The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3)

by Jonathan Brooks

Unique Dungeon Fixtures

  Receive AP for each never-before-seen fixture in your dungeon

  2 AP per fixture

  26 AP

  (13X Crafting Stations)

  26/26 AP

  Creature Eradication

  Eradicate sources of nearby creatures (i.e. lairs and spawning areas)

  3 AP per eradication

  6 AP

  (1X Territory Ant Colony, 1X Bearling Lair)

  6/6 AP

  Sentient Race Elimination

  Eliminate members of sentient races

  1 AP per 10 eliminations

  8 AP (12X Orc, 71X Gnome)

  8/8 AP

  Sentient Race Bonding

  Form a new Dungeon Visitor Bond with a member of a sentient race

  1 AP per 2 Bonds

  8 AP (1X Orc/Dwarf, 6X Elf, 9X Gnome)

  1/8 AP

  Dungeon Core Destruction

  Receive AP for eliminating another Dungeon Core

  30 AP per Core

  30 AP (1X Reptile Classification Core)

  0/30 AP

  ?????

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  (?????) Denotes an unknown, unique Source of Advancement Points. Perform this unknown action to unlock more information.

  Total Advancement Points Earned and Spent

  122 AP

  85 AP

  Total Advancement Points Available

  37 AP

  Again, upgrading her Core Size was out of the question, so that option was ignored. Creating Unique Dungeon Fixtures seemed easy enough, but at the moment there wasn’t anything that she could think of to build that hadn’t been built already; she knew of a few other crafting stations that she could potentially create, but most of them were variations of what she had already set up. The one thing that she thought should’ve been unique enough to qualify was the Enchantment Repository Room she had set up, but she suspected that because it wasn’t necessarily “finished”, it didn’t count yet.

  Adding another eight rooms to the Number of Rooms in her dungeon was also a possibility, but that would take both Mana and time to complete; it wasn’t much of a hardship, however, so Sandra put a portion of her attention to work on adding rooms behind her Home that led deeper underground. She had no distinct purpose for them, and it would most likely take a day and a half to make rooms and tunnels that would meet the minimum size required by the Advancement criteria; despite that, it was a simple way to earn Points that didn’t require much effort.

  As for the other options, Sentient Race Bonding as Visitors was always a possibility but wouldn’t likely happen anytime soon. The same went with destroying another Core; she was still recovering from losing all of her constructs during the assault on the Reptile-Classification dungeon and the defense of her own – she wasn’t prepared to attack another dungeon anytime soon, nor was she inclined to unless there was no other choice.

  Sentient Race Elimination was along those same lines, but she was even more reluctant to kill people unless they were attacking her dungeon – and even then, she would work towards a different solution. She wasn’t entirely against killing them if they proved to be a threat that couldn’t be persuaded to focus their energies elsewhere, but for her it would be a last resort; she wanted to ultimately help the people all survive, not do the nearby dungeons’ jobs for them. Sure, it was ultimately for selfish reasons – like she had told her Visitors earlier – but that still couldn’t change the fact that she didn’t want to see any more of them die if it was preventable.

  Therefore, the last option she had was Creature Eradication. Sandra was reluctant to specifically go out and hunt living creatures for her own benefit, however; it was one thing to defend her Home and dungeon from Territory Ants and Bearlings that were trying to destroy her Core, it was something else entirely actually seeking them out and killing them all in their homes. Even though she had just participated in killing thousands of reptilian Dungeon Monsters, she also knew that they were all relatively mindless forms of Mana that were given a shape – so it wasn’t quite the same thing in her mind.

  When she considered it further – and looked around her AOI to search out the three Bearling lairs and half-a-dozen Territory Ant colonies she identified earlier – she realized that eliminating them might actually be beneficial. If she really was planning on creating some sort of…distribution network…that involved delivering crafted goods to the different races, then anything traveling through the barren wasteland was walking through dangerous territory. The route towards the Elven and Gnome villages that her constructs and others had taken previously had gotten lucky; none of them had strayed too close to one of the creatures’ homes, so they weren’t attacked. If they had taken a slightly different route, though, things might have been quite a bit more difficult.

  Using some of her Animated Shears from her AMANS, Sandra surveyed the surface of the barren wasteland from the air – and was surprised at what she found. There were even more deadly creatures inhabiting the otherwise empty landscape than she had anticipated.

  While she could see everything belowground, which was how she knew there were three Bearling lairs and six Territory Ant colonies, everything living on the surface was essentially invisible to her unless she had something nearby to observe it. The other beasts she saw didn’t live in underground lairs, which was the main reason she had missed them – and because they camouflaged very well into the surrounding landscape she hadn’t noticed them before during her casual exploration.

  Consulting with Winxa for more information on them – since she had never seen anything like them before – Sandra identified three more potential hazards for anyone crossing the wastelands. The first was a massive pack of large wolf-like creatures with greyish-brown, stone-made “fur” lying in wait along the face of one of the smaller rocky hills; the Crag Hounds – which Winxa had identified them as – were half the size of the Bearlings but appeared much quicker despite being made at least partially of stone, with long claws that left marks in the hard rock of the landscape.

  She hadn’t noticed them before because they blended in so perfectly that they were nearly impossible to see unless they moved. Even when she brought the Animated Shears she was directing closer it took almost 10 minutes of staring at the hill to identify three dozen of the Hounds – and she wasn’t even sure she spotted them all. There was a smaller pack on the opposite side of the wasteland that she managed to spot; Sandra figured there might even be more, but they were either camouflaged even better than the others or hiding somewhere she couldn’t see.

  The next creature she found was a horrendously large cluster of Desolate Spiders. Their presence away from dark, hidden places was strange to her; from what she knew of other kinds of spiders, they were ambush hunters that preferred to lie in wait for something to come by or string up a web to catch unwary victims – but staying out of sight most of the time, regardless. These Spiders, however, were technically in plain view of anyone that happened upon them, though there were so many clustered together that it would probably be the last thing they ever saw.

  From above – and she found it was the same from below, when she brought her Shears down to that level – they were just as invisible as the Crag Hounds; while they were approximately the size of a Gnome’s hand, they were also the same colors as the dry dirt and dust of the wastelands. Instead of inhabiting the hills like the Hounds, however, they blanketed the ground with their flat-backed, dirt-colored forms that seemed to fit together when they butted up against each other. When they were completely still – which seemed like their normal state – they appeared like an additional layer of ground, innocuous and safe.

  Sandra only discovered their presence when she saw a Bearling unwittingly get too close to the invisible Desolate Spider cluster. In a cascading wave of movement, the ground seemed to lurch forward and envelop the large dangerous beast as thousands of the Spiders bit and stabbed their legs into the tough
exterior of the Bearling. For its part, the larger creature swiped and bit at the seemingly unending waves of dirt-colored arachnids, crushing, squishing, and destroying a hundred or more of them.

  The result of the “battle” was a foregone conclusion, however; after less than a minute the Bearling slowed down, as whatever the Desolate Spiders were able to inject into its body through their bites took effect. Eventually, the larger beast collapsed on its side – crushing another two dozen of its attackers in the process – where it was further swarmed and covered by hundreds of the horrifically effective cluster of Spiders. Sandra stopped watching after a few minutes as small chunks of the now-dead beast was ripped from its corpse and carried away as the arachnids fed, only to be replaced by others looking for a taste of Bearling meat.

  Coming back only an hour later revealed that the carcass of the larger creature was completely gone, as well as the corpses of the dead attackers; as for the victorious Desolate Spiders, they had gone back to where they had lain in wait, practically invisible again. The biggest difference, though, was that there was a large hump in the middle of the cluster; bringing her Shears closer, she found that hundreds (or maybe even thousands, it was hard to tell) of translucent orbs – that she assumed were eggs – had been laid and were being protected by the group. She didn’t know how long it would take for them to hatch, but it was obvious that the cluster had already begun replacing those that it had lost against the Bearling. Even though she was just an observer, it was frightening how quickly all of that had been done.

  Looking around for more Hounds or Spiders – both of which were extremely hard to identify – Sandra found one more creature that was likely to present a threat to anyone passing by. Unlike all the others, which seemed to rely on packs, colonies, or clusters of themselves, the last beast she found was probably more accurately called a monster, as it was both bigger and more frightening than anything else she had seen so far. Winxa didn’t even have a name for it, which surprised Sandra, because the Dungeon Fairy – while unable to discuss certain topics – had seemed to have well-nigh unlimited bestiary knowledge in her head.

  She found it accidentally when she had brought her Animated Shears too close to the ground, looking for more Desolate Spiders; before she could react, the floor of the wasteland seemed to explode in a shower of dirt, and her construct was enveloped in something she didn’t even get a chance to see before it was destroyed.

  Racing another pair of Animated Shears to where her previous one was lost, she saw a creature that was about half again as large as one of her Iron-plated Behemoths spitting out the Tiny Copper Orb left behind by the destroyed construct. It was colored similarly to many of the other beasts she had seen inside the wasteland – in greys and browns – but its skin looked scaly and even slightly shiny; with short front legs and long back legs, a bulbous body that looked like a distended bladder, and a frighteningly large mouth filled with hundreds of teeth, it looked like a giant toad minus the sticky tongue.

  Looking around for where it had sprung from, she couldn’t see a hole anywhere, only a slight depression underneath it. Where did it come from? Her question was answered shortly afterward in spectacular fashion, as the…hmm, I’m going to call it a Rock Toad…seemed to deflate rapidly, almost like it had been full of air and a large hole was poked into it. It collapsed into the depression underneath it, lying so flat that it looked like a pile of skin with no bones, muscles, vital organs, or even blood inside of it. When it finally settled to where Sandra suspected it had started, the mouth appeared to have been opened completely wide, leaving an oval-like shape flat against the ground that looked like little rocks scattered across the landscape.

  Looking at it both at a distance and up close, it was as invisible as the others she had seen – and obviously just as deadly. The jaws of the Rock Toad appeared to be able to swallow even a Bearling whole, which meant that anyone walking over – or even too near – would be swallowed just as easily; Sandra was just glad that the Hauler and wagon the Gnomes had been driving hadn’t encountered one of them, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have survived. Searching the rest of the wasteland from above revealed the tell-tale pattern of their teeth in four different places – but anything traveling at surface-level would have great difficulty identifying the danger before it was too late.

  All of that new information meant one thing to Sandra: danger to the people she was trying to help. She wasn’t exactly sure how all of the different creatures she found survived inside the barren wasteland, but if what she witnessed with the Bearling and Desolate Spiders was any indication, they found a way; there might even be some sort of prey that they hunted she hadn’t even seen yet, but that didn’t really concern her right now. The main thing she worried about was the future dealing with the races around the wastelands – Sandra couldn’t have them (or whoever/whatever she sent to help them) dying to the dangers of the “barren” landscape.

  What is it my father used to say? “Make twice the profit with just one sale”? Something like that, I think. Regardless of whatever the correct adage was, the meaning behind it applied to her situation: eliminating the dangerous creatures of the wasteland would both make it safer and provide her with much-needed Advancement Points. Actually, it’s almost three times the profit, because I’ll get some Mana from their deaths, as well.

  Even though it seemed like the best course of action, Sandra hesitated. The expansion of her Core and Area of Influence as an instinctual need was in the back of her mind, and she worried that she was justifying the deaths of “innocent” beasts and creatures to further her own power. Actually, when she really dug down and thought on it, the current situation wasn’t really the problem; she had experienced first-hand how dangerous at least some of those creatures were, and there was every likelihood that they would attack her or hers at some point.

  No, it was the future that worried her. Will I begin to think the same thing about the different races around here? That they are a danger to me and my increase in power and Influence? If the Orcs, let’s just say, attack me again – will I needlessly justify their deaths as a necessity so that I can help the rest of their race? And would I then destroy the village on the border so that they won’t have a staging ground for another attack?

  Those questions rattled around in her mind for roughly an hour before she silenced them with a firm thought. No, I will not debate every decision I make now in the fear that it will influence my future self. Sandra was of her own mind, and the instinctual drive to kill everything that the other Cores suffered from was controlled and pushed away, never to show itself…at least, she hoped so.

  Once the wastelands were safe for travel, she could concentrate on the one thing she would never compromise on: crafting.

  Chapter 4

  To help with an assault on the different lairs and colonies, however, Sandra had to put most of her crafting on hold and work on building her AMANS back up – and perhaps even expand it; while she still had nearly 5,000 Animated Shears in it, she was running at half of what she was used to gaining from the ambient Mana absorption. Now that her dungeon was defended with at least an adequate defensive force of constructs – and her traps, of course – she divided her focus again to start building it up again. The problem she had to figure out was how to rapidly scale up the operation again now that they cost five times as much as they used to, while still maintaining her other project (creating more rooms) going on.

  Therefore, Sandra had to dig down into the raw numbers, using that same knowledge of math she had learned from her father during their years as merchants. That learning had come in handy more times than she could count in her search for learning crafting techniques and recipes – as well as during her tenure so far as a Dungeon Core – and she was triply thankful for all that he had done to make her the person/floating-glowing-stone she was today.

  First, because she had the available AP, Sandra went into her Advancement Options and purchased the option to reduce the Mana Cost
of her Dungeon Monsters; this would help her increase her AMANS faster, as well as helping to produce what constructs she was going to need to eliminate some creature lairs later. As soon as she did so, she felt a subtle change in her Core; it was not quite as aggressive as the one that advanced her Classification, however – it was more like a slight alteration of…something. Because she couldn’t actually see it she couldn’t confirm, but she suspected that there was a change in the enchantment “cage” surrounding her Core. I’ll have to check with one of my Shifters later to see if I notice a difference.

  The change only visually manifested itself when she pulled up her Constructs Creation Options menu and saw that all of her constructs cost 15% less Mana to create – all except the Gravitational Devastation Sphere. Sandra remembered that the particularly destructive construct hadn’t been affected by her Classification advancement before, so it was only with mild surprise that it hadn’t been affected now. When she pulled up her Advancement Creation Options with her Goblin Worker and Unstable Shapeshifter, she saw that they had also been reduced in cost – which made the Shifter a little bit more affordable for the future at 13,600 Mana instead of its previous 16,000.

  The cost was also rounded up, so producing one of her Reinforced Animated Shears now cost 43 Mana; when she added in the lowest-cost Monster Seed that could be used for the construct – which used to be a Tiny Copper Orb at 5 Mana, but was now a Tiny Clay Cube at 15 Mana – the cost shot up to 58 Mana total. When she added in the 80 Raw Materials that were needed to produce the Seed, the cost was still approximately four times the amount they used to be for her previous Shears.

  Rather than be disappointed at the cost, though, Sandra looked at it as a challenge; there was no way to produce quite as many as she used to as quickly, but she could still slowly ramp up the production of them until she had as many or more than she had before – it would just take longer.