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

Energy Orbs back to her village.  The Dungeon Core only had the opportunity and Mana to create a few over the last day, so they had to take some from the Gnomes’ shipment; she figured that they wouldn’t be leaving until the Undead dungeon situation was taken care of anyway, and by that time they’d likely be able to make many more to replace what was “borrowed”.  Plus, she was hoping to add some Cubes to the shipment, which she hadn’t had a chance to do yet since most of her Mana had been used for more important matters.

* There are a few things that I want to work on as far as enchantments are concerned.  First, I need the warhammers that my Steelclad Ape Warriors will be wielding enchanted so that they provide a little extra “oomph”.  Second, I’ll be working with Echo when she gets back to make a new bow for her, and I’d like both that and some arrows enchanted.  Lastly – and I think Felbar will like this – I want to place some more enchantments on the War Machine. *

The Gnome was nodding along with Sandra’s words, but her face became confused at the mention of the War Machine.  “What are you talking about?  We already enchanted that and from what Felbar said it’s working perfectly.”

* We can talk about that when he gets back with Gerold; right now, I want to look at how we can utilize Energy Orbs for other weapon enchantments. *

Violet still seemed confused, but she was excited enough about doing some new enchantments that it didn’t seem to bother her.  “What did you have in mind?”

* Well, first I want to forge all-new Titanium warhammers for my Apes, but I want to add two different enchantments to them; one will be Fire-based and the other Holy-based, so I’m going to need to work with you through my Shapeshifters to complete them.  Especially as I want to incorporate those Orbs to make them stronger and last longer. *

Again, she seemed skeptical, but the Journeyman Enchanter was up for the challenge.

Most normal weapon enchantments that Sandra knew of – that weren’t the temporary ones that she knew the Gnomes favored in battle – could be quite useful but had some limitations.  Most of those limitations came in the form of energy usage; for instance, it could be a powerful enchantment – like one that would cause lightning to erupt from the end of a sword when it came into contact with an enemy – that could be used maybe a score of times before the energy ran out.  Or, on the other end of the spectrum, a simple enchantment that strengthened the metal so that it was less susceptible to breaking or kept the blade as sharp as a newly crafted weapon could last for years depending upon use.

Of course, there were hundreds of enchantments that were in between those two extremes, but the limiting factor was the same: elemental energy.  With the new Energy Orbs, however, that would all change; by incorporating them into the enchantment with the Limiter rune, she was hoping to make powerful enchantments last a whole lot longer.

Sandra started with the crafting of the Titanium warhammer, but she made some alterations to the end of the haft; normally there was a small round pommel on the end that helped to prevent the hammer from completely slipping out of the wielder’s grasp, but the Dungeon Core changed that up a little.  Instead of what was essentially just a nub, she expanded it until it could contain two Average Energy Orbs; it made the pommel a bit oversized, but the weight wouldn’t change too much – because they were going to be hollow.

Before the Orbs were inserted, Sandra used her Shapeshifter in Felbar’s form to enchant the Average Fire Energy Orb with the Limiter rune and then placed it as well as a Spirit Orb inside the hollow pommel.  When that was done, she used her Steelclad Ape – that was doing all of the metal-crafting – to seal it up, containing the Orbs inside the warhammer.  From there, things got a little…difficult.

The Activate rune sequence – when incorporated into an enchantment – worked the most reliably when made from Spirit elemental energy, which was why most of the best Enchanters Sandra knew of that made weapon enchantments had access to that particular element; it wasn’t as though it couldn’t be made from other elements, but they usually consumed more energy than a Spirit-made one for some reason.  Sandra thought it had to do with the particular aspect of the element that worked best with “command”-driven runes, but she had never really gone that deep into enchantment theory to know if that was the real reason.

Regardless, Sandra wanted the weapon enchantment to be as efficient as possible, so a Spirit-based Activate rune sequence was the way to go.  The problem with that was that Sandra had yet to master the precise way to create the Spirit-based activation sequence, despite weaving the relatively simple Fire-focused one – so she needed Violet’s help to attach them together.  The obvious difficulty with that, of course, was that Violet couldn’t actually see the Fire-based enchantment Sandra was planning on adding to attach it properly.  After some experimentation that left them both frustrated as Sandra tried to create a simple Minor Heating Fire enchantment on a piece of stone and Violet tried to attach an Activate rune to it, they almost gave up when they never seemed to line up and attach.  However, the Gnome had an idea that seemed obvious at the time but took the frustration they were feeling to figure it out.

Since Sandra could see the Fire enchantment she was creating and also had access to the Spirit element in Felbar’s body, all Sandra had to do was place some un-powered Spirit-based enchantment indicators where the sequence