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

tracks through the wastelands.  Therefore, while her own Dungeon Monsters would prevent them from initially finding her entrance, doing it like that would likely end up with many casualties – which couldn’t be as readily replaced to face the Ancient Saurians once they arrived.

The second option was also tempting, because it also helped protect her location while killing the reptiles from above.  The only issue was whether or not she could kill them all; the giant turtles, for example, were essentially impenetrable in their shells, and she had already seen that they could bring their heads inside to protect them from harm.  It was entirely possible that she could get lucky and manage to score a direct hit from her Shears bombardment, but it wasn’t probable.  Hitting their legs might work, but if they had advanced warning of her attack from above, they could bring those inside their shells as well.

A combination of the two options would work even better and would be sure to devastate the reptilian force, but there would still potentially be quite a bit of destroyed constructs on her side.  While that was potentially fine, with the threat of the two Saurians on the horizon, she wanted to ensure that she had enough constructs left to defend her dungeon and, ultimately, her Dungeon Core from their threat.

Not only that, but when she thought about it a little more, Sandra needed the Reptiles to find her entrance; the last thing she wanted was to give them a reason to start searching around and potentially find another village of Elves, Dwarves, or Orcs.  None of them appeared to be prepared to fend off an assault like the one that befell the Gnomes; in fact, it was a miracle that any of them had survived – though it looked like that was probably due to their walls and preparations they had made as a normal part of their defenses.  None of the other villages had anything approaching that level of preparedness.

Which only made sense; it was only an unfortunate fluke of Dungeon Core rules and abilities that had granted the Reptile Core access to the Gnomes when it shouldn’t have been possible.  They had unknowingly paid the price of Sandra’s mere presence, and she’d be darned if she would let any of the others suffer the same fate.

Decision made, she abandoned any plans to fight outside of her dungeon.  Instead, she did what she could to enhance her defenses inside; there wasn’t much she could do that hadn’t already been done, especially when she didn’t have the time (or Mana) to finish trapping the last couple of rooms near her Core.  Well, technically, if she wanted to convert some of her treasury into Mana and Raw Materials she’d have enough resources, but she still didn’t have the time – and it wasn’t something she wanted to rush if it wasn’t necessary.  Besides, she wasn’t too worried about the reptiles even getting anywhere near her Core; it was their much bigger cousins that were going to be a bit more of a problem.

Therefore, Sandra used most of her Mana she currently possessed and what she accumulated in the time before their arrival to reset the first two rooms’ traps, though with a lot more Mana than had previously been invested.  She ditched the blinding darkness of the Nether-based trap – knowing that it probably wouldn’t affect the other Dungeon Monsters as much as it would a sentient – and instead used the Nether element to create a trap that would be much more useful.

A dozen flickering bands of pure darkness would extend down from the ceiling like writhing vines, wrapping around any enemy they came in contact with.  The Nether energy would solidify and keep them trapped in place, while Sandra’s Basher Totems and Ironclad Apes would take advantage of their immobility; it would honestly probably be a slaughter, and it was entirely possible that none of the reptiles would even get past the first room.

If some did manage to make it through, they would face the second room which had its trap revamped; not only was the Holy light suffusing the room even brighter and more blinding, but – with a little quick experimentation – she had discovered how to create small little spheres of intense Holy elemental energy.  These spheres wouldn’t necessarily do any damage, but anything that touched them would be repelled with great force, flinging them all over the room – and into the spinning blades of the two dozen Singing Blademasters floating around the room.  Since the reptiles were all land-bound, she placed 10 spheres near the floor and out of the way of her constructs, so that they would be free to do what they needed to stop the invasion.

The only downside to the more powerful traps in both rooms, however, was that they only had a limited time that they were active; the boost in Mana pumped into them helped extend the previous time limit from approximately a minute or a minute and a half to about three minutes, but it was well worth it for the extra benefits of them.

Sandra wanted to enhance her other initial traps, but there wasn’t time nor Mana to do it.  With a lack of either resource, all she could do was wait for the lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and giant turtles to arrive.

Chapter 21

Echo collapsed behind a rocky outcropping, her legs giving out beneath her from exhaustion.  She let the last vestiges of her active camouflage fade as her energy reserves were practically drained; she had held it for as long as she could, but without a bit of rest she wouldn’t be able to sustain it much longer.  She dragged herself deeper into the small shadow the rocks afforded her as she attempted to keep herself out of sight of the rapidly approaching army of vicious-looking reptile monsters.

While Echo had no trouble