“Regardless, her presence in my life at such a young age lent me to appreciate the finer…aspects…of our neighbors. When I was young, I even bedded and begat a child on a Dwarven woman – but that’s beside the point. I learned that my Warband put you through your paces on your way back here, and I have to say I’m surprised that most of you are even standing here right now. I know firsthand how fragile your lithe bodies are and can’t even run for a full day without having to rest.”
There was so much in his last speech that Wyrlin needed to be unpacked and evaluated, but the Warlord didn’t afford him the time.
“So, while I can appreciate how determined you were to survive, that leads me to why you were brought here and why you weren’t told to return to your lands. It’s a rather simple question, but it also needs to be answered truthfully. What do you know about the death of my son?”
The question took them all off-guard, and Fyola was so stunned by the unexpected question that she couldn’t even answer. Fortunately, Mercyll asked what Wyrlin was sure was being thought by all of the Elves.
“Who is your son, and what do you think happened to him?”
“Razochek was leading his own Warband near Grongbak when he was reportedly killed by a dungeon in the area. I have my doubts about that, but I have it on dubious authority that what I was told was true. However, upon further investigation and the destruction of two dungeons nearby, I have learned that there might be another dungeon nearby that had a hand in his death. Above all else, I want revenge,” the Warlord said, slamming his fist down on the arm of his throne, which cracked the wood underneath his hand worriedly.
“Wait – you destroyed two dungeons? And destroyed their dungeon hearts as well?” Fyola suddenly asked, horror tinging her voice. Wyrlin could sympathize; everyone knew that if you destroyed more than one, nearby dungeons would become a little bit stronger. His worry intensified even further when he heard Warlord Bloodskull’s next words.
“Yes, but it’s really nothing to worry about,” the massive Orc said, waving his hand dismissively as if the destruction of two dungeons was unimportant. “It was near the wastelands, so it won’t affect the rest of our people.”
“You fool—”
“Hold on,” Wyrlin cut her off as something clicked in his head. “Is this ‘Grongbak’ your village right next to the wasteland border?”
Fyola stared daggers at his interruption, but he was beyond caring at that point.
“That’s right – what do you know about it?” the Warlord asked eagerly, leaning forward in his throne.
“Oh, I think I’m uniquely qualified out of all of us to help you out here,” Wyrlin said cautiously, while his insides were quivering. If it was true that the Orcs had destroyed the two closest dungeons to the wastelands, then it wasn’t just two dungeons that were destroyed near each other – but three. What that meant, the Ranger wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew it couldn’t be good.
“What do you mean? What do you know?”
Everyone else with him had caught on quickly, including Fyola and the other Elites, but for once the Elite leader let him continue instead of trying to take over.
“Because, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve seen this dungeon that killed your son.”
Chapter 29
Not only had the two Dungeon Cores near the Elven lands expanded enough to fully overlap their village of Avensglen, but they – along with the two Dwarven ones – had stretched their new Areas of Influence to reach halfway inside of the wastelands. Such rapid growth worried Sandra because they were getting uncomfortably close to attacking her dungeon, which wasn’t good. Within a few minutes of their upgrades being completed, each of the Cores sent out some more of their Dungeon Monsters, which immediately ran into Sandra’s assembled forces composed of Shieldmen, Rangers, constructs, and Wyvines. Now that her forces had an advantage, they were prepared to keep it as long as they could to prevent as much expansion as possible.
This lasted for about an hour or two, depending on the dungeon, before the single Monsters or even small groups stopped coming out of their dungeon entrances. Each of the Cores had a typical second, larger entrance that Sandra had located earlier, and when they tried to push through their Dungeon Monsters through these back doors, additional forces were there to stop them. After another hour or so of nothing but setbacks, the flow completely stopped out of either entrance.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if they start to gather up a larger force then send them all at once,” Delarthe said when things had quieted down.
* That’s what I suspect they will do as well. Be careful, of course, but I think you should be able to handle this. If you think you’ll be overwhelmed, fall back, regroup, and start whittling them down one at a time if necessary; the point is to make their push as expensive as possible for them, while minimizing your casualties. And remember, when in doubt – run! *
Sandra suspected that the Dwarves had more than enough help to defeat whatever came out of those entrances, even if it were some larger “boss”-type Dungeon Monsters. They might have to fall back and take them out piecemeal, but she had full confidence in them. The Elves, on the other hand, might have a little more difficulty because they relied on stealth to inflict their attacks for the most part. There wasn’t really any surprise involved when they were obviously there guarding the entrances, but gathered together they were an excellent ranged force that could inflict some major damage if it came to it.
* Chryla – stay safe. It’s been my experience that each dungeon is unique in that they can be unpredictable, so don’t be afraid to run and retreat back to your village. *
“Will do, Sandra – and thank you.”
After that, it was a bit of a waiting game. There wasn’t anything they could do other than wait and watch, and Sandra wasn’t about to send one of her constructs inside one of the entrances to check them out. It was one thing preventing them from gaining a foothold outside, it was something else entirely acting like they were going to invade. She knew from personal experience that her behavior changed after she was invaded the first time, and they were already too unpredictable without throwing desperate Cores into the mix.
Therefore, throughout the rest of the day Sandra worked on filling up her Roc tunnel rooms with traps and Dungeon Monsters, which eventually included every single one she had available on her Advancement Creation Options list. She pulled in all of the Radiant Pegasi that the Elves had borrowed to station them inside, as well as the half-dozen Phoenixes she still had roaming around the Undead-Classification Core’s old territory, looking for any random undead that might have been missed even after it was destroyed. Everything else had to be created, which took a significant amount of Mana, and by the end of the day she wasn’t even near being finished. Some rooms had just a single Dungeon Monster in it to represent what she was planning on putting there, but she made sure she had the traps set up first.
She also found that anything larger than a Small Fire Energy Orb when placed in a Copper ball with a Fireburst enchantment was a bit too destructive for her dungeon (and the Goblins throwing them out as bombs) to handle. They still produced a deadly explosion, but it was also significantly reduced in size, shockwave force, and heat. It would have to do, though, especially if she wanted her Roc tunnel to stay intact.
At the end of her Roc tunnel just past her Home room, she built another 30-foot wall that encompassed most of the tunnel, leaving just enough of a passageway that she could get her Animated Slab through without too much difficulty. She didn’t shut it off completely because that would prevent her from manipulating anything within the entire tunnel, and potentially even disperse the traps she had set up – which she had spent hundreds of thousands of Mana to create. Needless to say, she wanted to avoid having to redo them.
However, she did take a note from what the Undead Core did – I’m learning! – and designed a way to collapse most of the stone wall through manual means if she were truly threatened. All it took was placing t
wo Small Fire Energy Orb bombs high up inside of the wall with a chute that led to the bottom. They were positioned so that she could direct two Hyper Automatons placed inside the wall with them to drop the bombs on command, which had more than enough destructive power inside of the enclosed stone walls to make them crumble certain sections, sealing her Home room off from the Roc tunnel. It was something that she would only do as a last resort because she would then be cut off from everything still inside the tunnel.
When night fell, the Elves and Shieldmen went back to their village or her dungeon, depending on where they called home. The constructs and Dungeon Monsters she kept on watch over the dungeon entrances, however, in case the Core chose that time to escape. She knew that if the number of attackers was too great, however, she would allow most of them to retreat; without the backup by their “handlers” – who she had to admit were better suited to directing them than she was – they weren’t quite up to the task of taking on a large force.
The number of her constructs and Monsters outside of her Nets were already beyond what she had when she faced the Undead Core at its peak, but it just wasn’t enough. She planned to increase their number over the coming days, just as soon as she finished stocking her own Roc tunnel. Sure, it was a little selfish, but even the Elves or Dwarves would admit that they had a lot of help already, so it wasn’t like she was leaving them undefended. Plus, she was desperately hoping that the Orcs would come through and start providing her with some mercenaries because that would help more than almost any construct would.
Speaking of that…where are the others?! It had now been just over 5 days since Violet and Felbar had left for their home, and a little less than that for Echo and Gerold, but she was hoping to hear at least something from them by then. Her previous thoughts about them abandoning her came back full-force, and she started to become more than a little depressed…and angry. After all I did for them, this is how they pay me back? Am I just a joke to them? Do they see me as just some anomaly and don’t care about the people around here?
“Sandra, don’t forget that these things don’t just happen overnight—” her Dungeon Fairy started to say, before Sandra angrily cut her off.
I’m well aware of that, but we’re on a bit of a time limit here. Do these people just not care? Are they that callous and insensitive?
The same part of her mind that had warned her about experimenting on the Goblins surged again, stronger this time. It was telling her that it wasn’t her friends’ fault that they were delayed, and that there were thousands of different reasons they hadn’t come back yet. One possible reason stood out among the rest, which helped to squash the anger and ramped up the bout of depression she was experiencing: that they had all died and no one was coming to help.
“Sandra…I think there is something wrong with you. You’ve never had this many mood swings before in such a short amount of time, at least as far as I’ve noticed. I think—” Winxa said softly, using the same calming voice that the Dungeon Core recognized from when she was a Human: like an animal handler trying to calm a startled beast of burden. I am not an animal!
Sandra wanted to lash out at the Dungeon Fairy and deny that there was anything wrong, but the same inner voice that had been talking to her surged again and halted her violent impulse. As soon as she was frozen in conflict with whatever was causing her to stop, her mind started to clear. She recoiled in horror at what she was about to do to her Fairy, her guide, her friend; she was seconds away from striking out with some sort of Mana-based attack, which might not have necessarily killed or even hurt Winxa, but it certainly would’ve caused her to leave and never come back. The diminutive Fairy had warned her of that shortly after they met and there was no reason to believe that anything had changed in that respect.
I’m sorry, Winxa. I don’t know what came over me, but I think you’re right. Perhaps that last upgrade screwed me up even more than I thought.
“Please try to stay calm; from what I remember of the other Dungeon Cores I’ve helped to guide, stress and trying to do too much were contributing factors to worsening their already unstable insanity. So, take it a little easier and try not to stress about things you cannot do anything about – like your friends who left to get help from their leadership.”
There was another flareup of anger at the mention of her friends that had left, but Sandra squashed it immediately without hesitation. Now that she could identify why she was feeling that way, and that it almost felt artificial, it was much easier to recognize and correct it. Of course, stress was likely to aggravate that part of her consciousness, and it felt like everything that was part of her existence was full of stress. Well, everything but—
“You need to find a safe outlet to relieve that stress, or this…whatever it is, insanity or something else…will begin to consume you. You can fight it, Sandra, I know you can.” Winxa was right, Sandra could fight it – and she knew exactly how.
Crafting.
After thanking her Dungeon Fairy for her help in bringing her back from the edge of completely losing her sanity, Sandra worked on a few relatively mundane tasks like stocking more of her Roc tunnel rooms, checking on the status of the hostile dungeon entrances again, and even doing a quick check on the status of the new Cores – which were certainly making progress, enough that she thought they might emerge within the next 4 or 5 days. With it being in the middle of the night and nothing of note going on, the Dungeon Core realized it was quite relaxing just looking around her Area of Influence via her Shears. Her state of mind calmed even more, smoothing out until she could barely remember the anger she had just felt such a short time ago.
She knew it was lurking in the back of her mind, however, just waiting to strike when she wasn’t prepared. That worry was stressful, so without much else to do Sandra turned to her favorite pastime, which always made her feel better, no matter what she was crafting. She vividly remembered that it was only due to her repetitive recitation of crafting recipes that allowed her to keep her sanity in the grey empty space of nothingness after her death, and she knew it would save her again.
Therefore, since she had time and attention to spare even while using the majority of her Mana to continue stocking her new defensive dungeon rooms, she turned to her own crafting stations, many of which had been neglected. While she had used the forge quite a bit over the last few days to produce more warhammers for Steelclad Ape Warriors, short swords for her Goblins defending the Roc tunnel, and to produce weapons to trade for mercenaries, she hadn’t really created anything new with her Blacksmithing skills. Sandra was tempted to just experiment and start crafting something, anything, but she realized that unless she acquired a new metal to work with – she was practically drooling over the potential unlocking of Platinum or Orichalcum even though she had never seen either of them worked before – or had something specific that she needed to craft, all she would be doing was repetitive work that didn’t really engage her like she wanted.
Thinking about Blacksmithing, however, led her to look at Kelerim’s forge – and she was surprised at what she saw. She felt a little bad about basically ignoring the Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc over the last few days as she was busy with other things, but he had been keeping busy; another 60 Steel swords were stacked neatly in the corner of his forge room. He had continued creating more weapons for the Orcs, not through any obligation to them or to Sandra – but because he was improving his craft, and it made her figurative heart soar to see his progress. Comparing the bottom of the stack of swords to the newer ones on top, there was a definitive difference in their quality; most might not be able to see it, but the practice and honing of his skills was directly translated in how well-made they appeared. Not quite masterwork quality – yet – but Sandra thought that with a little more instruction from her he could get there quickly.
She reminded herself that when he woke up the next day and there wasn’t an attack going on or anything, she would work with him to refine his abilities, as well as show him how t
o work Titanium – which he appeared ready to learn. Sandra was proud of what he had accomplished in such a small amount of time and she realized that she enjoyed teaching him – and would love to be able to teach all she knew to those willing to learn.
She spent about an hour crafting and enchanting more composite bows like the ones the Elves used, and while she wasn’t exactly experienced enough with shooting bolts to refine them, that wasn’t as important to her. Though she had made dozens of them by that point, they were still unique enough to scratch her crafting itch…at least for a little while. After crafting more normal bolts and explosive bolts for them, she moved on to something else.
One of the crafting stations that she had initially built but never really utilized was her Furnace and Kiln room, designed for working clay or glass. Now that she had managed to unlock Quartz Sand, she decided to see what she could make with glass! There were hundreds of different things she could make using the versatile material, but first she had to make sure she could actually create it in the first place.
She diverted some of her Mana to create a thin-walled open-topped bowl with a pour spout of Dragon Glass – which was more stone than glass – and then filled it with Quartz Sand. Once that was full, she used one of her Apes she used for crafting to place it in the furnace and turned it on – to the highest heat it could reach. If she remembered correctly, the crafters she had learned from back when she was Human added some other elements to the sand (such as limestone and ash) that helped to reduce the temperature needed to melt the sand into glass; they did this because achieving such high temperatures was sometimes difficult, and it made working the material easier when taking it out of the furnace.
The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) Page 32
