The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5)

by Jonathan Brooks

  The Beasts followed that up with a group of…squirrels? They were larger than ones that Sandra had seen before – at about a foot and a half tall – and despite their adorable initial appearance, she could see that their teeth were longer and sharper than a “normal” squirrel’s. Also, while they didn’t have expressions on their faces, by the way they bounded forward in unison, she would call them quite blood-thirsty.

  None of it made any sense to Sandra, though she felt some indication from the shard in her mind that it certainly did. When she finally grasped what it was, as the first larger Dungeon Monsters started to emerge from the other dungeons, she looked on in horror.

  The other Cores had learned from the actions of the Golems and Slimes, and had all adjusted their assaults to compensate.

  It wasn’t a guaranteed way to defeat her traps and make their way to her dungeon, because she had planned the last few rooms to counter this kind of tactic, but she was hoping that it would take them a whole lot longer than this to figure it out. By sending in smaller, weaker groups to activate the traps in the rooms, Sandra would effectively only end up killing the Monsters of no consequence as the stronger Monsters made their way through unscathed. Again, she had known that would happen and a few of the stronger ones would still get caught as they had no real knowledge of how much time it took for each trap to reactivate – which meant that it could be ready to go as soon as a weak group passed through – but most of the time they would be able to get through without too much trouble.

  At least for the first dozen rooms, they wouldn’t; after that, the defenses were a bit less dependent on the resetting of traps and more on Sandra’s constructs and her own Dungeon Monsters. She would stop them just as effectively as she had before, but it would hopefully be easier since the stronger ones attacking her would be spaced out. Ultimately, it wasn’t a problem at the moment, because the defenses were already planned and set up to account for nearly any eventuality.

  The shard in control of her Core wasn’t having any of that, though. As soon as the plan from the other Dungeon Cores was seen, there was an immediate ramp up of construct production, and even the Elemental Orbs that were being produced were put on hold entirely. With over 5,000 Mana every minute flowing into her Core due to her constructs gathering it up above, it didn’t take long to complete the army of Wyrms and Shears for an assault on the Slime-Classification dungeon.

  I must destroy this one before they have a chance to break through all of my defenses!

  While Sandra’s conscience didn’t think that was likely to happen, she wondered if the shard knew something that was so obvious it wasn’t worth even thinking about.

  It’s time to kill that Core!

  She tried to stop it from happening, but she was helpless against the focused rage of the Core shard. Now that it was so close to succeeding in getting a portion of the revenge it wanted, the cracks that had been there just a little bit ago had closed up, giving her no chance to intervene.

  All she could do was watch.

  The Expanded Mobile Fortification led the way, shooting down the tunnel at frightening speed, obliterating any and all of the Slimes in its way, even the larger ones that it basically passed through with only the slightest resistance. Hundreds of Slimes were destroyed in less than a minute, as the Wyrms and Shears followed along behind the cubic construct – though the Fortification wasn’t unscathed from the process. Almost every side of the large Steel cube was pitted from acid, the front worst of all, though it moved fast enough that the acid blew off before it could eat too much of the construct’s metal.

  The Slime Core attempted to react, but all it managed to do was gather up a veritable wall of different types of Slimes near the entrance of its dungeon in an attempt to stop the cube…but the construct wasn’t going to be stopped. There was a momentary delay as the Fortification rammed into the wall and it flexed as if it were some kind of rubber-like material – and then the cube broke through in an explosion of slimy jelly and destroyed nuclei. The Wyrms arrived a few moments later and destroyed the remainder of the smaller Slimes around the entrance, clearing the way for the nearly 2,000 Animated Iron Shears that had been created.

  Inside of the Slime-Classification dungeon, there was already a massive fight erupting. The reason the shard hadn’t been successful in its previous attacks was due to the impressive defenses just through this entrance, and right now was no exemption. The room the Fortification found itself in was massive, at least 800 feet on each side, though only about 150 feet in height. And inside of the room was the largest and most varied collection of Slimes Sandra had ever seen, and she was instantly glad that the tunnel was too small for many of them to fit through.

  First of all, there were 1,000 or more of the smaller Slimes that had constantly been filtering into the tunnel, but that was only the beginning. There were hundreds of larger Slimes, at least 10 feet wide and tall, interspersed between the smaller ones like their older siblings watching over them; dozens of even larger ones, 30 feet in width, looking like the parents of the smaller Slimes; and then there were a handful of gigantic Slimes in their round shapes, at least 125 feet wide and tall, appearing as if they lorded over the others.

  But that wasn’t all – those were just the ones that were similar in their blob-like shape.

  There were Beast-like shapes of all different kinds, such as big cats and bears looking all jiggly and jelly-like, though they had tougher “skin” than the normal Slime shapes and could actually damage something with swipes of their claws; there were long, thin Slimes that were similar in shape to massive snakes, though they didn’t have more than a general shape of a mouth and no fangs; and there were strange gelatinous cubes of Slime that looked very similar to her Mobile Fortification, though large enough that they wouldn’t fit down the tunnel. Then, as she had seen before outside, there was a Slime Dragon – but not just one! No, there were 3 Dragons crouched or hovering in place, just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  The Mobile Fortification slammed through another hundred Slimes on its way to the middle of the room, where it stopped with a precise movement, no slowing down. She could sense that it was now fairly damaged on its outer shell of its cube, but still holding up well enough to initiate the next step of its attack. As the Slimes converged on it, the Expanded Mobile Fortification suddenly exploded into movement, as long legs extended out from it – 8 in total – in different directions, slamming down and through whatever Slime they came in contact with.

  Sandra immediately saw the difference from the previous Mobile Fortification and this current, “Expanded” construct. Whereas the former one was basically a platform that walked on metal legs, had swords that swung back and forth on its long legs – slicing up everything underneath it – and attacked from the center platform using a large hammer and sawblade, this one had a bit more…movement…that it was capable of.

  It was only slightly bigger in size and shape, but that was where the similarities ended. Sandra watched as it raised itself on 4 of its legs, tilted upwards, and was soon standing upright, with 4 legs that it rotated so that they were facing straight out from it. The platform shifted with it, so that the vulnerable “core” of the Fortification was no longer on top, but was on its front – as if it had placed its heart on its chest. Then the legs that had been lifted up and were sticking straight out morphed into long blades, as if the Fortification was now wielding swords facing 4 different directions.

  Those swords weren’t stationary, either, as they started to dip and rise even as they rotated around the central platform, speeding up until they created a relatively impenetrable barrier of sharpness as it moved around. Not only that, but it turned out that its legs were flexible enough to bend and jump – which surprised both Sandra and the Slimes that the construct was facing.

  With swinging swords on its legs chopping up anything beneath it, as well as 2 hammers and 2 sawblades underneath its central platform facing downwards, the Fortification jumped at one of
the 125-foot Slimes, landing halfway inside of it as the rotating maelstrom of leg swords tore into it, flinging slime everywhere. The construct continued to advance, practically obliterating the massive Slime and destroying the 20 or so nuclei inside within a couple of seconds, all while everything else converged on the Fortification in order to overwhelm it.

  Even though it was particularly destructive, the acid from the giant Slime was already affecting the Fortification. The tip of all of the spinning swords was noticeably shorter – only by a foot or so, and there were large swathes of pitted metal on its legs where the construct had impaled more than a few Slimes. It wouldn’t last long if the rest of the Slimes piled on top of it, destroying the powerful Fortification through the “blood” of their own dead. As much as she didn’t want to lose such a construct, Sandra’s conscience was hoping that the Slimes would succeed.

  Alas, the Core shard in her mind knew what it was doing. Over 2,000 Shears shot into the room and started to slam into the largest of the Slimes; though the “skin” – or outer shell – of the bigger Slimes were a bit tougher and their Slime more damaging to the Iron of the Shears, determined attacks by the constructs were destroying them with relative ease. When a dozen Animated Iron Shears impacted the same exact spot on a Dragon, for instance, it was like an arrow to the heart – or in this case, a blade to their nuclei.

  Even the strongest, most powerful Slimes were destroyed in a matter of seconds, though it required the sacrifice of hundreds of Shears to make something like that happen. Gradually, Sandra could see a method behind which ones were attacked, as they all had something in common: They were guarding a large hole in the opposite wall, bodily placing themselves between her constructs and the passageway.

  A passageway that almost certainly led to the Core itself, since it wasn’t inside the giant room. Sadly, as much as she didn’t want it to happen, her constructs were winning; one after another, another obstacle was eliminated from their path to the objective, even as more Slimes were pouring through the hole in the wall. Finally, though there were still hundreds of the gelatinous Monsters still in the room – which the Platinum-banded Wyrms that were brought along were currently destroying methodically, even though they were being destroyed in the process – the passageway appeared relatively clear.

  A hundred Shears immediately shot for the opening. Sandra’s conscience strained to regain control, using all of her willpower to force an opening…to no avail. She felt like she had made some cracks in the shield keeping her out, but not enough to assume influence over her Core.

  She watched helplessly as the Shears shot down a relatively long tunnel – maybe 200 feet in length – tearing through a few more Slimes in their way, losing half of their number, before emerging in another massive room. The space inside was only about half as expansive as the previous room, but the only thing that caught her eye was the glowing crystal-like shape floating in the middle of the room. It being Natural-based, the Slime Core was greenish in color, appearing like a miniature sun tinted by looking at it through a thin leaf – though it was a lot more vulnerable than a sun.

  The Shears wasted no time as the shard in control of her mind instructed the constructs to impact the foreign Dungeon Core. Sandra’s conscience couldn’t watch as they sped along—but then her attention was ripped away as a threat closer to home slammed into the shard’s focus.

  The sight of Echo in Sandra’s workshop, carrying the body of another female Elf was all she needed. NOOOOOO!!!! STOP! she screamed at the shard with such an intense feeling of emotion at the sight of another one of her friends that she broke through the barrier preventing her from accessing the rest of her Core.

  Praying she wasn’t too late, she ripped control away from the shard, turned her attention back to the Slime-Classification dungeon, and thanked the Creator that the closest pair of Shears had literally stopped less than an inch away from the Core. If she’d had a body, she would’ve collapsed in relief.

  Chapter 34

  “Sandra! I need your help!”

  The Dungeon Core ignored Echo for just a moment, as she started moving all of her remaining constructs out of the other dungeon, though there truthfully weren’t all that many. Only about 200 Animated Iron Shears were still whole enough to retreat, as well as 2 Platinum-banded Wyrms. The Expanded Mobile Fortification was a mess, and it stumbled and collapsed when she tried to get it to move back to her dungeon; the construct had destroyed hundreds of Slimes with its multitude of weapons, but it had suffered horrendous damage in return. That damage only multiplied when it collapsed, as it was quickly swarmed by the hundreds of Slimes still inside the room.

  Needless to say, despite there still being quite a few Slimes inside the room, she wasn’t expecting there to be any attacks by that Core for a while. As far as the other Cores went, none of them seemed to have had any reaction to the sudden attack on the Slime-Classification Core; after a moment’s reflection, she decided that they probably didn’t care and hoped that she would succeed. More enhancements would be coming their way, after all.

  It was difficult to withstand the increasingly powerful efforts by the shard to regain control, and she heard it screaming in frustration at robbing it of its revenge, but she managed. Barely, but she was ultimately able to hold on to it for now. Now back in full control, she turned back to Echo and the female Elf she had been dragging inside, only to find that Echo was gone from the workshop, the same Ape that had recently helped to carry the Gnome Princess helping her unstrap someone else from the Aerie Roc that had brought her back.

  Echo! You have no idea how good it is to see you!

  The Elf jumped at Sandra’s voice in her head, and she inwardly chuckled even as she quickly checked over the tunnels that were constantly being assaulted by the other Cores. They were starting to make progress using the method she thought they were using, though it would be an hour or more before they progressed through to her secondary defenses. At that point, she would have to monitor them closely and replace any of her own constructs and Dungeon Monsters as attrition wore them down, but for now everything was fairly stable.

  “Sandra! There you are; I was trying to talk to you for what felt like the longest time,” Echo said after recovering from her shock. Smiling, she waved to the male Elf that the Ape was currently carrying. “I brought you a surprise – our King and Queen.”

  Sandra couldn’t help but be shocked at the presence of yet more royalty. And…what is wrong with them? They don’t appear injured. Unlike the Gnomish Princess, the two Elves’ bodies were healthy-looking, dressed in fine clothes, and seemed almost like they were just asleep – not in need of Sandra’s services.

  “I’ll explain everything in a little bit, but I need your help to Bond with them.”

  It was something that she was planning on doing anyway, because having them inside of her dungeon put a limit on what she could do, but this was new. Okay…do you happen to know what elements they are able to use?

  Echo froze and her face seemed to lose the small amount of color it possessed.

  What’s wrong?

  “I…don’t, unfortunately. I didn’t even think to ask before I left…”

  It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out, I wouldn’t think. Did you see them use any spells before they became like this?

  By that time, Echo and the Ape had descended into her dungeon, and Sandra’s construct placed the male Elf next to the other unconscious figure on the ground. The Dungeon Core felt a flare-up of personal anger at his appearance in her dungeon, not even coming from the shard in her mind; the King – if Echo was speaking the truth – had similar facial features as Wyrlin, the Elf that had brought so many Orcs to their deaths in her dungeon not that long ago. Not enough resemblance to pin them as relatives, but enough to make her need to steady her emotions so as to not allow the shard to take over again.

  “No…but I at least know how many they both have access to?”

  How many? Sandra expected that the King and Queen
would have access to 3 or 4 elements, perhaps even 5; she hadn’t heard of anyone (Human, at least) ever having more than that.

  “They both had access to 6 elements – I just don’t know which ones.”

  The Dungeon Core was astounded. Winxa? Is that right? I realize that I was unique in having access to all of the elements – but I couldn’t use them, so it sort of balanced out. But 6 elements? That seems impossible.

  The Dungeon Fairy was quickly informed of what Echo was saying, as well as who was supposedly in her dungeon right now. After the quick update, Winxa shrugged. “It’s not all that unusual in the Elven race, though it isn’t exactly common. I seem to remember hearing about an Elf a long time ago having access to 7 elements, though whether or not that was true, I can’t confirm.”

  Sandra took that as confirmation, and figured that it certainly made sense why these two people were King and Queen, especially with that kind of power.

  Are you sure you don’t have at least a hint at what elements they use? There must be dozens of different combinations of elements, especially if there are 6 elements for each of them. Sandra did some quick mental calculations and realized that there weren’t as many as she feared: 28, in fact. Still, it would take a bit of experimentation to get the combinations correct on both of them.

  “Again, I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure it was implied that, combined, they had access to all of the elements, but beyond that – nothing.” Echo was wringing her hands in worry, as she looked over her people’s most powerful figures, unconscious and helpless at the moment. Sandra wanted to ask about what exactly was wrong with them, but she deduced that the worried Elf would let her know when she was ready. In the meantime, she had her Ape bring the entire box of Energy Orbs over so that she could start experimenting.