If Sandra had learned anything from her previous experience dealing with the Reptile-based dungeon, it was that she probably would’ve been better served to send in some of her smaller constructs first to draw out some of the attacks, instead of letting the bulk of her forces suffer from it. With that in mind, she pulled up the 500 Rolling Forces she had gathered over the last hour, as well as over 1,000 Reinforced Animated Shears from her AMANS. She was already in the process of replacing them back in her dungeon, so they wouldn’t be missed for long.
The only drawback from having her “sacrifices” scouting the way without someone following along was that the Monster Seeds they dropped would be absorbed and used by the Dungeon Core right away; normally, Sandra – and she assumed from what Winxa had told her, the Undead Core as well – had to wait until the invaders left the room to absorb them, but if there was only someone stationed at the entrance, then it wouldn’t matter. It was a price she was willing to pay, however, to save the lives of her Dungeon Monsters and the people coming with them.
Felbar volunteered to stand inside the entrance while Sandra sent in the first wave of scout “sacrifices”: 100 Shears and 50 Rolling Forces. Rather than have them all go in at the same time, she figured it would be better to space them out – it would defeat the entire purpose of this plan if they all went in and were destroyed in the first room.
As soon as they passed over the threshold of the dungeon, Sandra felt her connection to them become muted, similar to what happened before in the Reptile dungeon. Commands to them immediately became difficult to get through and were delayed, and she again felt that she couldn’t give them more than basic commands. Fortunately, she had been expecting that, and she had already given them specific orders before they went in – which they had no trouble following.
Sandra immediately saw through her constructs that the first room was dark; she could tell that the ambient light inside it had been turned all the way down to its lowest allowed setting by the Core, which was even darker than what she herself had done in the bathing room she had designed. Luckily, her constructs didn’t rely on physical light to see by – mainly because they didn’t have eyes – so everything in the room was visible, if not well-defined.
There were a dozen humanoid-looking zombies inside the relatively small 30-foot-wide ovoid-shaped room, who reacted immediately to the invasion by her constructs by shuffling quickly towards them. For their part, her Dungeon Monsters completely ignored the Undead – which was one of the specific orders they were given – and instead rolled or flew around the room, looking for traps. She knew that her constructs might have been able to do some serious damage to the zombies, if not kill them all, but that wasn’t their purpose; their purpose was to trigger traps and unveil surprises waiting for her other forces.
They found the trap near the exit tunnel to the next, right where someone who had confidently destroyed the zombies would trigger it on their way onward. Hundreds of shadowy tendrils shot out of the floor and nearby wall, latching onto everything in range – which happened to be more than half of her constructs in the room. The shadow tendrils seemed to pulse with a deeper darkness as the Nether-based trap ate away at the captured constructs, destroying them in a matter of seconds.
Her other Shears and Forces tried to bypass the trap and move on to the next room, but as soon as they got close to the trap, more tendrils shot out and grasped onto them. Within moments, all of her constructs had been caught and destroyed, leaving her blind to what was happening inside the dungeon.
* Ok, so…new plan. There’s a trap in there that we may need to neutralize first, otherwise I’ll just be throwing my sacrificial constructs away. Eventually the energy in the defense will run out, but I’m not sure how long that will take; I’m sending in some of my Monsters to see if I can speed up the process. *
She sent in 6 of her Apes and 6 of her Angels, and then asked Felbar to follow them – but to stay just inside the room near the entrance. Her constructs led the charge with their warhammers and made short work of the zombies, blasting them apart with a few swings of their weapons. She knew from her own experiences and from what Winxa had told her that most Cores put their weakest Dungeon Monsters first and had stronger ones as the invaders made their way down, so she wasn’t going to start getting overconfident in how easy they had been destroyed. The Undead in the dungeon were the least of her concern – it was the traps from the last dungeon that had destroyed so many of her constructs, and it was likely that the ones inside the current one would be similar.
Once they were down, she had her Celestial Authorities use their special Arrows and send them forth over the space where she knew the Nether-based trap was. As she hoped, the shadowy tendrils shot out faster than she could even see them and snatched the arrows of Holy and Spirit energy out of the air; unlike the constructs, what the trap grabbed wasn’t quite the same. Within a second, the Arrows’ lights started to dim, but the Mana inside the Nether trap was strained in order to do it; with Nether and Holy being opposites, it made sense to Sandra that they would react that way.
Out of the 30 Arrows shot and caught by the trap, 2 of them were released to finish their previous journey down the exit tunnel as the Mana in the trap ran out. As soon as she saw that happen, Sandra brought in another group of 100 Shears and 50 Rolling Forces and sent them through the space where the trap was…and nothing happened. She was going to have to act fast, though, because she knew that the trap would eventually regenerate from the ambient Mana around it, though she didn’t know how long that would take; to have a little forewarning, she had one of her Shears and one of her Rolling Forces stop where she felt it trigger before, acting as a way to know when it was active again.
As her constructs rolled and flew down the tunnel leading to the next room, something struck her as odd.
Winxa, why would the Monster Seeds still be inside the first room from my destroyed constructs? I’m quite sure that the Core could’ve absorbed them, even though Felbar was in the entrance tunnel.
She thought about that for a moment. “You’re right, it should’ve been able to. Either it deliberately didn’t do so for some unknown purpose…or it isn’t paying attention.”
It’s not paying attention? It’s being invaded, and it doesn’t care? That doesn’t make sense—or are you saying what I think you’re saying?
“I don’t know for sure, but yes – the Dungeon Core could already be upgrading its Size again.”
If that were true, it was both a good thing and a bad thing; on the one hand, it meant that spur-of-the-moment reactions from the Core would be almost non-existent, so hopefully there wouldn’t be any major surprises. On the other, it could finish upgrading at any time; with the Temporary Enhancements as well as its already fairly large AOI, it was possible that it could reach some other settlements. Maybe not the Elves quite yet, but the chance that it could potentially reach the Orc village was worrying. She was hoping to destroy the Core before it could get the chance to upgrade, but now it appeared as though she had waited too long. With who knew how many Undead were in the “dead zone” she couldn’t reach, the potential for disaster was right on the forefront of her mind.
* We might need to move a little faster than I had planned; I’m halfway convinced that the Core is already undergoing its expansion process and it’d be better if it was stopped before that’s completed. *
Although she was confident they would eventually destroy the Core, she couldn’t quite tell how long the dungeon was from looking at it underground from her Area of Influence. All that she could tell was that it was at least twice the size of what the Reptile-based dungeon had been, but even that could be deceiving as it seemed to branch off into different directions multiple times. If the Core had enough time to send its Undead aboveground to the Orcs and destroy them all there, the influx of Mana would allow it to create more hordes of Undead…or potentially something more powerful that she had yet to see.
Fortunately, everyone seemed to un
derstand the danger that would arise if that were to come about and pushed for speed. Therefore, sending caution to the wind, she ordered everyone to slowly start filing inside, while the Shears and Forces already inside were approaching the next room. The second room contained skeletons – a lot of them. Sandra counted 60 of them inside the 50-foot by 50-foot room with a relatively low 7-foot-tall ceiling; the tight quarters meant that a few of her Shears were snatched out of the air as they flew by, though her Forces were unharmed even as they were kicked around like children’s play balls. Again, as per their orders, her constructs flew and rolled around until they found a trap – which just so happened to be a small trigger in the precise middle of the room.
The room went from dimly lit to complete darkness; it was somehow so dark that even her constructs had trouble “seeing” despite their lack of physical eyes. Their sense of things around them dropped to only about a foot, which caused many of them to crash into the skeletons or the walls, doing some damage to the Undead but doing even more to themselves. It took all of 5 minutes for her constructs to be destroyed, though they took a few of the enemy with them in the process.
Sandra immediately sent in her Apes that had been sent to destroy the zombies in the previous room, and she finally saw the delay in their responses as it took almost 5 seconds for them to respond. Thinking back to the Reptile dungeon, she was convinced that it actually took longer now than it did back then. It must be because of its higher Core Size or something along those lines; that also means that any future dungeons that I may need to destroy that are even more powerful could be a major pain.
Her Apes crashed into the room and started swinging their warhammers around, smashing through the skeletons there in the same complete darkness that was still activated. The Undead didn’t stand a chance and most of them were quickly destroyed; then, because her constructs couldn’t “see” that well, some accidents started happening where they inadvertently started to hit each other with the powerful weapons. One of her Apes was hit so hard with an impact by a Titanium warhammer and a Fireburst enchantment that its Steel chest caved in and the glowing “power source” inside of it was extinguished. A few others were damaged as well – with one now even missing a leg – before they finally stopped fighting at her delayed command.
She brought in the 6 Celestial Authorities next to help mop up the remaining skeletons, who were ineffectually beating on her Apes that were frozen in place by Sandra, which she belatedly realized she should’ve done in the first place. She was so used to her Apes being such powerhouses of destruction that she didn’t even think about it, and that was something that was going to have to stop if she hoped to succeed; unthinking actions like that could result in the deaths of more than her constructs and Dungeon Monsters if she wasn’t careful.
Her Angel-type Monsters walked into the room and the darkness was pushed back – but not completely banished. Her Authorities dimmed a little themselves, but it wasn’t progressing more than a slight amount; they immediately ran forward and mopped up the rest of the skeletons, making the room “safe” once again. Sandra wasn’t sure how long the trap would last, however, because from her experience something like what was being done to make the room darker didn’t expend as much Mana as the shadowy tendrils from the previous room.
Therefore, she had her Angels park themselves around the room, which helped to brighten up the place just enough to see everything without tripping over the Monster Seeds that were still on the floor.
I guess that proves it; the Core definitely had the opportunity to absorb all of these – because Felbar was in the previous room. It has to be upgrading right now.
Sandra brought in another group of sacrificial scouts from outside, determined to keep going quickly but still trying to be as safe as possible. Meanwhile, the last of her Dungeon Monsters were coming in behind the Dwarves and Echo astride her Pegasus – though she had to duck to fit inside the tunnel. They couldn’t all fit inside the first room, so Sandra kept them going until they were inside the second room, which was just large enough to hold them. Her Repair Drones she brought along immediately started to patch up the Apes that had accidentally hurt themselves, while the Shears and the Forces she had recently brought in were already heading for the next room.
Now that everyone was inside, she was hoping that would speed things up. Sending in small forces at a time would certainly be safer, but it was also very time-consuming. Eventually she’d have to make do with what she had when she ran out of her “sacrificial” constructs, but hopefully by that time they’d have a good rhythm going.
Speaking of them, the third group of Shears and Rolling forces were entering a room that had a half-dozen larger beast zombies—
Something was happening towards the entrance of the dungeon. Sandra looked through the viewpoint of her Shears and Rolling Forces waiting outside to the hole leading into the ground, only to see the roof collapsing. What? How? She didn’t have time to investigate further, because she could feel her connection to everything inside the dungeon start to fade as the tunnel leading down started to fill up with dirt, stone, and a nearby falling tree that was caused by the ground crumbling underneath it.
With a split-second thought, she – hopefully – sent some orders to her Dungeon Monsters before she lost all connection to them, as well as a quick message to the others.
* The entrance is collapsing and I’m losing connection to my Monsters – they’re under your command now, Felbar! I’ll try to— *
She wasn’t able to finish her message, as she felt any connection she had to anything inside the Undead dungeon cut off completely.
Winxa? What happened? I lost all connection to anyone or anything inside the dungeon. How was the dungeon able to collapse the ground, sealing off the entrance? I thought that was impossible!
The Dungeon Fairy looked shocked. “It shouldn’t be possible to close up your initial entrance to the world above; any action that would do that is unable to be taken. Just like you couldn’t block up your entrance here, even when there weren’t any invaders inside, the Undead Core shouldn’t be able to either.” Winxa paused for a moment, before thinking out loud. “Unless…that entrance…wasn’t the initial entrance. If it were a secondary entrance, sort of like your workshop that was connected to the now-destroyed Bearling lair, then physically rigging something up to collapse – and that didn’t require the use of your Dungeon Core abilities – would perhaps work. Which means—”
— that the initial entrance is probably the larger exit I was guarding earlier but had been basically ignoring up until now. I figured it was the same as the Reptile dungeon and it was blocked off, so I didn’t check it – I’m so stupid!
Sandra was mad at herself; she had thought she had everything covered, but the Undead Core had managed to pull one over on her again. Something still didn’t add up, however…
Ok, so if the real entrance is through the other large “exit” tunnel, then why can’t I reach my Dungeon Monsters or the others with them?
“Well, the reason being inside the dungeon diminishes your connection with them already is because of the Core itself; in this instance, it’s acting as a sort of stopper that you can’t get past right now.” Winxa started to demonstrate an example using her hands, forming what looked like a bowl or something similar. “Think of it like a bucket of thick jelly with a plug at the bottom; you drop your Monsters inside the jelly and your connection to them is a little muted and diminished, but you can still reach them – like what you’ve already experienced.”
The Fairy then used one of her hands to poke the side of the “bucket.” “You can’t go in from the sides to touch your Monsters because the bucket is in the way, obviously; now, if you were to put a lid on the bucket—” she continued, placing her hand on top of the invisible prop— “then the only way to get to them would be from the only other option – the stopper. So, unless you can dig all of that up within the next few hours, the only way you’ll be able contact them aga
in is if the ‘stopper’, or Core, is removed.”
Great, just great. Sandra looked at the collapsed entrance again, trying to calculate if she could create and send a large group of her new Automated Sharp-bladed Diggers there to start excavating the area fast enough to make a difference. After a couple of seconds of also peering at it from underneath via her Area of Influence, she determined that it was possible – though it could take 5 hours or more. For one, her Diggers didn’t move very fast, so half that time would probably be spent traveling there; for the other, there was only so quickly they could dig without getting into each other’s way, so it would end up taking a bit of time to complete.
She went ahead and started to create them despite not knowing if everyone was still alive inside. While 15 of them were being created through the use of some of her treasury resources, she sent her remaining Shears and Rolling Forces over to the other entrance to see if there were any way through there.
Undead were streaming out in waves and spreading out to apparently cover as much area as possible – but they were also quite aware of where her constructs were and the direction they were coming from. A swarm of Specters enveloped her 700 Shears and basically ate them up, though there were quite a few casualties on their part; that again didn’t deter them, as they immediately fell upon her Rolling Forces before they could escape.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, more Specters flew out of the “dead zone” that she couldn’t reach and destroyed all 500 of her Shears that were keeping watch for anything moving within. Within a minute, she had basically lost a view from most of the forest, though she still did have an aerial view from her flock of Phoenixes roaming around. They were wholly ineffective at seeing through the trees, and she didn’t want to risk lighting the entire forest on fire by having them go down in a full blaze; that might solve some immediate problems, but as there was no way to stop it, the fire might spread for hundreds of miles.
The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Page 37