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

in order to soften the Steel – it literally burst into flames; the smelly and putrid oil that covered the Goblin Worker was apparently highly flammable, and even though no sparks or embers emerged from the fire, the heat rolling off the forge was enough to ignite the Worker on fire.

Strangely enough, even though she had pulled her awareness back from her new Dungeon Monster, she could very faintly feel the excruciating pain it experienced as it quickly burnt into a pile of ash and then disappeared, leaving behind the Average Copper Orb it had been created from.

I can feel its pain?  Why would that even be a function of a Core?

“You’ve actually been very lucky up to this point, as your constructs obviously aren’t capable of feeling pain.  Over time, the other Dungeon Cores get used to the feeling of their Monsters dying; either that, or their minds are so far gone that they barely even notice it anymore,” Winxa answered.

So…when I killed all of those reptiles at the Gnome village and then here in my dungeon, the other Core could feel their deaths?

“Well…yes, but the Core had likely felt thousands or tens of thousands of its Monsters dying before that, so it probably wasn’t a big deal to it.  I’ve even heard – though never actually seen it myself – that some dungeons actually enjoy the pain they feel and even like to experience it firsthand, because it makes them feel more alive.”

At first, Sandra thought that was just more evidence that the other Dungeon Cores were quite insane; after a moment of thought, though, she realized that she could understand wanting to feel more alive.  Just a few minutes ago, she had reveled in the euphoric feeling of experiencing the sensations of the Goblin Worker – minus the horrendous stench – and she wanted more of that.  Over time, she figured that anything that made her feel more alive would be welcome, though she didn’t think she would go so far as to want to experience the first-hand pain of dying over and over.  That was something that she thought might make her insane.

So, instead of attempting to craft something first and then enchant it, she instead fetched an already-finished Steel knife from her Display/Armory room with one of her other constructs and brought it to the forge room.  While that was happening, she recreated another Goblin Worker and had it travel to where the previous one had died, waiting for the knife to arrive.  When everything was in place, she got down to the business of enchanting.

Just like she had done with her construct in an attempt to enchant something – which failed spectacularly – she took over the Goblin Worker completely and worked on figuring out how to access its elemental energy.  Choking through the horrific smell was a little easier since now she was at least expecting it, and after a while she was able to block it out if she concentrated enough – though that left less concentration for the entire enchanting process.  Fortunately, she had become fairly adept at dividing up her mind through practice as a Dungeon Core, so it wasn’t that much of an obstacle.

Using the Goblin Worker, she picked up the Steel knife and even the weight of the small weapon was significant to the Monster’s muscles – or lack thereof.  Regardless, she was able to hold it well enough that she thought she could enchant it without any problems.  Sandra took a page from the Core book and “reached” inside the Goblin’s body, grabbing hold of the inherent elemental energy inside its body—

Goblin Worker

 

Current Elemental Energy:

Spirit – 25 energy

Fire – 25 energy

 

Special Ability:

Temporary Minor Strength and Speed Increase: 10 Spirit and 10 Fire

The quick blip of a screen that popped up in her vision was a surprise.  It seemed as though she could see how much elemental energy the Goblin Worker possessed; it had Spirit and Fire energy, which corresponded to its base Classification of Goblinoids.  However, the 25 in each type was confusing, until she realized that the entire cost of the Worker was 50 Mana; if she considered that it was split in half, then it made sense in a way.

She also saw a “Special Ability”, which she hadn’t even known existed for Dungeon Monsters.  A quick question to Winxa revealed that almost all Monsters that Cores had access to had some sort of Special Ability that used their inherent elemental energy, though like she had explained to Sandra before, her constructs couldn’t use any energy – and therefore didn’t have any.  That was interesting news, and it was something she might try out later, but for now it didn’t really matter to her too much.

Concentrating on the elemental energy, she started to siphon it out though the Goblin’s finger like she had seen Violet do, which seemed the best way to try it out; she had seen enchanters use different implements to help with precise rune-carving, but it wasn’t going to be needed in this instance.  The enchantment she wanted to create was a simple yet effective one, which wouldn’t need any fancy equipment.

Lifeburn was a useful enchantment for weapons, and it just happened to use the two elements that the Goblin had access to.  Using her Worker’s right finger to trace small runes that looked like a series of hashmarks with a line running through them onto the blade near the sharp edge, she watched as a red light emerged from her fingertip and seemed to float in place before settling loosely on one side of the knife.  Keeping the Fire-based enchantment in place with a little more concentration, she flipped the knife over and used the same finger to create a series of swirls that were connected together.

When she was done – but before she let the enchantment finish – she