The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) Read online

  The Crafter’s Darkness

  A Dungeon Core Novel

  Dungeon Crafting – Book 4

  Jonathan Brooks

  Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Edited by: Celestian Rince

  Copyright ©2020 Jonathan Brooks

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, corporations, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design Copyright ©2020 Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank all my friends and family who have supported me on my writer’s journey, as well as providing much-needed encouragement. You’re the best!

  Again, I want to thank the awesome beta-readers who helped to make this book as great as it is!

  Aaron Wiley

  Adam Jenkins

  Alex Canavan

  Brian O’Neil

  Briar Stone

  Christopher Burr

  Emma Baker

  Grant Harrell

  Jason Ferry

  Katy Applegarth

  Nate Martin

  Neil Stalker

  Rei S

  Rickie Brown

  Sean Hall

  Steven Gene Mills

  Theron Schamle

  Zack Devney

  Zackary Stading

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Recap

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Author’s Note

  Books by Jonathan Brooks

  Recap

  Sandra was born a merchant and died a merchant – but that wasn’t the end of her existence. She was born with crippled hands that prevented her from crafting all but the most basic materials; because of this – and the ability to see but not manipulate all of the elements – she spent most of her life learning as much as she could about anything associated with crafting. After indulging in her hobby a little too much, she over-reached and ended up being sacrificed to fuel an enchantment from the very person she was hoping to learn it from.

  Reborn as a Dungeon Core – centuries in the future – in a place uninhabited by Humans, Sandra was thrust into a small, hollowed-out underground space without a clue of what she was and why she was there. With the help of a Dungeon Fairy named Winxa, however, she was able to learn how to create Monster Seeds, Dungeon Monsters, rooms, tunnels, and even traps.

  After building her dungeon and practicing as much crafting as she could manage, a Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf appeared at her entrance chased by huge Bearlings. Sandra managed to save Kelerim with her dungeon, and through a unique application of her Core abilities she was able to designate Kelerim as a “Visitor”. Over time, she taught him the correct way to blacksmith, fixing and improving his meager skills so that he could go back and help the land of Orcrim against the pervasive attacks of the nearby “normal” dungeons.

  Fate had other plans as Kelerim’s previously unknown half-brother Razochek Bloodskull – an Orcish Warband Leader – stumbled upon Sandra’s dungeon while hunting Bearlings near the Orc village of Grongbak. Sandra – with Kelerim’s help – fought against Razochek, and the Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf killed him with some help from her unusual Dungeon Monster constructs.

  Affected by the slaying of his own flesh and blood, Kelerim set off to find his father and to start his own smithy, bringing much-needed quality to the progressively poor work done by the existing Orcish blacksmiths. As soon as he left, Sandra was able to finally concentrate on crafting – or so she thought.

  While she was searching for additional crafting materials – wood, specifically – her dungeon was inadvertently discovered by the nearby Elven village. When Echo – a relatively young Elf Ranger in Elven society – discovered that Sandra likely had multiple elements at her disposal, the Elven village of Avensglen called in an Elite dungeon-destroying team from the Elven capital. With limited time until they arrived, Sandra used her resources to upgrade her Core Size, opening up additional avenues of defense – and accidentally causing problems at the same time elsewhere.

  Because of her expanded Area of Influence, one of the local Dungeon Cores was able to exploit a loophole; by possessing an identical element and having a smaller Core Size, the reptile-based Core was able to use Sandra’s Area of Influence as if it were its own. As a result, an army of reptiles assaulted the nearby Gnome village of Glimmerton, killing most of its residents in the process. Sandra sent her constructs to save the Gnomes and destroy the reptiles, but unfortunately only managed to save a handful of them.

  In order to heal one of the wounded Gnomes, Felbar Warmaster, Sandra needed to bond with him – which placed him in a temporary coma. In the meantime, she also bonded with the others, before sending most of them back to Gnomeria – the land of the Gnomes – with a wagon full of raw materials; Violet – an Apprentice Enchanter – helped to enchant a Hauler with her specialized knowledge, as well as helping Sandra set up a Repository that helped preserve how enchantments were created.

  Meanwhile, Echo – the Elf who first found Sandra’s dungeon and who was tasked to watch her – nearly died because of a snakebite and was only saved by a last-minute bond with Sandra and her Repair Drones. While Echo recovered in a bond-induced coma, Sandra upgraded her Core Size to 20, unlocking the Advancement System; using the Advancement Points she had accumulated, the crafty Dungeon Core upgraded her Classification and acquired an Unstable Shapeshifter in an attempt to find something that could craft better than her Constructs – as well as being able to communicate with the Elves. While the Shapeshifter could finally manipulate elemental energy for use in enchantments, she still wasn’t able to verbally communicate.

  Unfortunately, the Reptile-based Dungeon Core that had destroyed Glimmerton had its sights set on the Elven village Avensglen. With no way to communicate with the elves, she couldn’t warn them of the approaching Reptile army, so Sandra decided to destroy the attacking Core herself. She ended up sending just under half of her Constructs to assault the foreign dungeon and managed to keep enough of them alive to make it all the way through it, destroying the Core in charge – but that didn’t end the threa
t. The reptile army was following its last directive, which was to kill everyone in the Elven village; there might’ve been a group strong enough to repel them, but the Elite Elves had arrived and were in the process of assaulting Sandra’s dungeon.

  Using a special technique to negate the traps inside her defensive dungeon rooms, making them practically useless, the Elite Elves tore through her Constructs with ease. It was only towards the last of her rooms that they started to run out of elemental energy; before they could be killed by one of Sandra’s Iron-plated Behemoths in the last room, Violet stopped them. Offering them a compromise, as well as a newly crafted Energy Orb that gradually restored their elemental energy, the Elite Elves had their lives spared and were sent away to defend the village – on the condition that they would help in a future endeavor regarding cooperation with the other races.

  Felbar and Echo finally woke up from their forced comas from the Visitor’s Bonding with Sandra, only to find that their world had changed from what they remembered. Not only were they inside of a dungeon, but they had the voice of that dungeon inside of their heads; luckily, Felbar had Violet to help with the adjustment, while the young Elf only had Sandra’s assurances that she wasn’t a prisoner and that she was safe.

  Unlike the two Gnomes – whose village was destroyed – Echo was able to go back to her own people, bringing Energy Orbs with her to be distributed to those amongst her people who needed it. Unfortunately, she was now treated as a bit of an outsider to some or as a way to increase their own power through Echo’s association with the powerful dungeon. Not only that, but one Elf Ranger in particular, Wyrlin, was so incensed at her “slavery” to the dungeon, that he left the village altogether; it was later rumored that he was gathering like-minded individuals to his cause of seeing to an end of Sandra’s corruptive influence.

  In order to get Felbar and Violet back to their own lands, the Dungeon Core and the two Gnomes worked together to create a massive War Machine, an enchanted Gnome construct made from wood and metal. In order to do that, however, Sandra had to make use of a special enchantment rune called a Limiter, which helped to regulate energy flow. Discovery of how to use it effectively with Energy Orbs – and later, Energy Cubes (a larger variety) – was difficult, but not impossible, and it was quickly used to ensure years of power to the Rune Repository Pillars in her Enchantment Repository, as well as a power source for the large Gnomish construct. The Limiter rune was also able to be used to create enchantments that could be used on weaponry, enhancing the power and force behind them, making them especially deadly.

  All of those improvements were necessary – because the world didn’t stop while Sandra was having fun crafting. Without the Gnome village working to cull the Undead-based dungeon nearby, the Nether Core quickly expanded without opposition. By the time Sandra discovered its expansion, it was too late to contain it; her first serious battle against the Undead ended in failure, and any hope that she could pick up the duties of culling them like the Gnomes had been doing was dashed.

  Especially as the Nether Core expanded enough to attack Sandra’s dungeon.

  The resulting assault by a horde of Undead wasn’t so much of an attack as an attempt to keep Sandra’s own Dungeon Monsters bottled up in her dungeon so they couldn’t interfere with the Nether Core’s plans. To counter this, Sandra utilized her Gravitational Devastation Sphere, which caused an incredible amount of damage and completely destroyed every undead sent against her. It was uncontrollable and highly dangerous, however, which was proven when a curious Dwarf Shieldman from the local Dwarven village of Nurboldar came to investigate at the wrong time – and almost got sucked up into the Sphere’s gravitational pull.

  After healing him, Gerold became the latest Visitor to Sandra’s dungeon, but the Bond he obtained was a little different; by using Energy Orbs instead of just Elemental Orbs for the Bond, the Energy Orbs were absorbed into the Dwarf’s palms, where they would continuously regenerate his Water and Nether energy – for as long as he was inside of Sandra’s Area of Influence.

  The Undead weren’t done there, as they soon expanded enough to attack the Dwarven village in the middle of the night. Through the timely intervention of Felbar in his larger War Machine and Gerold in a smaller, Deep Diver construct, they were able to save all of the villagers – though all but 10 of the Shieldmen were killed, including their powerful leader, Bregan. With their homes no longer safe, they retreated towards Sandra’s dungeon, only finding out after they arrived and acquired a Visitor’s Bond that they were actually inside a dungeon.

  Kelerim showed up shortly afterwards, fleeing for his life from an army of Orcs sent by his father. Sandra managed to bring him safely back to her dungeon, while preparing for the inevitable attack by the Orcish army…which never came. Instead, the Orcs went into the two nearest dungeons near Grongbak, destroying the Unicorn-based and Avian-based Cores, respectively.

  Unfortunately, such an act had unforeseen repercussions; at least, they were unforeseen to Sandra, though most of the others knew about them. It turned out that destroying too many Dungeon Cores in rapid succession would provide enhancements to the other nearby Cores, until such a time as the brand-new Cores replacing those destroyed could increase their Core Size to a certain threshold. Because Sandra had participated in the destruction of at least one of those Cores, however, she was not entitled to any of those benefits.

  Having no other choice but to destroy the Undead-based Dungeon Core, because it was already becoming a serious danger and had proven to possess a knowledge of tactics that far outstripped Sandra’s own, Echo, Felbar, and Gerold ventured towards the hostile dungeon with the intent of destroying the Core inside. Accompanied by Advancement-unlocked Radiant Pegasi and Celestial Authorities – a type of Angel – as well as a small army of Sandra’s previous constructs, things were looking well…until the entrance collapsed, cutting off her perceptions and control of anything inside the foreign dungeon. Luckily for those inside, Sandra was able to pass off control of her constructs and other Dungeon Monsters to Echo and the others before she lost contact.

  Through difficult traps, a maze of rooms, and increasingly powerful Undead, the Elf, Dwarf, and Gnome were able to make it to the very end of the dungeon, where they were faced with a near-impossible fight with gargantuan Undead Dungeon Monsters that appeared ready to stomp them flat. When another horde of smaller Undead flowed in from outside of the dungeon through a separate entrance, failure was only minutes away. It was only through strategic use of their resources and sheer blind luck that Echo was able to make it to the Core Room, where – with a little help from Sandra, who was fighting her own way to get her constructs into the Core Room from another direction – she was able to destroy the Nether Core.

  Felbar and Gerold were barely able to escape with their lives, picking up Echo on the way out as the dungeon itself collapsed, unlike the other Shieldmen that had come with them into the dungeon. They were successful in destroying the Undead-based Nether Core, at least, even with the expensive cost in terms of lives lost.

  With all of the Dungeon Core destruction happening so close together, though, a new danger awaited Sandra and those she had taken into her care. The repercussions of her actions had yet to be seen, though it would only be a matter of time as the enhancements for the other nearby Cores went into effect. A time of potential darkness was fast descending upon the world around her wasteland, and Sandra had to find a way to stop it….

  Chapter 1

  Wyrlin stomped through the makeshift camp in the northern forest, narrowly avoiding braining himself on a low-hanging tree branch; the rage and frustration boiling up inside of his body was making him lose sight of the world around him. Such a thing wasn’t good for an Elven Ranger; less so for a Ranger on the run.

  Then again, he wasn’t alone in the camp; spread out in between the trees of this part of the forest largely unbothered by monsters were the temporary tents and lean-tos of those that had joined him on his crusade over the last fe
w weeks. His message of not cooperating with a dungeon was well-received in some circles, and other Rangers, hunters, and even two young Elites had trickled into where he originally made camp five days out from Avensglen. While it wasn’t anywhere close to the capital, he had already been informed that word of his “rebellion” had reached even there, which only served to increase their numbers.

  Not that he knew what exactly he was going to do with them once they reached a certain point. His initial thought – as he left the village where he had been using his Ranger skills to help cull the dungeon monsters in the forest there – was that he would gather up hundreds of volunteers and march to the dungeon that had taken his Echo away from him. Well, the beautiful Elf wasn’t his, necessarily, but he had gotten to know her long enough that he thought he had a rather good shot of making her his wife. True, it probably would’ve put her plans to become an Elite on hold, but what was a few dozen years to an Elf, anyway?

  But now she was tainted by the slave mark on her cheeks, and it was because of a dungeon, no less. If he were stronger, he would’ve insisted on going inside with the group of Elites that had come to destroy the dungeon weeks ago; he had been convinced at the time that they would fulfill their promise to destroy the dungeon heart there and find Echo for him. But now his weakness had resulted not only in his potential wife ending up in some sort of bondage to the dungeon, but the Elites wanted to actually work with the abomination, as well. All because they were offered a bribe of sorts in the form of regenerating elemental energy that was just as unnatural as the rest of the dungeon.

  Although, I have to admit that it would be nice to not have to sleep to replenish my energy every time I use it. Good riddance, though, because I don’t even want to touch anything that may have come from that dungeon, as it might be trying to influence me. He had been offered one by Echo herself shortly before he left and he had refused; a little part of him regretted not taking it, because it could certainly help him right now. However, anything that was associated with a dungeon was anathema to him, especially when he thought about how his parents had been killed when he was just a young boy – from a surprise invasion by dungeon monsters in their small village.