The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1)
Page 6
Crafting, on the other hand, was something that she enjoyed – even if it was just learning about it. The Dungeon Fairy hadn’t been too far off, however, calling it her hobby; without the chance to perform nearly all of the crafting she had learned about with her own two hands or innate magical ability, it was more of a spectator activity than anything else. But that didn’t lessen her enthusiasm one bit.
And now that she had some time, options, and unique abilities, Sandra decided to see if she could make her dream of doing her own crafting a reality. Of course, she was a long way off from that; now that she had a goal in mind, however, she worked single-mindedly on accomplishing it.
The first thing she did was instruct her existing Clockwork Spider to continue roaming around her small little cave. Although there was very little benefit from doing so in the beginning – since most of the ambient Mana had already been absorbed – Sandra noticed that it slowly returned, only to be sucked up immediately and funneled to her Core. It wasn’t a large amount, but it was at least steady.
While her dungeon monster did that, she concentrated on what the Dungeon Fairy had told her to do – expansion. Although she didn’t consider herself like most of the other Cores that Winxa had told her about (with their insanity and homicidal tendencies), Sandra knew that they had at least one thing in common: the need to grow larger and expand their Area of Influence.
This was made abundantly clear as soon as she started to eat away at the nearby cavern walls, converting the Raw Material into Mana as she went. Soon, though, she started to feel like her tendrils of thought that were seeking out the Raw Materials inherent in the walls were starting to reach their limit. She could still “eat” away at the floor and ceiling, of course, but luckily, she didn’t have to.
Because she was now completely full of Mana.
Warning!
Upgrading your Core Size will deplete all of your Mana and leave you unable to perform any other action until the upgrade is complete. However, any previous orders given to your dungeon monsters will continue to be in effect, and any traps setup through your dungeon will still operate normally.
Upgrade your Core Size? Yes/No
As soon as she had reached full Mana Capacity, she found a blinking option on her Core Selection Menu that said, Upgrade Core Size?, so she of course selected it. The warning was good to know for the future, but as there was no discernable risk to her right now, there was no reason to delay. She selected Yes, and her vision immediately dimmed so that she couldn’t see more than a tiny bit away from her Core.
She started to freak out a little bit when she felt her senses dulled; she couldn’t “feel” her Clockwork Spider or hear its strangely comforting *tink-tink* as it roamed around – and trying to reach out with her invisible sensing “tendrils” was a no-go either. She was essentially trapped in her own mind again, and that scared her more than a little bit.
Although she had survived the featureless void where her soul found itself after she had died, the experience wasn’t a pleasant one. She well understood how most of the Dungeon Cores that were taken from there went insane; Sandra thought that the only reason she hadn’t lost her mind was that she had so much knowledge to remember from her life and reviewing it had helped her hold on to her sanity. At the same time, she acknowledged that toward the end of her existence in there, even her constant recitation of the various crafting recipes and techniques she had learned wasn’t as effective as it had been at first. Although it was hard to accurately tell, she thought that another decade or more in that place would’ve had the same result of insanity as every other soul that emerged.
Therefore, to be thrust back into a space where she was stuck with just her thoughts again was difficult. Fortunately, Sandra had two things going for her; one, she could still vaguely sense the area directly around her Core – which was admittedly not much, but it was something, at least; and two, the time she was stuck like that was blessedly short. At least, it didn’t feel like a long time – she had no real reference of passing time down in the deep recesses of her cave, but she figured it didn’t take any longer than an hour or so.
As soon as her Core Size upgrade was done, she felt an explosion of information assault her senses. After no more than a second or two, however, Sandra acclimated to the new sensations and was able to look around with what felt like “new eyes”.
She could literally “see” through the walls of her small cave and felt the dirt and stone it was comprised of. Her range didn’t extend far, though, but she estimated that it was nearly four times farther than her current two-foot diameter cave – so it was still a significant improvement.
Her Clockwork Spider was still roaming around her cave, so Sandra grabbed ahold of its attention and directed it to look towards her Core. She gasped inwardly when she saw herself – I’m twice the size I was before! Apparently, the Core Size upgrade was literal: she had literally doubled in size. Now that her Core was larger, she could make out the perfect facets around her structure and was fascinated in the way the internal glow emitted from the center, only to be broken up into a beautiful array of light along the cavern walls.
Your Core has grown!
Current Size: 2
Mana Capacity increased!
Ambient Mana Absorption increased!
Raw Material Capacity increased!
New Construct options!
New Monster Seed Schematic available!
Core Selection Menu
Dungeon Classification:
Constructs
Core Size:
2
Available Mana:
1/20
Ambient Mana Absorption:
.02/hour
Available Raw Material (RM):
25/200
Convert Raw Material to Mana?
25 RM -- > 1 Mana
Current Dungeon Monsters:
1
Constructs Creation Options:
2 (1)
Monster Seed Schematics:
1 (1)
After the shock of a random purple-colored screen temporarily popping up in her vision faded away, Sandra looked at her Core Selection Menu. She noticed that, just like her physical size, almost everything had doubled. Her maximum Mana was now 20, she could hold up to 200 units of Raw Material, and her Ambient Mana Absorption was now .02/hour – which still wasn’t very impressive, but she had other means of gathering Mana at least.
Not only that, but her Constructs and Seeds options looked…odd. The notification screen earlier said something about new constructs and seeds available, but it wasn’t exactly reflected in the totals. Pulling up her Constructs menu first, she discovered what the issue was.
Constructs Creation Options
Name:
Mana Cost:
Clockwork Spider
5
Small Animated Shears
10
Tiny Automaton
20 (Seed Unavailable)
So, while she had the ability to theoretically create another dungeon monster – a Tiny Automaton this time – she didn’t have the seed available for it. Which made sense, because if she remembered correctly, the Tiny Copper Orb could only hold a maximum of 10 Mana, whereas her new construct needed twice that.
Monster Seed Origination
Name:
Raw Material Cost:
Mana Cost:
Min. Mana:
Max. Mana:
Tiny Copper Orb
50
5
5
10
Locked Seeds:
Unlock Requirements:
Mana Cost to Unlock:
Min. Mana:
Max. Mana:
Small Copper Orb
2 Tiny Copper Orbs
10
5
25
She was glad that she hadn’t made another Clockwork Spider earlier from the Tiny Copper Orb that Winxa had helped her with, because it appeared as though she was going to need not only that
one, but a second one in order to “unlock” the ability to make a Small Copper Orb. She assumed that, since “small” was probably larger than “tiny”, that the new monster seed was going to be large enough to make her Tiny Automaton.
The Dungeon Fairy had been absolutely right – digging and expansion was rather boring. Sandra didn’t care overly much, however, because at least she had something to do rather than floating as an unbodied mind in a vast void of nothingness. Almost anything beat that.
She ate away at the cave walls and even expanded the ceiling upwards, which was a unique experience. When she absorbed the material from above, Sandra could feel her vision shift slightly as her Core adjusted itself so that she was constantly in the vertical center of her cavern. Fortunately, it was automatic, so she didn’t have to do it herself; nevertheless, the shock of suddenly moving made her pause in her “meal”.
Once she knew what had happened – with a quick look from her Spider monster – she calmed down and continued expanding her cozy little home. Eventually, after expanding her cave to nearly twice its size after her Core upgrade, her construct was able roam farther and funnel the ambient Mana that it hadn’t been able to reach before. That Mana, combined with her natural nearby absorption and the Mana she was gaining from her conversion of Raw Material, allowed her to gain enough not only to make a second Tiny Copper Orb, but enough to unlock the Small one as well. She had already made the other Tiny seed and it had appeared right next to the one she had created before, so without further ado, she activated the unlock process by selecting it from the Monster Seed Origination screen.
New Monster Seed unlocked!
Small Copper Orb
Origination Raw Material Cost: 100
Origination Mana Cost: 10
Monster Min. Mana: 5
Monster Max. Mana: 25
Invisible Mana flowed out from her Core just like it had when creating the previous orbs, but this time when it touched the two Tiny Orbs on the floor of her cave, she could see the energy turn the same copper color as the seeds. That same copper-colored Mana grabbed onto both orbs and forced them together in a minor explosion of blinding light; when the light (and her vision) cleared, Sandra could see only one orb remaining – a much larger Small Copper Orb.
Now that she had “unlocked” it, she smiled inwardly to see that it was now available on her Monster Seed Origination menu – for 100 RM and 10 Mana like the notification screen had said earlier. Thankfully, the unlocking process left the new orb behind to be used, since she wanted to test it out. When she checked her Constructs Creation Options menu again, she saw that the Tiny Automaton now had the necessary seed available to create it.
Which is exactly what she ended up doing. While she had to accumulate enough mana that she hit her capacity and could theoretically upgrade her Core Size again, Sandra wasn’t eager to be shoved back into a void of nothingness again. She figured she had plenty of time to do that later and that spreading out those experiences was a good way to maintain her sanity.
Therefore, after her Spider funneled more ambient Mana to her and she ate away at her expanding cave to convert the Raw Materials into even more Mana, she finally had enough to bring forth a Tiny Automaton. The Mana shot out of her Core like before, though it was certainly more than she was used to, and the same foggy cloud coalesced around the Small Copper Orb on the ground. Within seconds, it had condensed into a tall pillar that matched the size of Winxa; a few moments after that, the cloud contracted even further, forming the shape of a…human?
On a second look, once the process was complete, she re-evaluated her first impression. While it had the general shape of a human – with a head, two arms, and two legs – it was a completely featureless amalgamation of mechanical metal parts that could’ve been a representation of any race. There was a metal skin-like shell covering its head, upper torso, and lower waist, but that was about the extent of coverage; everything else was open and she could see an array of different metal parts that comprised its extremities.
Unlike the Clockwork Spider, however, it wasn’t operated by gears and the like; in fact, she couldn’t see any obvious way it was powered and controlled. Must be special Dungeon Core magic or something. The one thing it did have, that strangely made it look more “alive”, were two round holes in its head where its eyes should be. Two small colorless crystals sat in those holes, eerily similar to the Spider’s multi-faceted eyes.
Regardless of how everything worked, the fact that her Spider construct was still going without any signs of stopping or slowing down hinted that she probably shouldn’t worry too much on how they operated, and more on what they could do for her.
Alright little man…thing…let’s see what you can do!
Chapter 9
Sandra quickly discovered that she could do a lot more with her new Automaton than her other construct. While her Clockwork Spider’s anatomy was foreign enough that she had difficulty directly controlling it, her Tiny Automaton didn’t have that limitation. It was a little awkward at first, because it didn’t have the same range of movement that she was used to; actually, it almost felt like the time she had injured her leg when she was 12 years-old, and had to wear a splint to keep it largely immobile while it healed. When she walked around with her Automaton, it was more like trying to walk with relatively stiff-but-flexible legs, and although the arm had an elbow, the entire limb couldn’t move more than up and down in a straight motion.
One fortunate thing she found, though, was the fact that it had fingers that weren’t deformed! While Sandra doubted it could do much more than hold a stick and bash away at things, it was still an improvement over what she had when she was alive. Back then, she could theoretically hold a hammer in her hand; if she tried to hit anything with it, though, the tool would fly away when she couldn’t maintain her grip on it. With the rudimentary fingers on the stiff-armed and legged Tiny Automaton, however, it could bang away all day and be fine.
The possibilities of the future only made her more excited. If she continued to get larger and stronger, she could only imagine what kinds of constructs she’d have access to – perhaps even one that could do some crafting! To make and create something with her own two hands – even if it was through an intermediary such as one of her Dungeon Monsters – was a worthwhile goal that she wanted to pursue.
With renewed purpose, Sandra practically attacked the cave walls and expanded her home until it was nearly eight feet in diameter. She ate away at the reach of her senses, or Area of Influence as Winxa had called it, and created an almost perfect half-sphere with a four-foot-tall ceiling. The floor she left relatively flat underneath her Core, because after a small amount of experimentation with her Automaton, she found that it had difficulty navigating over rough terrain. As a result, she kept her humanoid construct near her and let the Clockwork Spider roam everywhere else.
She discovered that with the expanded cave, there was an overabundance of available ambient Mana that wasn’t being absorbed quickly enough by just her two constructs. As a result, Sandra decided to create three more Clockwork Spiders and sent them to patrol throughout the room in different areas. Even that expenditure wasn’t enough to impact the amount of Mana she was being funneled by her constructs, which was a little less than 1 whole unit per minute at that point, so she also created an additional 5 Small Copper Orbs and left them alone until she needed them.
After an indeterminate amount of time chipping away at the cave walls, creating the additional constructs and orbs, and in general enjoying her newly expanded room, she finally reached the limits of the range she could reach. That, and she was full of Mana again and had to make a choice between creating more orbs and increasing her Core Size. With a deep mental breath, Sandra decided to just go for it and bear the temporary void of nothingness again. She activated the Core Size Upgrade and braced for the uncomfortableness of isolation.
Amazingly, the experience wasn’t so bad this time. She wasn’t sure if the knowledge that it was co
ming somehow helped, or that she would eventually break free from it, but she didn’t panic (as much) as she did the first time. Actually, when she really looked back on it, the real reason was probably because her awareness of her immediate surroundings had expanded; at just the edge of her perception, she could hear the sharp *clunk* of her Automaton walking in a set pattern beneath her Core. That “lifeline” of normal sound anchored her sanity firmly in place.
Your Core has grown!
Current Size: 3
Mana Capacity increased!
Ambient Mana Absorption increased!
Raw Material Capacity increased!
New Constructs options!
Core Selection Menu
Dungeon Classification:
Constructs
Core Size:
3
Available Mana:
1/40
Ambient Mana Absorption:
.04/hour
Available Raw Material (RM):
0/400
Convert Raw Material to Mana?
N/A
Current Dungeon Monsters:
5
Constructs Creation Options:
4 (1)