The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

more nervous she became.  Sandra couldn’t blame her too much, because just riding on the back of the Roc and actually lifting up and flying through the air were two different things.  Finally, when everything was loaded, the Dungeon Core brought out something entirely different.

* And this, my friends, is a brand-new enchantment that will help with your flying. *

Chapter 8

Violet was barely containing the scream that threatened to erupt out of her throat at the thought of flying through the air on the back of a giant monster.  It hadn’t been so bad riding on the back of the beautiful brown bird through the tunnel below; in fact, other than the initial surprise of the Roc sliding down a sloped section of the enormous passageway, it wasn’t that bad.  When they had emerged into the sunlight after a few minutes, the gently rocking movement of the avian was nearly pleasant and soothing.  But now, when they seemed to be even closer to flying in the air hundreds or thousands of feet above the surface, she was starting to lose any sense of composure that she previously had.

The mention of a new enchantment was just distracting enough that it took her mind off her thoughts of impending doom.  At least, for a little bit.

* I applied the Fire-based enchantment sequence that Felbar used to heat up the surrounding air around him to this small plaque, using the Ambient Warmth and Modulate rune chain.  Then, applying something I’ve seen Echo do to speed herself up, I added Cleave, Directional, and Expand runes to a separate section of the plaque, and then powered both enchantments using a set of Fire-Spirit and Air-Spirit Limiter and Activate/Deactivate sequences with the accompanying Small Energy Orbs.

 

*I’m having my Shapeshifters attach them to the space above your heads, which you should be able to reach in case you need to turn them off for some reason.  When you’re not flying, you can deactivate them so that you don’t use all of the energy in the Orbs, but even running at full power without being shut off, they should both last for a couple of weeks before the Orbs run dry. *

Violet watched as a naked Echo came up next to her and started to strap something to a spot just above her head, using the straps there to feed through some holes in what appeared to be some sort of metal disk.  The sight of an unclothed Elf didn’t bother her anymore, as she was used to Sandra using her Shapeshifters to enchant different things inside of the workshop.  What did bother her, however, was that she saw a naked double of herself attaching a similar-looking metal disk above Felbar’s head.  Fortunately, the grizzled Gnome was looking away while that was happening, because otherwise Violet would’ve been extremely mortified.

I thought I told Sandra I didn’t want a naked me running around here.

It didn’t take long for the metal disks to be tied to the harness, and the naked Shapeshifted figures left, giving Violet a chance to really look at what was just installed.  While she couldn’t see many of the actual runes inscribed on the thin silvery metal plaque because most were Fire and Air as opposed to the Natural and Spirit elements she could see and wield, she saw the Spirit connection of the two sets of Energy Orbs embedded along the rim of the plaque and covered almost completely with a thin sheet of metal keeping them in place.  There were also two plain and obvious engravings on the metal disk, one a big O and the other a big X.

“I’m assuming that if I press on the O it will activate the enchantment and the X will shut it off?” she asked, losing some of her fear at the upcoming flight at the introduction of something new for her to learn about.

* Precisely.  Before you go, I want you both to practice controlling your transportation so that it won’t be a shock when you need to take over outside of my Area of Influence.  Felbar already has a little experience from directing some of my constructs inside of the Undead dungeon, or so I hear, so why don’t you start first, Violet.  All you need to do is focus on the Aerie Roc and mentally tell it where to go; from what Felbar and Echo told me, they needed to use some sort of verbal cue to help them with the control, but it shouldn’t actually be necessary. *

“Wait…me?  You want me to control this…thing?”  Violet had been originally letting Felbar direct the massive bird, because he seemed a bit more comfortable with the whole riding-on-the-back-of-an-enormous-monster-thing.  However, a brief thought of actually doing it herself brought with it a sudden thrill of excitement.  Maybe it won’t be as scary if I’m controlling it myself. 

Doing what Sandra suggested, Violet focused on the behemoth beneath her and tried to give it a command to walk forward.  Nothing happened.  She tried saying “forward” while focusing on it.  Still nothing happened.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this?  The young Journeyman Enchanter started to get frustrated and practically shouted in her mind towards the Roc, when she felt a tenuous shift of something in her mind.  She wasn’t sure what it was at first, until she thought about the bird running forward – and it shot off going from a standstill to running full speed in less than 2 seconds.

I did it!

She could feel the subtle connection she now had with the Roc in her head; it wasn’t invasive or annoying, at least, but it was also plainly there.  As she thought about what she wanted the bird to do, making it stop, turn around, and then run back to Sandra’s dungeon entrance, Violet felt a lot of the fear she had been experiencing riding on the Roc’s