The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Sandra hesitated for only a moment as she watched the Orcs descend on the Basher Totems that had just killed one of the warband members. They swung blindly but effectively, as they homed in on the sounds they had been making; as a result, they managed to destroy the rest of her constructs without suffering any more casualties or even injuries. When it was obvious that they were going to keep going even after the death of their comrade, she sent Kelerim up.

  He ran to the VATS and shot upward fairly quickly; the Air traps sent him aloft through a similar hole to the ones that allowed him to descend, and another one would catch him when he passed through to the other room and gently deposit him off to the side. It was those traps that she had the hardest time designing, because the force needed to propel him upwards was tricky to get right; she had ended up smashing dozens of constructs against the upper ceiling until she learned how to regulate the force dependent upon the weight of whatever was being lifted.

  Kelerim moved so quickly that he arrived at the top just moments after the Nether trap in the first room ran out of Mana and had to recharge. He arrived at the second room as Razochek and his diminished warband entered the tunnel leading from the first room. Sandra could tell he was nervous, but her friend stood as confidently as he could as the Orcs got closer.

  “Kelerim! What are you doing here in a dungeon?” Razochek stopped before entering the room, his surprise at seeing the one he had chased out of the village obvious on his green face. “And how are you still alive?”

  Kelerim nervously cleared his throat, but then spoke confidently. “Go back before it’s too late. This dungeon isn’t like the others you know, she only wants to help—”

  “SHE? The wasteland must have cooked your brains, Hafanorc. Dungeons are mindless killers and don’t want to help us. I don’t know how you survived this long, or why it hasn’t killed you yet, but I can’t allow this dungeon to stay here – and killing you will just be a bonus,” Razochek cut Kelerim off.

  “You don’t understand, this dungeon—”

  “No, it’s you who don’t understand! We’re losing, Hafanorc, and it doesn’t look good for the future. We are barely keeping back the nearby dungeons’ monsters as it is and having another one so near to Grongbak will doom everyone there. Is that what you want?” the warband leader asked but didn’t allow Kelerim to respond. “I for one won’t allow that. Once we destroy this one, they’ll be safe for a time, but now that we know there are dungeons out here, we’ll have to be more vigilant in our patrols. Now, either get out of the way and let us do our job or stand there and die like the worthless excuse for a Hafanorc you are.”

  Sandra watched the two of them stare each other down, before Kelerim broke first and retreated back down the tunnel behind him. She quickly opened the doorway to the VATS and closed it just as quickly when he was inside.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them, but I did warn you that Razochek doesn’t like me,” Kelerim spoke to the empty air once he was safely inside.

  * I appreciate your trying. I really don’t want to have to kill them if I can help it, and your talking to them seemed like the best way to avoid more bloodshed. Now…well, I guess I’ll have to do what I need to do. *

  It was the last thing she wanted, but as they seemed intent on destroying her, she was going to let the defenses she had put into place do their jobs. She didn’t intentionally invite their wrath, but she would be darned if she was going to let them kill her – and her new friend – if she could help it.

  Chapter 38

  After Kelerim left, Razochek and his warband didn’t hesitate. Just like the first room, they rushed in – but then screamed in pain when the intense brightness from the Holy trap seared their eyes. Luckily for them – and unluckily for Sandra – they were prepared for some sort of attack and closed their eyes fast enough to probably save their vision; still, they were effectively blind as her Singing Blademasters started up and converged on of the wildly swinging Orcs.

  Even hardened skin couldn’t fully suppress the efforts of spinning blades of death, and the tracker that had taken a beating from the room before fell after being inflicted with thousands of tiny cuts that ripped his Leather armor to shreds and turned his skin red from an overabundance of blood leaking from countless wounds. The fallen Orc managed to take out two of the spinning blade poles with powerful strikes of his Iron sword, because although her constructs were deadly, they were still made from the softer metal material that the majority of her Dungeon Monsters were made from.

  The remaining nine Blademasters inflicted their own damage on Razochek and the five other warband members still alive, though none of their wounds appeared life-threatening. A single strike from a sword was enough to take out one of her constructs, but they did manage to break another weapon before they were completely destroyed. The Orc that had his sword damaged from the impact with her spinning blade monster picked up the still-intact weapon from the dead warband member and they continued resolutely on.

  The standing pool of water confused the Orcs at first, but the Small Armored Sentinels armed with Steel swords were plain enough for them to see. Being able to see their opponents helped increase the warband’s deadliness, but it also increased their bloodlust. Unable to see their friends dying in the previous two rooms made them desire revenge, so they were unconcerned about any other traps when they saw something they could easily fight against.

  A third Orc that was in the lead lost his life as he rushed towards one of the Sentinels, only to trigger an icicle that shot up through his calf muscle. That didn’t kill him, of course, but his momentum cracked the frozen spike and he lost his balance, falling face first on another trigger that impaled him right through the throat. The Sentinel he was heading for finished him off so that he wouldn’t suffer more than necessary.

  Seeing another one of their number go down, the rest of the warband were more cautious in their approach. Despite that caution, two more Orc managed to have an icicle speared through one of their feet as they triggered the seemingly randomly placed activation points in the water. As far as battling the Sentinels, her constructs had no great fighting experience – especially against hardened Orc Warriors – and only managed to score a single shallow slice along the thigh of another Orc.

  “What do we have here?” Razochek said, as he picked up one of the short Steel swords her Sentinels dropped. The dungeon invaders had largely ignored the seeds or “dungeon loot” that were left behind after her constructs dissolved upon destruction, but the swords were not a part of the original Sentinel. They were ones that Sandra had made.

  One of the remaining four Orcs spoke up. “Those look like Steel, though how these strange monsters got ahold of them, I have no idea.”

  “These are very finely made; I daresay even my father would be impressed by this, and he has two old Steel swords in his collection. It’s too bad they’re so short and almost look like knives in my hands, but if we bring enough back, we can see if we can have a competent Blacksmith forge them into some longswords for us.” That last comment from Razochek was likely meant for Kelerim’s ears, but luckily her friend wasn’t around to hear him. In fact, he was waiting in his forge impatiently for word of what was happening.

  * They’re coming, Kelerim, and I don’t think I can stop them all from getting to you. Why don’t you hide in one of the VATS rooms; I have a trap that should hopefully stop them from getting to me, so there’s no reason for you to fight. *

  “No, I’m staying here. I have a bone to pick with Razochek Bloodskull for kicking me out of that village; besides, if your trap doesn’t work, I couldn’t live knowing that I didn’t help,” Sandra’s friend said with obvious false-confidence.

  If I’m destroyed, you wouldn’t live anyway, she couldn’t help but think – but she didn’t tell him that. If he hid near the VATS, there wouldn’t be anything that could open the doors, meaning that he would end up starving to death. She was confident in her final trap’s ability to stop anything coming f
or her, but she appreciated Kelerim’s show of support. Though something else he mentioned tickled her mind and she searched for the reason behind it.

  Unfortunately, she was distracted as the Orcs arrived at the fourth room, and they approached even more cautiously than before. Every single one of the five were injured in some way or another, though two of them were seriously hurt in one of their feet, where an ice spike had impaled it. They were brave Warriors, though, and they pushed on – with a limp, at least.

  Razochek sent one of the less injured Orcs to investigate the room; the warband member almost tiptoed inside and watched where he put his feet, as if he could see where the triggers were for the trap Sandra had placed inside. She didn’t think they could see it, but she wouldn’t have put it past them to be able to; it didn’t really matter, though, as the trigger was a long line that bisected the entire room two steps inside.

  Intensely hot flames erupted from the ground throughout the entire room, one of which missed hitting the cautious Orc by only a few inches. The heat was enough to start to burn though most of the Leather on his right side, however, but he was saved from being burnt to a crisp when Razochek reached in and yanked him back into the tunnel. The temperature was so hot, in fact, that they all retreated back up the tunnel and stopped right at the edge of the water pool.

  “Did anyone see any monsters in there?” Razochek asked the others. When they all denied seeing any, the warband leader grunted. “This dungeon is odd; in my experience and from the stories of others that have participated in the destruction of a dungeon, there’s usually only a few kinds of traps inside a dungeon, and they’re usually restricted to one or two elemental energy types. But these flames make four that we’ve seen so far, which means it is even more important that we take this dungeon down before it gets any more powerful.”

  Sandra could see the agreement in the other Orcs’ eyes, as if they instinctively knew the importance of their endeavor. I wonder if the story of the dungeon that ended up creating this wasteland is handed down from generation to generation? She didn’t have the answer to that, but she supposed it didn’t matter – because the Orcs again charged ahead.

  This time, they had put their weapons away and ran at a full sprint toward the exit they could plainly see nearly 25 feet across from where they entered. Most of them were quick enough to avoid being burned too badly – with only superficial wounds and some charred Leather armor, but one of the Orcs that had a damaged foot couldn’t keep up. As a result of his extreme limp, he accidentally fell and landed right on a flame jet shooting straight up, which quickly burnt his upper torso and head beyond recognition.

  The flames didn’t last long after that – needing to recharge the Mana inside of the Fire trap – but the damage had been done. Razochek looked back at another lost member of his warband and Sandra could see him grit his teeth in apparent frustration. Of them all, he had taken the least amount of injury, but even she could see him starting to slow down from all the activity over the last few hours – which included the battle with the Bearlings aboveground.

  With only three members of his warband left other than himself, the leader pushed on to the fifth room, where he was initially met with yet another seemingly empty room with short walls that needed to be navigated. His warband’s cautiousness was met with a poison cloud that started them all choking, coughing, and rubbing their eyes in an effort to get it out of their bodies. They ran for the exit – quickly climbing or jumping over the short walls – but the other Orc with the limp lagged behind; when he passed through a certain point, Segmented Centipedes fell onto him from the ceiling and hit the ground around his feet.

  They immediately crawled all over him and sliced apart his Leather armor with their sharp mandibles. A few even managed to crawl under his Leather chestpiece and started to burrow their way into his skin.

  The Orc fought back, of course; a few slaps with his powerful hands were enough to crush the lightweight and malleable metal of Sandra’s constructs, but there were too many of them and they kept going even when the majority of their segments had been destroyed. Razochek and the others bravely ran back, suffering the poison gas again as a result, and managed to get most of the Centipedes off of him before they did too much damage.

  They all left the room, coughing and spitting up blood from the poison inside the exit tunnel, when the Orc that had been attacked by the Segmented Centipedes collapsed, dead before he even hit the floor. “What the…? Horncke, are you alright?” Razochek looked back at the fallen Orc and turned his body over to see what the issue was.

  As soon as he flipped the dead Orc over, a Segmented Centipede crawled out of – Horncke, Sandra supposed his name was – his mouth, having just finished its burrowing inside and destruction of the larger being’s heart. With disgust, Razochek stomped down on the metallic insect construct, and managed to destroy it within two separate stomps.

  The warband was down to just the leader and two others, but none of them seemed to hesitate when they approached the sixth room. A part of Sandra admired their determination, while the other part despaired at her necessity of doing what she had to in order to snuff out that same drive. And the killing was somehow worse when she knew their names; she almost stopped her Centipede from killing Horncke, but at that point she was more than aware that the situation had degenerated into one of kill or be killed.

  And she didn’t want to die – again.

  The sixth room was essentially a vacuum inside of a bubble, which made the fight between the Orcs and her Articulated Clockwork Golems more difficult, but not overly so. The remaining warband members were too determined to let a little thing like lack of air bother them, and they ruthlessly slaughtered her constructs, though all three of them broke their Iron swords against the double-bladed axes her little Golems carried. They were forced to use some of the Steel short swords against her defenders, but their reach still far outweighed her constructs’.

  As much as Sandra saw they wanted to collect the fallen axes after the Golems dissolved, they pushed on and gasped for breath when they made it to the next tunnel. No words were spoken as they entered the seventh room, a Steel short sword in each of their hands at the ready. Razochek was in the lead now – whether as a sign of impatience or leadership, Sandra wasn’t sure – and he was the one that ended up triggering the Spirit trap in the middle of the room.

  She couldn’t see what they saw, unfortunately, but she could definitely see them all struggling to “free” themselves from the illusionary webs her trap made them think was keeping them stuck in place. And not only that, but she could see the 100 Clockwork Spiders hiding near the ceiling drop down on or near them.

  The panic they showed was in direct contrast to the bravery they had shown earlier, and all three of them started wildly hacking away at illusionary webbing and real Spider constructs without caring about what they hit. Unfortunately for one of the other members of the warband, Razochek accidentally sliced cleanly through the arm of one of his subordinates with an uncoordinated swing, though neither of them really knew how it had happened. The Orc with a missing arm collapsed to the ground, where every surviving Clockwork Spider converged and poked and bit at the fallen warband Warrior on every exposed shred of skin, until he screamed out in terror.

  They didn’t do much damage by themselves, but by the time the Spirit trap illusion ended, the Orc was already half-dead from blood loss from his severed arm. Freed from the “webbing” the other two easily managed to kick, slice, or otherwise dispose of the remaining Spiders still attacking their friend. Alas, it was too late, as he had expired from his wounds before they had finished.

  Razochek looked crestfallen as he realized what had happened. The blood on the edge of his sword was a clear indication that he had been the one to sever his subordinate’s arm, as none of Sandra’s constructs bled; for the first time that they had been in the dungeon, the warband leader bent down and closed the deceased Orc’s eyes, murmuring “I’m sorry, friend,” as he d
id so. Sandra thought that the care that he showed for his warband was touching, even if it was completely at odds of what she knew of him through Kelerim.

  The eighth room took out the last of the warband members, when a stone spike shot out of the wall, impaling the unlucky Orc as he tried to squeeze his way past the swirling tornado of Animated Shears. Razochek ended up taking hundreds of small cuts over his face and hands as he elected to brave the rotating mass of constructs, but he made it to the ninth room with only superficial wounds, leaving the rest of his warband dead behind him.

  And waiting for him was Kelerim – along with seven Ironclad Apes and one super-quick Steel Python.

  Chapter 39

  “You just couldn’t leave me alone, could you, Razochek? What’s your deal, anyway? I could never understand why you had it out for me in particular,” Sandra heard Kelerim ask as soon as the warband leader walked through the tunnel. He obviously still couldn’t figure it out after all his time inside the dungeon, and he just as obviously had to know.

  “Out of my way, Hafanorc, this is much more serious than what’s between you and me. I’ve seen the different types of elements this dungeon seems to possess, and this kind of thing can’t be allowed to exist; it could potentially be strong enough to wipe us out if it’s allowed to grow stronger. You don’t know what you’re doing—”

  Now it was Kelerim’s chance to interrupt the warband leader. “No! It’s you who doesn’t know what you’re doing! This dungeon is our only chance of surviving! With the weapons and armor this place can make, we can finally fight effectively and push the throngs of roaming monsters back to their dungeons!”

  “What are you talking about, boy? I told you, dungeons only exist to kill us, not help us. Come, help me destroy this dungeon and you’ll see that I’m right; I’ll even let you live, because then you’ll have proven that you’re not completely useless,” Razochek countered.