The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) by Jonathan Brooks (e ink epub reader .txt) 📕

dozens of large chunks when they were hit by the constructs; moments later, they dissolved into the ground, leaving behind what appeared to be Small Iron Orbs as their Monster Seeds.  From a small alcove cut into the corner of the room, a Mega Automaton – standing all of a foot tall with bulky shoulders and jointed arms – ran into the room, scooped up the Monster Seeds, and started running down the tunnel towards her dungeon at a decently fast pace.  She thought it would take it about 15 minutes to travel the nearly 4 miles to its home dungeon, but it was definitely worth the time spent.

Especially considering that there were 5 more Mega Automatons in the little alcove, ready to scoop up more Monster Seeds as soon as they dropped and run away with them.

Sure, she could just absorb them right away, but that would be a waste by only getting half of their worth in Mana back.  Speaking of that, she was currently receiving thousands of Mana every minute, and that meant she was primed to be building an army that could crush the dungeons once and for all.  Why wasn’t I doing that the whole time?

Looking at where her Mana was currently going, she saw that most of it was being funneled through some pieces of her mind automatically to creating Elemental Orbs, which were then brought to a bunch of Shapeshifters, which in turn enchanted them into Energy Orbs.  A very efficient use of Mana so that nothing went to waste, she was sure, but that wasn’t what she needed right now.  She needed constructs and more constructs – enough to wipe out each of those Cores before they knew what hit them.

Before she could stop all of those processes, she watched an Iron Golem stomping down the tunnel, which tore her attention away to see what would happen.  It passed through the first room without triggering anything, mainly because Sandra could see that the trap in the room was currently absorbing the ambient Mana so that it could reset itself.  The 5 Weighted Rolling Forces were pressed up against the side of the tunnel leading out from the first room, not moving.  She was about to force them to attack the metal Golem, but she stopped herself as she remembered the simple orders they were given: only attack after the trap is triggered in the nearby room.

Multi-tiered instructions on such a simple construct were a bit more difficult to achieve, so these instructions left the Forces vulnerable to attack as they sat there doing nothing.  As she would’ve expected, though, the Iron Golem didn’t attack or even look at them, despite them obviously being there.  She knew that the main objective of the Dungeon Monsters was to get to her Home room where her Core was located, and if there wasn’t something standing or sitting in their direct path, then they would effectively ignore it.

Before too long, as the Iron Golem was relatively quick because it ate up the distance with large steps, it arrived at the second room, and Sandra laughed maniacally when she saw what was in store for it.  There was a Champion Totem blocking the exit to the next tunnel, looking small compared to the large Iron Golem, but that wasn’t why she was laughing – it was because of the trap it was about to trigger.

A quarter of the way through the room, the Iron Golem unknowingly activated the Nether-based trap that encompassed the first half of the space.  A dark mist emerged from the floor, surrounding the lower half of the large Golem for a space of 5 seconds.  The mist didn’t impede its progress and it continued to walk, intending to destroy the Totem in its way, but a moment after the mist dissipated, it fell to a knee.  A second later, its other knee disintegrated as the Nether trap had aged and eroded the Iron so completely that it was covered in red rust, which was brittle and fell apart from the sheer weight of the intact metal from its top half.

Ha!  Take that! 

Even though its lower half was missing, the Golem wasn’t quite destroyed enough.  While Sandra was confident that the Nether-based mist would prevent the Monster from repairing itself, it still had its upper torso and arms intact.  As it started to drag itself over the ground with those arms, that was when the Champion Totem sprang forward, pummeling the half-destroyed Monster.  They were such devastating blows that within 20 seconds the Golem was cracked and falling apart, without even landing an attack of its own on the quick Totem.

Even before the Iron Golem was destroyed, 2 Stone Golems emerged from the other dungeon, but by that time, the trap in the first room was ready to go again.  As they passed the activation trigger, the super-hot flames shot out again – which bathed the large stone figures completely in fire – before shutting off.  Unlike the Mud Golems, these Golems made of simple stone didn’t dry out and stop moving; instead, their forms were heated up to such a degree that they practically glowed with the rise in temperature.

Right on time, the Weighted Rolling Forces arrived, slamming into the Stone Golems at full speed.  Cracks could be heard throughout the room as hot stones shattered from the impacts, though they didn’t deal nearly as much damage as they had against the Mud Golems.  One of her constructs actually sustained some serious damage from the collision and sheer heat, and was destroyed; the others survived and raced back to their positions in the tunnel, waiting for the next chance to attack the enemy.

Damaged and not regenerating because of the extreme heat still in their forms, the Stone Golems kept going, reaching the second room in about a minute.  The Nether trap wasn’t quite ready yet, so they didn’t trigger anything