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

control of the Shifter didn’t reveal anything right away.  It was only when she had it start running that she saw a difference almost immediately.

Kelerim had never been one to be quick on his feet, but now he was noticeably faster; if she could quantify it, she would have to say he was between 2.5 and 3 times faster than he had been – which was incredible.  Not only that, but when she created an Iron bar that had to have weighed nearly 300 pounds nearby, he was able to lift it – albeit barely.  While he was strong from working at the forge, especially lately, there was no way the Blacksmith could’ve lifted that without the help of the necklace.

There was a spare sword in the workshop, and she had the Shifter lift it and try to slice into the skin of its arm.  Normal pressure against the skin did nothing other than make an indentation; it took a little bit more force to actually cut into its flesh to cause it to bleed.  Needless to say, Stoneskin seemed to be working as well.

Lastly, she had the Kelerim clone attempt to jump out of the open ceiling of the workshop, just to see if it could.  She was shocked and pleased to see that the Lesser Buoyancy was able to enhance the Shifter’s jumping ability by at least 5 or 6 times, because the Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc was able to reach the lip of the 20-foot-tall ceiling edge, grabbing onto it and pulling itself up to the surface.

After those quick tests, she had the Palzerk clone take the necklace and go through the same experiments. Strangely, they were almost exactly the same – which she thought was a little weird; she expected there to be a little difference between the speeds of them, because of the diminishing returns the PEEs contributed to those that already had a higher speed.  After a moment, she realized that the Shifter wasn’t using any energy to enhance its speed as Palzerk normally would; she couldn’t really test it, either, because she didn’t exactly know how the process worked and didn’t want to accidentally kill her Shifter if she had a choice.

Regardless, it really didn’t matter in the end.  What did matter, when she figuratively stepped back and really saw what she had made, was that she had created something almost unbelievable.

A permanent enchantment.  More than that: a permanent Personal Enhancement Enchantment.

Even more than the Energy Orbs or the discovery of how to use the Limiter rune sequence, as world-shattering as those were, the permanent PEE was something that she considered to be even more important – at least to her crafting and enchantment skills.  Yet, in the end, if it wasn’t for those creations, none of this would’ve been possible.

Winxa – I did it!  I created a permanent—uh oh. 

“Congratulations and what ‘uh oh’ are you talking about?” the Dungeon Fairy asked, now concerned.  She had a right to be, too.

Sandra wasn’t able to answer right away, because something was happening with the attacks by the nearby Dungeon Cores.  She had been so engrossed with what she was doing with her experiments and successful creation of the permanent PEEs that she had pretty much ignored everything else.  Unfortunately, she missed what was obviously a turning point in the attacks, because something else was happening that needed her full attention – as well as the attention of the shard in her mind.

The Dungeon Cores had reached the point where they could easily get through the trapped rooms she had designed to hold them back.  That wasn’t the problem, though, because she had expected that to happen – even if she hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.  There, they encountered the bulk of the defenses that Sandra had stationed in the next few rooms, where the constructs or Dungeon Monsters she had were ready and able to fight off anything that came through.  Her forces were performing remarkably well, too, because the staggered pace of the attacks allowed them to concentrate their defense instead of being overwhelmed.

It was such a good defense, in fact, that there was very little attrition on the part of her own Dungeon Monsters throughout all of the different tunnels.  Those that were destroyed or killed were quickly replaced, to the point where it was running smoothly and encountered no hiccups.  In short, it was the perfect defense.

Too perfect, obviously, because the Dungeon Cores – minus the Slime-Classification Core, which was still rebuilding its forces after Sandra’s attack on it – changed their tactics once there was no more forward progress.  In effect, all assaults on the tunnels stopped; instead, the focus returned to the surface, days ahead of what Sandra had been expecting.

Delarthe!  Chryla!  Prepare for a resurgence at the dungeon entrances!

Both the Elven Rangers and the Shieldmen were prepared for this eventuality, and they jumped into action just as the first of the Dungeon Monsters emerged from the Golem, Beast, and Goblin dungeons.  Orcish Mercenaries helped the Elven Rangers tear through the Beasts that emerged, alongside the Wyvines that accompanied the Rangers; their savagery as they sliced off limbs and decapitated the Monsters that emerged just showed how bored the mercenaries had been over the last day and a half.

Delarthe and the Shieldmen, however, were having a little more difficulty.  The two-pronged assault by both dungeons at the same time caught them a little unprepared; the constructs that they employed in defense were nearly overrun by Goblins as they poured out of the entrance at speed, and the sudden appearance of a swarm of simple 3-foot-tall Dust Golems confused and disoriented the defenders at the other dungeon entrance.  Behind those weaker Dust Golems were Iron and Steel Golems, ready to strike when Delarthe and the other Shieldmen were distracted.

It seemed as though they adapted their methods from below to above the ground, which