeds, though they were joined by big blocks of various (non-Seed) material including Dragon Glass, raw Sapphire, and Steel. The Raw Materials she received from absorbing the hundreds of seeds filled up her capacity rapidly, and only a portion of it needed to be used to create the Monster Seeds she actually needed; as a result, she used a little bit of the Mana she received from that absorption to turn the excess RM into non-Seed blocks of different materials that required a lot of raw Materials to produce.
While she was doing all of that, she was forced to split her concentration between reinforcing her own dungeon and progressing through the reptile Core’s dungeon. She quickly considered and then dismissed just having her constructs wait for the situation with the Elites to be resolved before she advanced any farther down the foreign dungeon; waiting would only allow the other Core to build its defenses up more with additional defenders as it accumulated Mana, while hers would stay the same. It was entirely possible that waiting an hour or two to keep attacking could mean the difference between success and failure.
And if the Elites took a long time to get through her dungeon, then the risk that the Ancient Saurians and their smaller brethren would reach the Elven village would only increase. Therefore, she surged ahead, doing her best to keep her constructs moving through the other dungeon while filling up her own with more Dungeon Monsters. The process of creating constructs was fairly simple by that point, fortunately, so it was easy to make it almost automatic, which freed up the rest of her mind to tackle the harder task at hand.
The rest of the dungeon rooms her Core-hunting construct force had to fight their way through were difficult…yet easy at the same time. She remembered Winxa saying that most Dungeon Cores weren’t as creative with their use of traps as Sandra was, and that definitely showed in the Water-element-based reptile dungeon. The traps in the remaining rooms were just slight variations of the rooms before, though they were set up differently; more powerful water jets in different formations, icicles that shot from the wall instead of the ceiling, more water whips, and a freezing band of moisture that was more spread-out than the first. Fortunately for Sandra, there wasn’t a repeat of the massive wall of water that had demolished many of her constructs, but the navigation through the traps – and defending Dungeon Monsters – that were there severely cut down on her constructs on their way down to the Core Room.
Entering the final room, her constructs were greeted by a massive room that was around 200 feet in length and width, and about half that tall. There was a very large tunnel that led farther down on the opposite side of the room, and there were no other exits that Sandra could see either inside the room or from without using her Area of Influence. All in all, it looked remarkably empty of any fixtures or possible places for traps, but the room was far from empty; instead, it was half-filled with a Monster that, frankly, seemed like an impossibility.
Six massive snakes – each approximately 80 feet long and 8 to 9 feet wide – were undulating upright above her constructs, all connected together at their tails in some sort of merging of their bodies. The merge created another body that was longer than it was wide, though it was huge; Sandra couldn’t estimate its length, however, because most of it was blocking the exit into the Core Room. It was just barely wide enough to allow it to pass through the exit tunnel, which was how it likely got to the room in the first place – but it wasn’t going to be letting anything else through. There wasn’t even enough of a gap around its body to slide one of her Shears through, and she couldn’t see any other way to get past the massive Monster.
How in the Creator’s name did this thing come about?
“It sounds like some sort of hydra variant, though I’ve never heard of one like this before. It must be some sort of special Dungeon Monster granted to the Core – sort of like your Core-specific skills you have – or it could be that it upgraded its Size enough to unlock the ability to create it,” Winxa answered, after Sandra described it to her.
Sandra had no idea how to get past it, however, as her construct forces were a mere fraction of what it had been when they first entered. She had 6 Pythons, 3 Apes, 5 Wolves, 4 Jaguars, 6 Blademasters, and exactly 250 Shears left from her original small army, and it didn’t look like she was getting any further with what she had. She was just glad that the massive Dungeon Monster was so large that it wouldn’t fit out that access tunnel where the Ancient Saurians exited earlier, unless it was widened quite a bit beforehand. Then again, if it had exited with them, it probably wouldn’t be there protecting the Core from her constructs.
She paused while she was trying to figure out what to do; fortunately, the hydra variant monster didn’t move from where it was, and it was too far away to attack her constructs. It was always possible that she could try to draw it out from the tunnel, which would allow her to slip through some of her faster constructs to destroy the Core – but she doubted it would be deliberately drawn out like that. Sandra had to find another way to—
The Elven Elites chose that moment to enter her dungeon, and most of her control over her dungeon was muted. Luckily, the connection to her constructs facing the massive multi-headed snake monster was still operational and unchanged, but she left them for the moment with simple orders to attack anything that attacked them – and to not attack the hydra-thing.
“…hope this dungeon isn’t that fully-developed yet,” Sandra heard one of the Elf women say as the Elite group strolled unconcerned through her entrance. She was dressed in unassuming-looking white-and-red robes that were cinched tight against her lithe form. “The rush here drained me a little, and I would love some rest.”
“We always need rest, Alanthia,” the leader said back to her as he – naturally – took the lead. “But with so few of us left, there’s just too much work to be done to rest for long. The journey here was enough of a vacation for us compared to the fighting we usually have to do that you should be thankful for it.”
“You’re right – it was nice not having to watch my back every second of the day like the forests—hold up, Porthel. I can feel the Nether energy coming from the room ahead; let me negate it and we can pass through,” the woman she assumed was named Alanthia told the leader, which Sandra now knew was called Porthel.
The white light of Holy energy illuminated her hands for a moment before shooting forward into the room, hovering in the center for a moment. A few seconds later, it shot unerringly for the trap’s activation trigger near the entrance, smothering it in Holy energy.
“We’ve got about a minute before that negation spell wears off, so go do your thing, fearless leader,” Alanthia said, with a playful wave of her hand at Porthel’s face.
He returned a mock salute back at her and stepped inside the room with his beautifully crafted Titanium sword at the ready – where he was immediately descended on by the eight Martial Totems she had stationed on either side of the entranceway. Sandra saw his entire form briefly illuminate with a pale-yellow Air elemental energy before he became almost a blur, moving so quickly that he avoided every attack and circled around to the farthest Totem away from him. Another small expenditure of the brown energy of Earth surrounded his sword and he swung away at her construct, slicing easily through the iron shell of it like it was nothing. In less than a second, one of her defending Dungeon Monsters was destroyed – and the other
s soon followed.
Sandra kept expecting her Nether strands to come out and grab ahold of him, but nothing happened. Apparently, whatever spell the woman in white and red had cast using her Holy energy had deactivated the trap – at least temporarily.
How is she doing that?
“What? Who is doing what?” Winxa asked, confused. Sandra hadn’t even had a chance to pass on what was happening to her because it all happened so fast, and by the time she explained it to her, the Elite group of Elves was already heading to the next room.
“I told you that the Elves are masters at manipulating the elements in which they have access to, didn’t I? Apparently, that also extends to being able to somehow sense other elements and be able to counter them. I…think you might be in a little trouble here,” the Dungeon Fairy said sadly.
I couldn’t agree more. The first room caused exactly zero damage to the Elves and they appeared to not even consider it much of a threat. With the trap completely out of play, the Martial Totems had no chance against the leader; the Air energy he controlled sped him up so fast that they couldn’t touch him, and the Earth energy had strengthened and likely sharpened his sword to the point where it could cut through even Iron without any issues.
Porthel didn’t have any outward signs of what his elements were, but if she went by the colors that the others were wearing, they had every element covered – and then some. In addition to Alanthia in white and red, the other woman was dressed identically but the robes were colored black and green. The two other men were dressed in leathers and carried masterfully crafted bows; subtle accents of grey, blue, green, and white were easily seen on their leather armor, which meant – if she was correct in her assumption – they had every single element covered between them.
This wasn’t a specialized Nether-Core-destroying Elite group that Winxa had theorized might come to try and kill her. No, this appeared to be a group that specialized in destroying dungeons…period. With what she had seen so far, she wondered how powerful the dungeons surrounding the capital had to be to not have been wiped out from them already.
“…seen anything like those monsters before? From what I saw, they appeared to be made entirely of metal,” the other woman – whose name Sandra hadn’t caught yet – asked the others as they paused in the tunnel leading to the second room.
“No, I’ve never seen anything like them in all my 453 years – but this is the wastelands, after all, so I guess anything is possible. It’s a little worrisome, but if my sword can cut a stone golem apart, it shouldn’t have any problem with the metal monsters in this dungeon,” Porthel remarked, before forging on ahead.
“I thought you said this was supposed to be a Nether dungeon, Por,” said the woman wearing black and green. “But I feel Holy energy ahead.”
Alanthia was nodding her head as well, confirming the sense of the energy as well. “I feel it too, Clovera – but I guess that just makes this a dual-element dungeon, but that’s fairly common. I’ve never heard of a Nether and Holy combination before, however, so that might explain the strange metal monsters,” she added.
“Well, whatever it is, we have a job to do. Clovera, I guess you’re up,” the leader called back to her.
Sandra watched as the other woman, Clovera, copied almost the exact same spell as Alanthia had in the room before – using her Nether energy, of course. The trap triggers were smothered again and Porthel went to work dismantling her Roaring Blademasters in the room, though he didn’t even bother activating his Air-based speed spell. The sixteen spinning constructs were picked apart with the dancing blade of the Elite leader and natural agility of his race.
“Show off,” one of the other men remarked with a smile when Porthel was finished with the room’s defenders. None of the others had done anything to help him, but he didn’t appear to even need it.
“Whatever – I’m just conserving energy, because we don’t know what’s in store for us in here. I have an odd feeling that we haven’t seen even a fraction of what this dungeon is capable of. Especially since these were likely the weakest of the monsters at the beginning; this might be a little more difficult than we were expecting, but I think we can handle it. It’s a good thing that those villagers didn’t try to assault this place, at least – they would’ve been slaughtered in the first room, if not the second,” Porthel remarked as they entered the tunnel ahead.
Halfway down, the man with the blue accents on his leather armor and Alanthia both said at the same time, “There’s Water energy up ahead.”
“What? Are you telling me this is a triple-element dungeon?”
The two that had sensed the elemental energy from Sandra’s Water-based trap in the third room nodded their heads slowly, with their eyes wide in worry.
“I’ve only seen two other dungeons with three elements in all my years…and the only one I’ve heard of with more than that is the reason why this place is a wasteland even now. It’s a good thing we rushed here, because we can’t allow the same thing to happen again; we’re ill-equipped to stop as powerful of a dungeon as that one was, so it’ll be better if this one here is wiped out while it’s still in its infancy.”
Did that Elf just call me a baby?
“Well, technically, you’re still way less than a year old. So, by all accounts, you could be considered an infant,” Winxa added unhelpfully.
Sandra watched in mounting fear as the Elves negated her trap, tore through the Small Armored Sentinels wielding Steel swords (the weapons of which actually seemed to have a bit better defense against the Earth-spelled Titanium sword of the leader), and discovered that the next room was filled with a Fire-based trap. Their faces grew grim as the realization of what they were facing set in.
“There’s no turning back – we must destroy this dungeon, now, or the world is doomed to suffer untold death and destruction. If one of us falls, we have to keep going – we can’t allow this dungeon to grow any more powerful.”
Sandra couldn’t help but think that Razochek had said approximately the same thing when he discovered the multi-element capabilities of her dungeon. She just wished she was able to communicate with the Elves and try to explain that she wasn’t a danger to anyone. But, try as she might, she couldn’t think of a way that wouldn’t end in her own destruction or the death of Violet, the only other person in her dungeon—
A plan started to hatch in her mind when she thought of the Gnome, though it was going to take the right kind of circumstances to achieve – and more than a little luck.
Chapter 44
Instead of watching while the Elite Elves were slowly but steadily destroying everything within their path on their way to destroy her Core, Sandra concentrated most of her attention on her constructs that were miles away in another Core’s dungeon. There was nothing she could think of that could stop them, and unless they suddenly ran out of their innate elemental energy, they didn’t appear like they’d have any issues from the rest of her rooms. She realized that she had relied entirely too much on her traps to stop anyone or anything from progressing through her dungeons, and not enough on creating physical barriers. And, as much as she hated to admit it, many of her setups involving her constructs were practically useless without the traps to accompany them.
That wasn’t to say that none of them were successful, however; it was her smaller constructs that managed to actually do some damage. Her Lengthy Segmented Millipedes, for example, were quite numerous and more difficult to kill because of their ability to continue even when most of their bodies were smashed apart. Two of the Elves that usually hung back while the leader did the fighting were injured as they were swarmed by the millipedes, in fact; it wasn’t more than superficial, however, because they were destroyed by a frenzy of elemental spells that practically obliterated them. Any wounds were quickly healed by Alanthia with her Holy energy anyways, but the fact that they weren’t invulnerable was good to know.
She also noticed that they took special care to reserve as much energy as they
could while delving deeper into her dungeon; their teamwork and attention to detail was superb as well, though she couldn’t help but notice whenever she checked on their progress that not everyone was pulling their weight. Other than a few times when they were forced to defend themselves or be overwhelmed by numerous constructs, most of the work was being done by Porthel with his quick movements and his excellent weapon. It wasn’t necessarily the fault of the others, though – it was just that all of them specialized in manipulating their elemental energy in the form of spells, many of which wouldn’t work well against her constructs.
Using Natural energy to poison a monster? Her constructs didn’t have blood to poison.
Trying to burn them with Fire energy? Unless it was superheated to dangerous levels, it wouldn’t do much.
Drowning them with Water? Her constructs didn’t breathe.
Slicing them up with blades of hardened Air? Mere scratches on their hard bodies for the most part.
The only things that tended to work against them were projectiles like rocks made with Earth energy or restraining them with concentrated masses of elemental energy, though that took a bit to do for anything large enough to be a real threat. Sandra was sure that there were other things they could try – she wasn’t an expert on manipulating energy in that manner, after all – they held off for the most part because their leader was doing just fine.
Except that, after a while, she could see that even he was starting to look ragged, after having essentially destroyed 95% of Sandra’s constructs by himself. Sandra thought that he was probably going to run out of elemental energy at any time – but he just kept going, regardless.
But as that really wasn’t her focus, she only periodically checked on their progress on their way down to her Core. Instead, she was embroiled in her own fight against a six-headed monstrosity that wouldn’t move out of her way.
Sandra first attempted to get it to shift out from the exit tunnel – on the off chance that it actually worked – but the only thing that she accomplished was learning that the snakes could strike much faster than she could believe something that large could move. She was expecting them to be relatively slow like the Saurian she had fought outside the Gnome village; on the contrary, each snake head could dart forward and snatch up one of her Shears in less than a second, before rearing back into position. They only had four teeth – two fangs on the top and two on the bottom that dripped with a clear venom – that slid in and out of an internal pocket in their jaws, so her Shears weren’t so much “bitten” as “crushed” in its mouth.
The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Page 34