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

the secrets of all types of Enchanting that she wasn’t thinking about the fact that she had broken the law by trespassing where she shouldn’t have been.  When Sandra had been found only a short time after watching the woman perform a single enchantment, she had run before she was identified – and made her father leave the large town in the middle of the night.

The result was that she knew how the rune was created but had only the vaguest idea how it was changed to set the “limit” – and that was only from comparing the completed rune enchantments of the one she saw made and one she saw later on in her life.  How it was fine-tuned from there she had no idea, so it would likely take some experimentation.

Luckily for Sandra and Violet – her resident Apprentice Enchanter – the Limiter enchantment rune sequence was created from Spirit energy, so it would mesh well with what they were already working with.  Though, when she thought about it a little more, she realized that any of the elements would work for the utility-type enchantment, because it didn’t actually use elements itself – it only regulated whatever passed through it.  Having a similar element to the ones used for the enchantment cage around the Energy Orb would help to ensure proper connection of the rune sequence.  Once they figured it out with the Spirit element, then Sandra could apply it in different ways using her Unstable Shapeshifters.

“Figuring it out” would probably take a while, as such minute changes affecting energy transfer would be hard to measure immediately.

* I actually think that it can be done.  I know of an enchantment called a Limiter, but there’s an issue… *

Sandra went on to explain a little bit about how she knew of it – leaving out the part about her trespassing – and told them how it would take a bit more experimentation to fully understand how it worked.  Violet was actually enthusiastic, because she would be learning a new enchantment that could turn out to be extremely versatile; when she saw that Sandra had brought her Unstable Shapeshifter and had transformed into a Violet Copy in order to show her how the runes were made, she lost some of that enthusiasm.

“At least you have some semblance of clothes on, but do you seriously have to copy me every time?” she said, seeing herself walking through the entrance to the Enchantment Repository.  Felbar’s eyes opened wide as he looked between the two of them, and Sandra realized he hadn’t actually had a chance to see her Shifter in action quite yet.

* Sorry, I could switch to Felbar or one of the Elite Elves if you prefer, but I only brought these clothes down with my Shapeshifter. *

“No, that’s fine – the last thing we need is a naked Felbar or Elf running around down here,” Violet sighed dramatically, smiling at the other Gnome’s discomfort.  “Besides, you’ve done it enough that I’m starting to…not get used to it, but maybe ignore the fact that I’m staring at myself.  Go on, let’s get this over with.”

Sandra used the Shifter’s Spirit energy to create what she remembered of the two enchantments on the wooden Rune Repository Pillar, because the one she always remembered seeing was made on those wooden “Limiter Wands”; once it was on there, it stayed almost complete but not quite, due to the function of the Stasis Field around it.  It was a crude representation of what she remembered seeing – because Sandra wasn’t quite as adept at enchanting as she’d like – but she made sure to spend special attention on the very slight differences in them that she remembered.

The rune itself was a series of eight concentric circles that grew smaller as they all closed in on the same point; from there, eight wavy lines crisscrossed the circles in a strange pattern, leading from the center and out to the edge of the largest circle.  The slight difference that she had noted from her remembrances came from an alteration of one of the wavy lines, where there was an extra “hump” in the wave – and that was it.  Whether having an extra “hump” meant the enchantment would let more or less through, Sandra didn’t know, nor did she know the magnitude of that difference.

Violet, however, didn’t seem to care; cooped up in the dungeon for so long with not much to do made her look upon the slightly different enchantments as a challenge.  Which was fine with Sandra, because she wanted to steal Felbar away so she could get his input on how the War Machine she eventually wanted to make would look.

Therefore, she left the Apprentice Enchanter to work on experimenting with the new enchantment.  Her method of research was quite simple, actually, and would only be slightly dangerous; Violet created a tiny Preservation Barrier the size of her hand and used altered Energy Orbs to test the viability of the Limiter rune alterations she made – by bringing them into contact briefly herself.  To further increase the safety of the experiment, Sandra created multiple Tiny Spirit Elemental Orbs and had them sent to her; with less Mana inside the Energy Orb, there was less that could ultimately be used to overload the enchantment.

Once she’d gotten her started, Sandra checked in every once in a while with the Apprentice Enchanter, but she had most of her attention on Felbar.  After making his way up to the workshop again with the Unstable Shapeshifter (unshifted) in tow, the battle-hardened Gnome showed that he had a deft hand with a stick-shaped chunk of coal and a wooden board; within a few minutes, the basic shape of one of the War Machines Sandra had seen being used in Glimmerton was pictured, giving much more detail than she expected.  While she had her memories to go on of