The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1)

by Jonathan Brooks

  She also made another Ironclad Ape, which brought her total up to three; she planned to keep them all in the second room as a backup force, and she thought they would work very well as a team – along with the Singing Blademasters. Overall, she had been pleased with how well her defenses had held against the scary beasts, though she could see some ways to improve in the future.

  But that was for later – she still had quite a bit of Mana leftover even after restocking the first room with her constructs. Since she couldn’t rebuild, expand, or otherwise change her dungeon while the man was lying unconscious in her dungeon, she used the bodies of the other Bearlings to create more Average Steel Orbs, and even had enough remaining to advance a stage in her Core Size again. By the end, she estimated that she had received somewhere around 60,000 Mana from the deaths of the six invading beasts, which equated to about 10,000 Mana per Bearling.

  I could see it a little before when I was defending against those Ants, but the amount of Mana I receive from killing other creatures is just…ridiculous.

  “Yes, and now do you see why other Dungeon Cores are so obsessed with killing everything in their path? The speed at which they could raise their Core Sizes is scary, especially if they find a lot of beasts to kill. And you haven’t even seen what you get from the deaths of a sentient race – it’s actually quite a bit more.”

  Sandra never wanted to find out, because killing people was the last thing she wanted to do. She couldn’t even imagine getting even more Mana, because what she had received from just the six Bearlings was enough to completely push her up to the next Core Size if she had spent most of it on upgrading. To get to Size 16, it required over 50,000 Mana all told, which probably would’ve taken weeks or months to accumulate if she kept on with her crafting and dungeon expansion regimen; instead, she had received more than enough to finish the entire upgrade in less than an hour.

  A quick check on the mysterious man showed that he was still unconscious, so Sandra left him there while she looked at the notifications that she had received during the battle that she had ignored.

  New Monster Seed found!

  Raw Bearling Meat

  You now have access to:

  Slice of Raw Bearling Meat

  Origination Raw Material Cost: 200

  Origination Mana Cost: 20

  Monster Min. Mana: 30

  Monster Max. Mana: 180

  New Monster Seed and Origination Material found!

  Raw Bearling Hide

  While Raw Bearling Hide can be directly used as a Monster Seed, it can also be combined with specific other materials to create a whole new Monster Seed.

  You now have access to:

  Scrap of Raw Bearling Hide

  Origination Raw Material Cost: 150

  Origination Mana Cost: 15

  Monster Min. Mana: 20

  Monster Max. Mana: 120

  Woohoo! Finally, some hide that I can turn into Leather! Leather was an important crafting material, but it was also a “finished product”, which meant that she couldn’t just create it through her Mundane Object Creation skill. There were different techniques in the curing and tanning process to produce different kinds of Leather, which were used in a variety of applications. Not only could she produce full-on Leather armor, but she also needed it to finish off many of the metal-based armors; straps, padding, and other accents were needed to properly complete them. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t yet started to make them, as she knew she couldn’t finish them completely.

  Leather would also add some finishing touches to the weapons she had been making, as there were a variety of ways to apply it to handle grips, not to mention scabbards and belts for holding them. It was an all-purpose material, and she was glad that she finally had some access to it; unfortunately, she was still missing some components for certain variations of the tanning process to craft certain kinds of Leather, but she had enough to craft some basic things for use in other applications.

  As far as the Raw Bearling Meat, she hadn’t thought about cooking – which was a craft in and of itself. With many of the other products she could create, she could physically see the effectiveness of her work in the sharpness of a knife, or even the durability of an armor chestpiece, but with cooking, more than half of the process was tasting the end product. Since she herself couldn’t eat (and therefore taste) – nor could her constructs – she hadn’t even considered it; now, however, she had the materials to at least cook something, even if she didn’t have anything to season it with. And given that there was a man inside her dungeon that had obviously been hungry before he even arrived, she was starting to think she needed some way to cook.

  Unfortunately, she still couldn’t do anything to change much inside her dungeon to build any type of kitchen. Sandra briefly thought about trying to cook some meat on the forge far down below, but it wasn’t really wasn’t designed for cooking. She supposed she could alter it a little, but again, she couldn’t really do that while the man was still unconscious up above.

  Now that she had taken care of her other pressing matters, she figured she might as well decide what to do about him. Winxa…what do you think I should do about him?

  “Well, I can’t give you any advice – as you know – but I shouldn’t have to tell you that having a member of the sentient race nearby can be extremely dangerous. In fact, he could be more dangerous than those Bearlings, as the races – even this…hmm…he appears to be some sort of mixture of maybe an Orc and a Dwarf – tend to be much more powerful than most wild beasts. Like you, I don’t know why he was out here in wasteland you described above, but he probably didn’t come by to say ‘Hello’. Given all that, it’s your choice: kill him right now, see if he dies on his own, help him recover somehow, or just drag his body back outside. There are probably more options, but those are the most prominent ones I can think of,” the Dungeon Fairy told her. Winxa had created another one of her small portals; instead of it leading back to her little Fairy World, or whatever, it went to the room where the man was lying down, so she could see him with her own two eyes.

  A half-Orc, half-Dwarf? That sounds like an interesting story. Sandra knew she didn’t want to kill him nor let him die, given that she had done her best to keep him alive. She was still curious why he had what looked like a blacksmith’s apron on him, and she wouldn’t get those answers if he died. Besides, even though he had little nubs on his jaw that appeared to be stunted tusks, he was kind of…cute. Or it could’ve been that she was desperate for some company other than her constructs and the Fairy; having someone to talk to that could give their opinion and advice would be nice—

  If he recovered, would I be able to talk to him?

  Winxa was taken aback for some reason, before she started laughing. “Of course not! Only Dungeon Fairies can talk to Dungeon Cores; being able to talk to your prey would completely defeat the purpose behind your existence,” the Fairy explained between giggles. Then she stopped as something occurred to her. “Then again, that might not be the purpose of your exist—Urgh!” Winxa started, before something started to choke her.

  After a moment, she started to breathe normally again. “Ok, ok – I get it. None of that stuff. Anyway, to answer your question more completely, I don’t think there is any way to communicate with him.”

  Sandra waited to see if there was any more that the Fairy wanted to share, but Winxa had shut up after that – which the Dungeon Core completely understood. If something started to choke her out whenever she mentioned something in particular, then Sandra would be a little hesitant to talk as well. And why is it that you can talk to me? Is it specifically because you are a Dungeon Fairy?

  Winxa thought about it for a few moments before slowly answering, as if she was trying to puzzle it out herself. “No…I don’t believe I can hear you because I’m a Fairy. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because I was somehow bonded to your Core when I was chosen to help instruct you. It’s also why your dungeon senses don’t consid
er me an invader, as I’m considered part of…you, I guess. It isn’t the same with any other Fairy, for instance – they haven’t bonded to your Core, so your Dungeon Monsters would automatically attack them if they came here – unless you stopped them.”

  Wait – so my constructs will attack this man if I wasn’t keeping a rein on them?

  “Yes, most likely. The ones nearest him have your specific orders to protect him, I’m assuming, but if you didn’t give those orders to ones further inside, they would probably attack him. You could always stop it in time, of course, but you’d have to be on a constant lookout for your constructs attacking him. I think the same would happen if he were to leave your dungeon and come back even right away – they would attack unless given specific orders not to. And upgrading your Core Size might negate all those orders, so you’d probably come back to find him dead.”

  So you’re saying I’m essentially stuck progressing any further until he either dies or leaves?

  “To put it simply – yes.”

  Sandra thought about it for a moment, but then she asked something that had been worming its way into her mind since they started their conversation. So…how do I imprint him on my Core, putting him on the “friendly list”, so to say.

  Instead of laughing, which Sandra had thought the Dungeon Fairy might do, Winxa tapped her finger to her lips in thoughtful contemplation. “I…haven’t a clue. Usually, I have some sort of idea about these things, but this situation has never come up before. It may or may not be possible; I literally have no idea how to help you. However, I’m sure that if it is possible, you’ll be able to figure it out.”

  So…no help from that quarter. Sandra figured it might be something like that, since the Fairy didn’t mention it before in her list of options. In the end, it was going to fall to her to figure it out, like most of the things she had to learn lately; she couldn’t fault Winxa, though, because Sandra was a bit of a special case when it came to Dungeon Cores – and she was okay with that. It almost felt better to discover these kinds of things by herself; she thought it was similar to the feeling of satisfaction and pleasure that the crafters – the ones that she used to watch all the time – supposedly experienced when they created something new.

  Looking down on the unconscious man lying in her dungeon, Sandra perused her menus for a way to accomplish what she wanted. She wasn’t surprised that she didn’t find anything there, otherwise it would’ve been self-explanatory; pushing those away, she instead wracked her mind for another answer.

  After almost an hour of silent contemplation – and watching the steady breathing of the man as he slept in the vestiges of unconsciousness – she suddenly stumbled on a clue towards the solution.

  Chapter 28

  Sandra had been keeping an eye on the Bearlings through the use of her Mechanical Jaguar aboveground, just in case they showed a sign of coming back; fortunately, most of the fourteen remaining beasts were staying in their cave. A few were wandering off in different directions – for food, she figured – but they luckily stayed far away from her entrance.

  She also didn’t see anything else up there, but she was keeping her construct close to her entrance; she wanted ample warning in case the man’s friends – assuming he had any – came looking for him. Her Mechanical Wolf soon joined her Jaguar in scouting around for any threats, again keeping close and only venturing far enough to still be close enough to escape back to the dungeon if the need arose.

  With that taken care of as much as she could at the moment, she focused most of her concentration on the man in her care. As much as she didn’t want to be responsible for his well-being, her instinctual “human” actions – instead of her Dungeon Core ones – had led her down that path. And now she was attempting to up that responsibility, even if it meant putting herself into danger; the risk of allowing the mysterious half-Orc/half-Dwarf to live and have immunity from her Dungeon Monsters automatically attacking him was huge.

  However, Sandra didn’t want to keep existing if she never had the opportunity to interact with anyone other than Winxa ever again. Don’t get her wrong, she liked the Dungeon Fairy well enough, but there was only so much they could talk about; added to that, Winxa still liked to disappear for hours or days at a time, when the “boring” things were going on in the dungeon. She could understand it, though; that was one of the reasons she was happy that she had discovered how to split her concentration so she could do exciting stuff like craft, while still doing the boring expansion needed for her dungeon at the same time.

  Therefore, the plan she had to put the man on the “friendly list” was a little bit selfish, but she balanced it with the fact that it would hopefully save his life as well. If something as little as a momentary inattention on her part could cause his death by some nearby constructs, then doing what she was going to do was for his benefit.

  Just thinking, “put this man on the friendly list” or any other variation of that wasn’t working; she needed something more…permanent. Sandra was thinking of putting some sort of mark on him that would identify him as friendly, but she hadn’t exactly figured out what it should be or even how to go about it. Some surreptitious peering at Winxa to see if she had any identifying marks proved fruitless, so she had to think of something new.

  Hmm…what would shout, “I’m friendly” to my constructs here, as well as my own Core – turning him from an invader to just a…visitor. And it was that thought, more than anything else she had thought of, that led her in the first step towards achieving what she wanted.

  Non-threat Visitors List

  Name

  Race

  Elemental Access

  Winxa Flamerider

  Dungeon Fairy

  Spirit

  A non-threat visitors list? Hey, Winxa – is your last name Flamerider? And do you have access to the Spirit element?

  The Dungeon Fairy was looking around in wide-eyed surprise, her mouth wide open in shock. “H—How did you know that? N—No one knows my last name, not even my friends. What’s going on? What did you find?”

  Sandra told her about the list, and Winxa continued to be shocked at the revelation. “I never knew that existed. In fact, it probably shouldn’t exist; I think—” before she could finish her thought, the Fairy shut her mouth with a snap as her throat visibly tightened just a little bit. “Never mind, forget I said anything,” she said when she could talk again.

  Regardless of Winxa’s inability to expound of the presence of the list, Sandra knew it was the solution she was looking for. Now she just needed to figure out how to add the unconscious man to it, without even knowing his name.

  It was both harder and easier than she thought it would be. The simple part to the entire process was that all she had to do was concentrate on both the Non-threat Visitors List and the figure of the man lying in her dungeon at the same time. She visualized putting him on the list – even though, like she thought about before, she didn’t know his name – and it…kind of worked.

  Warning!

  Dungeon Visitor Bond unable to complete without the placement of a specific combination of elemental energies.

  So I’m creating a bond? And what does it mean about elemental energy? She had her Mana, which could apply elemental properties to things like her traps but wasn’t quite the same as what a person could use to, say, Enchant something. She reasoned that it was this “racial” elemental energy that it was talking about, but she nevertheless tried to visualize placing some of her Mana in the shape of Spiritual elemental energy on his chest, since that was what Winxa had access to. Other than rippling his apron a little like a strong breeze had passed by, it did nothing. She tried the other elements, and only ended up damaging the Leather apron with little tears and even a burn mark left from her application of Fire.

  This doesn’t look like it’s working. Sandra noticed that she didn’t even get that warning again, as if what she was doing was so wrong that it didn’t even register as an attempt. But what other elem
ental energy do I have—

  The Elemental Orbs.

  How could I have forgotten those? Sandra had at least one Large Orb of each element, which were thrown around haphazardly near her Core. She had her Tiny Automatons search for them while she had her Small Armored Sentinel that usually did her crafting venture inside her Home room and grab them once they were all found. Then came a lengthy process of the construct needing to travel to the top of the dungeon – I really need to make some sort of shortcut for my dungeon monsters to use – until it finally deposited the Orbs near the body of the man.

  She instructed her Sentinel to place a Large Spirit Orb on the man’s chest, before moving away. When she tried to create the bond again…she got the same warning she had received before – which felt like a success! She thought she was on the right track, at least.

  However, after placing the Orbs on the man one by one, nothing more happened. She then thought that it might be all of them, since Sandra was a Core that had access to them all…but nothing happened. She was stumped, until she looked at the warning again. Specific combination? Maybe she was looking at it all wrong; what if it didn’t refer to her elemental access, but his? She thought that, since it was her making the bond, it needed to mirror something in her own makeup or the nature of the bond itself – but now she suspected that it was all about the subject of the bond: the man.

  With renewed purpose, Sandra had her Sentinel place different combinations of Orbs on the man’s chest while she tried to create the bond. There were quite a few possibilities, which worried her if the man had access to three, four, or even five elements – because it would take a while to try them all. Fortunately, after only about 30 failures, she finally hit upon the combination that worked.