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

system, but she had reached it within only a few months.  It helped that she had quite a bit of Mana coming into her Core from her AMANS up above her dungeon, but she was actually most proud of the fact that she survived the helplessness she always felt when she upgraded.  It reminded her a little of when she was alive as a Human; her deformed hands had made many “normal” activities difficult to manage, and she’d felt like she couldn’t do anything – or at least anything right.

“Approximately 52 hours, give or take a few minutes,” Winxa said unprompted.  “I figured you’d ask how long you were out, like you usually do,” she continued with a smirk.

Thank you, Winxa – I was just about to ask you that, she sent towards the Fairy with amusement in her voice.

She didn’t have time to talk anymore, because she was taking in all of the new sensations her Area of Influence was giving her.  Not only had it expanded again – significantly – but she was aware of some…voids underground.  Nothing had changed about what she could perceive aboveground – which was essentially nothing without a visual from one of her constructs – but under the ground was entirely different.  She couldn’t accurately measure the distance she could now reach, but she wouldn’t have been surprised to know that it was six miles or more in every direction.

And those voids (some of which were quite significant) worried her; there hadn’t ever been anything that was hidden from her before – at least underground – so she wasn’t sure what it was.

“Those are the other Cores nearest you…well, their dungeons, at least,” Winxa responded after Sandra asked about them.

How come I can’t see inside their dungeons?

“You can’t see inside theirs, and they can’t see inside yours; it’s apparently a rule that applies even to you without your contract.  If you have one of your Dungeon Monsters enter inside one of those dungeons, then you should be able to see it through their eyes – or whatever they have that allows them to see,” the Dungeon Fairy said, looking at one of Sandra’s Small Animated Shears nearby.

How do you know they can’t see inside my dungeon?

“That’s simple; if the reptile-based Core had seen all of the traps inside your dungeon beforehand, I highly doubt it would’ve even tried to invade with the weaker monsters it sent against you.  Think of a foreign dungeon like the area aboveground; you can’t see it unless you have a construct up there, and the same applies to a dungeon as well.”

Makes sense, I guess.  Now that she knew what she was looking at, Sandra could identify the outlines of rooms and tunnels connecting them whenever she worked her way around the voids.  All in all, she could detect eight distinct “voids” or dungeons within her Area of Influence – two per stretch of forest separating the different races.  They almost appeared as if they were deliberately set so that each race would have to face two dungeons close to them that could reach near the closest villages, but not get anywhere near another race’s village.  When she thought about who placed them there – the Creator – she figured that was indeed the case.

Most of them were actually larger than her own dungeon, but when she “felt” her way around their Areas of Influence, they were much, much smaller than her own.  What Winxa had said earlier about her ability to access all of the elements reflecting on how much she expanded must’ve been correct, because she couldn’t think of another reason for such a difference.  As they hadn’t been able to access her own Area of Influence through that loophole that the reptile Core had taken advantage of, she reasoned that they were likely the same or a higher Core Size than her own.

But now she needed to check if that was still the case.  Looking through the senses of her Shears hovering over each of the villages, she quickly zipped them through the air and had them locate each of the dungeons aboveground; it was fairly easy to find them since she knew where the voids were, though they apparently took pains to camouflage themselves.  Three of the eight had their main entrances hidden in the trunk of large trees, two of them were partially hidden beneath some hanging foliage covering a hole in the side of a small hill, two others were camouflaged at the bottom of some overgrown pits, and the last was literally a hole in the ground.

With so much ground to cover, however, Sandra enlisted the help of another two dozen Shears from her AMANS to help with the searching; she didn’t want to miss an attack from one dungeon while she was checking out another.  She spent about 30 frantic minutes looking everywhere she could throughout the forests, finding that she could range even farther than she had initially thought.  Her Area of Influence now covered a significant portion of the other Cores’ Areas, with some being entirely swallowed up by her larger one.

She saw plenty of Dungeon Monsters – or at least she assumed they were by the way they walked aimlessly around – but nothing alarming.  There were beasts like boars and bears and even some real-life Jaguars (as opposed to her constructs) from one of the dungeons nearest the Elves and slimes that oozed through the forest from the other; near the Dwarves were interesting-looking dirt and stone golems that reminded Sandra of her own constructs from one Core, as well as some various-sized goblins that were quite ugly and disgusting (but she had to reluctantly admit that, in the right light, some were about the same size as a Gnome) from the other.

The Orcs were hemmed in by small and large red-eyed Unicorns with sharp spiraling horns mixed with little white