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

Violet.  Felbar took her arm and led her to one side of the room while the others continued to murmur and discuss some things on the large table.

After directing her to a seat, the grizzled Warmaster plopped down in the chair next to her with a big sigh.  “I don’t want to lessen the impact that losing the King and Queen will have on our people, but that’s the least of our concerns right now,” he started, looking her in the eyes with a resignation she hadn’t seen before.  Even when he had been determined to go into that Undead dungeon to destroy the Core, with the huge possibility of being killed in the process, Felbar hadn’t looked as worried as he did now.  “While we have enough War Machines and auxiliary forces to continue holding back the majority of the dungeon monsters throughout our borders – for the time being – the situation to the northwest is only going to get worse.

“From the careful scouting reports the council received shortly before you arrived at these chambers, there is an equally large army of monsters roaming around the area of the ambush.  While the survivors communicated that they had killed hundreds of their attackers, it seems as though they have been replenished – and possibly have been added to.  I don’t claim to have a great understanding of dungeons and dungeon cores like Sandra, but I learned enough while we were staying in her dungeon to know that the deaths of our people helped to fuel this resurgence.”

That aligned with what Violet suspected, as well.  From the conversations she had with Sandra, who didn’t speak about her internal mechanisms as much as she did all facets of crafting, she gathered that Cores grew stronger and larger through two different mechanisms.  One was a gradual process, which took in the ambient energy of the world and converted it to usable resources, and which was only beneficial over a long period of time.  The second one was through the killing of people, as the life-force of those who were killed was absorbed and used to increase the Core’s power by leaps and bounds.  Not only that, but these resources were frequently used to create additional (and more powerful) monsters.  That was what had happened in Glimmerton; her friends in the village had been slaughtered for this simple, horrific reason.

“What if we direct all of the War Machines around the palace, as well as any other forces, towards the northwest.  It should be fairly simple to wipe these monsters all out, right?” Violet asked.

“Not…quite.  Just as the King’s group had been surrounded and overrun, so too would most of our forces be overwhelmed within minutes.  Even if they were able to beat them back and eliminate enough of them that they wouldn’t be as much of a threat, we’d never recover from our losses.  We’re already suffering from lack of our War Machines, and the ambush only made this even worse.”

“That’s why we needed Sandra’s help, remember?” Violet reminded him.  “Let’s just go back to her dungeon, ask her to help create some more, and then come back with them.”  It seemed simple enough to her.

“While she would undoubtedly help us do that, there’s a problem with logistics,” Felbar countered.  “We need to find people who can pilot the new War Machines, train them, and then somehow bring them to the wasteland in order to bring them here.”  He held up his hand to stop her words.  “Yes, I know, we can ferry some volunteers back with us, but only so many can fit on the back of that Roc.  And even if we were successful at bringing a dozen or so there over the next few days, can you honestly say you’d be able to help create a dozen War Machines all by yourself?”

The thought of that made her pause.  Sandra was becoming much better at handling enchantments via her creepy shapeshifting monsters, but she didn’t quite have the expertise that went into coordinating Spirit and Natural elemental energies in the complicated arrangement needed for each War Machine.  Violet, despite only achieving Journeyman Enchanter status, had just enough focus and knowledge to do it, but when she had participated in the creation of the new Energy Cube-powered War Machine, it had taken hours of concentration and drained her so much that she had needed to rest for the remainder of the day to recover.  It wasn’t the expenditure of her own Spirit and Natural energy, either, because the Energy Orbs that she still carried around her neck helped it to regenerate; instead, it was the sheer complexity and scope of the project that had worn her out.

Violet was sure that the next one would be a little easier, since she had some experience, but her mind balked at the thought of trying to create more than one a day.  One a day is actually quite impressive, I have to acknowledge, but it will take forever to create enough to make a difference.  What she needed was someone to help create them, but the level of complexity the enchantments required was nearly Master-level; almost all of the Master Enchanters were gone now, however, having been killed in the ambush against the King’s forces.  There were a few left, but she doubted she could convince them to fly back to Sandra’s dungeon, nor did she believe the council would allow that.  They had just lost the other Masters, and taking a risk of losing what expertise they had left wasn’t likely to happen.

From what she remembered, there were dozens or even hundreds of Journeyman Enchanters, which could be a solution – but Felbar had to throw in something else which made her realize the whole thought was a fool’s errand.  “Even if you somehow managed to get some help, and were able to teach enough Enchanters to do what you do, there is one