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

It was only when her screaming was interrupted by a familiar voice – her own voice – that she started worrying less about what she couldn’t perceive outside, and started to look at what was going on inside.

Curious and confused at what was happening, she turned all of her meager mind to the voice that had spoken to her, perceiving something interesting for the first time.  Elements of her consciousness and her Dungeon Core were spread out in front of her perception with representations of its different parts.  She saw a floating bubble filled with an anvil and blacksmithing tools that she intuitively knew represented all of her crafting knowledge; another bubble filled with a Clockwork Spider stood for all of her Dungeon Monsters; and a third was full of 4 different sizes of Copper Orbs, the very first Monster Seeds she had acquired.  There were additional bubbles as well; there was one that she thought might be a repository for all of her available materials, one that was a list of the different crafts she had produced over the last few months, a different one that had Winxa represented as a compilation of all of her Visitor’s Bonds, and even one that held all of the traps she had created or could create (which she wanted to check out further at some point).

While it was fascinating, what drew her attention the most was the center of all of these “bubbles”.  Floating in the middle of everything was a much larger bubble, with a life-like representation of Sandra inside.  Not Sandra as she was right now, as a Dungeon Core, but Sandra as she remembered herself as a Human woman; she looked like she was ready to start selling merchandise at her family’s portable booth, her long black hair tied back and ready for business.  The strange thing about the representation of herself, however, was that her hands weren’t deformed and practically useless; she almost cried out in joy as she saw her hands as she always imagined they would look, if only they had been normal.  Beautiful, non-deformed hands with subtle indications that she used them daily in the pursuit of crafting, where she could produce thousands of different crafts by simply applying herself.

The joy she experienced in seeing “normal”, usable hands on her old body was quickly overshadowed as she looked at the rest of her.  Horror overcame her mind as she witnessed what appeared to be some sort of withering shadow slowly creeping up her body, starting at her feet. Where it flowed, her dress fell apart as if it had been left out in the sun for years and was brittle to the touch; her skin and muscle rotted away, revealing the bleached-white bones of her feet and legs; and lastly the bones seemed to condense together into one shapeless mass.

That’s not a shapeless mass!  That crystalline sphere looks very familiar…like a Dungeon Core.

Sandra could only assume that the insidious invasion – by whatever had been absorbed from those shattered Core shards – was in the process of taking over what made Sandra…well, herself.  Her previous life’s memories had helped her hold onto her sanity even through her isolation in the expanse after her death, and she deduced that she still instinctively pictured herself as a Human.  The other Cores, like the one she had absorbed, had likely given in to their new existences and fully embraced the attitude and perception of a Core, bringing their insanity from their isolation with them.

She could only assume that the insubstantial entity invading her mind was trying to enact the same change in Sandra.  No, I’m wrong; that entity isn’t quite insubstantial.

While the withering shadow slowly eating away at her Human form wasn’t any type of recognizable object, she could sense that it had a rudimentary intelligence bent on consuming everything within its reach.  What will happen if it succeeds in changing my internal self into a Dungeon Core?  Will it…take over?  Will I cease to be me?  Or will it even matter by that point, since the insanity infecting me will have taken over completely?

Sandra thought she had a reason to be worried, because while she was technically a Dungeon Core, that did not define who she was.  She was a person – not an object; she was a crafter; she was a protector; and she was a friend to those under her care.  If she internally became a Dungeon Core, in her mind, she was confident that her principles, values, and desires would not be the same.  Sandra would become what she had been fighting against: A blood-thirsty killer out to kill anything that moves, without conscience.

Perhaps that was the main difference.  Sure, the other Cores were constrained by contracts with the Creator, to commit the unconscionable acts they did – but their insanity seemingly prevented them from fighting against those constraints in every possible way.  From what Winxa had mentioned about the contracts, Sandra didn’t think that unbridled slaughter was actually a part of it – but the lack of conscience didn’t allow most Cores to go about their development in any other way.  Perhaps that’s what this part of my mind is…my conscience. 

Regardless of what the seemingly “sane” part of her mind was, she knew she needed to do whatever she could to stop the eradication of her self.

What are you?!  You shouldn’t even be here; in fact, everything you used to be should be gone.  I must fix this so that I can get back to destroying these upstart Cores working together to destroy me!  The main voice of her mind screamed at her, and the tiny part that had come out of hiding reeled back in fright.  The withering darkness increased its speed as it destroyed her Human form, and it was almost painful to watch.  Freed of its normal constraints – of having to concentrate on matters outside of the