The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (top 10 novels txt) 📗

Without wasting any time, her Golems delicately took the Oak tree branch from her Shears and she sent it back out of the dungeon to join into the AMANS again.  Planting it deep into the spot she had them clear earlier, they arranged the dirt around it to keep it upright and stepped back.  A quick activation of the two rooms’ traps and the placement of her Singing Blademasters started the growing process; almost instantly, she could see the tree jiggle a little as it settled more firmly into the ground and the Natural-element trap forced roots to grow out from below the cut portion of the branch.

From there, it grew much slower than the Flax plants from before (which grew to maturity within a matter of minutes), but it was barely a fraction of the time it would normally need to grow in the wild.  Sandra wasn’t exactly sure how large it needed to grow to in order to have enough viable wood to become something she could use as a material – or provide the acorn seeds for that matter; regardless, by the speed of which it was growing, she estimated that it was going to take three or four hours for it to become large enough to fill the space in her room up to the ceiling.  If it needed to be larger, she’d probably have to expand the room again – but this time down.

The roots of her Oak tree were getting quite large as well, but as soon they reached the stone walls separating the plots they immediately expanded where they could – down the dirt plots instead of out.  Sandra never realized the sheer quantity of the roots system underneath a tree before; while she knew they were extensive she didn’t realize that it was as large or even larger than the tree aboveground.

After about 10 minutes, Sandra decided to remove portions of the walkway to let some of the roots expand into another plot, just to see if having a little more room would allow it to grow a little faster; although she didn’t mind waiting, if she was growing other trees in the future she wanted to do it as efficiently as possible.  However, when she went to remove some of the stone, she got an unexpected warning.

Warning!

While dungeon monsters can still be created from monster seeds, any physical changes to your dungeon while there are invaders inside is prohibited.  Please wait until all invaders have been eliminated either through death or voluntary removal.

Uh…what?  Winxa, what’s wrong?  Why is it saying there is an invader in my dungeon?  The Mechanical Wolves and Jaguars – not to mention her extensive AMANS net above the ground – hadn’t seen anything, otherwise they would’ve alerted her.  At least she hoped they would; it hadn’t really been tested with something small trying to get into her dungeon’s entrance.  The only time it had really worked was when the Orcs were seen following her Ironclad Apes’ tracks, but they were loud, obvious, and not trying to hide their presence.

“I’m not sure – it shouldn’t say that unless there is an actual invader inside.  I’ve never heard of it being wrong before – but there’s always a first time, I guess,” the Dungeon Fairy replied with equal confusion.  “Maybe there are more Territory Ants that you hadn’t seen before now; I’d check around every part of your dungeon just in case.”

Sandra was pretty sure she would’ve seen something get close to her dungeon underground, but she made sure to check anyways.  It didn’t take long for her to find nothing in all of her rooms, nor were any of her constructs attacking anything.  She expanded her search farther out to see if there was anything threatening nearby underground; she hadn’t been paying attention to it before, since it was relatively far away, but she did end up finding a dozen other Territory Ant nests scattered across the wasteland.  Fortunately, none of them were closer than 1,200 feet away from her nearest room, so they weren’t alerted to her presence in the slightest and didn’t even seem to know she was there.

She also found two other lairs of Bearlings to the northeast and farther east, but there were only about a half-dozen in each one and they also didn’t seem to be aware of her presence.  Well, that wasn’t precisely true; when her vision traveled over them, they seemed to tense up momentarily, but other than that they ignored her Area of Influence completely.  If there were any other insects, beasts, or other creatures in the wasteland, they weren’t part of the underground system, so she couldn’t see them.

Suddenly, Sandra’s attention was pulled back to the first room near the entrance when her Nether trap was triggered unexpectedly.  Even in the darkness brought on by the trap she could see inside the room perfectly and saw…nothing.  And neither did her Basher Totems and two Ironclad Apes she had stationed in there, as they were completely frozen, waiting for an enemy to attack.

It was only when she took control of one of the Apes and had it walk towards the tunnel entrance when she finally saw the barest hint of something.  It was like a flicker of a shadow in the darkness – almost imperceptible – and she only saw it because she was looking for any evidence of why the trap had triggered.  She moved her construct quickly toward where she saw the flicker – which was when Sandra heard a *thwack* and an arrow shot out of seemingly nowhere to impact her Ape’s head with a bright flash of light, though the wooden projectile shattered as a result and left a large dent and scratch on her construct’s face.

Of course, that didn’t stop her construct in the least, as it moved toward where