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The Crafter's Defense -- Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2019-08-16 21:15:40 +0000 UTC
Chapter 1
Saving the world not only takes work, but it’s rather boring, too, Sandra thought.
It had only been a couple of hours since Kelerim had left, and the loneliness brought on by his absence was in no way filled by Winxa, her Dungeon Fairy. It was nothing against her frequently absent friend who was forbidden to give her advice for some reason by The Creator; on the contrary, Winxa was a vital reason Sandra hadn’t gone crazy from her new existence as a Dungeon Core over the last few months. In fact, she didn’t know what would’ve happened if the diminutive fairy hadn’t been there; she thought it likely that she’d be as crazy and murderous the other dungeon cores in the world without her help to keep her sane.
Crushing loneliness was nothing new to her, however. Growing up constantly on the move and possessing her crippled, disfigured hands hadn’t lent to having many friends (none, really) – so she should have been used to it by then. Of course, it was the fact that she had a real-life person as a friend and then lost him that hurt the most; she almost regretted letting him walk away, but she realized that if she forced him to stay against his wishes, she would be just as bad – or worse – than the other Dungeon Cores in the world. They only wanted to kill people; if she gave into her selfishness and kept him there, it would’ve been akin to slavery – which was somehow a whole lot worse in her opinion.
Therefore, she loaded him up with some of the things that he might need on his journey and let him go. It was necessary, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wish it were otherwise.
Shortly after the fight through her dungeon and the consequential deaths of the Orcs – including Razochek, Kelerim’s theretofore unknown half-brother – Sandra let the Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf figure himself out while she did what she could to return her dungeon to the way it was before the attack against her Dungeon Monsters. Massacre would probably be more accurate, as most of her defending Monsters had been utterly destroyed. In fact, the only ones left in her dungeon at all were most of the smaller ones she had roaming through her workrooms absorbing ambient energy. She still had her Mechanical Wolf and Jaguar outside roaming around, of course, but she didn’t really count those – especially when she was considering her defense.
Sandra had cancelled her flame wall trap in her Home room where her Core was located and sent as many of her constructs as she could spare to gather up all of the left-behind Monster Seeds dropped by her slain defenders. When they were brought back to her Core, she had absorbed the corpses of the Orcs for Raw Materials and used the massive amounts of Mana they dropped upon their deaths to rebuild her small army of Dungeon Monsters. There was so much Mana, though, that she ended up adding in four extra Ironclad Apes and Steel Pythons to her defense in the first few rooms; it was a bit of a stopgap measure until she figured something else out, of course – because it was obvious that her current setup wasn’t quite prepared to withstand an assault by a determined group of Heroes. Or an Orcish Warband for that matter.
In the end, all of that Mana had been enough to complete everything she needed to replenish her Monster room defenders, as well as providing six more Mechanical Wolves and 6 additional Jaguars that could roam around aboveground, collecting ambient Mana. She had found that those two constructs were the most agile and fastest over rough terrain, which the wasteland that made up that portion of her world seemed to be. That wasn’t the only benefit, however; they were her eyes and ears in that dry, blasted land – which was desperately needed so that there weren’t any more surprises.
They were, in fact, what had let her know far in advance that the warband came back after Razochek and the others disappeared – but they had fortunately not seen the faint tracks leading to her dungeon entrance. Sandra kept them roaming around as they wished, only stressing upon them the importance that they stay as hidden as possible if they sensed a living being nearby – be it an Orc or otherwise. And, if they were spotted, they were to run in the complete opposite direction of her dungeon entrance; she would gladly take their loss if they were caught or left her Area of Influence altogether, rather than lead whatever it was to her dungeon again. Being invaded by something else right then was the last thing she needed.
Sandra had managed to use all but the tiniest amount of Mana that was provided from the deaths of the Orcs inside her dungeon before it faded away, which she still felt somewhat bad about. Although she had been justified in defending herself, she wished that Kelerim had been successful in convincing them to leave without more bloodshed; barring that, she had hoped that – after a few of them had died – they would’ve left and never come back. It was only with a heavy reluctance that she acknowledged that the best outcome (in her own case) had actually occurred; if they had left, they might’ve come back with even more Warriors – which may have spelled her doom.
She had held off on upgrading her Core Size until Kelerim left, because he had been acting very strange – which she later found was because he wanted to leave. Only a few hours after he had left, however, she used her full Mana to finish off the last of her stages to become Core Size 17. The same reduced awareness affected her like it did with every upgrade, but fortunately Winxa was there to help keep her company – like usual. The Dungeon Fairy offered tentative suggestions on how to improve her traps – cautious all the while because she didn’t want to end up being punished by The Creator for “giving advice” – and also evaluated how well her Dungeon Monsters worked against the Orcs.
It was enlightening, to say the least, because it just emphasized the point that her dungeon had been barely adequate in her defense. As much as Sandra didn’t like killing living beings, she now knew that it was inevitable if someone or something decided they wanted to destroy her Core. She resolved to greatly improve her defenses; to do that, though, she was going to need a lot more Mana.
Winxa— Sandra thought towards the Dungeon Fairy, as soon as her Core Size upgrade was complete— what’s the best way to increase my Mana flow? She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but she wanted to see if there were any other options.
Winxa jumped in surprise as that was the first thing Sandra said for almost a day and a half. “Are you talking about the fastest way, or just the most efficient way?” the Dungeon Fairy asked with a little wariness in her voice.
Uh…the most efficient way. I can guess that the fastest way is what I’ve just experienced, but I would like to avoid that if possible.
The diminutive Fairy breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the Creator; I was worried that a taste of the Mana you can get from killing sentients had turned you into the same bloodthirsty murderers that the other Cores always seem to be,” she said as she smiled. “To answer your question, though, the most efficient – but more time-consuming – method of increasing the amount of Mana you’re acquiring is to do the same thing outside that you’re doing inside. What that essentially means is to blanket everything aboveground with Dungeon Monsters, which will absorb and funnel the ambient Mana to you. It will take a hefty initial investment, but it will pay off in the long run.
“If you’re efficient enough, and avoid detection for a long period of time, your Monsters can eventually absorb every available drop of Mana out there. This rarely happens with other dungeons, however, because all they are concerned about is expanding as quickly as they can so that they can reach their victims. Which, to be fair, is essentially what The Creator had envisioned for them, but their crazed single-mindedness doesn’t often lend itself to strategic planning.”
I can only imagine. So, does the ambient Mana extend…upwards?
Winxa looked confused for a moment, before comprehension dawned on her. “Yes, your Area of Influence extends as far up above the ground as it does belowground, though the concentration of ambient Mana tends to reduce dramatically the farther up you go. Up to approximately 200 feet above the surface, the intake of ambient Mana is essentially the same as ground level, which gives any Cores that have flying Dungeon Monsters a bit of an advantage – because there is a whole lot more that they can absorb—” the Dungeon Fairy said, before muttering under her breath— “though it’s not like they take advantage of it.”
That was exactly what Sandra was hoping for. She was reluctant to “blanket” the wasteland with Dungeon Monsters, especially since it would cause way too much attention. Other dungeons didn’t care about being seen, as they wanted people to come attack them – so that they could acquire the Mana from the sentients’ deaths. Sandra, on the other hand, wanted to stay as hidden as possible – at least for the time being. The less people who knew about her presence and location, the better.
With a potential solution to her ambient Mana acquisition problem rolling around in her mind, Sandra finally concentrated on the screens that had popped up in her vision.
Core Size Upgrade Stage complete!
9/9 Completed
Your Core has grown!
Current Size: 17
Mana Capacity increased!
Ambient Mana Absorption increased!
Raw Material Capacity increased!
New Constructs option!
Core Selection Menu
Dungeon Classification:
Constructs
Core Size:
17
Available Mana:
32/10014
Ambient Mana Absorption:
10/hour
Available Raw Material (RM):
16500/28895
Convert Raw Material to Mana?
24000 RM -- > 660 Mana
Current Dungeon Monsters:
684
Constructs Creation Options:
16
Monster Seed Schematics:
65 (3)
Current Traps:
27
Trap Construction Options:
All
Core-specific Skills:
4
Current Visitors:
1
All in all, Sandra had ended up using 72,000 Mana in order to upgrade her Core Size. It didn’t seem like that much, though, because more than half of it had been supplied to her within a couple of minutes from the deaths of the Orcs fighting the Bearlings almost a week before. In order for her to continue to grow, however, she was going to have to concentrate on the other methods at her disposal.
She was currently up to 684 Dungeon Monsters, although 60% of them were the smaller constructs that roamed through the lower rooms absorbing the ambient Mana inside her dungeon. The rest were comprised of the hundreds filling up her uppermost rooms, defending her entrance from any invaders that might come along. To add to that number, however, she had acquired a brand-new Construct with her Core Size upgrade – but it was going to be extremely expensive to produce.
Constructs Creation Options
Name:
Mana Cost:
Clockwork Spider
5
Small Animated Shears
10
Tiny Automaton
20
Rolling Force
25
Segmented Centipede
100
Articulated Clockwork Golem
150
Singing Blademaster
300
Small Armored Sentinel
400
Mechanical Jaguar
800
Mechanical Wolf
1000
Basher Totem
2000
Automated Digger
2500
Repair Drone
4000
Ironclad Ape
6000
Steel Python
8000
Iron-plated Behemoth
10000
Not only did the Iron-plated Behemoth cost 10,000 Mana – which was almost the maximum she could hold in the first place – but the only Monster Seed she could produce and use to create it was the Tiny Dragon Glass Flake.
Monster Seed Origination
Name:
Raw Material Cost:
Mana Cost:
Min. Mana:
Max. Mana:
Tiny Dragon Glass Flake
20000
7000
5000
10000
Large Steel Orb
32000
3200
5000
16000
In all, she would have to provide 20,000 Raw Materials and 17,000 Mana to produce the construct; to top it off, with the Behemoth name, she was a little worried that it wouldn’t even fit in her Home room. At Core Size 18, she predicted that she would have a large enough Raw Material maximum to produce a Large Steel Orb – which would cost half as much Mana; she technically still had one of the Large Steel Orbs from unlocking the use of it in the first place, but she decided against producing her newest construct until she had both made room for it and used her slowly accumulating Mana on something more productive.
There is just so much I want to do, and never enough Mana to do it.
With that thought, she mentally sighed and got to work.
