The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

instinctively tried to absorb one of the eggs like she would with almost anything else she found in her Area of Influence, and the result shocked her.

“What?  What happened?”

Sandra explained to Winxa the results of her absorption, to which the Dungeon Fairy looked almost as confused as she was.  What does that even mean?

“I have no idea what that means.  Your situation is unique and seems to break all the rules, making a good chunk of my previous knowledge unreliable at best, so your guess is as good as mine.”

Putting it out of her mind for the moment, Sandra absorbed the rest of the Ant eggs in the chamber and saw that they also provided a small amount of Raw Materials in addition to whatever had happened before.  She felt a little better about absorbing them rather than destroying them outright, so she left the colony behind knowing that – despite the complete destruction of everything living in the colony’s territory – they would live on in another form…somehow.

With the threat to her survival and expansion finally eliminated, Sandra could finally get back to what she was doing before the Ants had attacked.  But this time, she had someone who could help guide her – because she still had very little idea of what she was doing.

*        *        *

“Had you ever been in a dungeon before this?” Winxa asked plainly.

Can’t say that I have.

“Well, the idea is not to have one gigantic room; if there is just one obstacle between you and anyone wishing to do you harm, then it really defeats the purpose of having a dungeon in the first place.”

The Dungeon Core in her wanted to get right back into expanding her dungeon, accumulating Mana, and increasing her Core Size, but now that she was out of immediate danger, she needed to have a better end goal in mind.  Since the Dungeon Fairy was prohibited from giving direct advice, Sandra instead just asked questions about dungeons in general.

So I need to do what, exactly?  Build more rooms?

Winxa thought about it for a moment before answering.  “Again, I can’t give you specific advice, but I can tell you how some of the dungeon rules and properties work.  And—” she held up her hand as if to stop Sandra from interrupting— “these rules are universal to all dungeons, which means that not even your seemingly impossible existence will let you get around them.  The main thing that the contract enforces is the driving need for dungeons to expand – everything else just stems from that.  Their habit to kill other creatures and sentient races comes from their need for Mana and expansion, which has worked as intended for hundreds of years.  Of course, there are some issues now, but it is still working elsewhere…”

The Fairy looked a little pensive for a moment, before she continued.  “Anyway, back to the matter at hand.  Dungeon Cores don’t just employ monsters to defend them, but traps as well.  These traps are usually dependent upon your Classification; for instance, a Fire-based Classification dungeon can use defenses such as flame jets that shoot out of a wall, pools of lava under unstable bridges, and pit traps filled with ever-burning flames.  Your imagination is the essentially the limit when it comes to creating them, though the larger and more complex they are, the more they will cost in terms of Mana.

“Once you have them set up, they will continue to spring and reset with nothing other than the initial investment – though they use the nearby ambient Mana to recharge them if they use an extraordinary amount of Mana when triggered.  The larger and more complicated the trap, the more ambient Mana around it is absorbed.  In my earlier example, if you had a room full of lava, it would be likely that the entire room’s ambient Mana would be used to fuel the persistent state of the trap – but that is an extreme example.

Also, if you decide that you don’t want them there or would like them moved, you’ll lose all the Mana you put into the traps if you choose to remove it.  Luckily, unlike the Raw Materials needed to create Monster Seeds, you need absolutely nothing for your traps – they are all creations of Mana.

“The major limitation of traps, however, is that you can only place one per room, which means that even if you make a giant room the size of a mountain, you can still only put one of the Mana-formed defenses inside there.  On the other side of the spectrum, a room has to be a minimum size to be eligible for a trap, so you can’t make a hundred tiny rooms and place traps inside each one.  A good rule of thumb in room creation, therefore, is that if you can’t place a trap inside, it’s too small.  Anyway, like I was saying, most dungeons tend to create a bunch of average-sized rooms in between them and surface, so that they can utilize as many traps as possible.”

Sandra thought about that for a few minutes, knowing that the information she was being given wasn’t necessarily advice, but she considered it valuable anyway.  While she didn’t want to be “like most dungeons”, the overall theory behind the defense was a good one and was something she felt she had to consider.

After having her “second life” threatened by the Territory Ants, Sandra could see the importance of defense.  If she had known beforehand of the ability to create stone using Mana and Raw Materials, she would’ve completely encapsulated her dungeon in the hard surface, preventing the invasion in the first place.  She couldn’t guarantee the Ants wouldn’t have still tried to attack, but the entire thing would’ve been quite a bit more manageable.

Prevention was obviously the key.  Sandra knew that she would eventually get to the surface – and was