The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Jonathan Brooks (me reader TXT) 📖

that they are literally miraculous,” she said dully, which contrasted completely with the words she was saying.  “But I’m worried that my people will see them in a light different from what you expect; I don’t even think the original ones I brought to the village have even reached the capital yet, but I have a feeling they will engender…unhealthy…competition between the Elite Elves to get one – or more – for themselves.  I can already see the desire and – dare I say it – greed in Elder Herrlot’s eyes as she keeps asking for more.”

* Are you sure it’s not because she just has her people’s best interests at heart?  Now that they found a viable way to fight back against the Dungeon Monsters and dungeons, I would think that would be normal. *

“Yes, I can see that – and I’m sure some of it is exactly what you say.  However, I suspect that the Elder has taken a portion of the Orbs I’ve brought to her for herself, before sending the rest on to the capital.  Whether it’s for her own use – and I’m well aware that having more than one in contact with your skin will speed up the restoration of elemental energy – or for some other purpose, I couldn’t tell you.  It wouldn’t surprise me to know that she’s hoarding them as a bargaining chip to have her transferred from the village, which I’ve heard rumored was a punishment of some kind – though no one seems to know what that punishment was for.  Regardless, the scarcity of the Orbs, which she is contributing to, could be bad for…you.”

That didn’t make any sense to Sandra at first, but as she thought about it from her own experiences as a merchant…horror overcame confusion as she thought she understood.  Scarcity of a demanded product caused the price of it to rise, which was one of the first things she had learned while she was a very young girl.  That wouldn’t normally be a factor in the current situation, because she was giving everything away – not charging for it; not only that, but it was doubtful that the leaders in charge of the Elven nation would charge for it either, negating “price” as a factor altogether.

However, when it came to objects that “enhanced” someone’s power, those kinds of things were considered priceless anyways.  Sandra remembered a tale about an Enchanter that had spent 40 years researching and experimenting with various enchantments he had learned over the years, before finally creating one of his own inside the facets of a precious gemstone; rumor was that the enchantment somehow increased someone’s available elemental energy by a significant amount when they held the stone.  The story went that he made a total of eight gemstones – one for each element – before it was somehow discovered what he had done.

The gemstones were stolen from his workshop by a group of powerful Heroes working for someone even more powerful and the Enchanter was forced to flee.  The nameless Enchanter was inevitably found and held captive, where he was told to create more of what he had made; for some reason the man had refused and asked to be released, stating that he couldn’t make any more.  Rather than risk letting him go and potentially finding a way to make more, the Enchanter was killed, his identity lost to the ages – along with any knowledge of the enchanted gemstones’ whereabouts.

Most thought it was a myth; even if it was, the story held an important lesson to anyone who really dug into it.  Power (whether politically, physically, socially, or economically) was attracted to power, and the already-powerful want nothing other than the chance to be even more powerful.  Even the Elves, who needed the Energy Orbs to protect their people, were obviously not immune to this lesson – if what Echo said was true about the Elder.

The same thing was likely to happen even in the capital, though Sandra hoped it was on a lesser scale – but now she didn’t think it would be. She was originally banking on the fact that their people were in danger of extinction to curb most of those greedy impulses, but she was wrong; once the people who wanted the Orbs – and couldn’t get them from those in charge – found out about their existence, then (as Echo had said) the “unhealthy competition” between the Elites could end up with them trying to steal or even kill to possess them.  What was even worse, objectively, was if they found out the source of the Orbs: Sandra.

The Dungeon Core could only imagine large groups of Elves coming to her dungeon to demand more Orbs; even if she gave them hundreds of the enchanted creations, it would never be enough.  There would be every possibility that they would try to invade her dungeon and try to force her into being some sort of Energy Orb-making factory, where they would control the distribution of whatever she produced.  They would also likely cut off all Sandra’s access to the other races, and her plans to help the Gnomes, Orcs, and Dwarves would be denied.

Of course, there was no way she would ever allow something like that to happen – but then Sandra would ultimately have to kill more people, which was something that she would prefer to avoid.

What have I done?

All of that was conjecture, though, unless Echo was proven right about the Elder.  Sandra hadn’t really been paying attention because she had other stuff she was trying to take care of – like eradicating her deadly creature problem in the wastelands – so she had no clue whether the Elf was correct; confirming those suspicions would be difficult and probably dangerous for Echo, so there wasn’t a need for the bonded Elf to risk herself.  The truth will come out eventually.

The only