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

Size upgrade. First, she sealed up the entrance to the giant Roc tunnel opening near the wastelands with a stone wall that was 30 feet thick, which also served to semi-camouflage it.  Second, Sandra ensured her main entrance and defensive dungeon rooms were fully prepared with their normal traps and defending Dungeon Monsters, with a few extra constructs thrown in here and there for good measure.  Third, she spoke to all of the Dwarves living inside of her dungeon – which included the Shieldmen when they woke up mid-morning – as well as all of the Elven Rangers scouring the local forests for Beasts and Slimes.

* Just to inform everyone, fairly shortly I’m putting my dungeon on lockdown; no one will be able to leave or enter for a short period of time.  Shieldmen, please prepare yourselves as you may need to camp outside for a day or more after you leave this morning to cull Monsters, as you won’t be able to get back inside.  I will be undergoing an upgrade to my Core Size and will not be able to be reached in an emergency.  In addition, please avoid my Home room where my Core is located, as everything in there will have orders to attack anything on sight.  With any luck, this will only last no more than a day, but it needs to be done if I am going to be able to help out your people. *

It was a little more than she wanted to tell them, as it revealed that she was vulnerable, but she trusted everyone she had bonded with – to a point.  As her Hyper Automatons reached and began their excavation of the Undead dungeon (which she helped with by clearing out large sections of the collapsed dirt and stone above the Monster Seeds) with instructions to leave what they found inside of the main Roc tunnel, she did one more thing to protect herself.

“Are you sure this isn’t…a bit much?” Winxa asked, amusement coloring her voice as she saw Sandra’s preparations.

Not at all; these six Pegasi with their Celestial Authority riders are perfect for blocking any attacks that may occur towards my Core, and they will provide a good airborne defense against projectiles and air-based Monsters.  Plus, this Aerie Roc and the Animated Slab can handle just about anything that is ground-based.

When Sandra changed her viewpoint and looked at her now-crowded Home room, she could see Winxa’s point – but she didn’t want to make the mistake of underpreparing her defenses.  She had a lot more to protect now, because it wasn’t just her or a few people at stake if she made a mistake; the Dwarves living in her dungeon were just the start of the people that would die if she were destroyed.

The Shieldmen were out culling by noon and had brought with them enough supplies to last them a week if necessary, the Elves were doing remarkably well with their new Bond-supplied Energy Orbs and special bows, and the villager Dwarves were finally given complete control of all of the constructs helping them – to a point.  If the constructs were to pass the threshold into her Home room, she had given them all specific orders to stop and wait for Sandra to take control of them again.  Otherwise, just about anything they wanted to do with the Diggers, Sentinels, Shears, and Automatons inside their residences and fields were theirs to do with as they would.  Everything else was automated, though she did make sure to provide them with enough raw Bearling meat to last them all more than a week.

In order for it not to spoil, Sandra hollowed out the smallest room she could and still have it considered part of her dungeon (20ftX20ftX20ft) and placed two large-but-short stone, open-topped boxes inside.  Then, using the knowledge she had received after watching Violet in Sandra’s Enchantment Repository Room, she used two of her Unstable Shapeshifters to set up Stasis Fields on the boxes.  The Fields were a bit larger than the ones in the Repository, so the Dungeon Core felt safer using more than one Shapeshifter to accomplish the tasks.

Then, using her growing knowledge of Limiter runes, she set up two Small Spirit Energy Orbs up on each Field; they would only last maybe 6 months or so, but she figured that was plenty of time.  Once that was set up, she made enough raw Bearling meat to fill each box up; now the meat would stay fresh for a long time without having to worry about them spoiling, and all someone would have to do would be to reach in and take it out.  She had to warn the Dwarves not to place their entire bodies inside the Field, however, because she wasn’t exactly sure what that would do; as long as some part of them was outside of the Field, the time-halting process wouldn’t affect them.

Are you ready, Winxa?

“Absolutely – it’s about time.”

I agree.  With nothing else holding her back, Sandra activated her Core Size upgrade and her perception of the world around her shrunk down to just her Home room.  She didn’t even bother to set something up to keep her mind occupied or amused like she had before, because she spent the time thinking of what she wanted to achieve once she was free of the upgrade.

Let’s see; first, I want to…and then….

The list was practically endless.

Chapter 17

For once in my life, I’m glad to get out of that forest.

Most of his life, Wyrlin had felt at home amongst the trees; it was as natural to him as an Elf as breathing was to any other race.  It was one of the reasons he had originally wanted to be a Ranger, and despite the constant danger he was in culling dungeon monsters, he had enjoyed spending most of his days within the majestic world found