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

Winxa, I think we have a problem. 

“Can’t you just hook it up to an enchantment to use it, like you do the Generators you made?” the Dungeon Fairy asked as soon as Sandra relayed what had happened.

That seemed like the obvious way to fix it, but the Dungeon Core was freaking out a little bit by that point and hadn’t thought of it.  Quickly, she brought all of the components to make some enchantments on a large, flat piece of Gold, as well as 4 of her Shapeshifters.  She figured that if she created 8 different PEEs utilizing every type of Mana inside of the Core, that should do the trick; she didn’t want to bother with doing it halfway – she might as well go full-out and use them all.

It took a few minutes to get the enchantments correct, as it was difficult to hold 8 separate PEEs at the same time, but she managed it somehow.  As she put the Core down on the Gold, along with a Spirit Energy Orb with the Limiter rune to regulate the energy transfer, she released the holding patterns and let them solidify.  She was successful for all of a split second before the energy pumped into the PEEs ran out, and the enchantments disappeared.  In short, it didn’t work.

She tried again, thinking that she had connected them all together incorrectly, but that didn’t seem to be the case, as that hadn’t worked, either.  Then she tried a smaller number of PEEs, only 4 of them, then up to 5, then down to 3, and so on – but none of it worked, no matter what she tried.  She even thought to try something as benign as an enchantment that would just cause the Gold sheet to glow. Sandra thought she had been successful, as it lit up for nearly a minute, but the small amount of Holy energy with which she had established the enchantment petered out and it went dark.

This isn’t working, Winxa.  What do I do?!  Sandra was starting to grow increasingly concerned.

The Dungeon Fairy shook her head.  “I have no idea.  What do you think it means by being ‘used’, then, if not for enchantments?  What was your thought behind its creation in the first place?”

Well, I—

It couldn’t be that simple…and difficult…at the same time, could it?

Hold on.

“What?  What are you—?”

Sandra ignored the rest of what Winxa was saying as she turned her attention inward, conjuring up the same area of self-actualization that had allowed her to regain control the first time the Core shard had taken over.  All of the bubbles containing her knowledge were still there, as well as the ones that represented her Dungeon Monsters, as well as her relationships with her friends and other Visitors.  It was those relationships that she had leaned on to help strengthen her sense of self, so that her image in the middle of it all was strong and solid.  Near the bottom of her foot, on her pinky toe, was a small distortion that she thought indicated the presence of the other Core’s soul fragment in her mind.

Without taking the time to consider the implications of working inside of her mind, Sandra visualized 8 separate Mana concentrations of different elements coming together – exactly like what she had just done in the Bearling lair.  She even visualized a Mithril speck being introduced to the maelstrom of Mana, just as before, but instead of her own image being projected inside of what was going to be the Resonating Prismatic Core she was visualizing, she imagined her image “plucking” the distortion off of her toe like a piece of lint, before dropping towards the Mana-Mithril construct.  Sandra could see it trying to float back to her image in order to latch on again, but she moved her entire creation in the way to intercept it.

As soon as everything was together, she condensed it all into a single compacted construct, feeling it click into place with another bright flash of light that was actually quite painful to experience.  It felt like an explosion had gone off in her mind, searing her thoughts; she felt all automatic operations going on in her dungeon, as well as all of her constructs and Dungeon Monsters aboveground pause.  She was suddenly glad that she wasn’t currently under attack, because it was quite possible that they wouldn’t respond in the slightest.

When the pain faded and she was able to look inside of her mind again, she saw a representation of the Resonating Prismatic Core floating in front of her image, not entirely clear of any type of blemishes.  There was something wrong with the Core, however, as it shook uncontrollably, appearing as if it was going to explode at any moment; the soul fragment inside was struggling to be released, and it would burst soon if she didn’t do something.

The only thing she could think of to do, and the one “use” of the Core she had determined was appropriate, was to instruct her image to reach out and touch the now-vibrating object.  The arms snapped up and cupped the Prismatic Core in her hands…and then she activated her Bond.

Almost immediately, the object containing the Core soul fragment stilled, and she felt a tension that she hadn’t even realized was constricting her mind loosen and disappear.  It was replaced with an influx of knowledge about Core contracts and information about the urges and drives of Dungeon Cores that she “knew” about but didn’t really understand before.  Now, though, she comprehended how the other Cores in the world operated, which was a frightening experience to Sandra, and she was triply glad that she hadn’t been constrained by a contract like that.

She could also “feel” the soul fragment inside of the Prismatic Core in her image’s hands.  It had calmed down entirely, losing