The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (literature books to read TXT) 📕

waste away and die at the news of her death, she knew him well enough to make it nearly a certainty.  The guilt of pursuing knowledge for selfish reasons which led to both their deaths ate away at her for minutes or eons, until she was just a hollow shell of herself.

Strangely enough, though, she couldn’t summon up much in the way of anger towards Dramien and what he had done to her.  Oh, Sandra was plenty furious – but most of that anger was directed toward herself.  While she didn’t know specifically how dangerous the man was, she knew enough from her information-gathering that Dramien was secretive and didn’t want to be found.  Yet…she pressed on, confident that she could get him to teach her his technique if she could only speak with him – it had worked countless times before, so why not again?

Yes, he was an evil person and deserved to die a million times for what he did to her – and from what he hinted at, many innocent victims before her – but Sandra couldn’t hold onto any rage, fury, or anger toward him.  As far as she was concerned, she had unwarily stepped into a monster’s den and gotten killed for invading its territory.  It all came about because of her own choices – not that she deserved to die or considered his actions appropriate, of course.  Quite the opposite, actually, but there was nothing she could do about it now.  It was done; she had paid for overreaching and digging into things that should’ve been left alone, and Dramien had gotten his justice in the form of a powerful enchantment explosion.

After countless minutes/hours/days/years of a despondent and guilt-ridden consciousness, Sandra decided that there was only so long she could dwell on the recent developments before she actually did go insane.  Therefore, to put those thoughts aside, she instead recounted the various procedures, secrets, tricks, techniques, and recipes she had picked up after 18 years of learning about crafting.

Her mind had been like a sponge as she soaked up the information over the years.  She could still picture the proper way to create all manner of weapons in a blacksmith’s forge, the special techniques to increase their durability using different materials, and the various secrets of finishing them off to increase the sharpness of their edges while not sacrificing their strength.  She thought about the bowyers and fletchers she had watched over the years making specialty bows and arrows, about the best type of material to use, and how to take advantage of the natural grain in the wood.

She had watched alchemists, basket-weavers, leatherworkers, glassworkers, carpenters, tailors, potters, masons, cobblers, bookbinders, cooks, jewelers, and even florists ply their crafts.  While she hadn’t been able to replicate their crafting herself, she could still recall how it was done; and each time she learned about a craft, there always seemed to be something else to learn.  For instance – Enchanting.

This was the most frustrating thing for her to learn, because the procedure was so far beyond her that she couldn’t even begin to attempt it.  Everyone had at least a small reservoir of magical power inside of them; those that had a greater quantity usually became Heroes or Enchanters.  Sandra, on the other hand, was unique was completely devoid of magical power – which she was both disappointed about and thankful for.  She was confident that if it hadn’t been for her inability to personally replicate the enchantments she begged and pleaded to learn from Enchanters over the years, that she wouldn’t have learned even half of their secret techniques.

It was next to impossible to teach someone how to do an enchantment without a visual representation, because being able to describe or even draw a certain design was not the same as seeing it in person.  As a result, other than some very basic rudimentary enchantments that every Enchanter usually learned, there were very few instruction books regarding the craft.

Even the greatest and most-accomplished Enchanters across the land of Muriel only had access to – and could actually visually see – two or (in rare cases) three elements, and never before had she seen one with opposing elements – such as Fire and Water.  Until she had seen Dramien, at least – which was why Sandra had been so surprised that he had used both Nether and Holy elemental energy in his enchantment.

She wasn’t sure if it was a side effect of not being able to manipulate any innate magical power or energy, but Sandra was able to see every element and how they were used in enchantments.  In theory, if she had been physically able to create an enchantment, she could’ve been the most powerful Enchanter the land of Muriel had ever known!

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  Without any way to make or teach enchantments to other people (even if she wanted to), Sandra had to settle with just learning about them.  She didn’t think it was quite as fulfilling as it would’ve been to create an actual enchantment, but she lived with the satisfaction of at least gaining the knowledge.

Another indeterminate amount of time later, Sandra had gone through everything she could remember about crafting swords, knives, shields, leather armor, clothing, shoes, woven baskets, books, different regional meals, necklaces and rings, tableware, stone blocks, and every enchantment in her vast repertoire.  And then she went through it again and again and again; eventually, it all seemed to blend together into a vast mishmash until she could barely separate one thing from another…so she stopped before her knowledge became useless.

Not that she foresaw a use for it, but she didn’t want two-thirds of her life to go to waste because of boredom.

Fortunately – depending upon how you looked at it – as soon as she stopped recounting her enormous collection of crafting recipes for the umpteenth time, there was a massive