The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

it was a Tiny Clay Cube – which cost 15 Mana to produce – but those all added up after a while.  Sandra was only saved initially because she had over 250 Hyper Automatons that she had created originally for funneling back Undead Monster Seeds to her dungeon from her campaign against them; after that, she needed to use most of the Mana she had allocated for the small tunnel to create more of the constructs.

The result was that the expansion of the small tunnel slowed down a little bit, but not enough to make much of a difference.  The whole process, while relatively expensive in materials, Mana, and constructs was still much faster and cost less than if she were to create a regularly sized tunnel all the way to the collapsed dungeon.  That, and if another Dungeon Core stumbled upon her little tunnel – which was bound to happen – they couldn’t use it to send hordes of Monsters towards her dungeon.  Once she was done with it, she was planning on collapsing it anyway, to prevent it from being a vulnerability in the future.

When she was thinking of vulnerabilities, she also had to consider the Roc tunnel, as it was wide open all the way to her Home room without anything preventing an enemy from walking right inside.  She was already planning on some defenses for it, as well as rigging it up so that portions of the tunnel would collapse as a fallback; if there was anything she had learned from the nearly botched attack on the Undead Core, it was that she needed to be willing to demolish all of her hard work and expense if she were truly threatened.

That would come later, however, and was something that she would probably work on once Echo left in the morning.  The morning of which was rapidly approaching; the sky was just barely starting to lighten in the east, meaning that dawn was at most an hour off.  Fortunately, everything was starting to come together both inside and outside of her dungeon.

Sandra created another 20 bows – that still needed to be adjusted, of course – and 50 of the explosive Fireburst-enchanted bolts to go with them.  Added to that, she also included 100 normal unenchanted bolts to go with each bow, meaning that she had a large bundle of equipment that would be going with the Elven Rangers.   She cleared out a space in her workshop for them to pick them up, and that would also conveniently be where she could Bond with them.

Another Aerie Roc sprung into existence in her Home room, and this time Sandra wasn’t shocked by its appearance.  Using two of her Unstable Shapeshifters, she was able to get the harness on it without any outside help, and some food supplies – very similar to what was packed for the Gnomes – were strapped into place, so it was ready to go; when Echo woke up and was prepared to leave, she could immediately go down to where it was waiting and climb aboard.  It would then pick up the Elder outside of the dungeon and they could make their way to their capital – and hopeful cooperation.

There was now an open box of Large Energy Orbs filled with 20 of each element; at a cost of 800 Mana apiece to create the Elemental Orbs, that was the result of 128,000 total Mana – not to mention all the work that went into enchanting them so that they were now Energy Orbs.  She hoped it was enough for the Rangers that were coming for their Bonds, otherwise she would have to make more if they were needed.

Gerold, the Shieldmen, and their constructs all returned triumphant and exhausted just before dawn to Sandra’s dungeon.  A few of them had been hurt during the culling of the Goblins and Golems; fortunately, they had also been healed by the Repair Drone she had sent with them, so no one needed anything but sleep – which couldn’t be said for Gerold’s Deep Diver suit.

“As powerful and unique as it is, it just can’t compare to the armor that the other Shieldmen are using,” Gerold commented as he pulled himself out of the thoroughly dented suit, sweat running down his body and practically soaking his clothes.  “While they use their elemental energy to prevent any damage from occurring, once I get a dent in my suit it stays that way until you can get a chance to repair it.  I even think something is wrong with the left arm, which stopped working intermittently over the last hour.”

Indeed, when Sandra looked at it, she saw that the outside of the left of the metal Deep Diver suit was practically caved in; if something had hit it a little bit harder, it might’ve sheared through it completely and broken Gerold’s arm, if not doing something worse.  The enchantment running through that section was also partially damaged from the heavy impact, which was probably why the Dwarf had been having trouble with it.

* Wow!  What hit you? *

Sandra had only been paying the barest attention to the Dwarves as they fought through the forest – just enough to make sure they weren’t in trouble and to point them towards their next targets – so she hadn’t actually seen what happened.

“Uh…well, I wasn’t paying enough attention and got slammed by a Stone Golem from the side and sent flying into a tree,” Gerold admitted, scratching the back of his neck, and looking a bit shamefaced.  “I think I was just getting tired from the night of running around and fighting, though that’s not really a good excuse.  Regardless, the impact with the tree was enough to crack its trunk and break my back in the process; your healing construct helped to put me back together, at least, so thank you for that.”

That was a surprise; she hadn’t known