Seeing as this was generally more of a proof of concept than a completely finished product, she was okay with that.
Looking at the necklace, however, she was happy to see that she was right in her hopes; there was plenty of room to place another PEE on it, utilizing its Gold construction. In fact, the plates were large enough and there were 5 wire rings connecting each of the plates together that she could theoretically put 5 PEEs on the necklace, in addition to the Flame Shield on the Ruby.
Placing that many pairings on the necklace was more than possible, utilizing the larger plates to put the caged Orbs on there, but then it would become heavier with the more Gold that was added. Besides that, Sandra was hoping to find a way to place just “normal” Energy Orbs on her jewelry that wouldn’t be used for powering PEEs, but for passive energy regeneration. Right now, the people she was giving the Energy Orbs to – if they didn’t have them inside their palms from the Bonding – were usually carrying them around with a crudely fashioned leather necklace that stayed near enough to their skin to work. As she wanted to start distributing Energy Orbs to the Orcs soon, to prepare them for what was already happening, she wanted a more permanent, multipurpose solution.
The major problem was that most of her Energy Orbs she was enchanting for the population were Large instead of these Tiny Orbs she was using. Not only that, but she would have to make many different combinations of any type of jewelry she decided to use, because some would need one with just a singular element type of Orb, while others would need 2 elements – making that a total of 8 for the single element and 28 for the dual elements. For those that had more than 3 elements they could manipulate, those would have to be made on a case-by-case basis.
There has to be an easier solution.
“An easier solution to what?” Winxa asked, obviously interested in what Sandra was working on, as the Dungeon Core had been relatively silent while she was concentrating on crafting.
Hold on, I’ll explain in a moment. After seeing how adept the Goblin Crafter could be at crafting (which made her happy, as it had lived up to its name), she started to create a veritable horde of them to take over some of the crafts she had going in her dungeon. A group of them went to the leatherworking shop, taking over for the few constructs and the Shapeshifter she had inside, crafting armor used by the Orcs when trading Warband members to be used as Sandra’s mercenaries. She also used them to fetch and carry different things for the Shifter Enchanters, so that they could concentrate on doing that exclusively.
Then she had to warn Kelerim, because he was about to get some help.
“What?! No, no, no – I can’t work with Goblins!” he protested, shaking his head. “They’re so clumsy-looking and are no doubt useless.” His reasoning was sound when it came to the previous incarnations, but the Crafters were a different matter altogether.
* Look, just try them out for a little bit, and you’ll see that they can be a big help. *
“Fine, I’ll do it if you ask. Where are—oh, they’re here already. And they even have little aprons on. They look like tiny weak Orcs, so I guess they aren’t all that bad.” The half-dozen Goblin Crafters got near the half-Dwarf/half-Orc for orders, and Kelerim looked as if he had been slapped in the face. “They still stink, however.”
* Have them work apart from you; just give them orders and I’m thinking that they should be able to accomplish whatever you set in front of them. *
Nodding, he put them to work doing the little tasks that needed to be done, such as wrapping sword hilts with leather strips for better grips, grinding and polishing the large stack of forged swords that needed to be finished off, and carrying supplies back and forth. The one time he tried to have one of them try to actually forge a sword didn’t work that well, as the Goblins were quick, not strong; they couldn’t hit a piece of metal hard enough to accomplish much. But for everything else, the little details, they were more than adept at doing those kinds of things – and without much in the way of supervision.
Lastly, she scrapped the traps in the Jewelry workshop for a moment; making 4 more workstations, she created copies of all of the tools, the buffing and grinding wheels, and the Dragon Glass forges and set 5 of the Goblin Crafters to making additional armbands and necklaces, without the Orbs attached to them. Sandra would embellish them later; as long as their main forms were completed, she could worry about that at a different time. She was pleased to find that all it took was a simple order and imparted vision of what she wanted them to do – and the Goblins did it without needing Sandra’s partial concentration.
Alright, Winxa – what do you think about this? The Dungeon Core explained her problem with so many different Energy Orbs weighing down the necklace, or armband, if she chose to put multiple enchantments on there.
Winxa was silent for a moment as she tapped her fingers against her lips, deep in thought. “Hmm,” she finally said, talking out loud to herself. “I know that the easy answer would be to have an Elemental Orb that has more than two elements associated with it, but that is obviously impossible….”
Sandra stopped listening to what the Fairy said next, because she was fixated on the first part. Stop. What? Why is that impossible? Sandra hadn’t even considered it before, because the thought of two different elements combined into one was strange to her. Though, the more she considered it, it wasn’t so strange…was it? There were many, many people who could manipulate two or more elements, after all, and she’d heard of Cores having access to more than one, even if there weren’t any around the wasteland right now. There were spells that combined two or more elements, enchantments that did the same—so why not her Elemental Orbs.
She pulled up her Core-specific Skill again, remembering that it had evolved from its original purpose when she had discovered she could make an Elemental Cube.
Advanced Elemental Monster Seed Origination
(Core-specific Skill)
The Advanced Elemental Monster Seed Origination skill allows the Dungeon Core to condense Elemental Mana into condensed objects. These Elemental objects can be used as Monster Seeds or in other unique applications. Requirements: Mana. (Skills are permanent and remain even after a Classification change)
Thinking back on the original Skill description, Sandra remembered that it had said something along the lines of “…condensing Elemental Mana into small orbs of a single element…” When compared to the evolved Skill, however, she noticed that the stipulation of it being a “single element” was gone; she had been so excited to have created a larger Cube object that she had completely missed the change.
“Well, I suppose it is impossible if you haven’t done it already, right?” Winxa asked, confused.
It’s only impossible if I’ve tried it and couldn’t get it to work, Sandra replied, mentally smacking herself in the forehead. Now that I know to try it, however, I think I might be able to—
Unexpectedly, her focus was ripped out of her control as the Core shard came back to the forefront of her mind with a vengeance. What’s going on?!
While her control was gone, she was fortunately still aware of everything around her; she hadn’t been shoved back into her mind’s deep corner as she had been before. As a result, she knew exactly what had happened: One of the nearby Dungeon Cores had finished its upgrade and the expansion of its AOI triggered the shard to take control.
With an enormous force of will, the “conscience” part of Sandra struggled to take control for a few moments, sending out messages to the Shieldmen and Rangers that the Cores were coming back up and to be ready. Fortunately, she was fairly confident she was able to deliver those communications before she was forced to take a backseat to her actions.
Chapter 32
The Golem-Classification Dungeon Core was the first to awaken from the upgrade, and Sandra was immediately on guard. Luckily, there were a lot of defenses that were set up to prevent a full-scale attack right away, though Sandra would’ve preferred to pre-emptively attack to head off any assault.
Looking aboveground by using these tiny wooden and leaf spiders that seemed to have infested the entire forest, she saw that the Dwarves she had Bonded to were preparing for any type of attack, and the Elven Rangers were on guard.
Good – she didn’t want to have to worry about them.
At first, the anxiousness she was feeling towards an attack overshadowed the rage she held towards the Cores; as soon as the attack came, all anxious feelings were entirely wiped out as her anger shot to the surface again. For some reason, though, it didn’t feel as all-consuming as it had before, and the reddish glow tinting her vision was barely even visible. Regardless, her dedication and zeal towards making the other dungeons pay for what they had done was still as strong as ever, and she was focused on every little move they made so that she could counter it and find a weakness she could exploit.
The Golem Core attacked in the connecting tunnel with only a few Dungeon Monsters at first, a trio of the weaker Mud Golems. They squelched as they walked, dripping mud from their bodies as they moved, though it quickly disappeared and reformed back on their forms. It didn’t take long for it to reach the first one of the defensive rooms that had been constructed at some point, and Sandra eagerly waited to see what would happen.
Nothing. Well, nothing until the first one passed the trap trigger in the room, where an intense gush of flames shot down from the ceiling, roasting the 3 muddy Monsters with super-heated fire for all of 3 seconds. As the flames disappeared, the Mud Golems were left standing in place, the mud that comprised their bodies almost completely dry. Before they could start to recover and regenerate from that, moistening up the dry dirt so that they could move again, 5 Weighted Rolling Forces rolled into the room from the tunnel and slammed full-speed into the 3 dried-out Golems.
They shattered into dozens of large chunks when they were hit by the constructs; moments later, they dissolved into the ground, leaving behind what appeared to be Small Iron Orbs as their Monster Seeds. From a small alcove cut into the corner of the room, a Mega Automaton – standing all of a foot tall with bulky shoulders and jointed arms – ran into the room, scooped up the Monster Seeds, and started running down the tunnel towards her dungeon at a decently fast pace. She thought it would take it about 15 minutes to travel the nearly 4 miles to its home dungeon, but it was definitely worth the time spent.
Especially considering that there were 5 more Mega Automatons in the little alcove, ready to scoop up more Monster Seeds as soon as they dropped and run away with them.
Sure, she could just absorb them right away, but that would be a waste by only getting half of their worth in Mana back. Speaking of that, she was currently receiving thousands of Mana every minute, and that meant she was primed to be building an army that could crush the dungeons once and for all. Why wasn’t I doing that the whole time?
Looking at where her Mana was currently going, she saw that most of it was being funneled through some pieces of her mind automatically to creating Elemental Orbs, which were then brought to a bunch of Shapeshifters, which in turn enchanted them into Energy Orbs. A very efficient use of Mana so that nothing went to waste, she was sure, but that wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed constructs and more constructs – enough to wipe out each of those Cores before they knew what hit them.
Before she could stop all of those processes, she watched an Iron Golem stomping down the tunnel, which tore her attention away to see what would happen. It passed through the first room without triggering anything, mainly because Sandra could see that the trap in the room was currently absorbing the ambient Mana so that it could reset itself. The 5 Weighted Rolling Forces were pressed up against the side of the tunnel leading out from the first room, not moving. She was about to force them to attack the metal Golem, but she stopped herself as she remembered the simple orders they were given: only attack after the trap is triggered in the nearby room.
Multi-tiered instructions on such a simple construct were a bit more difficult to achieve, so these instructions left the Forces vulnerable to attack as they sat there doing nothing. As she would’ve expected, though, the Iron Golem didn’t attack or even look at them, despite them obviously being there. She knew that the main objective of the Dungeon Monsters was to get to her Home room where her Core was located, and if there wasn’t something standing or sitting in their direct path, then they would effectively ignore it.
Before too long, as the Iron Golem was relatively quick because it ate up the distance with large steps, it arrived at the second room, and Sandra laughed maniacally when she saw what was in store for it. There was a Champion Totem blocking the exit to the next tunnel, looking small compared to the large Iron Golem, but that wasn’t why she was laughing – it was because of the trap it was about to trigger.
A quarter of the way through the room, the Iron Golem unknowingly activated the Nether-based trap that encompassed the first half of the space. A dark mist emerged from the floor, surrounding the lower half of the large Golem for a space of 5 seconds. The mist didn’t impede its progress and it continued to walk, intending to destroy the Totem in its way, but a moment after the mist dissipated, it fell to a knee. A second later, its other knee disintegrated as the Nether trap had aged and eroded the Iron so completely that it was covered in red rust, which was brittle and fell apart from the sheer weight of the intact metal from its top half.
Ha! Take that!
Even though its lower half was missing, the Golem wasn’t quite destroyed enough. While Sandra was confident that the Nether-based mist would prevent the Monster from repairing itself, it still had its upper torso and arms intact. As it started to drag itself over the ground with those arms, that was when the Champion Totem sprang forward, pummeling the half-destroyed Monster. They were such devastating blows that within 20 seconds the Golem was cracked and falling apart, without even landing an attack of its own on the quick Totem.
Even before the Iron Golem was destroyed, 2 Stone Golems emerged from the other dungeon, but by that time, the trap in the first room was ready to go again. As they passed the activation trigger, the super-hot flames shot out again – which bathed the large stone figures completely in fire – before shutting off. Unlike the Mud Golems, these Golems made of simple stone didn’t dry out and stop moving; instead, their forms were heated up to such a degree that they practically glowed with the rise in temperature.
Right on time, the Weighted Rolling Forces arrived, slamming into the Stone Golems at full speed. Cracks could be heard throughout the room as hot stones shattered from the impacts, though they didn’t deal nearly as much damage as they had against the Mud Golems. One of her constructs actually sustained some serious damage from the collision and sheer heat, and was destroyed; the others survived and raced back to their positions in the tunnel, waiting for the next chance to attack the enemy.
Damaged and not regenerating because of the extreme heat still in their forms, the Stone Golems kept going, reaching the second room in about a minute. The Nether trap wasn’t quite ready yet, so they didn’t trigger anything when the Golems entered the room – but the trap wasn’t needed to defeat them. The Champion Totem glided forward and did its thing, punching the stone of their bodies with such force that it practically shattered, piece-by-piece until there was just a bunch of rubble.
If they had been undamaged, it probably would’ve been a bit more difficult to demolish both Golems at once with just the one Totem, but the first room had done its job spectacularly to soften them up quite a bit.
Now it was time to replace the one Weighted Rolling Force that had been destroyed, even as Mega Automatons ran back with the Monster Seeds from all of the Golems that had been killed. Overall, it was more than an even trade-off. And I can also start creating even more constructs for an army the world has never seen before—
A sudden feeling of danger flashed through her mind, and her attention was ripped away from the tunnel where even more Golems were stomping their way through. The source of her alarm was easy enough to ident
ify, as it shut down many of the things she could do in her dungeon…when something that didn’t belong was present.
She found it immediately, as it was an intruder – that wasn’t a Dungeon Monster – in her dungeon; as there were only three places in her dungeon that were open to the world above, a quick check of her main entrance and her Roc tunnel showed no evidence that anything was there. That left the large open-topped space near her original entrance tunnel, which turned out to be exactly where the problem had arisen.
Looking inside the workshop, she identified a small Gnome that was somewhat familiar, but she ignored it because it was Bonded to her Core. No, it was a second Gnome that caught her attention, and what had basically put her dungeon on lockdown until it was removed. As she had already considered any sentient person walking into her dungeon a threat to her, there was only one solution in having it removed.
How dare you enter my dungeon! You will die like the rest!
* * *
Violet wasn’t sure when she had passed into Sandra’s range of influence, but as she got closer to the wasteland, the Enchanter felt like she was…coming home, if that in any way made sense. When she was probably 5 miles away from Sandra’s dungeon, she was convinced that she was within the Dungeon Core’s influence – so the Gnome thought that she would probably be heard through her monster at that distance.
“Sandra! I’m coming back and I have news!” she yelled, to be heard over the wind rushing by as the Roc speeded towards the wasteland. In fact, if she leaned to one side, she could make out the wasteland rapidly approaching along the ground, and she thought she would be there within a few minutes. “I also have someone that needs healing from one of your Repair Drones!”
The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) Page 32