But Sandra envisioned something that would be available for any Visitors to her dungeon that wanted to learn about enchantments – for as long as Sandra’s dungeon existed. She knew well enough how hard it was to record such knowledge back when she was Human, how guarded Enchanters were with their techniques, and the risk there was in not being able to pass it down to future generations due to an unexpected death. The Gnomes were going through that last problem right now with the deaths of most of their Enchanters; without enough to go around to keep their land safe, they couldn’t teach their knowledge to their younger generation. If they died before they could do that, then that information would likely be lost to the ages…just like the Gnomes would be, if Sandra didn’t do something about it.
In order to preserve that knowledge, the Dungeon Core needed to make the Enchantment Repository Room (ERR) one that could maintain itself even if she weren’t there anymore. If, for instance, she were destroyed – which she didn’t want to think about but would be a fool to consider as something impossible – then all that work would be undone without anyone to maintain the Barriers. Sandra was aiming to change that.
When her guests arrived at the ERR, Felbar was fascinated by it; he hadn’t gone on much of a tour yet, so hadn’t been far enough down to see the room. Violet had already given him the lowdown of what exactly it was but seeing it in person was a whole new experience.
Sandra had earlier created a few Large Elemental Orbs – two Spirit and one Natural – and placed them inside the room; she asked Violet to place a small Preservation Barrier over one of the Spirit and the Natural Orbs to see if the Barrier could preserve what was to be done with them…and then asked her to create the enchantment that would turn them into Energy Orbs. The creation of all those enchantments only took a fraction of what Violet was capable of, and Sandra could tell that she was already being refilled by the Energy Orbs hanging around her neck as she asked Violet to enchant the last Spirit Elemental Orb outside of the small Barrier.
As she asked the Gnome to step back, and across the room, Sandra had one of her Large Armored Sentinels she had standing still near the wall walk forward and pick up the separate Spirit Energy Orb that was newly created. She wanted to try an experiment with a smaller Barrier, with the hopes that the energy involved wouldn’t be too destructive if something went wrong.
Bringing the Energy Orb in contact with the edge of the Barrier, Sandra indeed obtained the reaction she was expecting; just like the Orbs would do with a person and restore their elemental energy, so too did the Barrier Enchantment absorb the energy given off by the Orb to replenish what it used to maintain itself.
“That’s…I never thought of that! That means you could maintain these Fields for years, possibly even centuries if you had enough—”
The invisible field surrounding the two static Energy Orbs started to become visible as it glowed with a soft grey luminescence; in a matter of seconds, however, it went from a barely visible tinge to an alarmingly bright, piercing light that hurt to look at. Sandra instructed her Sentinel to remove the Energy Orb it was holding from contact with the Barrier and the brightening stopped – but didn’t disappear. Instead, over the next few minutes, the glow gradually lessened in intensity to the point where it didn’t hurt to look at anymore; still, it was an “angry” enough glow that approaching it at the moment didn’t seem like a good idea.
“What…happened?” Felbar asked, looking highly confused.
Violet, on the other hand, was studying the barrier and the Energy Orb in the Sentinel’s hand. It was hard to tell exactly without comparing it to another unaltered Elemental Orb, but Sandra could’ve sworn that the Energy Orb was a little smaller than it had been just a few moments ago.
* I was worried about that; I was expecting it to work, but I suspected that it wasn’t going to be that easy. This is what I need your help on, because I believe if we solve this problem, then making those War Machines will be a lot easier. *
While Sandra had some ideas on how to do that, she was hoping that Violet would be able to provide another perspective – and she was not disappointed. “I…think I see the problem here. Whereas our bodies have natural limiters on the amount of elemental energy we can absorb, enchantments do not. That is why knowing exactly how much energy to pump into a new enchantment is vital, otherwise you risk overloading what it can handle; if that happens, it could do something innocuous like unravel with a few sparks, all the way up to a deadly explosion. It’s also why small infusions to an enchantment are possible – like how the Warmasters operate their War Machines – but anything larger isn’t recommended to even try, as it might cause the runes to break and explode, especially if they’re worn.
“However…there might be a way to limit the amount of energy being siphoned off of the Energy Orb, allowing just a certain amount to be transferred over to the original enchantment to ‘recharge’ it without damaging it in any way. Since the enchantment on the Orb is self-sustaining, repairing itself in the process of converting what you call Mana into energy, then I don’t see why the same couldn’t be applied to this situation.”
That actually made sense, and it had been sort of what Sandra had been thinking of, but she couldn’t really figure out the process needed to get there. Now that Violet had worked it out in her head the basis of what they needed to do, the Dungeon Core had an epiphany – and it was one that would change the way she looked at enchantments from then on.
* That’s it! If we construct the Stasis Field with an additional inverted Strengthen rune, then it will use the energy it has inside of the enchantment to constantly repair itself, just as it does with the Energy Orbs! Of course, doing so would eat up the energy at a greater rate – which is where the Energy Orb comes in; it could easily replenish any of the energy that is used to maintain the enchantment rune structure.
* …But then we still have the problem with transferring too much energy to the enchantment. While it would repair itself using some of that incoming power, eventually it would become so bloated that it would explode in spectacular fashion – with potentially catastrophic effect due to it being a stronger enchantment. *
Sandra thought that they had solved the problem, but it turned out that they had only switched it for another, worse problem. Violet looked stumped, and Felbar appeared to finally understand what the issue was; he wasn’t ignorant – far from it – but he also wasn’t brought up as an Enchanter, either.
“What if there was some sort of actual manipulable ‘limiter’ to how much energy is transferred? It sounds as if you solved the problem of recharging the enchantment, but now you need some way to ‘control the flow’, I guess you could say,” Felbar asked when no one said anything.
But Violet was already shaking her head. “I don’t think I’ve heard of anything like that; I may not know how to create a lot of enchantments yet as an Apprentice Enchanter, but I’m sure I would’ve at least heard of something along those lines,” she said sadly.
Something about what Felbar said tickled a memory in Sandra’s mind, however. Blocking out all external stimuli – going so far as to even halt progress on the AMANS and room excavation – she delved into her memories, trying to figure out what exactly had occurred to her. After almost a minute of searching, she very nearly gave up…when she finally remembered.
She was young – only about 14 at the time – but she was already well on her way, learning about as much Enchanting as she could; given that many crafters didn’t like to talk to children or even young teenagers, she considered that an accomplishment in and of itself. One stubborn woman, however, refused to teach her how she created a Limiter enchantment rune, which she had made a fortune with by applying it to thin sticks of finely crafted wood she called “wands” for some reason.
They were popular in the Hero community, though, because they helped those who could manipulate their elemental energy much in the same way the Elves did; because there were many Heroes that were not quite as efficient at “casti
ng spells”, the Limiter Wands would help regulate the amount that was needed for a particular spell. They were all custom made to a particular spell, because the actual Limiter enchanting rune could be altered minutely during its creation to suit whatever it was being used for.
For instance, if a Hero liked to manipulate their Fire elemental energy to throw out fireballs towards monsters, the Limiter Wand would help ensure that a precise amount was used with each cast; that way, every fireball they sent out could be the size of their head, or the size of an apple, or even the size of a house if they wanted – but they’d of course need to have the capability of doing that in the first place.
The beauty of it was that it required the person casting the spell to send the elemental energy through the Limiter rune, and there was no backlash if too much was provided in the first place – which was perfect for their situation. If they were somehow able to integrate the versatile rune into the enchantment rune sequence, then the Energy Orbs could be used to recharge and essentially power…any enchantment.
Of course, there was a catch; because the woman who made the Limiter enchantments wanted nothing to do with Sandra, her young self had needed to sneak into her workshop and observe in secret. She felt bad about doing it now, but at the time she had been so obsessed with learning the secrets of all types of Enchanting that she wasn’t thinking about the fact that she had broken the law by trespassing where she shouldn’t have been. When Sandra had been found only a short time after watching the woman perform a single enchantment, she had run before she was identified – and made her father leave the large town in the middle of the night.
The result was that she knew how the rune was created but had only the vaguest idea how it was changed to set the “limit” – and that was only from comparing the completed rune enchantments of the one she saw made and one she saw later on in her life. How it was fine-tuned from there she had no idea, so it would likely take some experimentation.
Luckily for Sandra and Violet – her resident Apprentice Enchanter – the Limiter enchantment rune sequence was created from Spirit energy, so it would mesh well with what they were already working with. Though, when she thought about it a little more, she realized that any of the elements would work for the utility-type enchantment, because it didn’t actually use elements itself – it only regulated whatever passed through it. Having a similar element to the ones used for the enchantment cage around the Energy Orb would help to ensure proper connection of the rune sequence. Once they figured it out with the Spirit element, then Sandra could apply it in different ways using her Unstable Shapeshifters.
“Figuring it out” would probably take a while, as such minute changes affecting energy transfer would be hard to measure immediately.
* I actually think that it can be done. I know of an enchantment called a Limiter, but there’s an issue… *
Sandra went on to explain a little bit about how she knew of it – leaving out the part about her trespassing – and told them how it would take a bit more experimentation to fully understand how it worked. Violet was actually enthusiastic, because she would be learning a new enchantment that could turn out to be extremely versatile; when she saw that Sandra had brought her Unstable Shapeshifter and had transformed into a Violet Copy in order to show her how the runes were made, she lost some of that enthusiasm.
“At least you have some semblance of clothes on, but do you seriously have to copy me every time?” she said, seeing herself walking through the entrance to the Enchantment Repository. Felbar’s eyes opened wide as he looked between the two of them, and Sandra realized he hadn’t actually had a chance to see her Shifter in action quite yet.
* Sorry, I could switch to Felbar or one of the Elite Elves if you prefer, but I only brought these clothes down with my Shapeshifter. *
“No, that’s fine – the last thing we need is a naked Felbar or Elf running around down here,” Violet sighed dramatically, smiling at the other Gnome’s discomfort. “Besides, you’ve done it enough that I’m starting to…not get used to it, but maybe ignore the fact that I’m staring at myself. Go on, let’s get this over with.”
Sandra used the Shifter’s Spirit energy to create what she remembered of the two enchantments on the wooden Rune Repository Pillar, because the one she always remembered seeing was made on those wooden “Limiter Wands”; once it was on there, it stayed almost complete but not quite, due to the function of the Stasis Field around it. It was a crude representation of what she remembered seeing – because Sandra wasn’t quite as adept at enchanting as she’d like – but she made sure to spend special attention on the very slight differences in them that she remembered.
The rune itself was a series of eight concentric circles that grew smaller as they all closed in on the same point; from there, eight wavy lines crisscrossed the circles in a strange pattern, leading from the center and out to the edge of the largest circle. The slight difference that she had noted from her remembrances came from an alteration of one of the wavy lines, where there was an extra “hump” in the wave – and that was it. Whether having an extra “hump” meant the enchantment would let more or less through, Sandra didn’t know, nor did she know the magnitude of that difference.
Violet, however, didn’t seem to care; cooped up in the dungeon for so long with not much to do made her look upon the slightly different enchantments as a challenge. Which was fine with Sandra, because she wanted to steal Felbar away so she could get his input on how the War Machine she eventually wanted to make would look.
Therefore, she left the Apprentice Enchanter to work on experimenting with the new enchantment. Her method of research was quite simple, actually, and would only be slightly dangerous; Violet created a tiny Preservation Barrier the size of her hand and used altered Energy Orbs to test the viability of the Limiter rune alterations she made – by bringing them into contact briefly herself. To further increase the safety of the experiment, Sandra created multiple Tiny Spirit Elemental Orbs and had them sent to her; with less Mana inside the Energy Orb, there was less that could ultimately be used to overload the enchantment.
Once she’d gotten her started, Sandra checked in every once in a while with the Apprentice Enchanter, but she had most of her attention on Felbar. After making his way up to the workshop again with the Unstable Shapeshifter (unshifted) in tow, the battle-hardened Gnome showed that he had a deft hand with a stick-shaped chunk of coal and a wooden board; within a few minutes, the basic shape of one of the War Machines Sandra had seen being used in Glimmerton was pictured, giving much more detail than she expected. While she had her memories to go on of what they looked like, it was much easier to consult with someone who actually used one in action.
It was a shame that the ones that were destroyed had been carried off the field of battle afterwards by the reptile army; Sandra supposed that there might’ve been some reason the Dungeon Core had done that, though she thought it was because it wanted some of the material they possessed for use as a Monster Seed. It would’ve made the process of constructing one much easier if they had been left alone, but she was making do quite well.
Most of the parts of the wooden-and-steel construct Sandra could make just by using some Raw Materials and Mana; other parts – just like portions of the Hauler and wagon she had made previously – she had to create using the forge inside the workshop. Fortunately, Felbar knew about the physical construction of the War Machine like the back of his hand, even if he didn’t know about the enchantments that made it move. The work progressed quickly as it was assembled by a large crew of Sentinels Sandra borrowed from one of her rooms, and by the end of eight hours it was basically complete…in all of its 12-foot-tall and 5-foot-wide glory.
It was a marvel of ingenuity and deadliness, a headless person-shaped construct that reminded Sandra a little of her Automatons; a sharp-spiked hammer on one arm was matched with a double-bladed axe on the other, making it capable of smashing or slicing a variety of different monsters. Some of the details
regarding the pilot seat was still needing to be done, but she had held off on it until she could figure out how to enchant the entire thing.
As Felbar and Violet headed off to bed after a full day of working on Enchanting – the Enchanter had made progress but was still stymied by a few things – and constructing a Gnome War Machine, Sandra took a break herself and looked over what else had been accomplished during the day. Seven of the rooms she had been excavating were already finished, and the last one would be finished in a few hours; her AMANS had increased by another 1,100 Shears, which brought her total up in the air above her dungeon to 6,715 – which was a noticeable improvement over what she had before.
She also checked on Echo to see how she was progressing in the slightly hostile Elven village, and nothing much had changed; apparently being “home” relaxed her tired body enough that she slept through the entire day and was likely to sleep through the night, so Sandra resolved to check up on her in the morning.
Another check through the wastelands and surrounding villages showed that nothing else was really going on, so Sandra spent time trying to figure out the enchantments for the War Machine. After just over four hours of thinking it through, mentally trying out countless options based on her extensive knowledge of Enchanting, and even cautiously attempting a few things on a small 6-inch tall model she had made of the War Machine…she determined that it was currently impossible.
Based on what she remembered seeing on the Gnomish War Machines before they were destroyed during the battle with the Ancient Saurians, Sandra was fairly confident that she could copy most of the runes she remembered that dealt with movement and material pliability; she hadn’t seen any of the runes from inside the pilot’s chamber which allowed them to control everything from there, but even that she could imagine what it looked like and probably figure it out. No, the real issue was that the original enchantment had to be done all at once with an extensive enchantment rune sequence that required precise skill, extreme care, and more elemental energy than both Gnomes and her two Shapeshifters could supply combined.
The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Page 7