The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (large ebook reader TXT) 📖

fairy hadn’t been there; she thought it likely that she’d be as crazy and murderous as the other dungeon cores in the world without Winxa’s help to keep her sane.

Crushing loneliness was nothing new to her, however.  Growing up constantly on the move and possessing her crippled, disfigured hands hadn’t lent to having many friends (none, really) – so she should have been used to it by then.  Of course, it was the fact that she had a real-life person as a friend and then lost him that hurt the most; she almost regretted letting him walk away, but she realized that if she forced him to stay against his wishes, she would be just as bad – or worse – as the other Dungeon Cores in the world.  They only wanted to kill people; if she gave into her selfishness and kept him there, it would’ve been akin to slavery – which was somehow a whole lot worse in her opinion.

Therefore, she loaded him up with some of the things that he might need on his journey and let him go.  It was necessary, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wish it were otherwise.

Shortly after the fight through her dungeon and the consequential deaths of the Orcs – including Razochek, Kelerim’s previously unknown half-brother – Sandra let the Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf figure himself out while she did what she could to return her dungeon to the way it was before the attack against her Dungeon Monsters.  Massacre would probably be more accurate, as most of her defending Monsters had been utterly destroyed.  In fact, the only ones left in her dungeon at all were most of the smaller ones she had roaming through her workrooms absorbing ambient energy.  She still had her Mechanical Wolf and Jaguar outside roaming around, of course, but she didn’t really count those – especially when she was considering her defense.

Sandra had cancelled her flame wall trap in the Home room where her Core was located, before she sent as many of the smaller constructs as she could spare to gather up all of the left-behind Monster Seeds dropped by her slain defenders.  When they were brought back to her Core, she had absorbed the corpses of the Orcs for Raw Materials and used the massive amounts of Mana they dropped upon their deaths to rebuild her small army of Dungeon Monsters.  There was so much Mana, though, that she ended up adding in four extra Ironclad Apes and Steel Pythons to her defense in the first few rooms; it was a bit of a stopgap measure until she figured something else out, of course – because it was obvious that her current setup wasn’t quite prepared to withstand an assault by a determined group of Heroes.  Or an Orcish Warband for that matter.

In the end, all of that Mana had been enough to complete everything she needed to replenish her Monster room defenders, as well as providing six more Mechanical Wolves and 6 additional Jaguars that could roam around aboveground, collecting ambient Mana.  She had found that those two constructs were the most agile and fastest over rough terrain, which the wastelands surrounding her dungeon had plenty of.  That wasn’t the only benefit, however; they were her eyes and ears in that dry, blasted land – which was desperately needed so that there weren’t any more surprises.

They were, in fact, what had let her know far in advance that the Warband came back after Razochek and the others disappeared – but they had fortunately not seen the faint tracks leading to her dungeon entrance.  Sandra kept them roaming around as they wished, only stressing upon them the importance that they stay as hidden as possible if they sensed a living being nearby – be it an Orc or otherwise.  And, if they were spotted, they were to run in the complete opposite direction of her dungeon entrance; she would gladly take their loss if they were caught or left her Area of Influence altogether, rather than lead whatever it was to her dungeon again.  Being invaded by something else right then was the last thing she needed.

Sandra had managed to use all but the tiniest amount of Mana that was provided from the deaths of the Orcs inside her dungeon before it faded away, which she still felt somewhat bad about.  Although she had been justified in defending herself, she wished that Kelerim had been successful in convincing them to leave without more bloodshed; barring that, she had hoped that – after a few of them had died – they would’ve left and never come back.  It was only with a heavy reluctance that she acknowledged the best outcome (in her own case) had actually occurred; if they had left, they might’ve come back with even more Warriors – which may have spelled her doom.

She had held off on upgrading her Core Size until Kelerim left, because he had been acting very strange – which she later found was because he wanted to leave.  Only a few hours after he had left, however, she used her full Mana to finish off the last of her stages to become Core Size 17.  The same reduced awareness affected her like it did with every upgrade, but fortunately Winxa was there to help keep her company – like usual.  The Dungeon Fairy offered tentative suggestions on how to improve her traps – cautious all the while because she didn’t want to end up being punished by The Creator for “giving advice” – and also evaluated how well her Dungeon Monsters worked against the Orcs.

It was enlightening, to say the least, because it just emphasized the point that her dungeon had been barely adequate in her defense.  As much as Sandra didn’t like killing living beings, she now knew that it was inevitable if someone or something decided they wanted to destroy her Core.  She resolved to greatly improve her defenses;