The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (large ebook reader TXT) 📖

After that, I’m going to have to wait for all the Gnomes to wake up, because I’m going to need some questions answered.

“Fair enough,” Winxa responded, leaving Sandra to do what she was thinking about.

Using her Dungeon Core abilities, she ate away a large 200X200X10-foot room branching off from her Display and Storage Room, which was the third room up from her Home.  It had been previously used as a place to display all of the weapons and armor pieces that she had practiced making over the last month or so, storing it until it was needed.  She was still hoping Kelerim would come back and ask for help moving some of them out for Orcrim; if he didn’t, they’d still be there in case someone else wanted them.

The new room, however, was empty of any decoration initially.  To change that, Sandra used her Mana to create large, solid cylinders – with “arms” of varying lengths and thicknesses sticking out of them like some sort of mutated porcupine, as well as one fully flat side – of different metals, woods, and clays, approximately a foot in diameter and four feet tall.  She also made a smaller cylinder about 10% of the size made completely out of Sapphire and Dragon Glass; she wanted them to be the same size, but it was expensive Mana-wise to create even that much of the material.  She then had some of her spare constructs she had roaming around her workshops move them into separate areas in the room, so that the types were kept together.

Some enchantment runes were best used – or could only be safely used – on certain types of metal, wood, clay, or gemstones, depending on what they were.  These different areas would allow her to keep a record of what worked best on which material, as well as the shape of the rune; if the preservation/static enchantment circle rune – which Sandra prayed that Violet knew – worked the way she hoped, it would also preserve the precise way that the rune was created.  That was almost as important as what it looked like, because if you were to place a line out of order, it could change or even destroy the entire enchantment.

Runes came in many different shapes and sizes, but they also didn’t always align in two dimensions.  While there was a flat side on each cylinder that could take runes that were straight-up flat-formed, the arms sticking out of the Rune Repository Pillars, or RRPs (a name she decided on after looking at them for a while), were there for the three-dimensional type runes.  They were common on long swords, staves, and other long objects, where the rune would “wrap” around the material being enchanted.  The curved cylinder part of the RRPs would accommodate runes that were used on curved surfaces, usually found on armor and round objects like spheres.

While all of those were being adjusted, Sandra also started the process of stripping some more Raw Bearling Hides to use as leather, because she wanted to include some leather – as well as cloth – RRPs into the Enchantment Repository, because even more enchantments worked best on those materials.  She had made the room large enough to hold all of the materials she already had access to – which made her realize she hadn’t made a stone one and quickly did that – and she had room to expand it when she acquired even more varieties.

Next was weaving some Cotton and Linen cloth from the Thread she had acquired earlier.  She had made an extremely simple-yet-effective warp-weighted loom for the job, where the warp threads were suspended from a top bar and weighted with small Lead weights holding them taut over two heddle frames.  She hadn’t figured out how to automate the process quite yet using a trap, but once she had a chance to play around with one she thought she might be able to figure it out.  Currently, she was going to have to have her Ironclad Ape physically move the pick holding the weft thread back and forth to create the weave; fortunately, her construct didn’t get tired and could do the repetitive action standing up without complaint for years if she needed it.

However, before she could really get started, the sun came up and there was movement just outside her dungeon.  The figure of an Elf carefully picked his way over the rocky barren wasteland, keeping to the shadows thrown over everything by the sunrise to keep as hidden as possible.  Sandra vaguely recognized him from the village, though she didn’t know his name – but Echo had greeted him when she had originally returned after visiting her dungeon.

He was obviously looking for something, though he was moving very slow and was extremely careful with his movements.  In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that she was watching it all from above, she wouldn’t have even known he was there – her Mechanical Wolves and Jaguars she had roaming around hadn’t made him out.  She was a bit paranoid about another attack, though, which was why she had been fairly diligent in watching for any threats outside her entrance.

He crawled close to the ground and almost seemed to be sniffing like some sort of animal, which was unusual to her; whatever ability he had with the use of his elemental energies, however, seemed to be working.  He honed on the spot where Echo had been attacked by the venomous snake and collapsed, and where her Ape had picked her up.  He might find a little blood there, but that doesn’t mean it’s hers—

And then she saw it as soon as the male Elf did: Echo’s bow.

It had fallen away from the dying Elf woman the night before and Sandra had forgotten about it in her hurry to save Echo’s life.  The Elf quickly scuttled closer while looking around for danger, and