The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (literature books to read TXT) 📕

They were bad enough while she was still alive; during her travels with her father, they had lost three horses over the years when the poor animals had unknowingly stumbled across a few colonies.  Sandra and her father only escaped harm themselves because, while the Territory Ants were vicious if they got ahold of you, they were relatively slow in comparison to a running person and didn’t care to venture far from their territory to pursue threats.

All of which was going to be an issue if Sandra kept expanding upwards.  Fortunately, at least for now, the few tunnels she saw on the edge of her Area of Influence were self-contained and didn’t show any signs of digging in her direction.  She had to be cautious of what she did now, because if she accidentally opened up a pathway down to her Core, there was very little her dungeon monsters could do to prevent her constructs being overrun and killed.

Now that she had seen them and determined that she wasn’t in any immediate danger, Sandra looked at what else had come from her Core Size upgrade.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost:

Clockwork Spider

5

Small Animated Shears

10

Tiny Automaton

20

Rolling Force

25

Segmented Centipede

100 (Mana and Seed Unavailable)

She wasn’t sure exactly what a “Rolling Force” monster would be, but it was at least available for her to create.  Not so with the Segmented Centipede, which not only cost more than twice the amount of Mana she could now hold, but she didn’t even have a seed capable of inhabiting it.  And, unlike the last Core Size increase, she didn’t have access to any new seeds which would make that possible.

Regardless of those disappointments, Sandra continued to expand – in the opposite direction of the Territory Ant colony.  Because she couldn’t see farther than an estimated 16 feet, she didn’t know what was in that direction or even if it would lead aboveground, but she didn’t really have much choice.  She had some options to go a little more left or right, but if that didn’t pan out, she’d have to go down – a choice she’d rather not have to make.  As much as she enjoyed the security of being inside a relatively safe hole in the ground, she realized she missed the sun and sky, trees and…people.

She and her father hadn’t stayed in one place for more than a week essentially since she was born, so she was used to being outdoors.  She was comfortable in nature; she had spent many a night camped among the forests of the eastern part of Muriel, holed up in a way-cave in the mountainous north, or even spent an evening or two huddling together with him to stay warm during the cold desert nights in the south.  To be confined underground in a – granted, it was getting bigger – small underground cave was…unnatural to her.

Not only that, but not having anyone to talk to – now that Winxa the absentee Dungeon Fairy had abandoned her – was making her a little lonely.  Even if she were just able to see and observe someone from afar, she thought that might be enough to scratch the socialization itch that was starting to make itself known.

With a mental sigh, Sandra got back to work digging out and converting the newly accessible walls into Mana.

*        *        *

It took approximately two weeks of digging out the back, sides, and some of the floor of her cave before she finally reached her limit.  While the ceiling was still only about 8 feet tall – because she didn’t want to dig down too far – all but the front wall was extended out to 16 feet.  The room was feeling enormous by that time, especially when she considered how small her dungeon monsters were in relation to it now.

Sandra’s inch-and-a-half tall Clockwork Spiders appeared almost the size of a real-life spider now that she had some height and a better perspective.  The Tiny Automaton didn’t look much better at three inches tall, but it still continued to maintain its plodding (and somehow soothing) pace around her core.

And because she had a plethora of resources now (both Mana and RM), she had experimented with creating the two constructs she hadn’t seen yet.

The Small Animated Shears were strange, but awesome at the same time.  When they formed from a Tiny Copper Orb, they were literally a small pair of razor-sharp-looking shears about 3 inches long from tip to handle.  That was interesting enough, but the best part about them was the fact that they moved by flying through the air.

Soon, Sandra had created an entire flock of flying Shears that swooped through the air and accumulated much of the ambient Mana that she had been missing up to that point.  While her Spiders and Automaton had siphoned up the Mana on the floor pretty well, there was as much or more that they couldn’t reach because it was above their heads.  With a full dozen of the Small Animated Shears, however, they were easily able to acquire most of it.

She also discovered what “Rolling Force” meant.  It was literally a ball about 5 inches in diameter that rolled; she wasn’t sure exactly what metal it was made of, or if it had some sort of extra weight in the middle of its form, but it was heavy.  After discovering that she couldn’t control it directly, Sandra accidentally sent it careening around the room when she told it to move, and it crushed one of her Spiders like it wasn’t even there.

It was a happy accident, fortunately, because she learned what happened to one of her dungeon monsters when it was destroyed.  Even though she wasn’t fully “connected” to her Spider, she nonetheless felt a temporary loss when it ceased moving, but it was gone so quickly that she barely