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

tunnels themselves.  She would use them on hit-and-run attacks, so that she hopefully wouldn’t lose as many, and her Animated Iron Shears could camouflage themselves inside foliage quite well.  In all, she had traps that were designed for large groups of Goblins, which was typically how they advanced together.

Finally, the Slime tunnel was the easiest to set up.  While still employing her new Platinum-banded Wyrm and Unobtrusive Multi-access Repair Drone in different sections of the long passageway, she also used her new Hardened Animated Slab and Earth-based traps.  The new Slab was only slightly larger than its predecessor, but the main differences were its thickness and durability.  Instead of a simple slab of stone that could shift around in different ways, the new Slab had bars of Steel running through its entire structure, strengthening it by adding a “skeleton” of sorts to its form.  In addition, it could change shapes faster than it could before, though not quite as fast as she would’ve liked.

The Earth-based traps and the Slab were used because she discovered that stone was a bit more resistant to the acidic nature of the Slimes than any of the metal from which her constructs were created.  Squishing Slimes between two hard shapes, such as a large rock falling on them from the ceiling, slamming them into the floor, was enough to destroy the little nucleus they had inside of them, killing them instantly.  After seeing how effective the Slabs had been against the Orcs when they had attacked, she was excited to see how well they would work against something squishier.

It was only toward the end of her defense preparations that she realized she hadn’t heard from Owchet or Kelerim since they left.  They should’ve arrived where Palzerk was located hours ago, and the fact that they weren’t back yet was worrying.

At a thought, she transferred her attention to where she had last seen the Warband Leader and concentrated on the Shears she had been observing slightly overhead.  One part of her mind had been monitoring them without her attention, looking out for any particular danger or waiting for someone to call her name to get her attention, but nothing had bothered her while she had been preparing her tunnel defenses.

 

* Kelerim?  Is there something wrong? *

For once, her voice didn’t startle the half-Dwarf/half-Orc Blacksmith, as his attention was elsewhere.  She found him in the middle of the Warband she had sent him to find, and she saw Owchet and Palzerk nearby, as well as the High Peak Roc about 100 feet away.  The Warriors of the Warband looked at the Dungeon Monster warily out of the corner of their eyes, but their attention was also elsewhere.

“Yes, Sandra, I believe we have a problem.”

Sure enough, when she shifted her viewpoint away from the group and looked off into the distance towards the forest border, Sandra saw a small army of wolves, at least 400 strong, heading in the Warband’s direction.

 

* I’d say so, Kel.  I’d say so. *

Chapter 21

* Why are you even still here?  Wouldn’t Palzerk come with you? *

“Sandra, this isn’t really the time.  Suffice it to say that he wouldn’t leave his Warband behind, so we had been making our way to you instead.”

Now that she looked, she saw that the entire Warband was now a few miles east of where it had been earlier.  Even if they traveled non-stop, they wouldn’t be there until the next day – way too late for Sandra’s plans.

The Dungeon Core turned her attention to the Dungeon Fairy, describing what she was seeing.  Is there such a thing as a Wolf Classification?  I thought they were a bit more broad than that.  Then again, there was a Unicorn-Classification dungeon, so she could be wrong.

Winxa shook her head.  “No, not that I’m aware of.  Some Core-specific skills can make creating a certain type much less expensive than other Dungeon Monsters, however.”

Great.  What that meant was that this Core, with its enhancements, was obviously capable of producing massive numbers of wolves, which would overwhelm even the Warbands with Sandra’s upgraded weapons and armor.  That wasn’t a good sign, and it made what she was trying to do even more important.

A closer look at the wolves from the benefit of her Shears above showed that things were even worse.  The ferocious canines weren’t just normal Grey Wolves, which were about the size of Sandra’s original Mechanical Wolves; these ones were nearly the size of her Mechanical Dire Wolves.  From her distance, she had been unable to discern their size, given their quantity.

Kelerim?  I would suggest you leave; those are Dire Wolves, and the Warband is not going to be able to beat them.  She hated to say it, but she’d rather not lose the Blacksmith, nor Owchet, if she could help it.

Kelerim looked over at the giant bird, before shaking his head.  “I can’t abandon them, and they won’t leave.  Besides,” he said sadly, pointing off to the east, “if the Warband doesn’t try to stop them, that village is doomed.”

He was right; there was a village not a mile up the patrol road over which the Warbands had traveled in their routes through the forest’s border.  Changing her perception, Sandra could see that the Orc village was now within this Core’s Area of Influence, so the Dire Wolves could reach it easily; either it had just expanded its Core Size, or it had been biding its time until it had a sizeable enough force to wipe out anything standing in its way.

The strange part, though, was that the Dungeon Monsters weren’t heading for the village, which could easily be seen by the Wolves’ position; instead, they were making straight for Kelerim and Palzerk’s Warband.  Winxa…do you think the sight of the Roc has caused this attack?  Do you think they know it’s mine?

“Hard to tell; the