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

had to duck to fit inside the tunnel.  They couldn’t all fit inside the first room, so Sandra kept them going until they were inside the second room, which was just large enough to hold them.  Her Repair Drones she brought along immediately started to patch up the Apes that had accidentally hurt themselves, while the Shears and the Forces she had recently brought in were already heading for the next room.

Now that everyone was inside, she was hoping that would speed things up.  Sending in small forces at a time would certainly be safer, but it was also very time-consuming.  Eventually she’d have to make do with what she had when she ran out of her “sacrificial” constructs, but hopefully by that time they’d have a good rhythm going.

Speaking of them, the third group of Shears and Rolling forces were entering a room that had a half-dozen larger beast zombies—

Something was happening towards the entrance of the dungeon.  Sandra looked through the viewpoint of her Shears and Rolling Forces waiting outside to the hole leading into the ground, only to see the roof collapsing.  What?  How?  She didn’t have time to investigate further, because she could feel her connection to everything inside the dungeon start to fade as the tunnel leading down started to fill up with dirt, stone, and a nearby falling tree that was caused by the ground crumbling underneath it.

With a split-second thought, she – hopefully – sent some orders to her Dungeon Monsters before she lost all connection to them, as well as a quick message to the others.

* The entrance is collapsing and I’m losing connection to my Monsters – they’re under your command now, Felbar!  I’ll try to— *

 She wasn’t able to finish her message, as she felt any connection she had to anything inside the Undead dungeon cut off completely.

Winxa?  What happened?  I lost all connection to anyone or anything inside the dungeon.  How was the dungeon able to collapse the ground, sealing off the entrance?  I thought that was impossible!

The Dungeon Fairy looked shocked.  “It shouldn’t be possible to close up your initial entrance to the world above; any action that would do that is unable to be taken.  Just like you couldn’t block up your entrance here, even when there weren’t any invaders inside, the Undead Core shouldn’t be able to either.”  Winxa paused for a moment, before thinking out loud.  “Unless…that entrance…wasn’t the initial entrance.  If it were a secondary entrance, sort of like your workshop that was connected to the now-destroyed Bearling lair, then physically rigging something up to collapse – and that didn’t require the use of your Dungeon Core abilities – would perhaps work.  Which means—”

— that the initial entrance is probably the larger exit I was guarding earlier but had been basically ignoring up until now.  I figured it was the same as the Reptile dungeon and it was blocked off, so I didn’t check it – I’m so stupid!

Sandra was mad at herself; she had thought she had everything covered, but the Undead Core had managed to pull one over on her again.  Something still didn’t add up, however…

Ok, so if the real entrance is through the other large “exit” tunnel, then why can’t I reach my Dungeon Monsters or the others with them?

“Well, the reason being inside the dungeon diminishes your connection with them already is because of the Core itself; in this instance, it’s acting as a sort of stopper that you can’t get past right now.” Winxa started to demonstrate an example using her hands, forming what looked like a bowl or something similar.  “Think of it like a bucket of thick jelly with a plug at the bottom; you drop your Monsters inside the jelly and your connection to them is a little muted and diminished, but you can still reach them – like what you’ve already experienced.”

The Fairy then used one of her hands to poke the side of the “bucket.”  “You can’t go in from the sides to touch your Monsters because the bucket is in the way, obviously; now, if you were to put a lid on the bucket—” she continued, placing her hand on top of the invisible prop— “then the only way to get to them would be from the only other option – the stopper.  So, unless you can dig all of that up within the next few hours, the only way you’ll be able contact them again is if the ‘stopper’, or Core, is removed.”

Great, just great.  Sandra looked at the collapsed entrance again, trying to calculate if she could create and send a large group of her new Automated Sharp-bladed Diggers there to start excavating the area fast enough to make a difference.  After a couple of seconds of also peering at it from underneath via her Area of Influence, she determined that it was possible – though it could take 5 hours or more.  For one, her Diggers didn’t move very fast, so half that time would probably be spent traveling there; for the other, there was only so quickly they could dig without getting into each other’s way, so it would end up taking a bit of time to complete.

She went ahead and started to create them despite not knowing if everyone was still alive inside. While 15 of them were being created through the use of some of her treasury resources, she sent her remaining Shears and Rolling Forces over to the other entrance to see if there were any way through there.

Undead were streaming out in waves and spreading out to apparently cover as much area as possible – but they were also quite aware of where her constructs were and the direction they were coming from.  A swarm of Specters enveloped her 700 Shears and basically ate them up, though there were quite a few casualties on their part;