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

But didn’t you say that I would have access to their entire Area of Influence if I was a lower Core Size?  Because I can tell you that isn’t the case here.

“Oh, well then yes, you’re in a bit of trouble.  Then again, the fact that you don’t have a contract could make a difference; I’m not entirely sure if it’s a ‘contracted’ ability or not.”

Regardless, I need to prepare for even more now.

Sandra wasn’t sure how long it would be before the nearby Cores figured out she was there, but she needed to prepare.  Since Winxa said they couldn’t just dig a hole all the way to her – fortunately – she only really had to worry about them coming in the entrance aboveground.  The problem was, she had no idea exactly what was coming her way; she only had her memories of the monsters the Human Heroes would talk about for reference.  She remembered the different Classifications she had been able to choose in the beginning of her new existence as a Dungeon Core, but those were only generalizations.

Therefore, she went straight to work designing what she wanted in her fourteenth room, which was set up just after her room filled with lava.  She had filled it full of Mechanical Wolves and Jaguars earlier, so she decided to take advantage of their speed and stealth, respectively.  To that end, she expanded the room she already had and used quite a bit of Mana to encase the entire room in a very thin steel plating, fusing the metal to the walls, floor, and ceiling of the 100X100X20-foot space.

Then, using even more of her incoming Mana from the sky aboveground, she extended dozens of lattice-like columns of shiny steel up to the ceiling.  The biggest difference between a real lattice – which was comprised of crisscrossing bands in a uniform pattern – and her creations, however, was that the cut-out shapes in the tall columns weren’t perfectly square.  Instead, they were all twisted up in different directions, going every which way in a confusing blend.

Inside the columns, Sandra left holes spaced out almost randomly all along the length of them.  When they were all built and complete, she had her shiny Mechanical Jaguars climb the columns and squeeze themselves into the holes, blending in almost perfectly as they clamped down on the “lattice” with their paws and held unnaturally still.  Since they didn’t breathe or need anything on them to move to survive, they almost looked like part of the columns themselves; Sandra thought that it was only because she knew they were there that she saw them.

For her Wolves, she left a circular area in the middle of the room clear and placed them in specially made holes near the bottom of the columns surrounding it, where they could emerge from a hidden “pocket” underneath the floor and rush towards anyone passing through.  They would be able to attack and retreat without having to worry about looking for a place to hide, because there were eight of the hidden refuges they could find safety.

As for why the entire room was made of steel, it was because of the trap she was going to place there.  It required her to wait for her Mana to fill up completely to place, but it was more than worth it in the end – and what would hopefully be the end of anyone (or anything) trying to invade.  By combining the Natural and Water elements together – and using one of the hidden Wolves as the catalyst – she was able to create an extremely potent acid that would spray out of the columns at different heights depending upon where they were triggered.

What took the most Mana was her activation triggers, because she was started to think about what types of Monsters might be coming to invade her dungeon.  If they were capable of flight – for example – they wouldn’t be stopped by many of her previous traps; sure, there were a couple that would be hard to avoid entirely, but not impossible.  In this room, however, the horrifically strong acid would spray at any height out of the columns because the activation triggers were flat planes that went from floor to ceiling.  Unless they were small enough to avoid the triggers completely and fly/crawl through the lattice-like columns, of course – but if they were that small, then they were either not much of a threat or else something that would have to be killed a different way.

With that set up, she moved on to the next room…and then paused.  Something was wrong; she sent her viewpoint back up to the surface and her AMANS, to try to see what was going on.  When she looked around and saw what was causing the commotion in the far distance, she zipped back to her Home room and Winxa, who had been listening to Sandra absently describing her latest room design.

When you said they might have access to my Area of Influence because of our shared element, you meant all of it, didn’t you?  Not just as a pathway to my dungeon? Sandra asked, panicking a little.

“Yes, why do you ask—never mind, I think I know.  It’s the Elven village, isn’t it?”

Sandra didn’t even think of that, as she was distracted by somewhere else; after sending one of her Small Animated Shears zipping towards the Elven village to check it out, she turned her attention back to the Dungeon Fairy.  No, not there, but I’m checking up on it.  It’s the Gnome village to the southeast; I’m also sending some Shears there to confirm what I can see from a distance, but it looks like it’s under attack. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that.  I was more concerned about your welfare that it didn’t even occur to