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

they were, the more energy they consumed to maintain the Barrier – or Field.  I guess it makes sense why something like this wasn’t ever done back when I was Human; from what I remember, the Barriers can’t be recharged once they are formed, though an additional one can be formed over the previous enchantment.  While that was an option, forming another Stasis Field would disrupt the first one and it would take a few seconds for the new Field to establish itself.  It didn’t matter too much for things like food to be out of the field for a few seconds, but she wasn’t sure what it would do for the enchantments – especially the temporary ones.  That, and the Field would suspend the rune and prevent it from activating; any disruption would possibly cause dozens of enchantments – or more – to activate at the same time, which could be harmless…or catastrophic.

* We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  For now, if you could craft a Stasis Field on the Steel cylinder right there, I would love to see if it will work. *

Violet shrugged her shoulders and walked over to Sandra’s multi-armed Steel RRP and started the process of creating a Stasis Field.  It was a Spirit-based enchantment, so Sandra had figured that the Gnome had knowledge of it – and she was glad she was right.  She watched, fascinated, as Violet worked quickly and efficiently.  Sandra always enjoyed watching crafters at work, and enchanting was no exception.

A line of light-grey glowing Spirit energy seemed to spill out of Violet’s right finger as she traced a large circle on the floor that encompassed the entire RRP, including the arms extending outward.  It was slightly larger than necessary, probably, but it appeared that the Gnome was ensuring that if the cylinder was shifted even an inch that it would still contain everything that was currently inside the Field.

Once the circle was drawn on the ground, she extended her hands above her head and drew another circle in the middle of the air, tracing the same path the circle on the floor followed.  When she was done with that, she started to create simple runes that floated in the air at about chest height on her, again following the same circular path as the circles before.  The runes were two-dimensional, though they weren’t necessarily flat; they curved slightly, as if they were drawn on the side of a large cylinder similar to the Steel one inside the field.

That was, in fact, essentially what was being created – a large cylinder made of Spirit elemental energy that would preserve anything inside.  The runes were all connected to one another as there was no break in between them – and Violet expertly continued to create them around the entire outside of the Field, before eventually connecting it to where she began.  By the time she was done – about 15 minutes later – the entire column of Spirit energy was filled with three simple repeated runes that were flawlessly executed.  Gnomes really are naturals at enchantments; if she was just an Apprentice, I can’t even imagine what a Master could do.  While Sandra knew many, many enchantments, she’d never actually made one before and she didn’t think she’d have that same sort of expertise as Violet showed.

The cylinder of glowing elemental energy flashed brightly once when the Gnome was complete, before collapsing down to the floor in activation of the Stasis Field.  Now, around the entire RRP, the circle that was drawn earlier was filled in with the same runes that Violet had just crafted around the outside, as if it had been squashed flat and was now covering the stone floor inside the circle.  It glowed the steady grey color of a Spirit enchantment, and Sandra had no doubt that it would work perfectly.

Violet sagged a little bit when the enchantment activated and blew out a big breath.  “That took a little more out of me than I thought; I’ve never created one that large before – they are usually made to encompass something the size of a small crate, which uses much less energy to create.  I might be able to do another two, but that’ll probably be it for today.”

* Nice job and perfect execution!  Rest a little bit and don’t worry about doing any more for now, I want to make sure it’s working.  Ok, the rest of you, I want you to craft whatever enchantments – permanent or temporary – that you know works best with Steel and place them somewhere on the Rune Repository Pillar. *

Sandra further explained the nature of the arms and the flat sections, and Jortor immediately stepped up to the RRP.  He extended his finger against one of the thinner arms sticking out and started quickly tracing Nether elemental energy around it in a fairly simple rune.  The rune almost appeared to be shaped like a shield with a tapered oval on the face of the shield; it wasn’t overly complex, but Sandra thought it would take her at least 15 seconds to craft it accurately.  Jortor, however, was able to make it in just over a second, showing how natural the entire enchanting process was to not just him but Gnomes in general.

The rune looked vaguely familiar to Sandra, and after a moment she realized that Jortor was the one she had seen use his Nether energy to create a shield of darkness that blinded a crocodile when it was struck.  Most runes weren’t exactly that literal when it came to their form, but this one appeared to be a fairly accurate representation of what it did.

Jortor stepped back and looked at his enchantment, and the others stepped up to see what was happening as well.  It was slightly difficult to see it within the black-colored Nether energy that characterized the element, but there was a slight