There was no response, nor any indication that Sandra had even heard her. She repeated what she had just yelled, hoping that if she did it enough she would get through to the Core. Yet, even after the 20th time of trying to get the crafting dungeon’s attention, there was no indication that she was getting through to her.
Did something happen to her Core? Was it destroyed as well? Somehow, she doubted that was the case, if only because she was still controlling the Aerie Roc bringing them to the wasteland. She didn’t know the specifics of how it worked, but she was fairly sure it was the bond she established with Sandra that was allowing her to order and manipulate the large brown bird, and if that bond were broken with the destruction of Sandra’s Core, the Roc becoming out of control was nearly a certainty.
Violet checked on Princess Celeste as she had the Roc start to descend, passing by the ruined village of Glimmerton; the Royal Gnome was still breathing, at least, though it had slowed quite a bit over the last hour of flight time. She doesn’t have long.
“Sandra, if you’re there, I really need your help!” It was easy enough to direct their transportation to the upper workshop, as all she needed to do was picture it in her mind and send her thoughts towards the bird with an order attached to it. She had gotten bored over the journey and had learned how to control the bird without verbal commands; since most of her fear of heights had disappeared some time during the emergency flight back to the wasteland, she wasn’t as afraid to experiment a little here and there.
Safely, of course.
Still, Sandra didn’t answer or acknowledge her presence, which indicated to Violet that something seriously wrong was going on. Maybe she is concentrating on something more important? A fight against the other Cores around here, perhaps? The threat from the other Cores around the wasteland was one of the reasons Violet and Felbar had gone home to ask for help, so that wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. The issue right now was that she needed help; not just to heal Celeste, but to actually carry her inside without having to drag her in herself, which wouldn’t be good for the Princess.
The Roc landed a little roughly right outside of the workshop and when it finally stopped moving, Violet unstrapped herself and tumbled down the back of the Roc like it was a very rough slide. She landed in a sprawl on the dirt and stone of the wasteland, but she didn’t think she hurt herself; as she got up, she used her hands to wipe some of the dust off and didn’t feel more than a few scrapes on her hands in the process.
Violet ran to the open ceiling of the workshop and looked inside, trying to find a Repair Drone; she didn’t see one, even though she suspected it was there, but she did see an Ape construct just standing around. Up here; help me, she instructed mentally, and the construct immediately leapt up to the edge of the open ceiling, caught the edge and pulled itself up. It immediately got to work unstrapping Princess Celeste at her further direction and gently cradled her in one arm and Violet in the other. Then she had the Ape jump into the workshop, landing with a small crunch of the stone underneath.
Immediately, she spotted one of the white cylindrical constructs that indicated that it was a Repair Drone, just out of sight of the hole in the ceiling and across the room. I made it! As she started to instruct the Repair Drone to come over and start healing the Princess, her mind was overwhelmed with a mental shout.
* How dare you enter my dungeon! You will die like the rest! *
She held her hands up to her head as it rang with the painful reverberations of the voice. It was a voice that sounded like Sandra, but was just subtly different from what she remembered; she wasn’t sure what the difference was, but she was sure that she didn’t like it.
As the import of the words finally penetrated past the pain in her head, she felt herself being dropped to the floor. In shock, she looked up to see the Ape with the arm that just dropped her raised, and it was seriously appearing as if the construct was about to smash the Princess to a pulp.
* NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! *
Another mental shout ripped into her mind and she blacked out. The next thing she knew, she was waking up to a Repair Drone backing away from her side, its long stick-like arms and pads disappearing within its blemish-free white shell. She shook her head back and forth and noticed that it didn’t hurt anymore, nor were there any more stings from the scrapes she had recently acquired on her hands.
The Princess!
She sat up, looking around, only to see the Princess lying nearby…whole and undamaged. Not only that, she was alive by the looks of it, though she was obviously still unconscious or sleeping at the moment.
* I healed your friend, Violet, but it’s not safe for her near here unless she’s Bonded to my Core. Quick, what elements does she have access to? *
Violet jumped at the voice in her head, the recent shouts making her a little skittish. A hundred questions passed through her mind in less than a second, but the tone in Sandra’s voice – which sounded “normal” again – made her answer the Dungeon Core’s question before she answered her own. “I think she has three: Fire, Water, and Nether.” It was a highly unusual combination, but that made sense for the unusual nature of the Princess.
* Unusual combination of elements. Hold on; I know you probably have a lot of questions, and I have a lot for you, but this needs to come first. *
It was good to hear Sandra’s voice again, even if it had been under some strange circumstances. Violet held her tongue as she watched the Ape that had helped her earlier go toward a wooden box in the corner, coming back with what she immediately recognized as Energy Orbs. “Wait, are you going to—?”
* Yes; she probably won’t feel it, and I have a hope that it will shorten the time she’s in a healing coma. She was barely holding on by the time my Repair Drone got to her, and this is the only way I can see to speed up the process. *
Violet just nodded as she watched the Fire and Water Energy Orbs being placed in her right palm, and the Nether Energy Orb placed in her left. The next moment, there were some twitches from that caused the Princess to spasm a couple of times; Violet rushed to her side, but the spasming stopped before the Enchanter could even get close.
* Done. She should be safe now. Who is she? *
“Princess Celeste,” Violet absently responded as she looked over the Princess’s face, relaxing when she saw that the Royal Gnome appeared none the worse for the Bonding process. She was aware of how painful it had been with those that Bonded with Energy Orbs in their palms, and she was glad that it didn’t appear to have done any serious, lasting damage to the Princess. In fact, it looked as if she was just resting peacefully – just like Felbar had rested peacefully when he had been healed from Sandra’s Repair Drone construct.
* A Princess? Wow, I’ve never had one of them in my dungeon before; I’ve had a Warlord, but never a Princess. *
Sandra’s voice grew hard at the mention of a Warlord, and Violet wondered exactly what she meant by that.
* Look, I don’t have a lot of time; I just felt another Dungeon Core finish its upgrade and I’m losing control again. Talk to Delarthe if you can find him, and he’ll fill you in with what’s going on. Or better yet, Owchet – if you see him. *
“Wait—what?” Violet asked, entirely confused by nearly everything Sandra had just said. There was no answer, however, and it felt like there wouldn’t be one from the craft-loving dungeon.
As she sat there by the Princess’s side, looking around at what to do, she couldn’t help but wonder what had gone on while she had been away. And who is Owchet?
Chapter 33
Retaking control of her actions required a monumental effort from Sandra’s conscience, but she managed to do it just in time. The return and sight of Violet, her Journeyman Enchanter friend, was enough of a crack in the wall holding her back that she was able to break through and (albeit temporarily) stop the Core shard from killing the highly injured Gnome that had arrived with her friend. That would’ve been Bad with a capital B, because the injured Gnome hadn�
�t just been a random person – she was a Princess. Not that having a higher station in life would’ve made much difference in who Sandra wanted to help, of course, but allowing this Princess Celeste to be killed by her own construct wouldn’t have been the best start to negotiations with the Gnomish leadership.
As she was pulled away from Violet and the coma-fied body of the Princess, she couldn’t help but feel her warmth-filled emotions soar in response to her friend’s presence. The anger she had held onto over the last week and a half at her continued absence started to dissipate, and Sandra began to understand how unfair she had been towards the Gnome. She had been blaming the lack of returning on some desire of the Enchanter’s wish to abandon Sandra in her time of need; the fact that Violet had returned, bringing a Princess that had been nearly dead with her meant that there were likely other circumstances in play that had prevented her return beforehand.
Why did I feel like Violet had abandoned me? What made me even consider that? Sure, she had been under a bit of stress with attempting to contain the sudden surge in Dungeon Monsters coming from the other Cores in the area, but she was sure it was something else. Sandra thought about it for a moment, but couldn’t figure it out – probably because she was distracted by what was happening throughout the rest of her dungeon.
The return of Violet had widened the “crack” in the wall keeping Sandra’s conscience away from control, enough that she nearly felt like she was in charge – other than not being able to dictate her own actions. She could see and experience everything that the Core shard in her mind was doing, as well as understand exactly what it was thinking at all times – unlike before, where she had to rely on internal conversations to work out what was going on.
When her conscience portion of her mind discovered the shard once again wanted to stop production of everything that was relatively automated in her mind – such as the crafting her Goblin Crafters were working on, and the Elemental Orbs her Shapeshifters were enchanting – she found that she wasn’t helpless after all. With strong suggestions sent to the Core shard directing her actions, she warned about the need to continue with that production, otherwise their future defenses might fall victim to attack. Whether or not that was the right tactic to convince the shard of their importance, she felt a subtle shift in the resulting action being taken.
The crafting was left alone, and the Elemental Orbs being created for the Unstable Shapeshifters to enchant was cut in half – but thankfully not stopped entirely.
Now, the reason she was no longer in control – as briefly mentioned to Violet – was because another Dungeon Core nearby had expanded their Area of Influence, meaning that they had completed their upgrade. In her opinion, the Slime-Classification dungeon wasn’t as much of a threat as something like the Golems or the Beasts, but it could certainly become a problem if left unchecked. Unlike the Golems, who had been cautiously exploring the newly changed tunnel connecting their dungeons together, the Slimes went full-out on an assault.
Waves of smaller Slimes, which were essentially balls of rolling jelly a foot and a half wide with a nucleus inside their forms, flowed into the tunnel, either unsuspecting or uncaring of what they would find. Dozens of them blobbed their way into the first room Sandra had constructed, only to trigger a trap when the first one passed the three-quarter mark. A heavy slab of stone, 2 inches thick and encompassing the whole of the ceiling, dropped down on the 40 or so Slimes, squishing them so completely that their inner nucleus’ – their brains, essentially – were flattened and destroyed. The stone broke apart upon impact with the Slimes and the ground, but that didn’t matter overly much because it disappeared a few seconds later as the Mana infused in the trap was used up.
A half-dozen Mega Automatons rushed out of an alcove at the corner of the room, gathering up as many Tiny Copper Orbs as they could carry, before rushing back towards Sandra’s dungeon. Unfortunately, one of them was nearly destroyed as it ventured too much towards the entrance; the Slimes hadn’t stopped coming in a massive wave, and her Automaton had nearly been overwhelmed by a quartet of small Slimes. Even though the acidic effect of these particular Slimes was weaker than others, their enveloping of her little construct still managed to eat through its upper body and arms.
With legs still working perfectly fine, however, it ran away without any Monster Seeds, following the path of the others. A short distance down the way, it was repaired by one of her Unobtrusive Multi-access Repair Drones she had paired up with a trio of Platinum-banded Wyrms; when it was back in fighting shape, it joined some of its fellow Automatons waiting in a different room, in a different alcove.
It certainly couldn’t go back, because the wave of Slimes didn’t seem to end.
Ah, it seeks to overwhelm my defenses with this horde of weak Monsters! Too bad they will be annihilated easily and I’ll be able to counterattack, tearing through them with ease. Foolish Core!
The villain-like thoughts of the shard were as easy to hear as if it was speaking right next to her, and the ideas accompanying the thought were plain to read. Already, some of the Mana that had been siphoned off from the Elemental Orbs she was creating was going towards the production of an Expanded Mobile Fortification. The idea was to use it to smash a way into the other dungeon, deploying the Fortification as a means of securing a foothold, and then sending in an army of constructs afterwards.
The shard hadn’t done this before because of the simple reason that it required too much Mana to accomplish. First, the Mobile Fortifications were expensive Mana-wise to create, both in terms of the Monster itself and the Monster Seed needed to form the construct. Second, Sandra had barely been able to maintain an equilibrium of Mana and defenses with the other Cores, though towards the end she had been slowly coming out ahead; assembling an army of constructs to follow the Fortification had been out of reach.
Of course, the benefits of having her Mana intake increase from the Arachnid Queens doing their things in the nearby forests would finally allow the shard to create both the Expanded Mobile Fortification and that army of constructs.
Over the next hour, Sandra watched both the Golem and Slime Cores send in their forces, one slowly and methodically, and the other in a rush. Both had about the same success, with some solo Golems making it nearly 8 rooms before they were stopped, mainly from a combination of luck in just missing the re-activation of a trap; the Slimes just kept pumping out small Slime after small Slime, reaching 10 rooms deep before they were flattened by a trap, had their nuclei pierced by the bite of a Platinum-banded Wyrm, or were squished by one of Sandra’s Hardened Animated Slabs that inhabited some of the rooms.
Meanwhile, the assembly of a strike force was already underway, as the new type of Fortification was already finished, and its cubic metal form appeared larger than the original construct, though it hadn’t been “opened” quite yet. Other constructs including more Wyrms and Iron Shears – strangely enough – were quickly filling up her Home, being assembled together to launch a strategic attack.
The Shears were a mystery at first, because they weren’t something that Sandra expected the shard to use, but after a moment they made sense; the jelly-like bodies of the Slimes were soft enough that the Shears could penetrate most of them, piercing the nucleus before the acidic nature of the Monsters they were killing could dissolve them. While the smaller constructs could probably be used more than once while destroying the smaller Slimes, they were a one-shot deal to a lot of the larger, deadlier slime versions that Sandra had seen before.
Whatever happened, most of the Shears weren’t likely to come back from the raid on the other dungeon. The shard in control of her Core was banking on it being successful, and if it continued as it was, it might even succeed.
Sandra’s conscience felt herself being pushed back even further in her mind as the last 2 Dungeon Cores completed their upgrades simultaneously. What that told her was the Goblin and Beast-Classification Cores were of the same larger Core Size, which meant that they would be the o
nes to watch out for in the near future. The shard knew this as well, and she could feel a change in its anger and attention.
The build-up of constructs paused as the other 2 Cores came back into operation, and the flow of Golems and Slimes stopped. Sandra still had no idea how in the name of the Creator they were communicating, but it was patently obvious that they were; when they coordinated their actions so precisely, it really couldn’t be anything else.
All of the Golems that were in the tunnel suddenly marched back into their dungeon, even the ones that were already 4 rooms deep. The last pair of Iron Golems to leave actually got caught by the Nether trap it had managed to get by in the second room just a few minutes ago, but that didn’t seem to deter them. As for the Slimes, the ones that were already in the tunnel began to move again, though this time they were a bit more spread out than before, in groups of only 5 at a time, with large, room-width spaces in between groups.
In the next few minutes, other Monsters began to emerge from the other 3 dungeons, and it wasn’t what Sandra expected. From the Golem Core came the smallest Golems she had ever seen produced, 3-foot-tall forms that looked extremely weak, seemingly made of dust, and appeared relatively non-threatening – but there were a lot of them. Just like the Slimes, they came in groups of 5 with space in between them, and they toddled forward more than strode, as it appeared their shapes weren’t quite developed for walking.
The Goblins did approximately the same thing, sending out groups of pathetic-looking Goblins at a time; she wasn’t entirely sure what they were at first because she hadn’t seen them come from the other dungeon before. However, looking at how weak they appeared, she discerned that they looked exactly like the Goblin Worker Sandra had unlocked via her Advancement Options. She had only created one for a short time and had nearly forgotten what they looked like, but now it was obvious what they were.
The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) Page 33
