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

had managed to send some of its Dungeon Monsters there, the presence of them might have alerted the Dwarves to what was happening near her dungeon…maybe?  It was a working theory, but until she got some better information that was the best she could come up with.

With everything there looking like it was as normal as could be, Sandra resumed her perusal of the battlefield – while at the same time producing Rolling Force after Rolling Force down by her Core.  She immediately sent them out in a constant stream with orders to scatter and hunt down skeletal rats; the previous mistake she made earlier was keeping them all together in a group, because that seemed like the best method at the time – strength in numbers and all that.  However, it was already proven that her constructs were faster than pretty much anything but those Specters when they were determined enough, and they could also easily destroy the rats by themselves one-on-one.

She couldn’t let the Undead Core continue to accumulate so much Mana without any opposition, so destroying as many of those rats as possible was essential to reducing that amount.  In fact, to offset what she was using to produce the Rolling Forces, every fifth one she created she added another pair of Shears to her AMANS to replace the over 1,200 that she had lost during the battle.  She had to dig down deep into her treasury to keep up with what she was spending, but the current situation was exactly why her father always stressed keeping as much in savings at the bank as possible.  This was a rainy-day scenario if she ever saw one, and everything she knew about Dungeon Cores told her that it would take the Undead one causing so many problems a while to recover from the loss of so many of its Monsters.

A quick glance inside the workshop showed that the Repair Drone had finished its work and the Dwarf looked much healthier – but was still asleep for some reason.  Sandra was really hoping that he wasn’t in a coma, but she figured only time would tell.

After exploring the destruction while continuing her construct production below, she finally came to the spot underneath where the Sphere had done its thing earlier. At the bottom of the carved-out semi-circle of dirt and stone was another sphere-shaped object; initially she thought that the Devastation Sphere had survived, but it was smaller and multi-colored as well – unlike the large plain-looking metal ball the Sphere had been.

Looking closer at it brought no more explanation of what it was; the only thing she could see was that it was apparently very heavy, as it was starting to crack a small stone underneath it with what appeared to be sheer weight alone.  Sandra watched as the stone finally burst apart and practically disintegrated, but when the strange sphere slammed into the packed dirt below it seemed to settle a little.  She could still see that it was pressing down into the dirt with great weight, but the fear that it would continue dropping through the ground – and her dungeon below it – was relieved at the sight.

Apart from that, though, there was nothing left.  Curious about what the sphere really was, she had her remaining Steelclad Ape inside the workshop come out and bring it into her dungeon; at least, that’s what she intended, but when her construct came to pick it up, the sphere barely twitched despite the Ape’s not-insignificant strength.

* Felbar, do you think you can use the War Machine to move this thing?  I’ll keep an eye on the Dwarf. *

The Gnome nodded, using some stacked empty wooden boxes that Sandra had left over from filling the wagon – which was still intact and waiting to go back to the Gnome homeland – to climb his way up into the massive construct.  When he stomped off, making the ground shake a little as he moved, Sandra looked at the Dwarf and wondered why he hadn’t woken up yet.  Why does it seem like everyone likes to be unconscious here, at least lately?  First, Violet collapsed into unconsciousness after creating the linking enchantment – and now there was a Dwarf lying in the middle of what was left of the workshop.

Violet, however, was already awake and asking about what happened—

Wait!  I feel stupid for not putting it together before now.

Violet had expended pretty much all of her elemental energy in the process of creating the enchantment, so her unconsciousness made sense because Sandra actually saw her do it; the Dwarf, on the other hand, hadn’t actually done anything – but his energy had been drained completely, nonetheless.  That much was obvious by the way his armor had disintegrated off of his body while he was being pulled into the Sphere, but the Dungeon Core hadn’t really put it together until now.

Her remaining Unstable Shapeshifter – the original one, with the samples taken from the Elite Elves – was still alive in the workshop mainly because Sandra hadn’t wanted to lose access to those forms. The other Shifters had been destroyed in the attack against the Undead, but she made sure to keep it back, figuring that an extra Elf tossing out Holy-based spells probably wouldn’t that much of a difference.  As a result, it was available to help her because her Ape was still outside, acting as a guide to Felbar on where the strange object was located.

Sandra shifted it into Echo’s form and had it grab a Water and Nether Energy Orb – which matched the tints on his now-destroyed armor – that were packed away in the Gnome’s wagon, figuring that she would replace them later; they weren’t doing much good there, anyway, so she figured they might as well be used.  The Shifter then walked over and placed them on the bare skin of