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

It was a shame that the ones that were destroyed had been carried off the field of battle afterwards by the reptile army; Sandra supposed that there might’ve been some reason the Dungeon Core had done that, though she thought it was because it wanted some of the material they possessed for use as a Monster Seed.  It would’ve made the process of constructing one much easier if they had been left alone, but she was making do quite well.

Most of the parts of the wooden-and-steel construct Sandra could make just by using some Raw Materials and Mana; other parts – just like portions of the Hauler and wagon she had made previously – she had to create using the forge inside the workshop.  Fortunately, Felbar knew about the physical construction of the War Machine like the back of his hand, even if he didn’t know about the enchantments that made it move.  The work progressed quickly as it was assembled by a large crew of Sentinels Sandra borrowed from one of her rooms, and by the end of eight hours it was basically complete…in all of its 12-foot-tall and 5-foot-wide glory.

It was a marvel of ingenuity and deadliness, a headless person-shaped construct that reminded Sandra a little of her Automatons; a sharp-spiked hammer on one arm was matched with a double-bladed axe on the other, making it capable of smashing or slicing a variety of different monsters.  Some of the details regarding the pilot seat was still needing to be done, but she had held off on it until she could figure out how to enchant the entire thing.

As Felbar and Violet headed off to bed after a full day of working on Enchanting – the Enchanter had made progress but was still stymied by a few things – and constructing a Gnome War Machine, Sandra took a break herself and looked over what else had been accomplished during the day. Seven of the rooms she had been excavating were already finished, and the last one would be finished in a few hours; her AMANS had increased by another 1,100 Shears, which brought her total up in the air above her dungeon to 6,715 – which was a noticeable improvement over what she had before.

She also checked on Echo to see how she was progressing in the slightly hostile Elven village, and nothing much had changed; apparently being “home” relaxed her tired body enough that she slept through the entire day and was likely to sleep through the night, so Sandra resolved to check up on her in the morning.

Another check through the wastelands and surrounding villages showed that nothing else was really going on, so Sandra spent time trying to figure out the enchantments for the War Machine.  After just over four hours of thinking it through, mentally trying out countless options based on her extensive knowledge of Enchanting, and even cautiously attempting a few things on a small 6-inch tall model she had made of the War Machine…she determined that it was currently impossible.

Based on what she remembered seeing on the Gnomish War Machines before they were destroyed during the battle with the Ancient Saurians, Sandra was fairly confident that she could copy most of the runes she remembered that dealt with movement and material pliability; she hadn’t seen any of the runes from inside the pilot’s chamber which allowed them to control everything from there, but even that she could imagine what it looked like and probably figure it out.  No, the real issue was that the original enchantment had to be done all at once with an extensive enchantment rune sequence that required precise skill, extreme care, and more elemental energy than both Gnomes and her two Shapeshifters could supply combined.

Actually working it out herself helped her understand exactly what the problem was that the Gnome homeland was facing; even if they could teach the exact way to create the enchantment, those who could learn how it was put together didn’t have the necessary elemental energy to actually do it.  Even the Master Enchanters needed to work together to supply that much energy, so unless they had dozens of Apprentice Enchanters collaborating on a single, complex rune sequence that would likely take years to learn how to create properly – which sounded like a disaster with that many trying to mesh it all together – then there was no way it was happening.  Sandra began to see why the Gnome leadership thought they were doomed.

Now, working on the smaller model she had created, Sandra thought that something quite a bit smaller than the War Machine might be plausible – like maybe something a little bigger than a Gnome; as it was, however, there was no chance of getting something like what she had built to work…at least, not yet.  In the future…perhaps…but right now?  No.

She knew that even if she managed to create something small enough, she still had to work with Violet to pull together all of the thoughts she had about getting the rune sequence to function properly; while she wasn’t going to try to duplicate what the Master Gnome Enchanters did, the same principle of enchanting the entire construct all at once still applied.  Once the enchantment was in place, only then could individual enchantment runes be replaced and repaired—

Wait…

That thought sent a jolt of inspiration through her mind, though it wasn’t fully formed quite yet.  She was beginning to see how it might be done, but it was going to take a bit of trial-and-error to see if it was more than just a feeble hope.  The reason – as far as she understood it – for the original sequence having to be done all at once was because everything had to be tied into the central enchantment; the purpose of