The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (english readers txt) 📗

“That won’t be good if they manage to find out your location, of course…but for some reason I feel like I should be warning you of something else,” the Fairy finally said, tapping her finger against her lips as she looked off away from her Core.  “Hmm…I’m not sure what it was, though it seemed relevant and rather important.  Oh well, I’m sure I will remember given enough time.”

* Well, if you remember, let me know – I don’t want any more surprises especially with those Orcs sniffing around and the Undead Core still a major threat I need to eliminate. *

Twenty minutes after the Orcs entered the Unicorn dungeon, Sandra suddenly felt the AOI surrounding it completely disappear.  She was expecting it, but the shock and quickness of its happening shook her a little.  They did it…am I next on their hit-list?

Sandra wasn’t really worried about being destroyed by the Orcs despite their numbers, because she was confident her traps and Dungeon Monsters could hold even that quantity off without too much trouble.  Given that they didn’t have any special way to negate her traps like the Elite Elves had (at least, she didn’t think so), they should be highly effective.  No, the problem was that she didn’t want to have to kill them all, but she couldn’t see any way around it at the moment.

She could now see inside the former Unicorn Core’s dungeon through her Area of Influence, as its presence was the only thing keeping her from seeing inside before.  Looking through the entire space – which was now devoid of any traps or Monsters – she saw the corpses of at least 30 Orcs, a few here and there throughout the rooms.  She also saw the broken blades of at least a hundred Iron swords, though she was distracted from seeing more than that as the dungeon started to collapse from the Core’s former Core Room and the Orcs scrambled to escape being buried alive.

Minutes later, they all escaped safe and sound, leaving their fallen brethren to their new burial site.  The second that the last room collapsed near the entrance – which was essentially just a hole in the ground similar to the Reptile one she had gone into – something appeared in Sandra’s awareness.

Winxa?!  What is this?!

The Dungeon Fairy snapped her fingers and pointed a finger up, as though she finally remembered something.  “That’s what it was!  How could I forget something so important?”

I’d say it was important!  This could change everything…

Chapter 30

Temporary Dungeon Core Enhancements

These temporary enhancements are a safety measure implemented by the Creator as established by your contract.  These enhancements are granted upon any Dungeon Cores within a certain distance from recently destroyed Cores; this is to reduce the likelihood that the destruction of additional nearby Dungeon Cores will occur while new Cores are brought in and raised to a minimum Core Size to continue the objectives of the destroyed Cores.

These enhancements are not granted to any Cores that – in any way – participated in the destruction of any neighboring Cores, whether through overt, clandestine, or inadvertent means.  In addition, any previous mentoring benefits are now instantly null and void for any Dungeon Cores taking advantage of these enhancements.

As soon as the number of new replacement Cores all reach the New Core Threshold (which will also employ a rapid growth cycle during Core Size upgrades), these enhancements will be negated over the course of 7 days, and any mentoring benefits will be reestablished.

(Your Core is not currently eligible for any enhancements)

Current Nearby Dungeon Cores Destroyed:

2

Current Distance Threshold:

100.0 Miles

Current New Core Threshold:

Core Size 20

Current Temporary Enhancement for 2 destroyed Cores:

Area of Influence is increased by a total of 50% over the course of 50 days and stays until the current New Core Threshold is reached.

Next Temporary Enhancements for 3 destroyed Cores:

Includes all previous Temporary Enhancements, plus: Ambient Mana Absorption directly by the Core is increased by 10000%, Area of Influence is increased by an additional 10% over the course of 10 days, Distance Threshold is increased by 10%, New Core Threshold is increased by 2 Core Sizes

So what, would you please tell me, is this?  Because from what I’m seeing here, we could be in big trouble.

“Trouble” was an understatement; she narrated the entire notification to Winxa so that she could understand what Sandra was looking at, and the second time reading it only made her more worried.  In essence, it was saying that if any more Cores were destroyed, the remaining ones around the area would start to become more powerful – and quickly.  As it was, the remaining dungeon near the Orcs, the two near the Elves, the two near the Dwarves’ former village, and of course the Undead dungeon would have their AOI increased by 50% over the next 50 days.

“Yes, well, something like this hasn’t happened in a long time so it didn’t even occur to me to tell you about it – because I can’t even remember the last time this actually came into effect.”

Yes, fine, you forgot, we’ll deal with that later – but why does this exist in the first place?

“Well…the best way it was described to me…well…let’s just say it was long ago, was that the Creator designed the dungeons for a specific purpose – as I’m sure you remember: to keep the races from warring on each other by making them concentrate on maintaining the safety of their own lands and people.  This purpose would fall apart if the Humans – let’s just say – got together and formed a larger-than-normal force to start destroying dungeons one after another.

“If they manage to destroy one or two, those areas are then freed up from having to