The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) Jonathan Brooks (books that read to you txt) 📖

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