The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) by Jonathan Brooks (e ink epub reader .txt) 📕

Chapter 14

As morning dawned, anticipation merged with nervousness, infusing everyone’s minds and bodies.  Violet wasn’t necessarily nervous, however, as she was too tired to really have any other emotion.  The last week and a half had been a whirlwind of activity, and the Journeyman Enchanter had been pulled in what felt like a hundred different directions.  She was used to being under pressure in Sandra’s dungeon, constantly creating enchantments in order to defend the dungeon or the people around the wasteland. But this was different.

For one, she barely used any of her elemental energy; not because she didn’t have any, but because she hadn’t really been enchanting.  Instead, she had been teaching one group after another, demonstrating what she had learned as a result of her time in the wastelands.

Secondly, what she was doing was benefitting her people directly.  As much as she enjoyed creating new enchantments and learning from Sandra, what she had been involved in hadn’t previously been of direct benefit to Gnomekind – but now it was.

Even under the threat of potential disaster, Violet’s people were eager to learn and apply new enchantments and Enchanting techniques.  It was as ingrained in them as body manipulation was to the Orcs, or spell-casting was to the Elves; teaching what she had learned wasn’t so much a chore as a learning experience for herself, as well.  Frequently, even as she taught something entirely new to a group, they would take it, turn it on its head, and figure out some new way to utilize it that she hadn’t even considered.  It wasn’t even the Journeyman Enchanters that thought of new concepts, but even Novice, everyday people that developed these ideas.

Violet stretched and yawned as she walked out to the assembly space that had been designated right outside the capital.  Felbar yawned next to her as he joined her in her march towards the command center.  “You look as tired as I feel,” she remarked with another yawn, noticing the bags under his eyes.  The grizzled Warmaster had joined Violet in showing off new ideas and techniques with demonstrations in his War Machine.  While he didn’t have the advanced technical knowhow of the Machine’s enchantments, he knew enough to be able to show them off and to explain how it all worked.  He watched over his precious War Machine like a mother hen with a chick, and he wouldn’t allow anyone near it without his express permission.  She didn’t blame him, of course, because if something happened to it, repairing it might be a bit difficult without Sandra’s help.

“Yeah, I could’ve done with some more sleep last night, but coordinating today’s assault lasted far into the early morning.”  As one of the senior members of the Gnomish Defense Force, Felbar and his fellow Warmasters had been planning the upcoming push in whatever free time he could find.  Apparently, his free time was now considered any time he would normally get some sleep.  Poor Felbar.

She patted him on the back, knowing exactly how he felt.  For some reason, Violet had been put in charge of assembling all of the new strike forces, and with that responsibility came 1 or 2 sleepless nights; the instances where she was able to take a short nap were few and far between, though she didn’t regret the lack – especially after she surveyed the assembled weapons of war she had a hand in creating.

After acquiring their cache of Energy Orbs from the back of the Aerie Roc that had brought Violet and Felbar to the capital, it was determined that their use should be split up between creating enchantments and being used in those enchantments.  Their elemental energy-regenerative properties were too much to pass up, and being able to create permanent enchantments without running out of energy in the middle of the process was advantageous.

She had needed to remind herself that her people had been creating enchantments for thousands of years without the advantage of Energy Orbs – and they were good at it.  The main limitation had always been how much energy a person could contribute towards an enchantment, and working with others to provide that energy was a difficult-to-learn skill; with access to more energy via the Orbs, even a Novice Enchanter could create powerful enchantments.  It wasn’t only knowledge that differentiated Novice, Journeyman, and Master Enchanters – it was how much elemental energy they could hold at one time.  As a result, sharing the bounty of Orbs had allowed even inexperienced Enchanters to create something that required more of an energy charge than they were able to before.

The results of this mass empowerment were seen as she passed by the different Weapons of War in the assembly area.  Groups of Gnomes were seen scrambling over mobile ranged contraptions made primarily of wood, enchanted with powerful Air and Natural-based enchantments.  The way Echo’s bows were made – with the ability to bend without breaking by a variable combination of Transform, Flex, Movement, and Conform runes – were applied on a much larger scale to a ballistae-type machine.  The long straight arms of the giant “crossbow” would flex due to an Activate rune and then snap back to their original position, providing a whole lot of power and force.

Then, from a Novice Enchanter’s innovation, a long wooden pole stuck out from the front of what those using the contraption called the Mass Accelerator, where the projectile would pass through another Activate rune suspended just above the pole.  This rune would activate another enchantment on the projectile itself, one that was adapted from Violet’s description of what Echo could do with her Air-based elemental energy.  The enchantment (using Pull and Buoyancy runes) created a small pocket of negative air resistance around the large wood and iron-tipped bolt, which effectively quadrupled the speed at which the projectile traveled.

After some experimentation, it was determined that a simple wooden shaft on the bolt would