The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5)

by Jonathan Brooks

  Combining 4 elements together was nearly as easy, though condensing them down took a little bit more effort than the last few. There were quite a few combinations with 4 elements, even considering that she wasn’t combining opposite elements, so after making one with Air, Fire, Spirit, and Holy, she left off at that. She needed to figure out how to do even more, so that she could have at least 6 together for the Elven King and Queen. Sure, it was easy enough to give them 2 of the new 3-element Gems, but it would be even easier if she could make a single one that would contain them all; besides, this would also be beneficial for her PEEs, and if she was able to put 5 or 6 elements together, it would streamline quite a few of her enchantments and save space.

  Still using the Bearling lair, she again brought out 50 Fire and 50 Earth Mana, before she added in 50 Water. She had a theory she wanted to try out, and she figured it was better if she only had 3 elements at once instead of 5 or more – especially if it ended up exploding like before. First, she forcibly held the Fire and Earth together, condensing them down to the point just before they would normally form the new gem, before adding in the Water. Bracing against another explosion, she was pleased that her experiment didn’t blow apart immediately.

  As she watched the Water Mana incorporate itself in the combination she was making, however, she saw that an explosion was imminent, however. Not right away, but unless something changed, it would explode within moments. Condensing the blue, red, and brown Mana together in the form of a dodecahedron, she willed them to combine into a new Gem.

  Unfortunately, nothing happened. Try as she might, the elements just wouldn’t combine together – so Sandra relaxed and separated the 3 elements before they could explode. She wasn’t sure how close they were to blowing up, but she sensed that it was close. Now what? There has to be a way….

  While she didn’t think she would be able to use a catalyst to neutralize the friction between the opposing elements, there was something else she could try, though it would be risky: Elemental Balance. She had only seen an example of it once before when she had been learning enchanting, though not actually in the process of crafting it; instead, she had seen an enchanted artifact that was hundreds or thousands of years old, created by an Enchanter that had lived long ago that had access to 2 pairs of opposing elements. With the 4 elements, he had created a relatively simple enchantment that created a bright glow when people were near the small Bronze orb, and emitted darkness when no one was near.

  It was such a silly enchantment that amazingly still worked after all of those years, and it had reportedly been created just to prove a point: Elemental balance. By placing Fire, Water, Holy, and Nether elements together in a balanced enchantment, with equal amounts of each element energy fed into the rune sequence and exact placement of those enchantments so that they were symmetrical, the “battle” between the 2 pairs of opposites created an environment that sustained itself indefinitely.

  Imagine a shield that absorbed the energy of an explosion, which then used that energy to explode – which was then caught by another shield. In this instance, one of the shields was one pair of opposite elements, while the other shield was the other pair; when one pair exploded, it was caught by the other pair, which then exploded and was caught by the first pair. Sandra had just seen – in part – how this worked, as the Earth Mana in her Fire-Earth-Water combination had delayed and acted as a partial shield of the explosion between Fire and Water, though it was incomplete. Theoretically, it needed Air to be added in order to balance it…at least, according to the idea of Elemental Balance.

  No one was able to adapt the theory for other applications, however, because it needed at least 2 pairs of opposing elements. In Human history, those with access to 4 elements were rare; those with a pair of opposing elements, let alone 2 pairs, were probably 1 in a billion. Needless to say, no one other than that one Enchanter who had made the Bronze orb was able to apply Elemental Balance to anything.

  I guess it’s my turn.

  Chapter 36

  Air, Fire, Water, and Earth floated in the middle of the Bearling lair as Sandra prepared herself. Blocking out almost everything else, including the slowly encroaching forces of the other Dungeon Cores through the underground tunnels, she slowly brought the different Manas together. She started with Air and Water, which combined without much trouble, before adding Earth – which started to build up an explosion as it interacted with Air, though slowly – and then Sandra added in Fire.

  At first, the Dungeon Core thought it was going to hasten the explosion, as the different-colored Mana – Red, Blue, Yellow, and Brown – swirled together with an intensity that nearly made her pull it all apart in response. However, after a moment, the churning of the colors started to slow down; instead of a crazy maelstrom, it ended up looking like a small pond that had constant eddies lazily swirling throughout its form. When it didn’t feel like it was going to explode, Sandra started to condense it all down, using all of her concentration to keep it all together. After about 10 seconds of intense strain, she found that it wasn’t working. Knowing that it was possible she needed a different shape from the dodecahedron, she wracked her mind as she tried to contain everything.

  Finally, deciding to just wing it and use another common gem shape, Sandra changed the number of facets of her new creation to 20, making an icosahedron. It was the next-common shape, so she was gambling that more facets meant more containment. After another 10 seconds of condensing, it finally happened.

  New Monster Seed created using your Advanced Elemental Monster Seed Origination

  skill!

  You now have access to:

  Tiny Air-Earth-Fire-Water Elemental Generator

  Origination Raw Material Cost: 0

  Origination Mana Cost: 200

  Monster Min. Mana: 50

  Monster Max. Mana: 150

  Currently locked:

  Small Air-Earth-Fire-Water Elemental Generator

  Average Air-Earth-Fire-Water Elemental Generator

  Large Air-Earth-Fire-Water Elemental Generator

  Warning!

  Elemental Generators, if not used within 24 hours, can potentially result in explosions of catastrophic force.

  Whoa – what?! Sandra was thoroughly confused at first, especially as she looked at the 20-sided gem on the ground of the Bearling lair. It appeared quite harmless and the warning that it could, what, explode in 24 hours was more than a bit of a concern. And what does it mean by used?

  Winxa was listening into her mental discussion, of course. After explaining what had happened and the warning she received, the Dungeon Fairy looked thoughtful. “Have you seen something like this…generator…before?”

  Well, yes, that’s how I got the idea—

  Just that quickly, she knew exactly what the warning was about. The Bronze orb she had seen with her own eyes when she was a Human was evidence enough of it, but she hadn’t put two and two together. She thought that the Elemental Balance she had witnessed was just something that allowed the enchantment to continue in perpetuity, but what it actually did was perpetually create energy. It was only a small amount – especially proportional to how much was originally invested in the enchantment itself – but it would add up after a while. With elemental energy, it would probably take weeks or months to generate enough to overload the rune sequences; with her more-powerful Mana invested in the Elemental Generators, 24 hours seemed probably about right before they went “poof” with a buildup of Mana that couldn’t be contained within the form it currently possessed.

  Unless there were an outlet for all of that buildup.

  In the case of the Bronze orb, it would use the energy created to either glow brighter or create a dark cloud around it when no one was near. In those two states, it could use everything that was being generated and create another “balance”. It was an ideal solution to expend the energy without actually using any of it that was invested in the enchantment, itself.

  For Sandra, “using” the Elem
ental Generator meant hooking it up to something that needed to keep a perpetual enchantment on it – like her Stasis Fields down in her Enchantment Repository Room. In fact, these would probably work perfectly to produce enough energy to keep it running, well, forever. Looking at the Generator she had made, she could already see a tiny buildup of Mana inside, as the colors continued to swirl together at a slow pace; she intuitively knew that the Mana it created was a mixture of all 4 elements, so if it was attached to an enchantment that required Fire Mana – for example – it could use the Mana being generated just as easily as if it was just Fire. Quite useful, that was.

  The problem that occurred to her with this new Elemental Generator, which immediately made her feel a little down, was that its applications were a bit limited. First, as much as she wanted to use them for Energy Orbs, it could potentially be a disaster; those that had them either embedded or just wearing them would have to constantly expend energy throughout the day in order to maintain the balance. With the natural absorption rate limitations of how much the body could take, which was the basis behind her Spirit-based Limiter rune for enchantments, they wouldn’t be able to “catch up” with the energy creation if they stopped to, say, sleep.

  It also couldn’t be applied to certain enchantments that needed to be activated. Things like the War Machine’s flame-throwing weapon, or Echo’s bow, would eventually explode if the energy wasn’t constantly expended. Sandra figured that she might be able to figure out a way to do a dual enchantment that would constantly have something active – like the cloud of darkness on the Bronze orb – but that would require a lot of experimentation, testing to see if the energy draw was the same for each part of the enchantment, and a few other things she couldn’t even contemplate, not knowing enough about what might spring up. It might be something that Violet might be able to help her with at some point, in fact, but it wasn’t something that Sandra could study and experiment with at the moment.

  No, what these Generators would be best for was what she had already been working on. Her Silver and Gold PEEs would work perfectly with this new discovery, as it would eliminate the worry about them eventually running out of energy, as well as providing multiple types of Mana for different enchantments. She would need to make sure she had a large enough Generator to make the magnitude of the enhancements more than a tiny bump, but that was something that could be played with a little without too much trouble. Considering that the Elemental Balance of the Bronze orb she had seen in the past was enough to create a perpetual enchantment – even if it wasn’t that powerful – her Mana-infused Generators should put out quite a lot more energy.

  Before she did any more experimentation, she wanted to confirm that all of her speculation would actually work. Sending two of her Unstable Shapeshifters up from their workroom, Sandra had one of them turn the new Elemental Generator into an “Energy” Generator, so that it was able to be used in enchantments. She couldn’t even contemplate how she would be able to use the Generator without the enchantment on it; without it and the Limiter rune sequence on a Spirit Energy Orb, she couldn’t think of how to use it otherwise.

  When that was complete, she had one of her Goblin Crafters bring one of her Gold necklaces up from the Jewelry-making workshop down below; she supposed she could try it down in the workshop, but it was probably better to take precautions in case something went wrong. She might end up losing an Unstable Shapeshifter or two in the process, but at least everyone else would be safe if all the work was done near the surface.

  Delicately, ensuring that all of the rune sequences were placed just so, Sandra used a Palzerk clone for the Water and Air elements; controlling an Orc was a little strange at first, since it was something she hadn’t done a lot of lately. After a few minutes, though, she was able to hold the entire Lesser Buoyancy and Minor Muscle Elasticity Personal Enhancement Enchantments to the necklace. Using a Kelerim clone at the same time for Fire and Earth, she placed a Minor Muscle Strengthening and Stoneskin PEE on the piece of Gold jewelry.

  As she had done with all of her other enchantments that used Energy Orbs as a power source, the actual enchantments she placed on the necklace only required a few units of energy from the Shapeshifters. When they were held in place before they were finalized, she had her Kelerim clone place the new Elemental Generator and a Tiny Spirit Energy Orb with the Limiter rune sequence on it inside the little cages she had placed on the largest of the necklace’s plates. She cheated and used a little of her Mana to seal them inside the cages, double checked that all of the different PEE sequences were connected to the Generator and Limiter Orb combo…and then let the enchantments finalize on the necklace.

  As soon as they snapped into place, she ordered her 2 Unstable Shapeshifters to fling themselves backwards – just in case there was an explosion of some kind. Whether that would save them, she didn’t know, but fortunately there was no need to find out.

  Because, as she had hoped, nothing happened. Or to be more accurate, the enchantment took.

  Looking at her completed product, it was a bit crude-looking; it could definitely use some embellishment, as well as some refinement in her gold-working skills – but that would come in time. Besides the appearance, however, it was beautiful. Sandra could see the energy flowing from the 4-element Generator through the Spirit Energy Orb, powering the Limiter enchantment before spreading through the different PEEs placed on the Gold necklace. The energy powering them seemed steady, which was a worry that the Dungeon Core had considered; with the constant “explosions” being contained, she was concerned that the power would fluctuate. Instead, everything appeared to be perfectly steady.

  Since it seemed relatively safe, she had her Kelerim clone pick the necklace up and place it around its neck. Sandra couldn’t tell if it worked right away because there were no visual clues, and sliding into control of the Shifter didn’t reveal anything right away. It was only when she had it start running that she saw a difference almost immediately.

  Kelerim had never been one to be quick on his feet, but now he was noticeably faster; if she could quantify it, she would have to say he was between 2.5 and 3 times faster than he had been – which was incredible. Not only that, but when she created an Iron bar that had to have weighed nearly 300 pounds nearby, he was able to lift it – albeit barely. While he was strong from working at the forge, especially lately, there was no way the Blacksmith could’ve lifted that without the help of the necklace.

  There was a spare sword in the workshop, and she had the Shifter lift it and try to slice into the skin of its arm. Normal pressure against the skin did nothing other than make an indentation; it took a little bit more force to actually cut into its flesh to cause it to bleed. Needless to say, Stoneskin seemed to be working as well.

  Lastly, she had the Kelerim clone attempt to jump out of the open ceiling of the workshop, just to see if it could. She was shocked and pleased to see that the Lesser Buoyancy was able to enhance the Shifter’s jumping ability by at least 5 or 6 times, because the Half-Dwarf/Half-Orc was able to reach the lip of the 20-foot-tall ceiling edge, grabbing onto it and pulling itself up to the surface.

  After those quick tests, she had the Palzerk clone take the necklace and go through the same experiments. Strangely, they were almost exactly the same – which she thought was a little weird; she expected there to be a little difference between the speeds of them, because of the diminishing returns the PEEs contributed to those that already had a higher speed. After a moment, she realized that the Shifter wasn’t using any energy to enhance its speed as Palzerk normally would; she couldn’t really test it, either, because she didn’t exactly know how the process worked and didn’t want to accidentally kill her Shifter if she had a choice.

  Regardless, it really didn’t matter in the end. What did matter, when she figuratively stepped back and really saw what she had made, was that she had created something almost unbelievable.

  A permanent enchantment. More than that: a permanent Personal Enhan
cement Enchantment.

  Even more than the Energy Orbs or the discovery of how to use the Limiter rune sequence, as world-shattering as those were, the permanent PEE was something that she considered to be even more important – at least to her crafting and enchantment skills. Yet, in the end, if it wasn’t for those creations, none of this would’ve been possible.

  Winxa – I did it! I created a permanent—uh oh.

  “Congratulations and what ‘uh oh’ are you talking about?” the Dungeon Fairy asked, now concerned. She had a right to be, too.

  Sandra wasn’t able to answer right away, because something was happening with the attacks by the nearby Dungeon Cores. She had been so engrossed with what she was doing with her experiments and successful creation of the permanent PEEs that she had pretty much ignored everything else. Unfortunately, she missed what was obviously a turning point in the attacks, because something else was happening that needed her full attention – as well as the attention of the shard in her mind.

  The Dungeon Cores had reached the point where they could easily get through the trapped rooms she had designed to hold them back. That wasn’t the problem, though, because she had expected that to happen – even if she hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. There, they encountered the bulk of the defenses that Sandra had stationed in the next few rooms, where the constructs or Dungeon Monsters she had were ready and able to fight off anything that came through. Her forces were performing remarkably well, too, because the staggered pace of the attacks allowed them to concentrate their defense instead of being overwhelmed.

  It was such a good defense, in fact, that there was very little attrition on the part of her own Dungeon Monsters throughout all of the different tunnels. Those that were destroyed or killed were quickly replaced, to the point where it was running smoothly and encountered no hiccups. In short, it was the perfect defense.