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

else foolish.  Observing the area aboveground where her airborne Shears were keeping an eye on the dungeons’ entrances, she also noticed that there were no longer any constant trickles of monsters venturing out (only to be slaughtered by the joint forces of Sandra’s constructs, Monsters, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcish mercenaries).

An instinctual part of her mind knew exactly what that meant; there was only one reason that she could think of that they wouldn’t continue to at least try to expand their ambient Mana collection up there.  They were keeping all of their Dungeon Monsters close for protection, and why would they need that?  Because they were Upgrading their Cores.

That furious urge to attack while they weren’t paying attention reared its head at the thought of how vulnerable they were; again, some part of her mind pushed those thoughts back down, where they simmered with righteous anger under the surface.  Coldly calculating her chances of success, she reasoned that while it might be possible to attack a single dungeon and fight her way to a Core, the losses she would sustain would likely be significant.  Still, with only 3 Cores to concentrate on destroying after that, it might be worth it.

But if those 3 had upgraded their Cores, then they would have an advantage over her.  Right now, they were nearly at a stalemate of what they could produce, but as she well knew, there was frequently a new Dungeon Monster right around the corner.  The next upgrade might provide them with a new threat that could quickly overwhelm her, and she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Cold logic extinguished much of the anger and vehemence towards the other Cores, but not enough to break her out of her revenge-driven purpose.  All it ended up doing was to help her decide that the only way she could compete with them was if she kept up with them – or even progressed past them.  Therefore, with a quick use of her dwindling resources, she sealed up the ends of each tunnel – keeping her forces there just in case it was a trick – and then turned to one of the few things she hadn’t absorbed in her treasury yet.

Broken Dungeon Core shards.

From what she remembered, the speed increase from consuming the Core shards during her upgrade would continue to be a benefit as long as there were shards left, so she had left them alone during her search for more resources earlier.  The only thing they were good for was increasing her Core Stage in an effort to upgrade her Core, as well as speeding up the actual upgrade process; since she was already at her max Stage and had put off upgrading in favor of defending her dungeon, there really wasn’t a lot she had to consider before finally accepting her upgrade.

A second before she initiated the upgrade, a tiny voice in the back of her mind screamed out in terror, but Sandra ignored it as she confirmed what she was planning on doing.  As soon as the world seemed to shrink down to her Home room and slightly beyond, that tiny voice erupted into full-blown hysterics.  High-pitched internal screaming pierced through her concentration, and all she could do was yell right back.  Shut up!  Why are you screaming?  We need to do this to get stronger so we can eliminate everything in our way!

As soon as she finished, the screaming seemed to stop, for which she was thankful.  It was replaced soon after by confusion, curiosity, joy, and finally…horror.

*         *         *

Sandra screamed out in terror as the all-encompassing isolation fell over her Core again, made worse by the fact that her recent state made it difficult to perceive things outside of her mind.  While she wasn’t exactly sure how or why this kernel of her soul had been shunted off to a corner of her Core, she knew it was a result of Perceine being killed inside of her dungeon.  The Visitor’s Bond she had with the Orc Mercenary was largely an insubstantial connection, barely even noticeable most of the time.  Yet, when that Bond had been broken at the Orc’s death, something seemed to have shattered inside of Sandra’s mind as well.

The death of a mercenary wasn’t something new, of course, because she had lost a few outside her dungeon while they fought against the Dungeon Monsters coming from the other Cores.  This death was different, however, as it had occurred inside of her dungeon; it was more real, more substantial, and the whiplash of the broken Bond was a lot more powerful.  The insane remnants of the Core shards that she had absorbed – which had plagued her during her recent upgrade, and which she had subsequently tried to lock away – had broken free and wormed their way into her main consciousness.  The part of her mind that was currently screaming in terror at the initiation of another upgrade – Sandra’s soul – was slowly pushed to the side, shut off from nearly everything going on in the outside world.

With only glimpses of what was going on, she could only react to stimuli that were more internal than anything else.  For example, she could perceive the main part of her consciousness using all of the Advancement Points – but Sandra could do nothing but freak out as that consciousness component decided to bump up her Advancement Level.  Afterwards, following when everything blacked out while the increase in the Advancement Level took place, she could sense this part of her mind starting to integrate back into the main consciousness, but it didn’t last long enough to fully recover from her break.

When she was shunted back into her current position in the corner of her Core, trapped and basically helpless, it felt like a perpetual upgrade.  She was wrong, though, because when the actual upgrade started, it was worse than she had ever experienced before.