The most it did was stop it for a moment while it recovered from the explosive shockwaves.
This isn’t good. Chryla glanced back at the slime side and saw that the winged-lizard slime was finally heading their way, so she readied another explosive bolt to shoot towards it…but hesitated when she saw a massive blur out of the corner of her eye smash right into the flying slime, both objects crashing down 500 feet to the southwest of the village. She could barely make out an even larger bird literally pecking out the tiny nuclei of the flying lizard, which looked like it had suffered some major damage to its entire form and was now a blob of goo that was spread all around.
A tremendous roar that seemed to shake her very bones coming from behind her made Chryla want to wet herself and throw her hands over her ears. She turned around and saw that the others had continued their assault on the enormous monster, who was having none of it; turning to the side, the four-armed beast picked up one of the smaller bear-headed monkey monsters running past – which had to have been 10 feet tall still – and literally tossed it towards the walls, smashing right into Mistal and carrying them both off the walls, where they landed with bone-crunching force against one of the arborents. In a rage, Chryla turned her attention back to the monster and shot out another explosive bolt, applying the enhancing spell 6 times to the bolt before she released, which made her sag in exhaustion and fall to her knees.
The monster didn’t even try to dodge, but instead nearly walked into the bolt as it hit it in the chest. The explosion that resulted was larger than she had ever seen before and as it was only about 50 feet away from the walls, the shockwave knocked a few of the Rangers off their perches on the wall. If she hadn’t already been kneeling, she probably would’ve been knocked off as well, but she managed to steady herself as a wave of hot air washed over her momentarily, taking her breath away – and burning her skin enough that she knew she would be in serious pain later…if she survived the next few minutes, of course.
Her temporary blindness from the explosive flash passed and she didn’t see the monster standing there anymore.
“Yes! I did it—oh, no…”
She hadn’t seen the monster at first because it had been blown backwards at least 20 feet along with dozens of other beasts. Right when she started celebrating prematurely, she saw the massive green-furred monster pick itself up off the ground with another massive roar that made her want to weep. She had hurt it, certainly, because half of its chest had caved in and it was missing one arm on either side of its gigantic body – but she seemed to have just ticked it off.
Chryla reached for another explosive bolt, ready to try again with a slightly less enhanced bolt – because she was getting fairly low on Fire energy despite her regeneration – but she couldn’t find it next to her where she had placed it. She looked around and saw that the shockwave had blown them all off the wall and into the village, where they had scattered all over the ground. They were fortunate that none of the explosive bolts had been accidentally set off, or else their village might be in shambles at that point.
She scrambled to her feet to jump down and grab at least a few so that she could fight back, but she was interrupted.
* Hold on, I’m going to try to ram that thing with my Mobile Fortification. *
“Uh…what?” The explosion seemed to have rattled her more than she thought, because she couldn’t for the life of her understand what Sandra was saying. However, it all came back to her as the strange block of metal that had been sitting near the side of the southern side of the village rose into the air a foot or so and shot forward so fast she could barely see it move – though she saw where it ended up. It didn’t hit the green-furred monster so much as take its place, cutting through its legs as if they weren’t even there and causing its upper body and the higher portion of its lower limbs to fall to the side.
* Well, that worked better than I thought it would— *
The monster wasn’t done yet, though, and even if it had basically lost its legs, the giant beast reached up one of its viscous clawed hands and swiped at the metal cube. Miraculously, before the claws could make contact, the cube almost seemed to suck in that side of itself, preventing any damage. Then something happened that she barely comprehended.
The cube rapidly expanded and tossed out eight “legs” of pure metal 30 feet out from its center mass in different directions, which slammed into the ground and raised the now slightly smaller cube off of the ground at least 15 feet. Then the cube underwent a transformation into something out of a nightmare – a nightmare for the beasts that were caught out near it.
Spears of pure metal shot out in 30 directions in a 50-foot radius, moving through the air with such speed that they pierced through anything unlucky enough to be caught by them; bubbles of metal were fed through the “legs” which soon dripped down at staggered intervals, forming 10-foot-long swords a foot wide, which started swinging back and forth in repetitive motions, slicing through anything unlucky enough to be caught underneath; a dozen thin jointed limbs that looked like arms extended out of the central cube with what appeared to be spinning circular sawblades on the ends; and finally, though she could only see the side of it, the front face of the cube formed into a hammer that had a 5-foot-thick head on it.
The once-solid cube was now equipped with dozens of weapons all over its form, but in the center elevated section where everything emerged was a small sphere of metal that glowed even in the daylight. It was behind several low barricades that blocked it from being seen from the ground, but she would’ve bet anything that the glowing sphere was its…energy source? Heart? Whatever one of Sandra’s constructs had that powered it, at least.
Craziest of all – if she had to pick one thing – was that the cube construct started to move. First, it slammed down its hammer into the struggling green-furred monstrosity, cracking the rest of its chest open in the process, and then another few smashes on its lower torso and finally its head ended its life, and it dissolved into whatever dungeon loot it left behind. Then, it scuttled over the ground by lifting up its eight legs like some enormous metal spider and hunted down the scattered beasts, slicing into them with swords, tearing them apart with its spinning sawblades, and smashing others flat with its hammer that it repeatedly slammed into the now-fleeing beast monsters, until nothing was left alive.
Chryla could only sit there stunned while she watched one—one—of Sandra’s constructs completely obliterate hundreds of dangerous beasts. She absently turned around to look at the other side of the field, where the Rangers there and those that were still on their feet on the beast side were assisting to finish off the rest of the slimes, though she could see a few places where the root wall had been eaten away. She did a quick count and noticed that there were only 36 Rangers on the wall other than herself, though she found another three when she looked inside of the village.
Mistal, of course, had been killed when the bear-monkey had slammed into her, but the damage was apparently enough to kill the thrown monster as well as there was no sign of it. The other two were thankfully alive after being blown off the wall from her massive explosion, though they were currently being healed of what appeared to be serious injuries by two of Sandra’s strange healing constructs. She knew how well they worked and didn’t have a doubt that the two that had been hurt would be back on their feet in a short time.
She pulled herself up and jumped down to grab more bolts to help with the cleanup of the rest of the slimes, which appeared to have dwindled in number significantly. In fact, by the time she climbed back up, the last few were being skewered by bolts at extreme range as they tried to flee. With their winged lizard slime tackled out of the sky by the massive bird – which she didn’t see either of anymore – the Rangers, metal snakes, and even the loud spinning blades (though they didn’t work quite as well against slimes) – were able to concentrate on killing the “normal” slimes.
“Sandra?” Chryla asked the air as she saw the metal cube surveying t
he field where it had just slaughtered hundreds of beasts stop where it was. Then, as if by some spell, all of the flung spears of metal that were shot out at the beginning were sucked up into the cube from where they fell, the swords along the legs turned back into little bubbles and returned to the cube, the arms with sawblades were pulled back inside along with the massive hammer, and then a few other pieces that had been knocked off (apparently, a sawblade arm and three swords had been broken off during the slaughter that she didn’t see) were sucked inside the cube as well. Finally, the eight legs let down the metal construct so that it sat on the ground again before they too were sucked back inside. In less than 15 seconds, it was back to being a 15-foot-tall metal cube that sank nearly a foot into the soft dirt of the field.
* Umm…I swear I didn’t know it would do that, though I’m glad it did. I couldn’t get it to do anything but move as a cube before, but now I know why it was so expensive Mana-wise. *
Of all of the things that Sandra had told her, the news that the dungeon didn’t even know what one of its monsters could do was the most frightening. It was scary that such an entity had such power and she was glad that Sandra was on their side. At least she hoped that was so.
“Thanks, Sandra. Do you think we can continue borrowing that in case they attack again?”
* Absolutely, it’s all yours. *
That was good, because she was sure another attack would be coming…as soon as the dungeons built up their forces again. She was worried what the next attack would bring, and she prayed to the Creator that Echo and the Elder got their task done in the capital and got them some help, because she knew the wait for the attack would be even more stressful than the attack itself.
Chapter 32
Wow. I was certainly not expecting that.
The transformation of the 15-foot-wide Steel cube that comprised the Mobile Fortification was a complete surprise; it was a welcome surprise, but a surprise, nonetheless. Sandra was just hoping that by moving it towards the 50-foot-tall Beast she could run it over, though what actually happened was that it basically delimbed the bottom portion of the Dungeon Monster. It occurred so quickly that it was hard to see it happen, but the results spoke for themselves.
The problem was that Sandra still wasn’t exactly sure how the Fortification was activated in the first place. She watched as the gargantuan green-furred Beast tried to attack it even after it had its legs cut off, which seemed to initiate the change; however, when she tried to attack it with various constructs back in her Home room, nothing happened. The fact that it happened at all was amazing, so she wasn’t going to complain about it.
Despite the power and deadly efficiency it showed in eliminating the rest of the Beasts on the field surrounding the Elven village, she was well aware that it wasn’t invulnerable. Multiple weapons that it had created had been broken off of its form, which were fortunately reabsorbed afterwards; not only that, but she couldn’t help but notice it had a glowing power source on its central cube platform, which was just barely protected – though it was difficult to see from ground level. Sandra could only guess that if that power source were destroyed, say if one of the Rangers had shot it with one of their explosive bolts, it would destroy the entire construct. It was a vulnerability, to be sure, but unless something knew about it the Mobile Fortification was an unstoppable killing machine.
Thinking about the Rangers, after the last of the Slimes were destroyed while trying to escape, she looked at the village and saw that two of them were currently being healed by the Multi-access Repair Drones she had inside the root wall. As far as injuries went, that was the worst of them, though the wall was going to be needing repairs on both sides of the village; the explosion that Chryla caused with her explosive bolt had blasted a small chunk out of it, while the Slimes had eaten away a good portion of the other side.
Then there was the deceased Ranger, Mistal. The death of yet another Elf was felt as soon as it happened, as she was hit by a small wave of Mana as a result – and she knew that the Beast and Slime Cores received the same amount since they split the Mana gained from any non-Dungeon Monster deaths. She had barely even noticed the bump in her available Mana, however, as she was more focused on the welfare of the others within the village. Now that she had a chance to think about it, Sandra felt horrible.
She was well aware that there was sadly little she could’ve done to prevent Mistal’s death, nor the death of the other two Rangers earlier. Without spending every drop of Mana she had at her disposal to completely defend Avensglen from all Dungeon Monsters with hundreds or thousands of constructs – which she wasn’t about to do because the Elves weren’t the only ones that needed defending – she was going to have to live with the fact that some people would die defending their homes.
That didn’t make it any easier, though.
In fact, in this situation, the deaths of the three Elves was harder on Sandra than the deaths of any others. The Orcs that had originally attacked her she didn’t know, and they were trying to destroy her, so she didn’t feel too bad about having to kill them. The Gnomes that were killed when the Reptiles attacked their village was partially her fault, but again she didn’t know them and there was no way she could’ve known they were going to be attacked – and therefore couldn’t prevent it. Then, the Dwarven Shieldmen that had been killed in the attack on their own village by the Undead-Classification Core were originally against her help and again she didn’t know them, though they died bravely against the onslaught of the Undead horde.
The Elves, however, and specifically the three Rangers that had been killed, she had known. Not only that, but she had formed a Visitor’s Bond with them; when they died, she could feel their loss immediately. It was not a great feeling, made worse by the knowledge that she had taken personal responsibility for their well-being and safety (at least in her own head) so she felt more than a little bit like a failure. While the Elves didn’t seem to blame her for their deaths, and were in fact celebrating their victory over the forces of both Dungeon Cores, she blamed herself enough as it was.
As a result, as she evaluated what she needed to do to help with reestablishing the defenses of the Elven village, she fell into a shallow depression, lethargically going through the motions. She sent Hyper Automatons to fetch all of the Monster Seeds left by the thousands of Monsters killed in the fighting – including her own; replaced the Roaring Blademasters, Titanium Anacondas, and Wyvines that had been killed during and before the attack on the village; delivered fresh batches of normal and explosive bolts to replenish their supplies (though they were able to retrieve and reuse many of the non-explosive bolts fired during the fight afterwards), as well as a few new bows to replace some that had been damaged from Chryla’s explosion; and also created and sent another Mobile Fortification so that they would have 2 with which to defend either side of their village from further assaults.
Instead of using one of the few Monster Seeds she had in reserve that were large enough to contain the Mobile Fortification, Sandra gave in and spent some of her accumulated AP to reduce the Raw Material cost of Monster Seeds themselves, so that she could finally make one herself.
Advancement Points (AP)
Source
Criteria
Point Value
Lifetime Earned Points
Lifetime Spent Points
Core Size
Receive AP upon Core Size upgrade (does not count for Core Size 1 nor upgrade stages)
1 per Core Size upgrade
22 AP
(20X Core Size Upgrades)
21/22 AP
Number of Rooms
Receive AP for each distinct dungeon room at least 4,000 cubic feet in size (20ftx20ftx10ft minimum)
1 AP per qualified room
68 AP
(64X Qualifying Rooms)
50/68 AP
Unique Dungeon Fixtures
Receive AP for each never-before-seen fixture in your dungeon
2 AP per fixture
(16X Crafting Stations, 1X Bathing Room, 1X Enchantment Repository)
32/36 AP
Creature Eradication
Eradicate sources of nearby creatures (i.e. lairs and spawning areas)
3 AP per eradication
72 AP
(5X Territory Ant Colonies, 6X Bearling Lairs, 4X Desolate Spider Clutches, 4X Crag Hound Packs, 5X Solitary Broat Spawn)
72/72 AP
Sentient Race Elimination
Eliminate members of sentient races
1 AP per 10 eliminations
12 AP (12X Orc, 71X Gnome, 42X Dwarf, 3X Elf)
12/12 AP
Sentient Race Bonding
Form a new Dungeon Visitor Bond with a member of a sentient race
1 AP per 2 Bonds
66 AP (1X Orc/Dwarf, 49X Elf, 9X Gnome, 73X Dwarf)
48/66 AP
Dungeon Core Destruction
Receive AP for eliminating another Dungeon Core
30 AP per Core
60 AP (1X Reptile Classification Core, 1X Undead Classification Core)
30/60 AP
?????
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
(?????) Denotes an unknown, unique Source of Advancement Points. Perform this unknown action to unlock more information.
Total Advancement Points Earned and Spent
334 AP
265 AP
Total Advancement Points Available
69 AP
Advancement Options
Current Advancement Points
69
Advancement:
Cost:
The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) Page 35