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Tiny Ironwood Wood Chip
Origination Raw Material Cost: 500
Origination Mana Cost: 250
Monster Min. Mana: 250
Monster Max. Mana: 600
Ironwood had a distinctly darker color than any of her other wood types, and while it was a little heavier than the Oak that was being used before, it was very durable. It also cost a bit more resources to create, but Sandra had plenty saved up or constantly coming in to supply that need. One side-effect that Violet instantly noticed when enchanting the Ironwood was that it seemed to take to the enchantment sequence faster; when she began to put all the runes together, the wood seemed almost to suck it into itself, locking it in place with a solid foundation. With neither of them ever having seen Ironwood enchanted before, they weren’t sure if it was beneficial or not, but once the enchantment was there it appeared to be somehow strengthened – which might make it less likely to be damaged in combat, which happened occasionally with normal wood.
Her new status as a Journeyman Enchanter didn’t seem to affect Violet too much, though Sandra could see some extra confidence in her bearing as well as her Enchanting efforts. She had also increased her energy capacity enough that she could complete all but the linking enchantment by herself, which was an enormous feat in and of itself.
Echo taught all that she could to Sandra and her own “copies”, so her Shapeshifters changed into the other forms of the Elite Elves to practice with other elements – with some limited success. The most beneficial manipulation of the other elements was the ability to throw out a small Fireball spell, which was essentially a smallish roiling ball of super-hot flames approximately the size of one of the Elves’ fists. She found that she could launch it only about 20 feet before it dissipated, and once it hit something it would flare up for a moment a little larger and then disperse.
Of the other elements, she had some ideas of how to use them – but couldn’t find the proper method of their creation. After she accidentally killed one of her Shapeshifters by creating a nasty Nether void of some kind that consumed almost two-thirds of its body within a matter of seconds, she gave up until she had some better instruction.
After Echo was done teaching – and learning – she went back to the village with another shipment that Sandra had managed to squeeze in when she had the time and Mana. When she came back the same day, the Dungeon Core was surprised; however, a couple of hours spent in the hot pool down below was evidence enough why she returned so eagerly. That, and she was interested in learning about Enchanting – and Sandra eagerly tried to teach her what she could.
It was actually good timing because she was also finishing up her Enchantment Repository Room. After a lot of practice making the Energy Orb and even Energy Cube enchantments, Sandra had learned how to finally incorporate the Limiter rune into it; she had also practiced making the Preservation Barriers/Stasis Fields that Violet was so good at, so that she could enchant brand-new Pillars herself – as well as replace the ones that were starting to run out of elemental energy with ones that incorporated the new Cube.
She, of course, experimented with much smaller enchantments first, but once Violet looked at them and approved of them – and Sandra felt somewhat proud of that – she finished off the rest of the Repository. Once she had completed Pillars for most of her materials – at least the ones that really mattered – she spent some time transferring as much of the knowledge she could remember of Enchanting onto them. It was at that point that Echo started to be curious about the process, and Sandra took the time to teach her.
The teaching of which was just about as successful as Sandra’s first day learning how to cast spells. Enchanting was an extremely foreign concept to the Elf, but the Dungeon Core could see that there would eventually be some progress – though it would probably take a while; Sandra thought that Echo might eventually be able to create them (because the Elves did create some enchantments, though not nearly as many or as well as the Gnomes) but doubted she’d have the same instinctual feel of them that the smaller race seemed to have.
Eventually, with all the training and development of skills, the production of enchantments and upgrades to the materials on the War Machine, and the completion of the Enchantment Repository Room, they were ready to finish the final step: the complex and energy-consumptive linking enchantment.
Fortunately, Sandra had prepared for that.
Chapter 18
“Is she okay?” Echo asked Sandra as Violet collapsed to the stone floor. Felbar rushed over to the girl and placed her on her back instead of being in a tangled heap; Sandra knew she was fine because none of the Repair Drones nearby had even twitched when she fell. As for the Dungeon Core herself, she thought that if she had a body she’d be on the floor, too.
* Yes, she’ll be fine; she’s just exhausted after that intensely powerful and intricate enchantment. My Shifters took over what they could but controlling so many of them at once was much more…difficult…than I had anticipated. *
“Difficult” was a major understatement. For something as intricate as Enchanting, Sandra had needed to personally control each one to create the lines of linking rune sequences that led to each of the existing enchantments, as well as contributing what she could to the actual control modules – which wasn’t a lot because a few sections of the sequences were a little more intricate than she could easily do. Then, once she did a section with one Shifter, she would have to mentally instruct it to hold it in place while she went on to another. The mental strain of doing that wasn’t quite as intense as when she divided her concentration in the dungeon to complete multiple tasks – but it was amplified by the sheer number of Shifters she had doing it.
Who would’ve thought that controlling 20 Unstable Shapeshifters at the same time would be hard?
Sandra had done it, however, and so had Violet – though it had apparently taken all of her elemental energy to do that, even with a dozen mixed Spirit and Natural Energy Orbs hanging around her neck. Like she had told Echo, she needed some rest and she’d be fine; Sandra, on the other hand, was already starting to recover from the strain and she looked at the enchantment on the War Machine to see if it had taken properly – and was pleased at the result.
Her Shapeshifters had done a great job of maintaining each section they were responsible for, and they all amazingly meshed together without any hiccups; Sandra had to mentally congratulate herself for a job well done with so many “hands in the pot”, but she acknowledged that it was almost like one – since they were all Violet’s form doing the enchanting. Nevertheless, it was done, and she didn’t see anything different from the one on the model—
What the—? That’s not possible…
Sandra’s attention was pulled away from the workshop and her dungeon as she felt a change somewhere else. She briefly thought that one of the Cores around the Orcs, Elves, or even the Dwarves had expanded its Area of Influence, but she just as quickly identified the culprit: the Undead Dungeon Core. Its AOI had expanded again, and just as she had feared it just barely overlapped her entire dungeon.
Winxa – how did it upgrade again so soon? I thought we had at least another week or two before this happened!
The Dungeon Fairy appeared to be at a loss and somehow scared; Sandra suddenly realized that she had practically shouted at Winxa – and it wasn’t in a nice tone, either. Feeling bad but unable to apologize right away (because she was angry, though more at herself than the Fairy), she waited for a reply as she explored what she could of the Undead Core’s new AOI. Looking towards the Dwarves, she saw that it stretched nearly to the forest’s edge, only about a mile or less from being a serious threat to the village.
“I…I don’t know. I know of no way that it could do that since you’ve been culling it so thoroughly; even if it had found the Advancement Menu, such a rapid increase wouldn’t explain it,” Winxa finally said in a small voice.
Taking a mental breath and trying to r
elax – the proximity of the Undead Core’s Influence was putting her on edge – she finally apologized to the Dungeon Fairy.
* I’m sorry for yelling, Winxa – I just don’t understand why— *
The answer to that came streaming out of the woods just then. Thousands of small rat skeletons emerged from the trees and spread out all over the open land, their little forms constantly in motion as they stayed separate from each other; they swept across the Gnome village and beyond, filling the open spaces, before bleeding into the wastelands. Eventually the flow of rat bones stopped coming; looking at the land from above, she could see that all of them had at least 20 feet in between them as they ran around in circles that slowly tightened towards their centers. Sandra couldn’t understand what they were doing, until she backed up even further and caught a glimpse of her AMANS.
That sneaky little…
She’d been played, there was no doubt about it. The flow of simple skeletons and zombies really hadn’t stopped gradually coming into the open land where her eradication force was systematically destroying them one by one. Sandra only had them venture a little ways into the forest, where she had found essentially the same thing – though there were stronger varieties the further in she went. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, because she figured culling the greater quantity of weaker Dungeon Monsters would slow down the growth of the Core as opposed to trying to eliminate anything harder was the way to go.
Obviously, she had read the situation wrong. The explosion of growth could definitely be explained away by thousands of rat skeletons running around in circles in parts of the forest that she didn’t really have access to because of the floating Specters. There was still a goodly sized area beyond the actual Undead dungeon that she couldn’t even reach yet with her own AOI, and if that was filled with skeleton rats – who she just saw could also climb up and down trees – then they could act similarly to her own AMANS.
Sandra should’ve known that something was up after the trap that had destroyed her first force, but she had been distracted; it wasn’t a great excuse, of course, but it was the only one she had. It was her fault that the Undead Core had expanded so quickly; it had obviously seen her floating Shears and understood what they were being used for. Not only that, but she had been too cautious about exploring the forest and pushing towards as full of a cull as she could, so she had missed the signs that not everything was as it seemed. She had no one to blame but herself, and now things were going to start getting out of control unless she did something quickly.
The Undead Core had obviously been planning on revealing its skeletal rat army for some time, because as soon as her Rolling Forces started to smash them to pieces, another much larger – and more dangerous force emerged from the trees. She noticed that it was comprised of the same Undead as the group that had surprised her almost a week ago, though with greater numbers. They immediately headed for her eradication force, overtaking them within minutes; outnumbered and practically useless against such a group, she had her rolling constructs use their greater speed to keep destroying skeletal rats and stay out of the way of wherever the larger Undead were going.
Before they could get far, however, a veritable cloud of Specters shot forward and quickly descended from above, enveloping her Rolling Forces. There followed a short and bloodless battle that saw all of her over 2,000 constructs destroyed – but taking out over a hundred of the mist-like Undead at the same time. Normally she would consider that a fair exchange, but when all of the nearby skeletal rats picked up the dropped Monster Seeds in their fleshless jaws and carried them back to the forest, she knew she had lost big in that exchange.
As for where the larger Undead were going, it was obvious by their unerring direction that they were headed straight for Sandra’s dungeon.
* Echo, get below – there’s a huge force of Undead heading this way! Felbar, take Violet down as well, I can’t have you up here when they invade. *
Echo hesitated, looking at her bow that was propped up against the nearby wall; she brought it everywhere with her – even to the baths down below – and Sandra was meaning to talk with her about creating a brand-new one for her. That wouldn’t help right now, of course, but she wanted to thank her for her help with teaching Sandra about casting spells and for delivering the Energy Orbs to her village.
* That’s not going to do much good against these Undead, Echo; you’re better off getting below where it’s safe. *
The Elf reluctantly nodded and grabbed her bow, slipping it around her shoulder by its string. As she was running past the Gnomes, however, Felbar reached out to Echo and grabbed her by the arm. “Please, would you take Violet with you? I’m staying here to help defend this room.”
* What are you doing, Felbar? It’s not safe up here— *
“There’s no way I’m letting those vile monsters get a chance to destroy this War Machine, especially now that it’s complete,” Felbar said, cutting Sandra off. “And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to lose all those supplies in that wagon over there, so you’re going to need my help.”
He…had a point – or at least a half-point. The wagon she could absorb and create the supplies – if not the wagon itself – immediately somewhere else, like one of the empty rooms she had created earlier. The War Machine, though, would be…painful for her to destroy; she couldn’t take the risk that one of the undead could figure out how to use the Gnome construct, especially now that it didn’t require someone with a certain elemental energy to control it. With all of the hard work put into it – especially all the enchantments – losing it would feel like she had just bought a foal, raised it until it was a full-grown and trained horse, and then been forced to sell it before she had a chance to ride it.
Time was running out before the Undead arrived, however, and Sandra couldn’t afford to argue anymore.
* Fine, stay or go – that’s your decision. I would prefer it if you were safe down below, but if you feel the need to help I’m not going to stop you. Once the girls are through the doorway to my VATS, though, I’m sealing it until the danger has passed; all access to the safer rooms below will be cut off, so if you need to retreat you’ll be stuck here. Are you still sure you want to stay? *
Echo had already picked up Violet and easily carried the Gnome through the doorways to the VATS, not even bothering with seeing if Felbar was coming. “Yes, I’m staying. Now…is there any way you can have one of your constructs give me a boost?”
She had two of her Steelclad Ape Warriors stationed in the room to help with any crafting via the forge in the workshop or anything else that needed their assistance, and one of them quickly ran over and practically tossed the Gnome into the pilot’s enclosure. Steadying himself, Felbar reached up to close and secure the Titanium gate covering the front of the War Machine before strapping himself into the leather harness. When he was secure and correctly placed, it lifted him slightly off the floor of the enclosure, allowing him to literally run in place; his feet would touch the control modules under them, and because of the Pressure Feedback runes there it would translate his movements to the construct.
Felbar’s hands went to the wooden protrusions in front of him, fingers immediately finding where they needed to go to control the arms – and subsequently the weapons permanently attached to the ends. With a great jerk the entire construct moved…and promptly fell on its back. The Gnome seemed shocked for a moment, but then he started to chuckle.
“Uh…that was a lot more sensitive than I expected. Hold on—” he said, before manipulating the controls to turn over the War Machine. In seconds he had gotten the construct to its knee joints and then back to its feet shortly thereafter. “Ok, I think I’ve got a handle on it now.”
Sandra watched as Felbar cautiously walked forward, followed by some simple movements to test everything out. When it appeared as though he was moving everything well enough, the Dungeon Core left him to his own devices – backed up by the 20 Unstable Shapeshifters in their unshif
ted forms that were still inside the room. Since they had been Enchanting for nearly an hour, they didn’t have a lot of “Shift-time” left, but every little bit might count.
Looking around her dungeon, she saw that everything was as prepared as it was going to be – all except a quick change to the very first room. A quick check of her available Mana showed that it was currently a little over 17,000 and she pictured rubbing her hands together in anticipation as she eliminated the Nether-based trap already there. The lessons she had with Echo and all of the enchantments being done lately had given her some ideas, and she thought she had more than enough resources to put them into play.
Using Holy and Fire elements together, she tied a brand-new trap to a single Martial Totem she left in there, moving the others further down the dungeon. An earlier experiment trying to enchant one of her constructs ended in failure, despite Sandra thinking it might work because they could enchant Elemental Orbs and Cube; however, Winxa said it was due to the enchantment being separate from the Orbs and Cubes, not actually a part of them. She’d never had the opportunity to actually use one of her Dungeon Monsters as the trap before, so she figured she’d try.
First was a dual shield made from Holy Mana that surrounded her Martial Totem. One layer of the shield mimicked the same thing Echo did to become “invisible”; the other was the same bubble of protection that she had first made when trying out her casting abilities. The protection bubble would prevent both physical and Nether-based effects from reaching her Totem – at least until the Mana charged in it was used up (which should take a while, because she was pumping a lot into the trap). In addition, when the construct’s protection bubble was struck, it would flash with a painfully bright light and emit a small Lightstrike “spear” in the direction the attack came from, up to 5 feet away.
The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Page 21