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

back yet must mean something.  She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, and dwelling on it just increased her stress.  Therefore, she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on replenishing the defenses of the Dwarves; despite being successful in beating back the two breakouts, the intense fighting had taken over two-thirds of their constructs.

Again, the Monster Seeds taken from the fights were enough to replenish them once they were gathered up, as well as allowing Sandra to increase them by half again as many as there were before.  She briefly thought about giving them Mobile Fortifications as well, but realized that they probably wouldn’t do much good in the middle of the forest.  That, and the impressive construct probably wouldn’t be very effective against Golems, and the Goblins were so quick that they could probably dance around the deadly weapons of the Fortification without too much trouble.

Instead, she tried to figure out another enchantment that might help with the fight against more Iron Golems or even something equally as hard, but she was coming up empty.  She thought about what would be most effective against her own constructs, and all she came up with involved cutting them up with something harder – like how Porthel had used his Titanium sword enhanced with his elemental spells, or the Dwarves used their own energy to enhance their axes.  The problem was that the Apes preferred to wield blunt weapons like their warhammers, and tended to drop all the bladed weapons she created for them rather than use them in battle.

In the end, all she could do was supply them with more Apes and hope that the Shieldmen had enough energy to see them through anything that came their way.  Besides, even an Iron Golem would eventually break apart when there were 50 or more Titanium warhammers beating on them.

The recovery of the Monster Seeds and the subsequent replacement of all the destroyed constructs (and then some) took most of the next night, mainly because Sandra had to craft more warhammers for the Apes.  Other than that, the Dungeon Core spent most of her time either continuing to fill her Roc tunnel with more Monsters or crafting more with glass.  The crafting calmed her mind quite a bit, which was still a little bit in turmoil over the deaths of the 3 Elves, as well as the continuing absence of Violet, Felbar, Echo, and Gerold.

There was a short break just after dawn in that routine as she finished up with supplying constructs to both the Elves and the Dwarves, and completed stocking her new dungeon rooms with Monsters.  It happened when she was finishing up some delicate work that she was attempting to create with glass, which involved trying to craft a small replica of a War machine using only the clear material.

It required a delicate touch and she had to use one of her Unstable Shapeshifters to carefully shape each glass piece once the Ape assistant fetched it from the furnace, until she connected each component together by heating them up just enough so that she could fuse them together.  The whole process was made more difficult because she didn’t need the glass to melt but just to get hot enough to merge with each other slightly, and sometimes by the time it was put inside the furnace and then brought out when it was hot enough, it would cool too much before she could complete the process.  She was trying to think of a solution to heat up only small parts of the sculpture she was trying to replicate instead of the entire thing when something called her attention away.

“…and now it’s done!  This first batch isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it’ll do well enough.  I think if I adjust the temperature a little more and let it ferment for a shorter time, it will taste a bit smoother.”  Glencha was talking to Teving next to her first Distillery, which had apparently just finished.

* Was it successful? *

After a tiny jump at the sound of her voice, Glencha responded.  “Yes, but now I need something to put it all in so that I can start another batch.  I have the other batches finishing up later today, as well – and nowhere to store this Whiskey.  And then we have to age it inside an oak barrel for at least 3 years before it’s really ready to drink – though I would suggest 5 years for good measure.”

* Wait, what?  It needs to age for 3 years?  You didn’t tell me that. *

“I didn’t?  Oh, sorry, I thought I had mentioned it,” the female Dwarf said, with a look of confusion on her face.  “I guess we were so focused on how to create it in the first place that the aging part just sounded like it would be relatively easy afterwards.  I mean, all we have to do is wait, right?  Plus, once I get this recipe perfected, I think 5 years at the minimum would be appropriate.”

Now that just wouldn’t do.  Sandra was hoping that the Whiskey would be ready to act as an incentive to gain the help of the rest of the Dwarven people.

* Teving, does the Ale need to be aged, as well? *

He seemed surprised at the question.  “Well, of course.  I mean, you could drink it fresh, but only the unsophisticated palette would gain any pleasure from drinking it.  Someone could drink the Whiskey Glencha has been distilling fresh as well, but the taste of that is much too harsh if you do that.  We don’t drink it for the alcohol content, but because we enjoy the taste of it; you might as well drink water than drink it fresh.”  He snorted derisively.

This aging thing was something Sandra hadn’t counted on.  She was used to the crafting she did being done in a few days, perhaps