The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

Despite the power and deadly efficiency it showed in eliminating the rest of the Beasts on the field surrounding the Elven village, she was well aware that it wasn’t invulnerable.  Multiple weapons that it had created had been broken off of its form, which were fortunately reabsorbed afterwards; not only that, but she couldn’t help but notice it had a glowing power source on its central cube platform, which was just barely protected – though it was difficult to see from ground level.  Sandra could only guess that if that power source were destroyed, say if one of the Rangers had shot it with one of their explosive bolts, it would destroy the entire construct.  It was a vulnerability, to be sure, but unless something knew about it the Mobile Fortification was an unstoppable killing machine.

Thinking about the Rangers, after the last of the Slimes were destroyed while trying to escape, she looked at the village and saw that two of them were currently being healed by the Multi-access Repair Drones she had inside the root wall.  As far as injuries went, that was the worst of them, though the wall was going to be needing repairs on both sides of the village; the explosion that Chryla caused with her explosive bolt had blasted a small chunk out of it, while the Slimes had eaten away a good portion of the other side.

Then there was the deceased Ranger, Mistal.  The death of yet another Elf was felt as soon as it happened, as she was hit by a small wave of Mana as a result – and she knew that the Beast and Slime Cores received the same amount since they split the Mana gained from any non-Dungeon Monster deaths.  She had barely even noticed the bump in her available Mana, however, as she was more focused on the welfare of the others within the village.  Now that she had a chance to think about it, Sandra felt horrible.

She was well aware that there was sadly little she could’ve done to prevent Mistal’s death, nor the death of the other two Rangers earlier.  Without spending every drop of Mana she had at her disposal to completely defend Avensglen from all Dungeon Monsters with hundreds or thousands of constructs – which she wasn’t about to do because the Elves weren’t the only ones that needed defending – she was going to have to live with the fact that some people would die defending their homes.

That didn’t make it any easier, though.

In fact, in this situation, the deaths of the three Elves was harder on Sandra than the deaths of any others.  The Orcs that had originally attacked her she didn’t know, and they were trying to destroy her, so she didn’t feel too bad about having to kill them.  The Gnomes that were killed when the Reptiles attacked their village was partially her fault, but again she didn’t know them and there was no way she could’ve known they were going to be attacked – and therefore couldn’t prevent it.  Then, the Dwarven Shieldmen that had been killed in the attack on their own village by the Undead-Classification Core were originally against her help and again she didn’t know them, though they died bravely against the onslaught of the Undead horde.

The Elves, however, and specifically the three Rangers that had been killed, she had known.  Not only that, but she had formed a Visitor’s Bond with them; when they died, she could feel their loss immediately.  It was not a great feeling, made worse by the knowledge that she had taken personal responsibility for their well-being and safety (at least in her own head) so she felt more than a little bit like a failure.  While the Elves didn’t seem to blame her for their deaths, and were in fact celebrating their victory over the forces of both Dungeon Cores, she blamed herself enough as it was.

As a result, as she evaluated what she needed to do to help with reestablishing the defenses of the Elven village, she fell into a shallow depression, lethargically going through the motions.  She sent Hyper Automatons to fetch all of the Monster Seeds left by the thousands of Monsters killed in the fighting – including her own; replaced the Roaring Blademasters, Titanium Anacondas, and Wyvines that had been killed during and before the attack on the village; delivered fresh batches of normal and explosive bolts to replenish their supplies (though they were able to retrieve and reuse many of the non-explosive bolts fired during the fight afterwards), as well as a few new bows to replace some that had been damaged from Chryla’s explosion; and also created and sent another Mobile Fortification so that they would have 2 with which to defend either side of their village from further assaults.

Instead of using one of the few Monster Seeds she had in reserve that were large enough to contain the Mobile Fortification, Sandra gave in and spent some of her accumulated AP to reduce the Raw Material cost of Monster Seeds themselves, so that she could finally make one herself.

Advancement Points (AP)

Source

Criteria

Point Value

Lifetime Earned Points

Lifetime Spent Points

Core Size

Receive AP upon Core Size upgrade (does not count for Core Size 1 nor upgrade stages)

1 per Core Size upgrade

22 AP

(20X Core Size Upgrades)

21/22 AP

Number of Rooms

Receive AP for each distinct dungeon room at least 4,000 cubic feet in size (20ftx20ftx10ft minimum)

1 AP per qualified room

68 AP

(64X Qualifying Rooms)

50/68 AP

Unique Dungeon Fixtures

Receive AP for each never-before-seen fixture in your dungeon

2 AP per fixture

36 AP

(16X Crafting Stations, 1X Bathing Room, 1X Enchantment Repository)

32/36 AP

Creature Eradication

Eradicate sources of nearby creatures (i.e. lairs and spawning areas)

3 AP per eradication

72 AP

(5X Territory Ant Colonies, 6X Bearling Lairs, 4X Desolate