The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (literature books to read TXT) 📕

had a short amount of time before the Bearlings arrived.  She directed her Ironclad Ape up from the second room to the first, where it grabbed the unconscious (as a quick experiment, she tried to absorb his body, but it wouldn’t work – so she knew he wasn’t dead) man and dragged him back to the second room.  There wasn’t anything inherently dangerous in there, so it was safest for the time being; she hesitated to bring him any further, as the traps would likely do the Bearlings’ work for them.

She had also accumulated more than enough Mana over the time she was exploring aboveground and not doing anything else, so she was able to spend it on creating another Ironclad Ape.  As soon as it materialized from her last Average Steel Orb, she sent it to help defend the man if the Bearlings managed to make it that far.  Fortunately, she knew where all of the traps triggered in the rooms, and therefore her constructs did too; for those triggers that couldn’t be avoided, the Ape wouldn’t be harmed from them (i.e. lack of air in a room or poisonous gas).

Her new construct was only halfway through her dungeon by the time the first Bearling arrived, squeezing its large frame through the tunnel.  Luckily, the beast was such a tight fit that it had to wiggle its body just to get inside, which of course meant that only one was able to enter at a time – and slowly at that.  As the first tusked bear face stuck its head out of the tunnel, the light that had been illuminating the seemingly empty room went completely dark as the Nether trap activated.

Her Basher Totems were placed to the side out of view, and the two closest took advantage of the surprise darkness to take turns smashing the Bearling’s face with their powerful fists, alternating their blows so that they didn’t get in each other’s way.  Sandra could almost physically feel the force of the roar that shook the room as the beast cried out in surprise and pain, before it managed to wiggle through the last part of the tunnel.

Unfortunately for the Bearling, it still couldn’t see, so when the other two Totems joined in by smashing into its sides, it was in such pain from the devastating damage and disoriented enough from the blows to its head that it had trouble fighting back.  Within seconds, the same fists that had cracked her stone walls completely devastated the skull of the larger beast in a disgusting explosion of blood, bone, and brains.

It hadn’t been long since she had just spent most of her resources on creating another Ironclad Ape, so Sandra was surprised to feel herself rapidly fill up with Mana.  In less than a second, she had gained back all that she had spent and was completely full again.  She didn’t know what else to do with it and couldn’t quite think straight, so she spent it on completing one of the stages she needed toward upgrading to Core Size 16.  From previous experience, she knew that the “stage” process wouldn’t put her under like the actual upgrading did; all she felt was a small infusion to her Core like she had just taken a breath and kept the air inside her lungs.  It was only when she completed the upgrade would she “exhale”.

The next Bearling was already entering the room and struck out blindly over the top of the first dead beast, hoping to hit whatever had killed its friend.  The first swipe missed hitting anything, but a return swing managed to carve inch-deep furrows into the totem part of one of Sandra’s Bashers.  Fortunately, the strike wasn’t debilitating, but it was more evidence that the claws could deal out some serious damage.

After that one lucky hit, her Basher Totems quickly took the Bearling down with a flurry of smashing fists to its face and head.  Sandra felt another infusion of Mana from the death and put it toward completing another stage, before she got back to her dungeon invasion.

The devastating blows weren’t without their own side effects; her Totems’ hands were getting severely banged up and damaged, with even a few chips in their closed “fists”.  Not enough to put them out of the fight, but worrisome, nonetheless.

Sandra had her Repair Drone in the second room, but she didn’t want to bring it up and potentially freeze one of the Bashers in the middle of a fight – so she left it where it was.  The third Bearling attempted to push the corpses of the two others out of its way to try to wriggle its way inside, but the sheer weight of the bodies was hindering it.  Her Totems couldn’t get to the beast either, which caused a sort of stalemate – until the Bearling started to slice into the stone-walled tunnel, breaking off chunks with its powerful claws.

No!  They’re destroying my dungeon!  Sandra knew she could always repair it later, but if it kept it up, the Bearling might widen up the entire tunnel, allowing more than one of the beasts to enter at the same time – which would cause some issues.  If it had been just the one inside the tunnel doing it, she thought she could find a way to stop it, but a look from her Mechanical Jaguar outside showed that the dozen or more still outside were starting to tear at the stone outside as well, widening the entrance little-by-little.

The only way she could think to stop it was to start absorbing the dead Bearlings, giving them free access to enter once again.  Before her dungeon was sliced apart and opened to the entire force of Bearlings, Sandra went ahead and started to absorb the bodies of the slain beasts, though their massive size meant it took a good twenty seconds for them to dissolve and be converted