That…made a whole lot of sense and was good advice. She had been providing everything essentially for “free” because it was a necessity to ensure everyone survived. Everything she did for the villager Dwarves living inside of her dungeon she didn’t really count – even the Shieldmen – because they were almost like…family…if that made any sense. You didn’t charge family, after all, especially when you could easily provide what they wanted without any hardship.
The Orcs were a little different; while she provided them with much-needed supplies, as well as what would probably be seen as extremely valuable storage boxes with near-perpetual Stasis Fields, it was more of an investment. An investment that would hopefully pay off with bodies that she could use to combat the rising amounts of Dungeon Monsters roaming around. Despite the efforts of the Shieldmen with her constructs and the Elves with their better bows and now their Wyvine companions, they were just barely keeping up.
While there weren’t any overt signs that any of the dungeons were implementing dangerous strategies similar to the now-destroyed Undead-Classification Core, Sandra had observed a change in the Monsters’ behaviors. Instead of rushing head-first into conflict and hoping to kill the Dwarves or Elves running around hunting them, they seemed to avoid confrontation. Before Sandra helped to boost their offensive abilities in the form of weapons, constructs, or Dungeon Monsters, there used to be a greater chance that the other Cores’ Monsters could actually kill some unlucky people; now, though, it was nearly an impossibility. No one had even been hurt in the last day or so, and none had died after Sandra started to contribute her services.
So, for now, the Dungeon Monsters the two races were culling were scattered and running scared – which was actually one of the smartest things they could do, unfortunately. It meant that they were still absorbing Mana for their Cores, while staying alive longer and replacing their numbers just enough to cause a stalemate. Sandra fully expected them to try something else soon, such as gathering up a larger army of Monsters that was more difficult to kill swiftly to pit against the Elves (who usually stayed solitary or sometimes moved in pairs). She wasn’t sure what the Goblins and Golems could do against the Shieldmen, as they already moved in a group, but she was also sure it wouldn’t be good.
Regardless of what happened in the future, that just meant the need for more help was imperative. Constructs and Wyvines could only do so much, and unless Sandra was monitoring them constantly and was immediately alert for any changes, they weren’t as effective without a Dwarf or Elf – or potentially an Orc – there to give them specific orders. Almost a dozen Dire Wolves and Jaguar Queens, as well as 2 Ape Warriors had been destroyed while they were on their own without any “supervision”, and it was only liable to get worse as stronger Monsters were created by the Cores and sent out.
For the time being, until they had a handle on everything, Sandra wouldn’t charge any of the races for her help – including the Elves, who weren’t living in her dungeon nor offering up anything but what they were already doing in exchange for her help. However, she certainly would mention to the Elves that she could use the Monster Seeds they were stockpiling in their village, ready to be shipped out to other places in their lands. She couldn’t see what exactly they had without sending a construct inside their homes to snoop around, but she was sure that it had to be quite a bit.
For the time being, as everyone went to sleep in the Elven village, Orc village, and inside of her dungeon, Sandra spent the night doing a variety of things. First, she created another bath room in the Dwarven section, which was easily accessible by any of them; as she had thought about earlier, she made it about three times the size as the one she had in the higher section of her dungeon, so that it could incorporate nearly all of them at the same time – if they all wanted to bathe together, at least. She briefly thought about creating two separate baths for the sexes, but immediately vetoed that idea because she had already seen that they didn’t really have the same type of nudity taboos that Humans had.
After that, she created a few more Distilleries and Breweries adjacent to the previous ones, until she had 5 Distillery and 10 Brewery crafting stations – which should be plenty to keep them occupied for a while; creating any more would likely be excessive at that point in time.
She also checked on the progress of the 4 new Cores and their dungeons and found that her initial estimate of when they would open to the world was quite premature.
“While they can upgrade their Core Size and expand their Area of Influence quickly, they still have to create their dungeon – which takes time,” Winxa told Sandra when the Dungeon Core asked about the delay…not that she was complaining. “If you remember, it took you weeks just to make your rooms up to the surface; ‘normal’ Cores can take months or years to reach that point. It’s coming, but from what you’re saying of their progress you likely have a few weeks before they become a problem.”
That gave her some time, at least; time that would allow help to arrive from what the others were doing. I wonder what’s keeping them? They should have easily been at their destinations days ago, so what’s taking so long? She didn’t bother to communicate her thoughts toward the Dungeon Fairy, though, because it was unlikely she had any news about their whereabouts, either.
She also spent the night finishing up the accumulation of Wyvines for the Elves, so that all of the Rangers now had them – though they would receive them in the morning. As of now, all of the Wyvines that were already paired with the Elves were cautiously hunting in trios throughout each forest; they weren’t as effective without the long-distance attacks of the Rangers, despite their deadliness in a fight. It was only through a group setting that they were able to take down many of the Beasts and Slimes that were still roaming around, though the Wyvines’ weakness quickly became apparent – their scaly hides were barely any protection against piercing attacks like claws or bites. That first night, an entire trio of Wyvines were killed by a large bear that was half again the size of the lizard-cats after it practically disemboweled them with a few swipes of its claws. Sandra, of course, replaced them so that the Elves wouldn’t notice.
Their vulnerabilities indicated that they weren’t ideal to roam around at night by themselves or even in a group; they performed awesomely with the Rangers, but weren’t great without them. What that meant to Sandra was that she would have to create a team of constructs similar to what was being used with the Golems and Goblins to curb the expansion of Dungeon Monsters near the Elves at night. Which, in turn, meant even more Mana she would have to expend towards their defense.
Fortunately, in addition to creating even more Energy Orbs over the night, she also expanded her Nets enough that she finally hit 1,000,000 Mana absorbed every day – or nearly 42,000 Mana every hour. It required nearly 16,000 Tarantulas roaming around the wasteland and 24,000 Shears floating high above it, but it was done; luckily, the Clockwork Tarantulas weren’t extraordinarily visible because they were so spread out, and Sandra kept them from congregating together or making recognizable patterns or pathways. Because of that, she was relatively sure that even if one of the other Cores saw a few of them they wouldn’t think they were making up an entire Net that was composed of many thousands of them.
When morning hit, she contacted Chryla – who had continued to be her go-to Elf now that Echo was gone.
* I’m sending you more Energy Orbs inside of a chest to distribute to your people; it’ll arrive very soon on a floating slab of stone, so don’t be alarmed when you see it. *
She had already sent out the Animated Slab a little earlier – because she knew it would take a while to arrive – with a fairly sizable chest of nearly 200 Energy Orbs, which was over half of her production over the last few days. Sandra knew she had to continue to provide the Orbs to them so that she fulfilled her side of the bargain; for all she knew, Echo and Elder Herrlot were counting on more to arrive to secure the help they needed. Through the use of elemental energy – such as what Echo used
– to run faster, she knew that such a delivery might only take a week or less.
“Thanks, Sandra; those will help our people greatly.”
* I also have a full complement of Wyvines for all of the Rangers, which should be coming with the Energy Orbs… *
“That’s excellent; I can tell you that the other Rangers that hadn’t received one yet were a little jealous,” Chryla said mirthfully. “Was…there something else?”
* Well…I hate to ask, but do you still have all of the dungeon loot you’ve accumulated over the last few days? *
The Ranger seemed confused. “Uh…yes we do. Why?”
Sandra explained to Chryla – and the other Rangers, who had emerged from their tree-like homes to see the young Ranger talking to the air – what she had told Delarthe the night before, and how it would be greatly beneficial to her if she could have them.
“Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I don’t see a problem with it. Normally, we’re supposed to send those back to the capital; with the Energy Orbs you’re bringing, though, I doubt they will miss them.” The others agreed with Chryla, stating that they themselves didn’t really have a use for the loot. “Those back home might miss it, but I think they won’t care as much with the additional Energy Orbs we’ll be sending.”
Before too long, the Animated Slab arrived at the village of Avensglen and dropped off the new Wyvines and the chest full of Energy Orbs, and at the same time the rest of the Wyvines emerged from the forests to meet up with the Rangers they were already “attached” to. If the Shadow Beasts weren’t friendly, the situation probably would’ve been a bit frightening: 42 large, all-black Monsters surrounded the village like a besieging force. Fortunately, after a moment of hesitation, Chryla call out, “Foofoo Kitty? Where are you?”
Instantly, her Wyvine emerged from the group and walked up to her, which caused all of the other Rangers to call out for their own, followed by the ones that didn’t have a companion yet being introduced to their newest assistants. In less than 5 minutes they were ready to go and took off for the forests, buoyed by their new helpers.
The few Elven villagers then emerged – being a bit afraid of the scary-looking Shadow Beasts – and brought out beautifully carved baskets full of Monster Seeds: sticks of different types of wood, various metals in Orb form, and more small gemstones. She ended up absorbing most of the mundane Seeds when they were brought back to her dungeon and used most of it to finish off her upgrade stages, but the gemstones were an entirely different matter. Instead of them being a Sapphire or Onyx, these were instead Tiny and Small Ruby and Emerald gemstones – which she immediately absorbed one of each, which unlocked their use as a material and Seed inside of her dungeon. Not only that, but it also meant she didn’t have to pay to unlock them via her Transmutation Menu.
From inside of her Core, she felt something strange after she absorbed one of the Rubies. It wasn’t quite pain, more like an uncomfortable pressure. After a moment, she felt a release of something emerge from her Core – which immediately relieved the pressure and she practically sighed as she felt better – and out floated a semi-visible cloud that surrounded her form. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was until she tried to absorb it – and found that the cloud was pure, concentrated Mana!
“Did you just…no, that isn’t possible,” Winxa said as she backed away from the cloud with a look of distaste on her face.
That was new. I think the Mana that I had contributed toward unlocking the Ruby as a material didn’t have anywhere to go, so it was released from wherever it was being stored all at once.
Sandra could see the cloud starting to dissipate, so instead of it going to waste she quickly absorbed all of it while making additional Elemental Orbs of different kinds. By the time the cloud was gone, she ended up absorbing a bit over 200,000 Mana, which meant that she ended up losing around 60,000 Mana that dissipated into the environment before she could gather it up. After a moment, she just realized that, as strangely as it seemed, she just crafted what could be interpreted as the “passing of gas” into something useful.
Let’s not talk about this.
“Talk about what?” Winxa asked innocently.
Exactly.
With that, she was ready to plan out the rest of her day, putting the strange and yet beneficial event behind her.
Chapter 25
It didn’t take her long to realize that if she timed everything right, she could probably upgrade her Core Size and still hopefully be done by the time Delarthe and the other Shieldmen finished for the day. She had already checked on everyone else and observed the other Cores as much as she could, and everything looked as normal as it could be at the moment. Therefore, with a warning to the Dwarves and Elves, she let them know she would again be unavailable for a little while, sealed up the Roc tunnel again, and prepared her dungeon for her downtime again. Without as much on her mind of what needed to be done, she asked Winxa to keep her company again – not that the Dungeon Fairy wasn’t going to do that anyway.
“Absolutely; I’m looking forward to seeing how much those Dungeon Core pieces speed up your next Core Size upgrade.”
Sandra was eager as well, though she was slightly worried that more than she expected would be consumed in the process. She wanted them to last over multiple upgrades, not have most of them consumed to cut her upgrade time to something like an hour or so. There wasn’t really a way to tell how it worked until she did it, though, so she initiated the upgrade as soon as she was ready.
The time seemed to fly again, though she thought that it was because her awareness of her surroundings had expanded again, so that she could perceive all the way to the first room in the Dwarven section with a Distillery inside; Sandra couldn’t interact or manipulate anything while under the influence of her upgrade, of course, but it helped to be able to see more. Glencha was busy in and out of there all day observing the distilling process; there wasn’t much to see, of course, because everything was currently fermenting right now, but that didn’t prevent her from observing that everything was acting the way it was supposed to, while adjusting the temperature now and again.
“Glencha – have you tried the baths yet? It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen or experienced before.” Sandra heard Teving talking to her as soon as he walked in from the direction of the Brewing rooms. The Dungeon Core wasn’t quite able to see in there yet, but she expected the male Dwarf to have spent most of his time with his own crafting stations like he had the day before.
Glencha seemed annoyed at the distraction, and she answered without turning around. “No, not yet – I’m still trying to calibrate these temperatures so that I don’t kill all of the yeast.” She paused for a moment and then sighed before turning around. “How did you figure yours out so fast?”
Teving smiled, as if he were happy she gave in and asked – or because of some other reason that Sandra didn’t understand. Regardless, he showed the Distilling enthusiast how to precisely place the different Energy Orbs pairs so that she could maintain a constant relatively cool temperature inside of the containers so that it didn’t get too hot or too cold. While he was explaining, he held his hand up against the side of the vessel, which directly replicated what was going on inside temperature-wise; it didn’t radiate heat so much as allow one to get an indication of what was going on, fortunately, otherwise the rooms would probably be like ovens after a while.
I wonder if I could make some sort of Feedback enchantment that would give a more accurate measurement? It was something she had overlooked before, but she thought it might be possible with a little experimentation.
“That was…amazingly simple! How come I didn’t think of that?” Glencha finally asked, placing her hand on Teving’s arm as if to say thank you. “Now that that’s done, shall we check out this bath you were talking about?”
Huh. Okay.
“Well, I already had one earlier—” Teving started, before he looked at the hopeful look on the other Dwarf’s face— �
�but it’s worth checking out a second time.” He smiled again and said, “Let’s go!”
They both left and Sandra lost her visual entertainment, but Winxa was fortunately still recounting some stories – for which she seemed to have an endless supply of. Either that, or she was making things up as she went along; regardless, it was a nice accompaniment for the last space of time before her upgrade completed.
Core Size Upgrade Stage complete!
14/14 Completed
Your Core has grown!
Current Size: 22
Mana Capacity increased!
Raw Material Capacity increased!
How long was I out this time?
Winxa didn’t seem surprised to hear her communicate with her this time, as she answered right away without hesitating. “I’d say it was a few minutes longer than your last upgrade, but not too noticeable – still just over 10 hours.”
Excellent! Let me check on the Core pieces…it looks like the rest of the Reptile Core was consumed, but the others are still there!
That was awesome to find out because that meant that she would be able to upgrade at least 6 more times if the consumption rate stayed at the same rate in the future. What wasn’t so awesome was that she didn’t receive anything special from her upgrade: no new constructs or skills. She did increase her maximum Mana up to over 30,000 from the just over 24,000 it had been before, as well as increasing her maximum RM to nearly 72,000.
Available Mana:
12460/30559
Available Raw Material (RM):
39825/71899
That was it though…except for the expansion of her Area of Influence, of course. When she looked at what she could see underground, she was shocked – to say the least.
The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) Page 27