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

Things were getting worse and worse, it seemed – and Sandra was running out of time.  There were only about 10 hours or so until the first of the Cores emerged from their upgrade, if she was lucky, and this was the last thing she needed.  Some of the anger and rage that she had shoved down inside of her mind boiled to the surface, and she struggled with controlling her actions.  How dare they attack my people!  They must pay—

With an enormous force of will, she managed to pry back the control that was slipping from her grasp, though she couldn’t banish the insane Core shard back to its hole.  It seemed as though any type of attack on her people – likely caused by Sandra’s obvious presence – was enough of a spark to light the flames of fury.  Whether it was guilt over putting them in danger or just a general need to destroy anything standing in her way was hard to determine…but it was something that she thought she could use.

Because as the Core shard entity tried to take control again, she could glimpse the actions it wanted to take.  Even now, detailed plans were leaking through its insanity, meshing with her mind until they strangely made sense.  An epiphany flowed over Sandra as she finally realized what that meant; the shard was not necessarily insane, though her mind processed it that way.  Instead, it was – in reality – filled with the ruthless, strategic drive to kill and expand under which other Cores operated due to their contract with the Creator, and it was clashing with her own, non-contracted mind.  When it was in control, it used that ruthless, strategic drive to dictate its actions; but on the whole, Sandra’s mind was still there.  That was why it hadn’t just killed everyone around the dungeon, including the Dwarves inside, because that was the “core” of who she was.

That didn’t mean the shard was any less dangerous.  She still remembered the sight of her Human image in her conscience, with it slowly being turned into a Dungeon Core.  A quick check of it, now that she knew it was there, showed that the shard’s advancement had been reversed when Sandra’s conscience took over; though even now, that was starting to change, bit by tiny bit, as she shared her mind with the shard.  As she was now, trying to stop the shard from changing her seemed to be impossible, so she knew that the only choice she had was to live with it – and to take advantage of its plans as if they were her own.

Which they technically were, even if she probably wouldn’t have thought of them beforehand.

There were only a few minutes before the Dire Wolves arrived, which was unfortunate – because it meant sacrificing the one means of transportation Kelerim, Owchet, and Palzerk had back to her dungeon.  There was no help for it though, because she needed to delay the inevitable so that she could mount some sort of counter-defense.

* Kelerim, I have some help on the way; you’re going to be stranded for a little while, but if you survive the attack, I promise to get you and the others to safety. *

“Wait—what?  What do you have planned—?”  The Blacksmith’s words were cut off as the High Peak Roc started running, taking off from the ground within a few hundred feet, soaring into the air.

* Tell the others to prepare to defend themselves, because I’m not sure my constructs will get there in time; they just need to hold out for a short amount of time. *

Kelerim just nodded, and so did Owchet when Sandra passed on the news.  The Orcish mercenary unslung the warhammer from his back, where it drew some attention for its difference.  Warbands typically used swords, and most other weapons were looked down on as inferior, but Owchet knew how to utilize the Titanium Warhammer Sandra had supplied him with great effect.  Especially since he was a Fire-element user and could enhance his strength – his swings packed a wallop.  Because of that, she had to use an Earth Energy Orb and accompanying enchantments inside the hammer’s construction, increasing the strength and durability of the weapon itself, so that it could dish out pain without deforming in the process.

Meanwhile, her High Peak Roc had already closed the distance to the Dire Wolves, who didn’t seem to care that a gigantic, 150-foot-long bird was descending upon them with enormous speed.  Sandra let the Roc attack any way it wanted to, only telling it to spare nothing as it attacked – and she wasn’t disappointed.  Its Sonic Dive Special Ability was the first thing she witnessed, as it dove from 500 feet in the air to just over the loping Dire Wolves in a flash, slamming its beak into a dozen of the Wolves in a line, before swooping back up, smacking another two dozen of the enemy Monsters with its wings as it flew away.  The powerful attack managed to kill every single Dire Wolf that was hit by the beak, though the ones hit by its wings were only slightly damaged.

And they all kept running.

Theoretically, she could tell the Roc to keep using its Sonic Dive attack over and over until it ran out of Air energy; that was the safest strategy, and one that Sandra probably would’ve employed had she not listened to the “wisdom” of the shard, but it wouldn’t slow down the advancing Dire Wolves.  They were too focused on the Orcs to care about a few stragglers being killed, so they weren’t going to stop.  Therefore, Sandra needed to give them something else to focus on.

An ear-piercing screech shattered the relative silence of the flat plains the Wolves were racing over,