The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (miss read books .txt) 📕

he felt the powerful pulling abruptly cease; the next thing he knew, he was falling towards the scooped-out ground underneath the vortex.  Gerold opened his eyes just as his head collided with something hard below him…and then there was just darkness.

Chapter 20

“Is he dead?” Felbar asked, climbing out of the War Machine.

That seemed to be a question that came up a lot in Sandra’s workshop – or at least what remained of it.

* No, but he’s definitely unconscious and I believe bleeding internally.  He doesn’t have long before it’s too late; I’m going to have to form the Visitor’s bond on him to heal him with my Repair Drones.  I have a feeling it’ll put him in a coma like you and Echo were, but at least he’ll— *

She was going to say, “be alive” but she was stopped when she saw one of her Repair Drones moving toward him from the other side of the now half-destroyed workshop.  Actually, upon looking at it closer, she realized that it was the one Multi-access Repair Drone she had in the room, unlike the two others that were of the previous version.  She was already getting a Large Water and Nether Elemental Orb ready to perform the bond – she had seen the blue and black tints on his armor before it disintegrated – but she stopped her Ape when she saw the Drone moving.

The construct approached the fallen Dwarf that her Steelclad Ape Warrior had gingerly brought inside the workshop from where he had fallen outside.  Technically, the outside was almost inside already, as half of the workshop’s roof had been torn off and sucked up into the Gravitational Devastation Sphere.  Despite the new open top, it still counted as a room in her dungeon – just one now with a very large entrance.  The previous entrance/exit in the Bearling lair was basically gone, having been hollowed out along with the tunnel leading there from the workshop.  She was just glad that it hadn’t expanded any further, otherwise Felbar and the War Machine would’ve been crushed as they were pulled into the Gravitational Sphere outside.

Sandra was also glad that it had shut itself off before it killed the Dwarf, though it was still up in the air if she’d be able to heal him in time. That didn’t seem to be a problem, though, because the Multi-access Repair Drone had its arms with the pads on the ends on the Dwarf’s head, pumping healing energy through his body and fixing him up.  So…I’m guessing that’s what “multi-access” means?  That it can heal…anybody?

There wasn’t really anything that she could do to speed that process up, so Sandra spent some time evaluating exactly what happened because of that…unique…construct that seemed to suck everything into it.  She had obviously already seen that her workshop and other entrance had been essentially destroyed along with all of her constructs that she had sent out to push back and distract the undead horde; what she didn’t know, however, was what exactly happened to everything that was pulled into the Sphere when she activated it.

* Felbar, I’m going to try and discover what exactly happened out there; if the Dwarf wakes up soon, try to…reassure him that he’s safe.  With your language barrier, I doubt you’ll be able to communicate that well with him, but hopefully he’ll be thankful that he’s not dead. *

“Sure, I can try to do that – but who’s going to reassure me that what I just witnessed isn’t something that I should be afraid of in the future?”

* What are talking about?  Oh…you mean the Gravitational Devastation Sphere?  You don’t have to worry about that; I can only use it every 60 days and it won’t activate if it goes more than 300 feet past my entrance.  So, unless I’m being attacked like I just was by those undead, I have no reason to use it.  Also, based on what kind of destruction that thing did, I’m not sure I’d ever want to use it again. *

That didn’t really seem to reassure the old Gnome, but there was really nothing that Sandra could say to convince him.  She was telling the truth, though; seeing the utter devastation she caused was making her rethink her decision to use it in the first place.  Bringing back her remaining Shears in her AMANS so that it was floating over her dungeon again – since there weren’t any more Specters trying to destroy them nearby – she brought a dozen down to survey the damage up close.

It was actually quite remarkable how much of the ground had been ripped away in such a uniform way; there were places where buried boulders were pulled out of the ground and left holes in the dirt behind, but for the most part all of the packed dirt was scooped out in a roughly semi-circle shape.  Anything small within approximately 500 feet of the exterior of the Sphere’s destruction was sucked up, leaving the landscape around clean-looking without any rocks, pebbles, or dirt clods anywhere.  The hill where the Dwarf had been hiding was half gone itself, and Sandra was surprised that he had managed to hold on as long as he had.

Why was he here in the first place?  She was actually a little thankful that he was there, because he provided a much-needed distraction that allowed the vanguard of her construct, Shapeshifter, and Goblin fodder force to spread out from the cave entrance enough to stand a chance.  While his presence was beneficial for her in the end, it still didn’t explain why he was there at all.

Unless…

She quickly tasked the Shears she had keeping an eye on the Dwarven village check on their status; a quick peek showed that they were fine, and a few minutes of looking around the forest nearby showed nothing there, either.  If the Undead Core