The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Maximum Ambient Mana Absorption in their dungeons increased to 15,000 per hour, up from 600 per hour

  Mana Cost to upgrade Core Size decreased by 25%

  Mana Cost of all Dungeon Monsters decreased by 25%

  New Core Threshold had been increased to Core Size 25

  Naturally, because she participated in one or more of those dungeon destructions, Sandra’s Core gained none of those enhancements. So, not only would Cores be getting more Mana inside their dungeons alone (384,000 each day, up from approximately 15,000 before the enhancements took effect), that didn’t even count the Mana they would receive from outside of their dungeons, which was funneled back to them by Dungeon Monsters throughout their Area of Influence.

  Speaking of those Dungeon Monsters, even they would cost less Mana to produce, which would in turn lead to more being out in the world, gaining even more Mana. When the lesser cost of upgrading a Core was factored into that, in a couple of months there would likely be quite a few dungeons that would take advantage of everything and expand out of control.

  Winxa? Is there any way you can tell me how many Cores are going to be affected by these enhancements? she asked her Dungeon Fairy, though she was fairly certain she wouldn’t get a definite answer. The ability to give advice or complete answers to Sandra was a bit lacking as of late, though not through any fault of the diminutive Fairy; the Creator had placed some restrictions on Winxa regarding the choices that the Dungeon Core could make based on that information. Regardless, Sandra wanted a little more information before she talked to Kelerim about the land of the Orcs.

  “Umm…well, I don’t think I can tell you how many Cores there are, but I do think I can give you a little bit of an idea,” the Dungeon Fairy said hesitantly. When nothing negative seemed to happen, Winxa continued. “First, the Cores situated around the wastelands are a bit unique in how close they are in relation to each other. I’m assuming this was done because they border this area, sort of like the gatekeepers of the wastelands. Farther away, Cores are usually placed 30 to 40 miles away from each other along the borders of all the lands, though sometimes there are outliers. From what I’ve heard, the saturation of dungeons has been increased over time in lands where more are needed to maintain a stricter balance, such as your former homeland of the Humans. Here, though, I can only assume extras weren’t necessarily needed, so that should be fairly accurate.”

  That was good information to have, and it was more than she expected from the Fairy based on past experiences. Though, when Sandra thought about it, it was probably because there wasn’t anything definite in her statements like, “There are 312 Cores within the reach of these enhancements.” From what her guide said, however, the Dungeon Core could guesstimate how many there were. Based on previous conversations with the Fairy and her own experiences back in the Human lands of Muriel, she knew that dungeons were usually only found along the sometimes-arbitrary border of their lands, like thick forests or mountain ranges – whatever worked to divide them from other lands, basically.

  These borders weren’t necessarily straight and could meander in and out of the lands, but if you had a map of a Kingdom or another type government, you could identify where dungeons were likely to be – if not their exact placement. Essentially, around the edges of the lands of Muriel, she knew that was where the dungeons were, which prevented expansion by her people; she inferred from what she knew and heard about lately that this was basically the same for the other homelands. Therefore, if Winxa was relatively accurate in her distances between dungeons, then Sandra calculated that there could be anywhere between 6 and 10 additional Cores within reach of the enhancements…per homeland. Therefore, she was looking at trying to contain 24 to 40 dungeons that were set to be extraordinarily powerful in just a few months.

  Not great news, but it was also possible that she could get more accurate numbers from Felbar, Echo, and Gerold and those counts may be less…or they could be more, of course. Regardless, it really didn’t matter how many of them were already taking advantage of their sudden benefits; Sandra couldn’t prevent their expansion without help from every race…which, unfortunately, brought her to Kelerim.

  * I’m sure you’re already aware, but your coming back here – as much as I appreciate your company – has complicated matters somewhat. Granted, I know that neither of us could’ve guessed that your father would send an army to hunt you down and destroy those two dungeons at the same time, but that’s where we are right now.

  * What we need to do is stop that from happening again, which means working with your people, as much I know that you’d like to forget that you’re one of them. I have contacts with the other races now, though of course we still have to see how those pan out, but you – the only one that is even partly Orc – are not exactly the best idea to negotiate on my behalf, don’t you think?”

  Kelerim sat looking down at the table, his shoulders slumped and his face looking a bit haggard. The Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc still hadn’t fully recovered from his ordeal of fleeing Orcrim from the force that his father sent after him, though he did look a bit healthier already. “I’m well aware of that, Sandra; I’m sorry I brought this all down on you and the others, but I swear I didn’t know it would come to this!”

  * I know you didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that it did. There’s nothing we can do about the past, so we must look to the future; what do you think is the best way to go about helping your people? I obviously can’t send you to talk to any leadership there is, because of reasons I already stated, so what else can we do? *

  “You’re right about me not being welcome inside Orcrim right now; although this ‘leadership’ you’re talking about is basically just the most powerful Warlords working reluctantly together for a mutual defense, my father would’ve likely shared my story and appearance to everyone who could listen by this point,” Kelerim explained. “If he didn’t take decisive action against me and the ‘dungeon that killed his son’, he would look weak to the others; hiding me and my role would be like blatantly concealing a weakness that others would be able to exploit.

  “As far as my father and the other Warlords are concerned, I really don’t care about them anymore. Though I hate how I was treated by them, then and now, it’s the innocent villagers and warbands defending them that will suffer when the dungeons start to overrun them. From all the information I have, the balance of monsters streaming out of the dungeons was just barely maintained over the last decade, though even that was slowly failing. Even one dungeon suddenly producing more monsters will have a negative effect, let alone 7 of them near here.”

  * So, there are 7 dungeons within the 138-mile range? *

  “Huh? Oh…maybe?” Kelerim shrugged. “That’s just a guess from what I’ve heard back when I was Blacksmithing back in Grongbak. It could be more or less, of course, but based on approximate distances between warband villages and outposts around the border, that sounds pretty accurate.”

  * Then what do you think we should do? *

  The Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc sat there for a moment before answering. “Well, perhaps we could just return to that idea of providing things to the warbands to make them more effective fighters? My original goal – after I met my father – was to use what I learned about Blacksmithing from you and start my own smithy; I could even see myself teaching others the same techniques so that, over time, we could regain the same level of weaponry we require to make full use of the warbands’ natural use of their elemental energies. It wouldn’t have been an overnight change, or even make much of a difference in a few years, but after a few decades we could be self-sustaining enough that we wouldn’t need outside help. Now, though, that won’t work – we’re out of time. Something has to happen, and happen soon, for the Orcish people to survive more than a few years at this rate,” Kelerim finished sadly.

  * Do you really think that is all they need? *

  That seemed like an easy solution to the problem, though implementing it would take so
me effort – and the logistics of such a thing was troublesome. For one, if shipments of finished weapons and armor were seen coming from the wasteland, it would cause even more attention to be paid to her dungeon. Secondly, making sure it all got to where it needed to go – to those on the front lines – was something that she didn’t think she could control; she knew from her merchanting days, as well as the mounting situation with the Elves concerning her Energy Orbs, that people in power were likely to hoard precious resources just in case they needed them. It wouldn’t be that surprising to learn that a shipment of swords she sent out had been seized by a local Warlord and kept for their own use, selling a couple of them to the highest bidder.

  Naturally, the way around that was to provide so many supplies that there would be no point in hoarding them – which was a daunting task in and of itself.

  “Yes, I think that would do it. They have the numbers, they have the bravery, and they have their ability to enhance themselves using their elemental energy to become more powerful; what they don’t have is effective equipment if you remember.”

  Sandra certainly did remember; seeing all of the destroyed, poorly made swords inside of the Avian and Unicorn dungeons made it clear that they were woefully underequipped. She could only imagine how deadly they could be when going against Dungeon Monsters with something like a high-quality Steel or Titanium sword. Naturally, setting up the crafting of so much equipment and figuring out how to deliver it without calling too much attention to her dungeon was something else entirely.

  * I guess that’s the best we can hope for, then. We’ll discuss the best ways to get everything to your people later; in the meantime, why don’t you get some rest as well. You appear ready to fall asleep at the table. *

  As he nodded and took off for his own bed, Sandra turned her attention away from the Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc and focused on internal matters. There was nothing she could do at the moment about the other Dungeon Cores, and she knew she had at least a little time before things got too out of control. After the semi-disastrous events revolving around the Undead Core, she hadn’t had much of a chance to take stock of the current situation in and around her dungeon. The most she had been able to do in between directing her construct and Monster forces around the now-destroyed Undead Core’s location was set up some things for her new Dwarven residents to make their lives a little easier.

  The stone water basin in another dug-out room was easy enough to create, just using stone and a Water-based trap that would trigger whenever someone got within 5 feet of the basin. Pure, clean water would erupt in a fountain-like spray that would splash down prettily into the pool of water down below. When the water level reached a certain point, another section of the trap would start to eliminate the water, while also filtering it at the same time for any impurities that may have been introduced after the basin of water was filled. Simple, and yet Sandra could feel that there should be a way to improve upon it.

  At the moment, the time that the trap would stay active was limited to just under two hours before it had to shut off to recharge. Granted, Sandra hadn’t pumped a lot of Mana into the trap to increase that time, as it didn’t seem like a beneficial use of her resources. However, she thought that if she figured some things out – like how exactly the special Visitor’s Bond she created with Gerold and the other Shieldmen allowed them to constantly recharge their Energy Orbs imbedded in their hands – she might be able to design something to keep the fountain running much longer…or perhaps indefinitely.

  She hadn’t really had the time to experiment with that yet, though, so it was now on the long list of things she still wanted to accomplish when the opportunity presented itself.

  After that, Sandra had hollowed out another large room and created a massive kitchen and dining area that would allow the Dwarves to cook for themselves. The kitchen up above, where the meeting of her emissaries had just been held, was fine for a small population of a dozen or less, but there were now over 60 people living down below – which meant more space was needed to cook and eat, as well. After bringing the height of the prep spaces and stovetops up to a point where the Dwarven villagers could easily access them, Sandra built a massive oven that could hold half a ton of food if necessary, and would hopefully come in handy when they got their first harvest of wheat in to bake into bread. Granted, baking was one aspect of cooking that she hadn’t learned as much about as she would’ve liked to when she was alive, but there were a few villagers that she could watch and learn from.

  The oven itself was modeled after the Blacksmithing forges she had above, mixed with the oven she had in her other kitchen. By selecting from about a dozen temperatures using small pedals set up along the outside of the large oven, the entire fixture would employ a Fire-based trap that would heat it at a constant temperature in its entirety. The side facing the kitchen was left open, though it could be closed with a thin, relatively lightweight sheet of Dragon Glass that could be fit into a slot carved into the lip of the opening. Two protrusions that acted like handles were on the outside of the Dragon Glass sheet, which helped with moving it when it was needed.

  She spent more Mana on the kitchen than she did with the fountain (almost 15,000 compared to 4,000), but there was a lot more going on in the large cooking space than just water flowing. Still, it was worth doing and the Dwarves had taken to it with great alacrity, using the Raw Bearling Meat she created for them as well as the different fruits she had in the above growing room to make meals for themselves. Once they got the underground farms set up and running, they would be able to cook even more variety of foodstuffs to eat.

  That was about all she had time to do, however; all of her spare attention, focus, Mana, and Raw Materials went towards building up her constructs and other Dungeon Monsters again. Although her normal defending constructs dispersed throughout her dungeon were still intact, as even in an emergency she was hesitant to remove them, her forces aboveground had been essentially devastated. Oh, she still had over 7,000 Reinforced Animated Shears in her Airborne Mana Absorption Net of Shears (AMANS) floating above her dungeon and scouting along the perimeter of the wastelands, though that number was diminished from what she would prefer after having to utilize quite a few of them to invade and destroy the Undead dungeon. Sandra also had 1,500 Rolling Forces that had been integral to the destruction of so many Undead around the area, as well as just under 400 Hyper Automatons that helped to move dropped Monster Seeds back to her dungeon, but as for her other forces, she was down to almost nothing.

  The Dungeon Core had under a dozen Pegasi at her disposal, which had been integral to getting Echo, Felbar, and Gerold out of the collapsing dungeon, as well as 6 Steelclad Ape Warriors armed with enchanted Titanium warhammers that she had kept in reserve. There were also 8 Rising Phoenixes that were helping to patrol the skies and observe the area below them, though there wasn’t too much that was exciting to see. All the rest of her constructs and Dungeon Monsters outside of her dungeon had been destroyed when she attacked through the Undead dungeon’s rear entrance (or, as it turned out, main entrance) to help those trapped inside escape. The only consolation was that the large War Machine was still available for Felbar to use if needed, though the two Deep Diver suit constructs were now buried under many thousands of tons of dirt.

  Therefore, she had been gradually rebuilding what she could with what Mana she had funneling into her automatically, though it was slow going. Her stockpile of Mana in the form of Monster Seeds that she had held in her treasury was nearly empty because of all that she had put into the attack on the other dungeon, so now she had to rebuild everything before she could even think about helping elsewhere.

  In addition, there were other things to consider, including something that felt like years since she’d done it: Upgrade her Core Size. There was something in the announcement regarding the enhancements for the other Cores that was extremely important regarding that, and would potentially make a difference in what she chose to do over the next few months.


  “These enhancements are not granted to any Cores that – in any way – participated in the destruction of any neighboring Cores, whether through overt, clandestine, or inadvertent means. In addition, any previous mentoring benefits are now instantly null and void for any Dungeon Cores taking advantage of these enhancements.”

  It was the part about “mentoring benefits” that made the most difference to her because what that essentially meant was that she didn’t have to worry about the other Cores using her Area of Influence to move around everywhere. At least, that’s what Winxa said when Sandra asked her.

  “Yes, that is precisely what that means. These new enhancements override whatever benefits they would’ve received through the mentoring program, so you no longer have to worry about passing them in Core Size. Of course, if—sorry, when—these enhancements end, they’ll likely be back; that is something that you’ll have to deal with at that time, though.”

  It would be good to be able to upgrade her Core Size, and not just because she hadn’t done it in a while…and it was like an itch in the back of her mind that wanted to be scratched. It was obviously part of her nature as a Dungeon Core to want to Upgrade, expand, and conquer/kill as much as she possibly could, but for the most part she was able to ignore those instincts; after a while, though, such things were pressing on her mind for her attention.

  Then there were all of the Advancement Points that she had just received lately, from the Visitor’s Bonds she had with all of the new Dwarves, to the destruction of the Undead-based Core, the addition of even more rooms down below in her dungeon, and even – unfortunately – the deaths of the Dwarven Shieldmen in the village battle.