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

by Jonathan Brooks

  * No, I haven’t reconsidered that. But the Orcish people do need help – and I think you both can assist in that. *

  Kelerim looked unsure, as did Echo beside him. “How can we help? Not that I don’t think he’s capable, but as was said before he’s not exactly welcome there anymore. And I’m…well, an Elf.”

  * Both are excellent points. What I want to do is establish a relationship with your contact in Grongbak so that we can funnel supplies through her. With Echo there, we can pass the weapons, armor, and even any Energy Orbs sent there as Elven-made instead of from a dungeon. *

  They were both silent as they looked at each other in contemplation, before Kelerim finally commented. “I think that might work with Furbrea, but there’s one major problem with convincing her and anyone she deals with that this is a merchant-like transaction, even involving the Elves.” Echo nodded along, as if it were obvious.

  Sandra understood immediately what they were insinuating – there’s no such thing as free. They thought that the Dungeon Core was just going to give all the stuff away, as Sandra had originally considered, because she obviously didn’t “need” anything from them. That wasn’t quite true, of course; she didn’t need items from the Orcs – she needed the Orcs themselves.

  * Don’t worry, I think I have that covered. In return for better arms and supplies, I want to offer this Furbrea and her own contacts a deal. For every member of their Warbands that they trade to me, I will fully equip three others in their Warband. *

  “Uh…what are you planning on doing with them? Make them your slaves or something?” Kelerim asked worriedly, copied almost exactly by Echo. It took Sandra a second to wonder why they were asking that; when she figured it out, she felt horrified.

  * Oh, no! Nothing like that! I didn’t mean to say to me, exactly; what I meant was that I want their help for a certain period of time. I want them to help with the defense of the other lands against the Dungeon Monsters, which could certainly use their help. None of the other races have enough capable people to do what needs to be done to survive; like I’ve said before, it’ll only be if we all work together to achieve the impossible that this will work. *

  “So, you want to buy their help? Like…some sort of mercenaries?”

  * Yes, exactly! *

  Kelerim looked up at the ceiling of the dining room he and Echo were lounging in, deep in thought; after a long moment, he looked back down at the Elf and the Sentinel standing in the kitchen before he spoke. “You know, I actually think that could work. I honestly can’t think of a better description of my people than ‘mercenary’ – and that isn’t an insult. I believe they would go for that, as long as the…payment…is sufficient.”

  * That’s good to hear because I need you two to go tonight. *

  Echo looked shocked and Kelerim wasn’t much different. “What? Tonight?” the Elf asked tiredly.

  * Yes; you’re leaving for the capital in the morning, and I need you there for the initial setup of this business deal, especially if we’re going to be using the Elves as a front of sorts. Don’t worry, you’ll be back in plenty of time to get some sleep before your big trip. *

  The Blacksmith didn’t look very enthusiastic about going back to the village, particularly because that force of Orcs sent by his father were looking for him. However, Sandra didn’t have anyone else that could do it, and after the initial meeting, Kelerim would hopefully never have to go back. He admitted that he knew where Furbrea would sleep at night and that he was fairly sure he could get both him and Echo in and out of the village without being seen. Sandra wasn’t going to take chances, though, and she made sure that they had backup and a means to escape quickly.

  Without any arguments, the two left for Grongbak on top of two Mechanical Dire Wolves, and accompanied by one of her Steelclad Ape Warriors that she borrowed from her dungeon temporarily. She also sent over 1,000 of her Reinforced Animated Shears with them, though they were going to stay up above unless they were needed; if it came down to it, she could sacrifice any of her constructs to ensure that they escaped. As a final precaution, she had Kelerim take along one of her Hyper Automatons in his pocket, where she could communicate with them if necessary.

  Luckily, it didn’t appear as though there was a Warband in attendance at the village, though that wasn’t that surprising when Sandra thought about it; with the absence of the two dungeons that had been destroyed, there really wasn’t a need to provide protection to the villagers. She had seen a small Warband sweep through earlier in the day via her Shears keeping a lookout, but it had barely stopped before it was on its way again – to dungeons farther away from the border with the wastelands. Both the Orcs and the Gnomes had that going for them, at least; with two of the dungeons destroyed in both lands, they could now devote their resources to other areas. Until the new Dungeon Cores eventually “grew up” and became threats in and of themselves, of course.

  As a result of their absence, Sandra needn’t have worried over Kelerim and Echo’s safety, because there wasn’t anything that could or would want to hurt them left anywhere nearby. Their meeting with Furbrea went better than expected; it seemed as though the village was in danger of being abandoned, as it was thought not to have any use anymore. They weren’t bringing in any Iron from Monster Seed drops from the dungeons, so that also meant that they weren’t creating any weapons (as horrifically crude as they were). Any supplies coming to replenish their stores would stop within a week, giving them time to relocate; but with another option presented to her, the old Orc was revitalized.

  “…what happened to your assistant?” Sandra heard Kelerim ask. She couldn’t “see” anything, but she could hear through the Hyper Automaton in Kelerim’s pocket well enough.

  “That worthless fool? He left with the last Warband; said he didn’t want to stick around and rot here with all of us when his talents could be put to greater use elsewhere. Foolish, that; I doubt the Warband kept him alive more than a few hours, especially if he started to run his mouth like he was prone to do.” There was silence, and then Furbrea continued. “I think we’re going to need this entire village in on this plan if we want it to work.”

  Kelerim literally sputtered, shocked at the old Orc’s words. “Is that wise? What if—?”

  “No, she’s right, Kel,” Echo said, after Sandra automatically translated the words for the Elf. “This is big enough that there’s no way to keep it from them; if they’re in it from the beginning, then they’re more likely to keep things a secret and help, rather than hinder the operations and potentially leave themselves without a home.”

  “I suppose so,” Kelerim conceded, blushing at Echo’s sudden use of a nickname for him. “In fact, we might even be able to turn this village into some sort of mercenary base, where they could operate out of – and protect the people here at the same time.”

  Furbrea seemed on board with that. “One question, Elf. How long are you planning on making those who are traded for supplies a slave?”

  Echo was instantly flustered, and she couldn’t even respond. Luckily, Sandra was prepared.

  * Tell her for one year only, with the option to re-enlist when their period of mercenary work is done. Also, please stress that any that become mercenaries will be treated fairly and be given many of the same supplies that the Warbands will receive, so they won’t be used as fodder against Dungeon Monsters. *

  In reality, the mercenaries would probably have better equipment and supplies than what she was going to be trading away, because she wanted to prevent their deaths as much as possible – as well as making them a formidable force.

  Furbrea seemed pleased by that, and quickly woke everyone in the village up. All 15 of them. Apparently, news that the village was being abandoned had spread quickly, and only those that didn’t have any other prospects were still hanging around.

  Negotiations – which she helped both Kelerim and Echo navigate with her own Mercantile expertise – were quickly underway when the situation was explained, t
hough it didn’t really take that long or was overly complicated. Basically, Sandra would transport weapons, armor, and any other supplies like Energy Orbs to the village, along with foodstuffs and common supplies that they would normally obtain from the larger cities – and Furbrea and the others would spread the word and organize things in the village for the new Orcish mercenaries. In addition, they would spread a rumor that the nearby dungeons were going to start to be a lot more difficult to cull and contain, because of the destruction of a total of four dungeons near the wastelands.

  To stop the Warbands from just taking all of the equipment and supplies, Sandra was going to provide some protection in the form of constructs; they could be passed off as Gnome-made creations, as Orcish legends hinted that the Gnomes were quite adept at creating things like them. A few appearances by “Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves” – that were actually Unstable Shapeshifters – stopping by in the future to see how things were going would only further reinforce the idea that all the races were starting to work together, and that they needed the help of Orcish mercenaries to fight against the push of the dungeons. Sandra had a little hope that seeing all of that would eventually lead to the Orcs to want to join the others in full defense of all the lands, but she also wasn’t relying on that; based on what she had learned about them from her own eyes, experiences from Kelerim, and basic knowledge of Orcish society from Echo and Gerold, she was beginning to think something like that would never occur. Stranger things had happened, of course, so it was still in the realm of possibility.

  When that was all done, Kelerim and Echo left Grongbak and rushed back to Sandra’s dungeon – where they both promptly fell asleep once they got to their beds. The Dungeon Core kept an eye on the Orcish village, slightly worried that it had all been a ruse on the part of the villagers, but no one rushed out that night to warn any possible passing Warbands; so far, so good. Time would tell if everything worked out the way she was hoping, but things were looking up.

  Now with night in full swing and everybody asleep, Sandra finally had time to get some stuff done.

  Chapter 13

  While Sandra had been collecting Echo and Kelerim, and then later overseeing their journey to Grongbak, the majority of her focus for her dungeon had been in converting most of the incoming Mana she was receiving into more Shears and Tarantulas for her external Absorption Nets. By the time midnight rolled around, she finally got a chance to evaluate where she was at on both the quantity of constructs for each Net and how much Mana she was gaining every hour and day. She had to do some calculations in her mind based on how much she was gaining over a minute and subtract what she was gaining from her dungeon, and was pleasantly surprised at how she was progressing.

  # of Shears in the AMANS and scattered locations: 13,758

  # of Tarantulas in the GMANT: 4,352

  Approximate Mana absorption from AMANS and GMANT per hour: 18,110

  Approximate Mana absorption from AMANS and GMANT per day: 434,640

  The calculations were fairly easy once she started to look into it. Because the Shears were so high up above the ground, they didn’t absorb as much Mana; the Tarantulas didn’t have as much vertical movement as the Shears and moved slower over the ground, and accumulated the same amount despite being closer to her Dungeon Core. In the end, they averaged out to about 1 Mana per hour per construct – which didn’t sound like a lot, but it added up. Right now, with the additional constructs and Dungeon Monsters she had wandering around, as well as what she was gaining from the dungeon and her Core themselves, she was nearing a half-million Mana every day. Even that wasn’t quite enough.

  She was still devoting a small amount of Mana every minute to creating and sending out more of her Net constructs, which would continue to increase her absorption, but unless she devoted every spare unit of Mana she had coming in, it would continue to increase slowly. There was entirely too much she wanted to spend her Mana on right now to devote all of it to that pursuit, such as creating another Aerie Roc for Echo and the Elven Elder to use on their journey to their capital, which meant finding Mana somewhere else.

  Winxa? I’ve been thinking about sources of Mana for the last day, and I keep coming back to one in particular. Obviously, the easiest and most efficient way is absorption from the environment – and I’m working on that – but it’s the other source that I’m most interested in.

  The Dungeon Fairy appeared confused for a second, before she understood – and yet was still perplexed. “Monster Seeds? Yes, that’s definitely another source of Mana, if an inefficient one. I thought you had already absorbed all of your reserves, though.”

  Well, yes – but I wasn’t thinking about mine.

  Winxa was silent for a moment, staring at the Dungeon Core as she tried to work out what Sandra was getting at. Comprehension dawned on her suddenly, and she smiled. “Yes, I believe that could work. However, you may want to hurry – New Cores are usually placed close enough to reach them within a few months; with their enhancements, though, they could be there within weeks, if not days.”

  That was good and bad news at the same time. Sandra looked underground through her Area of Influence, targeting each of the dungeons that had been recently destroyed. Now that there weren’t any Cores preventing her from seeing inside the collapsed rooms, tunnels, and other areas, it was easy to see the buried Monster Seeds that had been left behind.

  In the Reptile-Classification dungeon that Sandra had first destroyed, there were hundreds or perhaps thousands of small Monster Seeds concentrated in the Core’s room there; most had been absorbed by the Core as Sandra’s constructs had made their way down through the dungeon. Her Ironclad Ape at the time had managed to fight through to the end, but the Core’s safe room had been populated by more Monsters recently created and just barely succeeded in destroying the Reptile-based Core; those – along with what was probably a store of additional Seeds awaiting Monster creation – were now buried deep under the ground. Not only that, but there were the broken shards of the Core itself there.

  Are there any special components of a broken Dungeon Core that I should know about?

  “Not that I know of,” Winxa said after another moment. “When new Cores are placed near the destroyed location of their predecessor, they can absorb the pieces of a broken Core; whether or not they actually do anything is something I’m not aware of. I don’t remember there being anything special about them, but you’re a bit special yourself…so…who knows?”

  Speaking of new Dungeon Cores, Sandra searched for and located the new Core that had taken the place of the Reptile-Classification dungeon nearby; or at least, she found the void in her Area of Influence that marked it in her awareness. It was located approximately 500 feet to the south of the collapsed Reptile dungeon’s Core room, and it already had two small rooms connected by a short tunnel. Looking at the new Core’s AOI, Sandra saw that it was nearly 200 feet wide; judging by its incredible growth – which had primarily happened over the last few days as the other Cores were destroyed – it was likely that within the next few days the new Core would be able to locate and quickly tunnel to the veritable treasure trove of Monster Seeds just waiting for it.

  Naturally, Sandra decided to beat the other Core there. Looking at the other collapsed dungeons around the wastelands, she saw that the new Cores were also quickly expanding, but none were nearly at the same level of expansion as the one she had targeted first. She had some time before those others reached the collapsed dungeons of their predecessors – time that she was going to take advantage of.

  So, Sandra split her concentration – and her Mana – up between multiple tasks. Using 10% of the incoming Mana that was being constantly absorbed by her constructs all over, a portion of her mind continued to expand the two Nets in a simple automatic creation of tiny Monster Seeds, Shears, and Tarantulas; it was further made easier because of her new large access to the outside via the Roc tunnel she had dug out. The new constructs didn’t have to navigate their way through her
entire dungeon in order to get outside – they had a fairly simple way to go that didn’t take any more concentration from Sandra once they had their orders.

  A full 40% of her Mana was going towards the creation of new Large Energy Orbs of each element, since Sandra now had no stash of them to use in the Visitor’s Bonding process. Enchanting them took a bit of focus for her as she manipulated her Unstable Shapeshifters, which she found she needed to create two additional of in order to keep up with the demand.

  A further 30% of her incoming Mana went towards creating another Aerie Roc and the Small Dragon Glass Sliver Seed that was required to complete its creation. That didn’t take any of her focus, of course, but creating another harness for it with the enchanted plaques required the use of some Unstable Shapeshifters to craft the entire thing. The expense of the Energy Orbs used during the enchantment process was relatively negligible, so she pulled that from the 40% she was saving for the entire package. While she was at it, she also enchanted the Leather the harness was crafted from, using an additional set of Natural and Spirit Energy Orbs to enhance the strength of the Leather itself using a Durability, Fusion, and Activate rune chain that covered its entire surface.