The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Jonathan Brooks (me reader TXT) 📖

together, and while I’m pretty sure I couldn’t duplicate the entire thing right now with my fledgling skills, I do have some access to some more Journeyman Enchanters that can at least help with portions of it, you know. *

It took Violet a moment to understand what Sandra meant by that, but then she realized she meant her Shapeshifters.  Well, if that is what it takes, then I guess that’s what I have to put up with—

She unknowingly walked into a dimly lit room that felt warm for once, and she stopped when she saw a series of steps leading up.  Blinking in surprise and confusion, she walked up the left-side steps at Sandra’s direction and as soon as she saw what it was she felt her smile come back full force.

* I made some crude soap from mixing up fat from Crag Hound meat and the ashes from some burnt trees and leaves, before adding in some different fruit juice scents from crushed Oranges, Peaches, and Apples; it’s pretty basic, but at least I’m hopeful that it doesn’t smell like rancid flesh – which is what Echo said the unscented soap smelled like.  Enjoy and relax as long as you like…you deserve it. *

As she stripped down and slid into the almost too-hot water, feeling the air bubbles and jets shooting at her from various directions in a way that seemed to loosen up her muscles.  I think I’ll even forgive Sandra for using copies of me to enchant the War Machine. Reaching for one of the square blocks of soap laid out along one edge of the hot water pool, she smelled oranges as she lathered herself up, scraping off weeks of dirt as she rinsed.  When she was as clean as she thought she was going to get, she sat on one of the steps inside the water, relaxing completely for the first time since their village was attacked.

I think I could get used to this…

Chapter 17

Things seemed to be coming together nicely; Violet – now a Journeyman Enchanter for some reason Sandra didn’t quite comprehend – had created the linking enchantment successfully; Felbar was currently practicing with the model with some success, though he was having to learn a whole new control scheme; and Echo was refreshed and forgave Sandra for blinding her the night before.

Of course, as seemed the norm when things were going well, the Dungeon Core felt a drastic change somewhere.

Winxa, it looks like I was right – the Undead Core just expanded its Area of Influence.

“Well, you knew it would happen eventually, so it shouldn’t be a surprise,” the Dungeon Fairy said.  “How close is it to the Dwarves now?”

Sandra looked at the other Core’s AOI and confirmed what she had felt initially; the distance they overlapped seemed to have increased by at least two miles – which was a fairly significant increase, and more than she was expecting. Even though she couldn’t see every part of the Undead Core’s range, she estimated that it was at least halfway through the nearby Golem Core’s area; it was possible that along the far edges of the smaller Core’s territory it would be able to attack the Dwarves.  All of that she relayed to the Dungeon Fairy, who looked a little worried.

“Such an increase in its Area of Influence likely means that it hit Core Size 30 with its recent upgrade; if you remember, every 10 Sizes tends to have some extra benefits, and apparently a significant increase in its AOI was what it received,” Winxa mused.  “Unless, of course, it somehow found the Advancement system and is increasing it that way, but this appears to be too much even for that all at once.”

That wasn’t something Sandra wanted to even consider, because that would most likely make everything that much harder.  It was bad enough if the other Core was already 10 Sizes above her, because that would likely mean that it had access to some nasty Dungeon Monsters; if some Advancements were placed on top of that, she worried for her chances of success.

What I really want to know, however, is how the Undead Core seemed to be able to direct its Dungeon Monsters while it was upgrading its Core Size – and how it seems to upgrade so quickly.  Whenever I go through an upgrade, I’m next to useless and it seems to take forever – especially the higher my Core Size became.

“It probably isn’t actively giving orders, but instead gave detailed, specific instructions to them before undergoing the process. Just like you can get the flying Shears around your Core to make random patterns to give you something to look at while you’re upgrading, you can make those instructions even more detailed conditional parameters.  For instance, you could have them do their little dance down here, but if your dungeon was invaded they could break off and fly off to defend a specific room.  This was basically what was happening with the other Core, though its orders were almost certainly designed to maintain a spread of its Monsters to achieve the highest Mana absorption rate, and to react to what you might do in pre-planned ways,” Winxa replied, matter-of-factly.  The fact that she could lay out a whole plan for her constructs while she was unavailable during an upgrade (or otherwise) was something that she’d have to keep in mind.

“As for the speed at which it seems to upgrade, it could be due to a number of factors.  It could have a Core-specific Skill that increases the speed at which it upgrades and perhaps even reduces the amount of Mana required to do so; it could’ve already started the upgrade before you thought it did and finished in the normal amount of time; or – which I think is most likely – is that single-element Dungeon Cores require less time