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

Sandra was honest with herself, the “invasion” of the reptile army was less of an invasion and more of a slaughter.  She had watched them break from their cohesive formation and race inside, which was their first mistake.  Or, she should say, the Core’s first mistake by being too eager to get inside and to the Gnomes that were within.  Obviously, it hadn’t really considered that she would be prepared with traps and defenders; then again, she wasn’t sure how long the other Core had existed, and it was doubtful it had ever been up against another.  It had probably grown complacent over the years and didn’t consider much – if anything at all – a significant enough threat to employ any great strategy.

The lizards that came in first were practically useless against her Bashers and her Apes; they had deadly claws and teeth, but no real force behind them.  Sandra was sure they were deadly against other beasts and even an unwary Hero – or whatever the Gnomes called those who culled the dungeon monsters – but they couldn’t do more than scratch her constructs superficially.  What they did have going for them was speed, and dozens were able to escape the clutches of her Nether “vines” and make it to the second room – where they were instantly blinded and tossed about the room by the special Holy-based spheres she had made.  Most of them were sliced by the Singing Blademasters that guarded the room, but six somehow made it through even that gauntlet.

The lizards were so fast that they – despite being blinded – flew over the shallow water in the third room and two of them luckily were missed being impaled and killed by the ice spikes that shot up out of the water as they passed by.  The relatively slow Small Armored Sentinels holding their steel swords didn’t even get a chance to swing before they escaped to the tunnel leading to the next room.  Of course, those “lucky” lizards that made it to the fourth room were burnt by the massive flame jets that shot out of the floor, ending their attempt to reach the end of her dungeon.

The crocodiles were next, and they proved to be more of a challenge – but not much of one, for all that they were bigger and deadlier than the lizards.  The Nether vines wrapped them up one by one as they came in and secured them in place, but failed to secure their heads – and jaws, especially.  Two of her Bashers had their arms ripped completely off before they were able to pulverize their crocodile victims, and an Ape had its left foot snapped off from the pure force behind the reptile’s snapping jaws.  There were a few other minor damages to her constructs in the first room, but overall the casualties were almost completely one-sided.

The giant turtles also proved to be tougher, but in a different way.  They moved much slower than the others, and by the time they arrived all but two of the crocodiles had been dispatched – and none of those deadly reptiles had even made it to the second room, technically doing worse than the initial lizards. The turtles were more difficult because they were almost impossible to grab – let alone hold onto them – with Sandra’s Nether vines; either their size prevented them from wrapping completely around the turtles, or there was something about its shell that was…slippery, was probably the best word for it.

Regardless, Sandra’s Bashers and Apes did their best to slow them down, but the turtles moved forward without even caring about defense or fighting back; the few times that one of her constructs got in front of one of them, the shelled reptiles struck out with their snappy-beaked mouths and took chunks out of them – but kept moving seemingly without a care.  Dozens of the turtles fell in the first room through the sheer fact that – with enough hits in the same place – even their hard shells couldn’t withstand heavy sledgehammers of force smashing into them.  After around ten or so bashes from a Basher or Ape, the shell would crack like a walnut and it was easy to finish them off after that.

However, as a result of the shelled monsters not sticking around to fight back, 20 of them made it to the next room, where they were bounced around and blinded, but ultimately couldn’t be hurt that much because her Blademasters had trouble targeting anything but hard shell.  One was bounced so hard against a wall, though, that its shell cracked and fell apart – which her constructs took advantage of and finished it off; other than that, 19 turtles moved on to the third room.

Ice spikes didn’t really do much to the hard shells of the turtles other than launching them through the air, and the Sentinels were relatively ineffective with their short Steel swords, though a few managed to slice up a few legs pretty good.  Two of the shelled reptiles ended up on their backs after being flipped by ice spikes, however, and were stabbed repeatedly by her constructs through their leg holes; the one time a Sentinel tried to attack a turtle head, it was snapped at and destroyed with one hit by the sharp-beaked reptile.

Seventeen of the enemy walked into the fourth room and sixteen walked out, though they were all singed in places; the flame jets only managed to catch a single turtle full-on and baked it alive in its shell.

The poison clouds in the fifth room seemed to do just about nothing, but the Segmented Centipedes that fell from the ceiling had been surprisingly the most effective construct (in terms of cost and size) at defeating the turtles.  The Centipedes were small enough to land on top of their shells – which they couldn’t break through – but they were able to