The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2)

by Jonathan Brooks

  She had been tempted to make some sort of contact with the Elven woman over the last few days but held off because she didn’t want to seem threatening to her. Looking at it from the woman’s perspective was easy enough – because she had been Human once; being approached by a dungeon’s monster – even if it seemed non-threatening – couldn’t help but put her on guard. Given enough time when Sandra didn’t show any sort of dangerous tendencies, she thought she might give it a shot and hope for the best; with the departure of what probably seemed like a giant army towards the Gnome lands, however, she worried that she might have just set her cause back without hope of recovery.

  I’ll just have to show her that I’m there to help, not harm. Maybe this is just what I need to prove to the Elves that I’m not a threat; in fact, when they see how much I’m helping, it might convince them to work with me instead of against me.

  The other Shears that she had sent towards the Dwarven and Orc villages had seen no danger towards either of them, fortunately, so Sandra was able to concentrate on helping the Gnomes. She kept one of her floating constructs in both places – as well as the Elven village – just in case that should change, but she also hoped that if an attack hadn’t happened yet, then they were likely going to be okay for the moment. Of course, if Sandra were to increase her Core Size again, that could change at any time; since it was unknown what the other Core’s sizes were, she could inadvertently surpass them and end up opening up her Area of Influence for them to plunder at their whim.

  So, knowing that her dungeon was still defended with at least some of her Dungeon Monsters – not to mention the ultra-deadly traps she had placed – Sandra sped along with them towards the battle raging at the Gnome village. When she concentrated on looking out through her nearby Shears’ vision, she found that things weren’t going well for those trapped within the village. Already, two of the crossbow emplacements had been overrun, the Gnomes operating them going down fighting; they were all equipped with long Steel knives that were almost like short swords in their hands, which they used to the best of their abilities – which didn’t seem to be much. One of the smaller lizards with frightening-looking teeth and sharp claws ended up getting skewered by a Gnome defender, but the others of the reptile army swarmed over the others without much difficulty.

  The Mana from their deaths started to fill her up, so Sandra immediately started to make replacements for all of those she sent to the southeast; she was hoping they would all come back, but if for some reason they were destroyed she would at least have some backup in her dungeon. She was saddened at the wholesale slaughter of the Gnomes, who were doing their best to stave off the rest of the reptiles from climbing onto the roofs of their homes; fortunately, even those Dungeon Monsters that had gotten inside couldn’t get to them very easily. The rope ladders that had allowed the Gnomes to get on top in the first place were pulled up, giving them little to no access from below.

  The front ranks of her land-bound army were approximately five minutes away, but her airborne constructs arrived much faster. Her group of 100 Small Animated Shears, for instance, had passed the others and were rapidly approaching the battle; the Singing Blademasters were going to arrive before the others as well, but were still about two minutes behind her Shears – they couldn’t move quite as fast.

  Before they could arrive, however, something at the edge of the nearby forest caught her attention. A large shape lumbered out from the trees, much larger than anything she had seen so far from the reptile swarm of Dungeon Monsters; sending her pair of Shears that was observing the battle closer to it, she looked on in awe as what appeared to be a giant construct cut down the crocodiles and lizards running past it towards the town. It was a good thing that her own constructs already had their orders, because Sandra froze in confusion and shock.

  Urging her Shears closer, she began to make out exactly what she was looking at. Standing a dozen feet tall, the construct was created from a combination of wood and metal and looked like a wide, round-chested, headless person with stout arms and legs. Noticeable enchantment runes were written over almost every part of the construct, which were unfamiliar to Sandra – but it was obvious that they were what allowed the deadly mobile machine to move.

  One arm ended with a large spiked warhammer, while the other was equipped with a permanent double-bladed war axe; both of which were used liberally on the surrounding reptiles as it slowly walked towards the village. The sight of the construct seemed to lift the morale of the besieged Gnomes, as their rate of fire and aim seemed to increase when they saw it coming to the rescue. It was lifted even further when a second and then a third construct started to lumber out of the trees.

  Floating down even closer, Sandra was able to see what appeared to be a Gnome suspended by a rope around his waist, located behind a sturdy metal grate inside the middle of the construct’s body. More enchantment runes covered everything but his head, and she instantly saw that they were actually covering a strange suit that he – she assumed it was a “he” by the beard – was wearing. It didn’t take more than a few seconds of watching to see that the movements he made were instantly copied by the construct he was…operating? It was just plain genius, and Sandra wanted to know how it was done; there was absolutely nothing like it back in the Human land of Muriel.

  Tearing her attention away from the spectacular enchanted constructs was difficult, but she eventually turned back to the battle. Her 100-strong group of Shears arrived, and she immediately sent them to help clear off the encroaching lizards – and even a few deadly crocodiles – that were getting too close to the remaining crossbow teams. They dropped down from about 100 feet up in the air, using their speed to impale themselves into the reptiles with great force, killing over twenty of the smaller lizards instantly.

  The others did quite a bit of damage as well, maiming limbs and opening gaping wounds in some of the larger crocodiles, crippling them so that they would eventually succumb to their wounds later. A few missed their targets that moved out of the way unexpectedly at the last moment; some drove themselves into a nearby reptile, causing some damage but nothing fatal; a few even managed to hit the shell of a few turtles, which were a lot harder than Sandra had expected. They bounced off the shells while leaving just a small gouge and the relatively soft metal of the Shears were mangled and destroyed by the impact.

  When they had all made their initial attack, she attempted to bring them back up into the air so that they could strike again, but only a single one lifted into the air, damaged but still serviceable. The rest, when she looked for them, had already disappeared and left behind a Tiny Copper Orb; the impacts coming even from a perfect strike were enough to destroy them in the process. She saw that many of the reptiles that had been killed left behind various small sizes of Steel Orbs as dungeon loot, which might be why the Gnomes were there in the first place; Steel was a valuable commodity, and she knew that if Human Heroes were around, they’d be doing all they could to cull the surrounding forest every chance they got.

  The Gnomes all paused in confusion when her Shears had attacked, which was the opposite of Sandra’s intention – because the attacking reptiles didn’t care in the slightest. As a result, they took advantage of their victims’ inattention to ramp up their attack, sending up replacements for those she had killed. She used her last remaining pair of Shears to impale the head of a crocodile that was just about to bite an inattentive Gnome. It didn’t kill it outright like she was hoping, but the action spurred the others into action, who pulled out their long Steel knives and finished off the wounded reptile.

  Unfortunately, the delay in continuing their defense was costly. They fought valiantly still, but two of the defensive placements were overrun before they could recover. With fewer targets to concentrate on, the rest of the reptiles piled up quickly towards the remaining Gnomes; things were looking bleak, but then the first of the Gnome constructs arrived and started tearing into the rear of the Core’s army. With a tremendous smash of i
ts spiked hammer, it practically shattered the shell of a giant turtle nearby, while its other hand swept back and forth repeatedly just over the ground, slicing off lizard heads and crocodile heads in the process.

  Its success was short-lived, however, as the reptile army wasn’t taking that without fighting back. The powerful construct was soon swarmed by dozens of snakes that had been slithering around, unable to successfully climb up the smooth walls of the Gnome village either on their own or through the use of the other reptiles as platforms. What they could do, however, was “snake” their way up the legs of the large construct and wrap around its limbs, constricting so tightly that even the rune-enchanted appendages had difficulty moving. Sandra could hear creaking and cracking as the wood and metal components were strained and compressed tightly; finally, there was a shearing noise as the right leg had some critical part snap inside of it, and it fell to a knee.

  The Gnome inside the construct wasn’t giving up without a fight, however, as he managed to smash its right arm against the ground, crushing the two snakes that had been constricting it. Freed up – at least momentarily – the Gnome construct swept its axe towards its other arm, slicing up the snake there and freeing the warhammer, though she could tell that the left appendage was now damaged. It still worked well enough to flail wildly, at least, and smash apart another turtle in the process.

  But the recovery was only temporary. Unbeknownst to the Gnome, another, smaller snake had crawled up its body and managed to squeeze through one of the holes in the metal grate protecting him; when it was close enough, the small red/orange-colored snake struck directly at his face, biting him just under his eye and latching on to his cheek. The Gnome screamed, and instinctively raised both his hands quickly up to his face – which caused the construct to smash itself with both an axe and a warhammer. The impact was so great that it caused the entire enchanted machine to fall on its back, where it squished a few more lizards in the process.

  The small red/orange-colored snake – despite its size – must’ve been highly deadly; the Gnome, after ripping the fanged reptile away from his face – tearing his cheek badly in the process – started to convulse violently after a few seconds and began foaming at the mouth. The movements were copied by the construct, which luckily managed to squish a few more snakes and even a large crocodile in the process, but after about a minute it lay still as the Gnome succumbed to the deadly venom racing through his veins.

  The two other constructs waded in without fear, despite seeing what happened to their friend. Unfortunately, after learning what it took to take one of the massive wood-and-metal machines down, they were also quickly swarmed by the hard-to-hit snakes as they started to climb up and wrap around their appendages. Luckily for them, Sandra’s Singing Blademasters had arrived.

  The whirring sound of two dozen of them spinning at the same time filled the Gnome village valley, as they split up into two distinct groups; one broke off to help the Gnomes on the wall, while the other group split up again to help remove the snakes preventing the larger constructs from moving. They were highly effective as their spinning blades tore into the snakes, chopping them apart with ease; the only problem was that – when an arm or leg was freed – the large construct started to lash out in response, which ended up smashing and destroying a few of her own flying constructs. In the end, though, she was able to remove all of the snakes from the two constructs and helped to eliminate the few more that were trying to climb up, including another one of those deadly red/orange-colored snakes trying to sneak in and bite another Gnome.

  The group that fought to keep the walls free had just as hard of a time, though it wasn’t through accidental attacks by the Gnomes. While the smaller lizards that climbed up were fairly easy to attack – by essentially running into them, slicing them into bits – the crocodiles that climbed up weren’t really afraid of hurting themselves a little in order to destroy her constructs. Massive jaws clamped down quickly on her Blademasters – even when they tried to avoid the front and attack from the rear – which tore the crocodiles’ mouths up quite a bit, but also completely destroyed her constructs. One after another they fell to the powerful attacks of the large reptiles, until the only ones left were near the Gnomes’ massive enchanted machines.

  The respite her Blademasters provided for the beleaguered Gnomes was invaluable, however. Instead of freezing up in confusion again, they took advantage of the surprise attack and fought back even harder, pumping out bolt after bolt in a barrage that whittled down their attackers’ numbers. They were actually making fairly good headway towards keeping them off of their roofs – firing into the reptile-made staircases and collapsing a few of them with some lucky shots – when the first defensive position ran out of bolts. When that happened, all of the Gnomes at that position stood on the edge of the wall and did their best to fend off the lizards and crocodiles climbing up.

  For the first time (at least that she observed), Sandra could see them use their elemental abilities, infusing their weapons with a quick temporary enchantment. She saw what appeared to be a Fire-based one that super-heated the edge of a Steel knife without melting the metal; another one used an Air-based one that caused the knife to launch from her hand to strike at whatever she was pointing her hand at, before flying back into her hand, its enchantment depleted.

  She even saw an ingenious use of a Nether enchantment, which could extend a solidified shield of darkness around the knife, which the Gnome used to block a snapping attack by a crocodile; when the crocodile struck the shield of darkness, it disappeared, but it also blinded the monster temporarily – which the gnome took advantage of and stabbed deep into the back of its head, killing it near-instantly.

  All of the enchantments were temporary; she had only rarely seen temporary enchantments before because Humans tended to like permanency – or at least long-lasting effects. Sandra recognized some of the quick and dirty runes thrown on them, but other ones were completely new – and they were more that she desired to learn. It wasn’t as though she needed another reason to save the Gnomes, but the prospect of learning even more enchanting runes from the race that seemed to use them for everything was a driving force as she encouraged her constructs on their way to run even faster.

  Sending her scouting pair of Shears up high, Sandra did a quick count of how many of the enemy was left; she was encouraged to see that there were probably less than 100 left assaulting 8 positions on the house roofs. Another two of the crossbows had run out of bolts and the others were dangerously low, but the Gnomes fought tenaciously with their temporarily enchanted Steel knives, making the encroaching reptiles fight for every inch they progressed up the walls. Along with the two remaining Gnome machines attacking from behind, she thought that her own constructs would only arrive to help mop up the remainder.

  That was, until she saw another wave coming from the forest, accompanied by something…large.

  Chapter 15

  What…is…that? How? Where did that come from?

  “What are you talking about? What do you see?” Winxa asked, as Sandra stared in shock through her Shears at the gigantic lizard-thing that stomped out of the trees, following in the wake of the other reptiles.

  It’s…a massive lizard at least 20 feet tall and perhaps twice that long. The head on that thing looks bigger than one of my Apes, and those jaws look like they could snap one of my Basher Totems in half. Where did this thing come from?

  The lizard had four legs that reminded Sandra of thick tree trunks, and its long neck allowed the head to maneuver quickly in different directions; its tail cracked a tree in half as it passed into the Gnome village valley like it was nothing. The skin covering the entire gigantic lizard was a mottled green-and-grey color, and it looked thick and extremely durable.

  “Does it have wings?” the Dungeon Fairy asked, which tore Sandra’s attention away from it for a moment.

  Uh…no, not that I can see.

  “Good. Then that means it’s not a dragon.”
>
  Wait, why is that good? This thing doesn’t seem good – and where in the world did it come from?

  Winxa looked at her Core in exasperation. “Because—” she started with measured patience— “if it were a dragon, none of those Gnomes, and likely none of your own constructs would survive. It could go airborne and attack from the safety of the sky; some could even use elemental energy to attack from afar, which could destroy the entire village within moments.

  “This sounds like some sort of version of an ancient Saurian. It was likely one of the more expensive Dungeon Monsters the Reptile-Classification Dungeon Core nearby could produce, and it was probably one that it hadn’t had the Mana to before now. Since it obviously has access to Steel as a Monster Seed, it’s probably using the Large Steel Orbs as its Seed – or the dungeon had somehow obtained another, stronger Seed at some point in the past.”

  But this seems a little excessive compared to the other lizards, crocodiles, and even giant turtles out here.

  “Well, think about your Iron-plated Behemoths over there in that room,” Winxa said, pointing off towards her new massive room she had made to contain her large constructs. “Those are probably on par with what this Ancient Saurian sounds like, so don’t complain too much.”

  Sandra wanted to protest, because the size difference was quite profound – her Behemoths were half or perhaps a third of the size. Though, when she considered that it was made of thick Iron plates that would protect it from quite a few attacks, couldn’t bleed, and was likely capable of destroying quite a bit with its flails, she had to concede the point. It wasn’t completely even, but she could see the similarities.