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

by Jonathan Brooks

  The enchantment itself was a relatively straightforward one; the Fire portion of the enchantment super-heated the edge of a sword so that it could slice through practically anything, while the Earth enchantment maintained the structure of the sword so that it wouldn’t melt, while strengthening it at the same time. The placement of the runic inscriptions on the blade were simple yet elegant, but the key to it – as to almost every enchantment that contained more than one element – was that it required a catalyst for it to mesh together—

  That’s it!

  “What’s it? What did you figure out?” Winxa had been uncharacteristically silent for the last half a day, but Sandra couldn’t blame her; the last choking fit probably scared her enough that she was hesitant to speak in the fear that those words would be her last.

  I think I figured out how to combine the two elemental traps together! All I need is a catalyst to meld them together, just like an enchantment. For instance, for a Fire and Earth enchantment, a good catalyst would be powdered lava rock, which is a representation of both elements. Now all I need is something that will do the same with what I’m trying to do in the kitchen.

  “Sounds interesting! Again, it’s something I’ve never heard working before, so I’m excited to see if you can get it to work.”

  Sandra excitedly turned her attention back to the kitchen and concentrated on what the best way to combine the two elements of Fire and Water together. It didn’t necessarily have to be something that represented the melding of elements; the blood from her body – where Dramien had used it on his Holy/Nether enchantment in which she had ended up dying – was a perfect example of that. In this case, fortunately, she didn’t need the two enchantments to work together to perform an action – they just needed to coexist without interfering with each other.

  It was a rather simple solution she came up with, actually. Contrary to what most people believed with enchantments, any catalyst could be used; though, to be fair, there were certain ones that worked much better for specific enchantments. In this case, the catalyst for the kitchen revolved around its main purpose: cooking. And who does the cooking? The chef, of course.

  In this case, the “chef” was her Small Armored Sentinel. Sandra placed her construct in between the two contraptions she had created, and then got to work re-imagining her traps. By that time, her Mana had filled up considerably since she hadn’t been using it on anything but the transportation column, so she was already up over 5,000; she was more than glad that she had that much, because when she completed the two traps, she put it to full-strength, since she was confident that she had it right that time.

  Almost every unit of Mana that she had accumulated was consumed in the process of completing the kitchen’s traps. She could almost see the melding of the Fire in her oven, along with the Water in her spigot, as it connected to her Sentinel that was standing in between the two separate traps. There was no big flash of light, or any other indication that it was a success for that matter, but when it was done, it felt…right. Sandra controlled the Sentinel again when everything seemed to be in place, and then tested both of her creations out.

  They worked as perfectly as they were intended.

  “Wow! I’m impressed! The other Fairies are not going to believe me when I tell them about this.” Winxa had been watching from the edge of the room, wary lest the trap become a failure and accidentally explode. Which, when Sandra thought about it, was a real possibility.

  Thanks! Now all I have to do is finish my transportation system, and I’ll be all ready to start crafting again.

  There was so much she wanted to do, but she wanted to make sure that her current projects were finished up before she started anything else big. To that end, she focused all her efforts in finishing up her central transportation column, as boring as it was. All the while, though, she kept an eye on the second room, watching and waiting for Kelerim to finally wake up.

  Chapter 30

  Kelerim startled awake, the thought of being crushed in the jaws of a massive beast at the forefront of his thoughts. Fortunately, he managed to hold his scream inside as his eyes opened and stared ahead at a plain stone surface, the joins between the blocks so smooth that they were indecipherable. Or…there weren’t any joins keeping the stone blocks together, and the entire surface he was looking at was one whole piece. Either way, he was somewhere he had never been before and obviously didn’t recognize, which meant…he wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

  The last thing the former Blacksmith remembered was being chased into the wasteland by Razochek and his warband for nothing other than existing, where he then found shelter of sorts for the night. The next morning was a little fuzzy, but he remembered being extremely hungry and thirsty, and he started wandering through the wasteland on a mission to find food and water. Then there were some scary-looking beasts that he had stumbled across, followed by running for his life, and then chasing after a weird…something into a cave. Anything after that was all darkness – he couldn’t remember what happened next.

  Kelerim was a little worried that the beasts – Bearlings, he suddenly remembered what they were called – had caught him and dragged him back to their cave and were holding him as a meal for later. He wasn’t sure if they even did that, but he couldn’t think of any reason why he was still alive. And – staying as still as he could to prevent the aforementioned Bearlings from seeing that he was awake – he realized that his side didn’t hurt anymore when he breathed.

  The room was lit with a gentle glow that illuminated everything just enough that he could see slight details using his eyes, but he couldn’t see the source from his prone position staring upwards. Before he moved and alerted whatever was nearby, Kelerim waited for a while to see if he could hear anything; the silence was instead so great that he swore he could hear his heartbeat in his chest. Another minute or two passed by as he strained his ears for anything, when he finally heard the very faint sound of metal striking metal.

  At first, he thought it might just be some sort of hallucination, which he had heard that those who hadn’t had anything to drink in days suffered from, but the more he listened, he was convinced that the sound was someone striking metal at a forge. The sound was quite unmistakable, as was the repetitiveness of it, and he recognized it from his many hours and days working at his own smithy. Well, not my smithy – at least, not anymore since Razochek chased me off. Blast him!

  Kelerim was still angry at the warband leader for doing that to him, but he buried those feelings down as he started to take stock of his situation. With nothing living nearby that he could hear or otherwise sense, he took the chance to move his head to the left. Unsurprisingly, he was looking at another stone wall very similar to the ceiling, though when it connected to the floor, he could see that it indeed appeared to be all of one piece. What…how?

  He figured that he would puzzle it out later – if there was a later, of course. He turned his head the other way and saw more of the same stone walls, but he could see a tunnel of some sort leading somewhere else. Where am I? He hadn’t heard of any place near the Orc village where he had spent the last year that had any place like what he was seeing, nor did he remember stonework this well-done during his time with the Dwarves. Even the larger Orc cities toward the interior of Orcrim didn’t have anything remotely like the strange room he found himself in.

  On the floor, Kelerim could see some two-foot long metal poles with blades scattered haphazardly around, as if someone had dropped them and would come back to fetch them when they had time. Is that what woke me up? Did someone – or something – drop those poles and is coming back for them? Everything was confusing and just invited even more questions, but the main thing he wanted to know was how – and why – was he still alive?

  Although he wanted to find out the answer to that, he thought it would be more prudent to get out of wherever he was before something came back for him. He was lucky he hadn’t been killed or eaten while he had been…he assumed “sleeping�
��…in that room, but that luck would only go so far. Kelerim needed to take control of the situation now, and escape before something stopped him.

  He sat up cautiously, the previous pain in his side indeed completely gone – how long was I out? – but once he pushed up to a sitting position, a weakness hit him like nothing he’d ever felt before. Thirst and hunger ate away at his throat and stomach, as the need for sustenance hit him harder than Razochek’s kick to his side. His vision swam a little once he was upright, but when he could see again, he looked around at the rest of the room.

  A white, cylindrical shape was stuck in the corner across from him, which he couldn’t see before because his feet were pointing toward it. It appeared to be made all of one piece of whatever it was made of, but the strangest part was that it seemed to be hovering an inch off of the floor. It didn’t take any notice of his movements, so he assumed it was harmless.

  On his left, now that he could see it better, he could see another entrance to a tunnel leading off somewhere, directly opposite of the previous one he could see. The presence of another direction to go made his eventual escape a little more difficult, as he didn’t know which way was out. The rest of the room was rather plain, just stone walls, floors, and ceiling; other than the metal poles and the cylindrical white thing in the corner, there wasn’t anything of note.

  It took him a little bit of work to force his weak body to get to his feet, but Kelerim eventually succeeded in balancing well enough that he didn’t think he would fall flat on his face. He did move enough that he could see down the tunnel nearest him, which made him freeze as he saw a shape standing there, completely unmoving – and not showing any signs of breathing either. It was shorter than himself, but it appeared to be some sort of monkey that he had heard of but never seen before; that would be weird enough, but it also appeared to be completely made out of iron – which was a material that he was thoroughly familiar with.

  It’s just a statue of some sort, he thought, chastising himself for freaking out over a silly piece of art. Maybe I made it all the way to the Gnome homeland – I’ve heard they like to make things like this, as silly as it seems. That seemed like the best explanation, because the only other thing he had vaguely heard was similar to this place was a dungeon, and there weren’t any of those close enough to the wasteland—

  A faint screech of metal rubbing on metal brought him back to the present; Kelerim jumped as the sound reached his ears, and he looked to where he thought the screech came from. He didn’t see anything behind the metal monkey statue, but he could’ve sworn it came from that direction. Then the former Blacksmith looked closer at the statue – and quickly noticed that its head was tilted in a slightly different angle than it was before.

  Kelerim started to back away from the statue – moving statue – and stepped cautiously backwards, using the same method he just remembered he used against the Bearlings. This time, though, he made sure to look behind him and avoid anything that he might trip over, including the scattered metal poles.

  * Hmm…I wouldn’t do that if I were you. *

  The sudden introduction of voice in his head shocked him so much that he stumbled backwards anyway, landing hard on his back – and then the whole world went white. He didn’t close his eyes fast enough against the blindingly bright light, and as a result, he felt a sharp pain jabbing into his head through his eye sockets. Darkness descended on him – a stark contrast to the bright white light from before – as he squeezed his eyes closed; belatedly, he realized that it probably wouldn’t make a difference, as no light tried to peek through his eyelids. A few blinks proved his theory correct – he had been rendered completely blind.

  * Oh, good! You can hear me! I was hoping the bond would help with communication, but I wasn’t counting on it. Anyway, sorry about all that – I didn’t feel like taking that Holy trap down, because it worked so well before as a defense. Experimental distractions kept me from seeing you were awake, and it was only my Ironclad Ape that informed me of your situation. It’s good to see that you recovered alright. *

  “What? Who are you? Where are you? Never mind, it doesn’t matter – because I’m blind!” Kelerim shouted out, as he struggled to his feet, when he promptly fell back down from his weakness. It was hard enough standing before, but without his sight, he couldn’t visually focus on anything to regain his balance.

  * Don’t worry, the white light will go away soon, I can’t keep it going for long before it has to recharge the Mana powering it. Just wait for another thirty seconds or so and then you’ll be able to see again. *

  “What white light!? I have my eyes wide open and I can’t see anything!”

  * Oh…I guess the light was more powerful than I thought if you were completely blinded by it. No worries, I’ll have my Repair Drone fix you right up. *

  Literally none of that made any sense to Kelerim, but as he was practically as helpless as a newborn baby right now, he had to take…her?...word for it. He collapsed back on the ground after futilely trying to stand up for the third time, when he heard more rubbing of metal against metal, though this time it was much more than just a faint screech.

  * Okay, now don’t panic. My Ironclad Ape needs to remove you from the trap triggering section so that you don’t go blind again. *

  “Wait, what—” he started to say, before he felt a strong, cool-metal hand wrap around his ankle. He screamed out incoherently in surprise; before he could think of trying to fight it, he was dragged by his left leg for a short distance before he was released, his leg falling back down to the floor unexpectedly. He briefly considered trying to scramble backwards in an attempt to flee, but he decided that it would be more prudent to see what was going to happen rather than fight it. Whoever was in the room – and in his head somehow – could’ve killed him at any time over the last minute or so, not to mention when he was asleep for however long it had been.

  Kelerim propped himself up on his elbows as if he was trying to get a look at what was around him, though it was for naught as he still couldn’t see anything from his light-blinded eyes. He heard a faint noise behind his head, but before he could react, two cool metal somethings pressed up against his temples – and he was frozen into place. It definitely wasn’t voluntary, however; it was as if he was locked out from his entire body – he couldn’t move or even twitch a muscle.

  It didn’t last long, thankfully. Within seconds, he could feel an itchy tingling behind his eyes, and the room started to come back into focus. In almost less time than it took to be blinded in the first place, he could see again! It was as if it had never happened; if he hadn’t turned around quickly to see the white, cylindrical-shaped…thing…behind him, he would’ve thought it was some kind of miracle.

  “Wh-what happened? Where am I? Who are you? What are you going to do with me? Am I a prisoner here?” The questions just spilled out of him, because now he was thoroughly confused. The womanly voice had been talking about “traps” as if it was some sort of normal thing for her, but the only traps he knew about were in dungeons. He hadn’t ever seen any himself, but there were many stories from various warbands who were tasked with destroying dangerous dungeons; granted, the number of dungeons that were actually able to be destroyed over the last few decades had greatly diminished, but it still happened every now and then.

  But if he were in a dungeon, why was he still alive? And why had it gone out of its way to save him from the Bearlings? He started to put some of the few pieces together that he had; he realized that he was only alive because the dungeon – if indeed that was where he was – had protected him. Of course, he could be all wrong and he was in a Gnome stronghold like he had considered before, but for some reason he didn’t think that was correct. Regardless, things still weren’t making any sense.

  * I’ll try to explain it a little, but the first thing you need to know is that you are free to go at any time. You’re not a prisoner here, though now that I’ve created a bond with you, I hope you’ll stay for at
least a little bit. *

  That didn’t explain anything; on the contrary, it only raised more questions. However, Kelerim didn’t get a chance to say anything, because the woman continued talking in his head, with no explanation of how she did that, either.

  * Ok, so this might be a little hard to believe, but I’m what you would call a Dungeon Core and you’re in my dungeon. Now, don’t freak out – I’m not like other dungeons because I don’t want to kill you. In fact, I don’t want to kill anyone, or anything if I can help it. Before I go any further, though, I’m willing to bet you’re practically starving, as it’s been nearly two weeks since you arrived at my doorstep.”

  I’ve been here TWO WEEKS! How he wasn’t dead already was a mystery to him, but it also explained the extreme hunger and thirst he was experiencing. He looked over at the white cylinder thing that he assumed just healed him, and he thought he had his answer of how he had survived that long without food or water; if it could completely heal blindness in seconds, he was sure it could keep him alive despite the lack of sustenance.

  He absently nodded his affirmation of his hunger, though he wasn’t sure if she could see that or not; he hesitated to talk anymore because his throat was so dry. He belatedly realized that his screaming earlier had pained him severely, but it had been overshadowed by the shock of his blindness. Whatever the metal healer thing had done to him, it had obviously fixed his torn-up throat; he wanted to keep it healthy, though, because he wasn’t counting on it to heal him again.

  * Excellent! I spent almost a day making a kitchen down below and I’m eager to show off my cooking skills; don’t expect too much, though, because all I really have access to material-wise is Raw Bearling Meat. If only I had some spices…