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

village off in the distance to the west, which may or may not explain how they were spotted last night.  He was almost positive that Fyola had given them away with her use of the Fire elemental energy the night before, so it was all on her head if they ended up failing their mission because of her need for physical comforts.  Just another reason to want her dead.

None of the Orcs appeared ready to take his bow or quiver, though they did take a few swords from the Elites who had them at their sides.  Still, because their most effective attacks came from the energy inside of them, they weren’t necessarily defenseless.

Wyrlin just hoped it was enough as he was surrounded by a sea of green flesh and inadequately cured brown leather being worn by hundreds of Orcs.  Once he was able to look around at them when trees weren’t blocking the way, his original estimate of 300 rose to at least 500; there certainly wasn’t anything they could’ve done against that many, and the Elite leader’s decision to surrender was the only one that would’ve allowed them to survive for the next five minutes.   And I hate her for it.

The anger simmered in his chest as he walked with his fellow Elves into the heart of Orcrim, and farther away from their goal.

Chapter 18

Rather than being a chore and a horrible ordeal, the solitude enforced on her from the Core Size upgrade was rather pleasant for Sandra.  She was able to come up with a plan for the coming days, both in terms of what she wanted to do within her dungeon and for what needed to be done in the nearby lands.  She was hoping that Violet, Felbar, Echo, and Gerold would all be back soon, so that they could start the process of shifting resources around to protect everyone – instead of just those in the immediate area.  Not only that, but she really wanted to get back to crafting, because everything going on had negatively impacted the one thing that she wanted to do.  There were still so many things that she wanted to try her “hand” at, and lately that had gone a bit by the wayside in favor of saving everyone’s lives.

True, it was selfish to want to experiment with mundane crafts when there were lives at stake, but she was who she was – a crafter at heart – and not even being a Dungeon Core could change that.  Nor would she want it to because she gained tremendous amounts of enjoyment from it.

Because of all these thoughts running through her mind, the time during her upgrade seemed to pass rather quickly.  Winxa, bless her winged heart, continued to keep her company, and tell her stories; Sandra blocked most of her chatter out so that she could concentrate on her own thoughts and worries.  If she could’ve communicated with the Dungeon Fairy, she would’ve politely asked her to stop – even though she appreciated the gesture; as it was, she felt a little bad for ignoring her.

Her internal thoughts were running so rapidly that when the upgrade ended, it took her a few minutes to register that it was done.  When she pulled herself away, she found the notification screen about her new Core Size – and felt an increase in her awareness of the world around her.

Core Size Upgrade Stage complete!

13/13 Completed

Your Core has grown!

Current Size: 21

Mana Capacity increased!

Raw Material Capacity increased!

New Constructs option!

The first thing she did, after getting rid of the notification about her Core Size increasing, was to check on the status of everything around her.  Her dungeon seemed as normal as ever, and the Dwarves were…sleeping.  Since she had gone through the upgrade a little past noon, and with it taking approximately a day according to Winxa, she was expecting to come out of the process while it was still daytime.  That was worrisome, since it probably meant that she was out for more than a day.

Winxa – how long was I down this time?

It was only after she communicated with the Dungeon Fairy that Sandra realized Winxa was in the middle of reciting another story, lying comfortably on top of her Core while she did it.  “—and then she said—what?!”  Sandra took the Fairy by such surprise that Winxa fell off of her Core and started to plummet, before catching herself with her wings before she made it too far.  “How are you done already?  Did something go wrong?”

What do you mean?  I got my notification that everything was completed and now I’m Core Size 21; let me check my Core Selection Menu to see if something is wrong. 

Core Selection Menu

Dungeon Classification:

Constructs (Adv. Level 1)

Core Size:

21

Available Mana:

6215/24447

Ambient Mana Absorption:

10/hour

Available Raw Material (RM):

35400/59916

Convert Raw Material to Mana?

35400 RM -- > 1416 Mana

Current Dungeon Monsters:

24587

Constructs Creation Options:

18

Advancement Creation Options:

7

Monster Seed Schematics:

516 (31)

Current Traps:

45

Trap Construction Options:

All

Core-specific Skills:

5

Current Visitors:

62

Nope, everything looks normal here.  Sandra wasn’t sure what was going on or why Winxa seemed so shocked, because after checking her Menu everything looked just the way it was supposed to.  However, the Dungeon Core was a little worried about the Fairy’s response, so she checked her Area of Influence, just in case that was the problem.

Even that looked as normal as it could be; in fact, it was even better than she was hoping for.  Estimating the distance underground was a little difficult, but she calculated that she had expanded her AOI by at least 3 miles, letting her see a total of approximately 14 miles in every direction from her Core.  Best of all, she had extended far enough to entirely encompass the AOI of