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

– and headed over to the Hauler.  “I know what I did wrong now, so there shouldn’t be any problems this time,” the Gnome said while climbing up on the back of the machine.  Sandra watched her immediately get to work re-creating the enchantment on the steering wheel before hopping down and working on the one for the gear below.

This time, the little lightning bolt rune she included in the sequence inside the concentric circles was both flipped upside-down and inverted, like it was a strange mirror image of the original.  Violet did all of the enchanting faster than she had the day before, with more confident movements and almost no hesitation; toward the end, the obvious strain of holding it all together was evident, but she finished the linking runes without issue and let the entire sequence complete.

Despite her confidence and lack of hesitation, she still stepped back a few paces – just in case, apparently.

There was no explosion, nor any indication that anything was wrong – but the previous enchantment hadn’t either until she tried it out.  Now the hesitation showed in Violet’s demeanor, as she looked up at the steering wheel and appeared to be psyching herself up to test it out.  Before she did, however, the seven other Gnomes arrived in happy spirits.

“Violet!  I see you finally decided to wake up,” Jortor commented good-naturedly when he saw her looking at the Hauler.  “How’s the enchanting going?”

Sandra hadn’t told any of the others what had happened; there really hadn’t been a point, honestly, and she also felt that it should be up to Violet if she wanted to share.

“It’s…going fine.  I made a bit of a mistake on my first try, but I think I did it right this time,” Violet responded with that same hesitation in her voice that she had shown just seconds earlier in her body language.  Before she could stop him, Lankas – who was reportedly going to be piloting the Hauler (at least initially) on their way back – jumped up and immediately started turning both of the steering wheels.  Nothing happened with the right one, of course, since it wasn’t enchanted yet, but the left one jerked once and then started to turn to the right smoothly after that.

Sandra and Violet held their breaths – Sandra only figuratively, of course – as they waited to see if it would explode…and nothing happened.  Violet had done it flawlessly this time.

“Only one of them is done?  Let’s get that other enchantment set up and then we can get out of here and back home,” Lankas said, jumping down to start looking at the wagons -- and what Sandra had done to finish them off.

“I need something to eat first, then I’ll be able to knock it out fairly quickly,” Violet told him, expressing that same confidence she had expressed earlier.  Sandra was happy the Gnome had jumped right back into the enchanting; the Dungeon Core wasn’t sure that she would’ve had the same drive and enthusiasm Violet displayed after being almost killed from the last one.

Jortor looked guilty as he handed over some cooked Bearling meat and orange slices to Violet – slightly less than what he had arrived with.  Violet took it and practically scarfed it down without protest, before getting back to work.  She completed the other enchantment even faster than the previous one, though she looked a bit drained afterwards; she didn’t appear to be as wiped out like when she had created the “Stasis Field” enchantments in Sandra’s Enchantment Repository, but fairly close, nonetheless.

As she sat down against the wall and finished eating a half an orange she had saved from earlier, Lankas and the others practiced controlling the Hauler around the Assembly and Storage room, which worked perfectly.  Sandra overheard them saying how smoothly it moved, and how durable-looking the tracks were compared to the other ones they had worked on in the past.  The Dungeon Core felt her own sense of pride in her crafting ability, even if she didn’t physically “create” them using the same skills a normal crafter would.  It still counted in her book.

It didn’t take long for them to be satisfied and ready to go. Sandra had earlier had her constructs in the growing room pick some of the newest fruit for them as a surprise farewell gift, wrapping it up in a burlap sack for them to transport the food.  She had also been cooking more Bearling meat for their journey since before they had gotten up, and then sliced it into very thin strips; utilizing her drying racks in her Leatherworking shop, she was able to remove much of the moisture in them, creating a kind of jerky suitable for travel.  After they were dried, she packed the strips in four thin stone boxes filled with crushed-up Salt cubes to help preserve them for longer. It was an easy solution that didn’t require Violet to create another Stasis Field enchantment on them, which she didn’t think the little Gnome had in her at the moment.

They might not last the entire journey, but Sandra was hoping that the combination of meat and the variety of fruit would at least get them most of the way there.  It was actually more than she thought they could eat, but she wasn’t sure how far the capital was away from the village they had been living in before it was destroyed.  If needed, Violet could always create a Stasis Field enchantment along the road to preserve things for longer.

“Are these apples?  And pears?  And…peaches?  Where did you get these?” Jortor asked incredulously when he opened the large sacks (well, large for Gnomes, at least) of fruit Sandra’s Apes were loading onto the Cotton-Cloth-covered wagon.

* Well, I don’t need to sleep, so I was quite busy while you were napping.  I unlocked the ability to grow these other fruits,