The only way to fix those potential problems was either to stop production completely and hunker down or to ramp it up, “flooding the market” with so many Energy Orbs that scarcity wasn’t a problem anymore. Sandra hated to have a target on her back and have to defend against greedy Elites looking for her creations, so she disregarded stopping production completely. Not only that but doing so would ultimately end up hurting the Elven people more, taking the Elites away from the front line against the dungeons.
Therefore, she needed to ramp up production and distribution; the first was easy enough, but the second was going to take some strategizing – and unfortunately, Echo was no help when Sandra asked her about it. The Dungeon Core also expanded on her options to see if the Elf had an opinion about the situation – and that was when a third option was brought up.
“I don’t have any access to any of the messengers that journey in between the Avensglen and the capital; there are only a few towns and villages on the pathway back, as most of our people have retreated back to the city for protection. Short of going myself – which is always possible – I’m not sure how to get them there without going through the Elder,” Echo said when Sandra was done explaining the situation.
The Elf was silent for a few moments as she contemplated something. “I don’t know if your ‘flooding the market’ idea will necessarily work – those in charge like the Elder will just accumulate larger amounts, making them even more powerful; unless you can make millions of the Orbs, then the 300,000 Elves that aren’t part of the Elites or ruling houses will probably never see them. Granted, it’s more than likely that those who are doing the majority of our defending will obtain what they need, but if they become overconfident and start to actually push back against the dungeons…there’s a good chance many of them won’t come back. If that happens, then we’ll lose some of the few Elites still out there that have a chance of stopping our inevitable demise.
“What you need to do – as crazy as this idea is coming from me to a dungeon, of all things – is expand your…territory, or whatever you call it until you can actually reach the capital. That way, your Dungeon Monsters will be there to distribute your Orbs to everyone, not just those in charge – but to those who could use them to increase their own fledgling abilities so that they could also help in the defense. From my perspective, it’ll be much easier to ensure our survival if we have 300,000 Elves that can defend themselves from Dungeon Monsters, rather than just the 300 Elites that we have.”
That number was news to Sandra, who had known that the Elves were in trouble – but she wasn’t aware of how deep in trouble they were. She couldn’t even imagine only having 300 Heroes around when she was Human; she wasn’t even sure if there was an accurate accounting of them anywhere, but she could only guess that there were tens of thousands of them, if not hundreds. With only a few hundred, though, Echo was right – if they lost even a dozen of them to overconfidence and pushed back before they were ready, then their survival was in jeopardy.
But…expanding my Area of Influence? There were risks in that as well, not in the least allowing access to it to any lower-Sized Dungeon Cores in the area – of which there were likely a few. Most of those towards the capital were probably quite a bit developed if they were actively pushing against the defenses the Elves had in place, so that wasn’t really a worry; Sandra’s concern were those smaller towns and villages along the way that weren’t in danger…until she came along and messed that all up. She was still torn up about what happened with the Gnome village because of her expansion, so she was hesitant to cause any more issues like that.
Nevertheless, the “Dungeon Core” part of her existence was excited at that prospect. Expansion and becoming powerful were natural instincts of her particular incarnation, it seemed; even if Sandra was able to curb most of those impulses because she wasn’t contracted, that didn’t mean they weren’t there…only contained.
* I have to agree with your assessment of the situation, Echo – but I’m not yet prepared to expand quite that far. The repercussions of such an act, as much as I’d like to do it, are currently too great; for now, I’ll keep providing as many of the Orbs as I can easily produce, as long as you deliver them. In the future, though, I’ll see what I can do – unless another solution presents itself. *
“That’s fine with me, just don’t be surprised if you have some of the greedier and seedier examples of my people show up here looking for handouts within the next few months. At least some of what I’m bringing will help my people, if not all of it; from what you’ve provided already – even considering if half of it is taken and squirreled away – our people will survive for years or decades longer than they probably would’ve. And for that, you have my thanks – even if some think you’re a bad influence on me and the Elven people in general, I feel that you’re honest in what you’ve been doing, and generally want us to live and survive.”
With that, Echo hitched the two bags on her back again as they had shifted slightly over the last few minutes and headed out of Sandra’s dungeon. Watching the Elf make her way through the barren – and hopefully relatively safe now – wastelands, it was more than obvious that she had fully recovered; even loaded down with two heavy bags, she was able to run fairly quickly towards her village.
I’d like to think that what I’m doing is for the good of their people, but the scenarios I thought of earlier might still come to pass. If that happens, then I may have just hastened their extinction – rather than prevented it.
Chapter 10
Regardless of the results of what she was doing with the Elves, Sandra wasn’t planning on worrying about them for a while at least. It was going to take some time for the original shipments of Energy Orbs to even make it to the Elven capital, after all; the possible visits by the “greedier and seedier” people Echo had mentioned probably wouldn’t happen for months, by her guess – which meant that she had some time to work on a solution.
Speaking of solutions, as soon as Sandra started to shuffle through the screens and screens full of possible Dungeon Monsters she could purchase with her Advancement Points, Violet (with very cautious help from Felbar) finally perfected control of the Limiter enchantment rune – and as a bonus had discovered how it could be easily altered in the future when it was part of an enchantment sequence. That alone was impressive considering it had only been about two days since Felbar’s beneficial accident, but she had also begun to figure out how to use it in practical applications.
“So, I think that I can integrate the new rune into the enchantment sequence surrounding the Energy Orbs – the Spirit and whatever else we need to use for the power source – thereby altering the amount of elemental energy it puts out. I can then tie it to the Stasis Field enchantment – without disrupting it, don’t worry – and regulate the power output so that it stays consistent to maintain the Field without overloading it. You see, it has to do with the specific frequency modulation inside the Field that—”
* Whoa, you’re losing me there. I may know a bit about creating these enchantments, but the highly technical aspects of them are still quite new to me. Though it pains me to say it, perhaps if you try explaining what you’re saying like you would to a small child? *
Violet smiled at Sandra’s interruption and said, “That was me trying to explain it to a small child. I’ll try to do a little better, though.
“Anyway, like I was trying to explain, the Limiter rune is much more versatile than any of us had first assumed. Not only does it dictate the amount of energy passing through it – from very small amounts to extremely large amounts, as seen with Felbar’s accident,” Violet continued, looking apologetically in the older Gnome’s direction. In his case, he still looked a little haunted from the experience, but he was hiding it well; Sandra thought it could be because his hair was starting to grow back, which was covering up a little of the physical evidence of his accident that was still left.
“What this obviously means – when we look
at the Stasis Fields for example – is that we can dictate the precise amount we want the power-providing Spirit Energy Orb to feed into the enchantment. Not only that, but there is a built-in feature that…hmm…how to explain this…copies the precise amount of energy being drawn out from the Stasis Field – or any enchantment, for that matter – so that it matches what is being fed to it. Therefore, as an example, if a Field uses up one Spirit Energy unit per day, the Limiter rune will match that with an equal amount supplied; if for some reason that were to change, say to three the next day, it would match that as well.
“Ultimately, it all depends on how you set the original rune sequence up; you can set it up to resonate—match—the power input/output directly, or you can do it manually with a simple application of elemental energy that matches the Limiter rune element. Just like Felbar used small infusions of Spirit energy to make a War Machine move, this new rune works in a similar fashion; by altering the access lines on the rune itself – which can be done even after it’s created – you can regulate the energy you want to transfer to the enchantment.
“As an example for that, we’ll use the simple enchantment that Felbar used the other day,” Violet said, mouthing “sorry” to the older Gnome – who started to look a little nervous. “It was intended to warm up the space around him a little bit but was obviously overloaded. With precise control, however, the new rune can change the temperature even by minute amounts – so that you can alter it to be very hot or even a milder warmth than the original enchantment by suppressing the energy used in its original creation, and of course anywhere in between.”
That was great news, because it meant that some of the plans she had for the War Machine were likely to work out beautifully. However, something about what Violet said sparked an idea in Sandra’s mind.
* Does that mean the Limiter rune could be used with Energy Orbs that, say, you’re using right now to provide faster energy regeneration? *
Violet didn’t even have to think about that for more than a few moments. “Yes, I’m sure that it could, though it would take…tying…it to a specific person for it to work. Everyone has their own specific energy ‘aura’, which can act like an enchantment in some ways; by tying it to the ‘aura’ like I would do for an external enchantment, I think that would work the same way. Then, by manipulating the access lines, a person could change it so that they receive more from the Orb than they normally would; of course, this would also consume the Energy Orb much faster than normal as well, but it could be done.”
That was intriguing, though it didn’t really help in the current situation, especially as using more than one Orb at a time helped Violet to regenerate her elemental energy quite quickly already. Violet seemed to dismiss the idea of doing something like that probably because of the same reasons, but as something for the future it was an aspect of the Energy Orbs that might be useful.
* How long do you think the Stasis Field would stay operational with one of these setups attached to it? *
Sandra was hoping she would say something like 10 to 15 years…and was severely disappointed. “Well, seeing as the enchantment without anything extra lasts approximately a week, I would assume that with a Spirit Energy Orb powering it that it might last…a year? I can’t be more precise than that, but I’m going on my own experience with the Orb and how much it replenishes my own energy compared to how much it has been consumed in the process.”
The Dungeon Core could definitely see a difference in the Spirit Orb Violet had around her neck – it was her original one, in fact. It wasn’t a huge difference, but in approximately 5 days it was perhaps 20% smaller. Of course, this was with almost constant use by Violet and the Stasis Field would consume a bit less…
With a little mental math on her own part with some guesstimates thrown in, Sandra had to admit that Violet was probably right; even if she was off by a lot and it lasted two years, it wasn’t quite as long as the Dungeon Core wanted if she was hoping her Enchantment Repository would outlast Sandra herself if something were to happen to her Core.
* What’s the likelihood of using two – or even more? *
The Gnome was already shaking her head before Sandra even finished her question. “Wouldn’t work – or at least not without a lot of time to experiment, and to follow up with it over time. You could set them to automatically regulate the input/output, but with two or more doing it, they would all contribute the energy needed – which would end up in disaster after a short time as it overloaded the Field enchantment. The same goes for anything else; two or more Energy Orbs connected to the enchantment would cause it to fail the same as if it didn’t have a Limiter.
“That’s not to say it isn’t possible, but you’d have to manually adjust the amount being fed into it from each rune sequence to balance out the output; this might work in the short term, but if it’s allowed to continue unchecked, if the energy amount being fed into it was just a fraction too much or too little, over time it would eventually fade or overload, depending on the outcome. It could take years, but then you’ll have the same problem as now.
“A year of maintaining this Stasis Field is incredible, however – something that I wouldn’t have thought possible even a few days ago. Replacing the Limiter Energy Orb enchantment is easy enough at that point.”
On anything else, Sandra would have to agree – going from 1 week to 52 weeks of power was quite the improvement. It didn’t solve her problem of sustaining the enchantments even if something interfered with that replacement; for instance, what if in the future she went for a Core Size upgrade and it lasted a few months, rather than a few days. She could wake up and find that it had all been undone because she took a prolonged vacation from the outside world and was stuck in her own mind.
No, there had to be something else Sandra could do. She was disappointed about not being able to place two or more – as Violet had coined it – Limiter Energy Orb enchantments to power something; the extra quantity of power would make all the difference. It was just a shame that she could only make Large Elemental Orbs—
Wait…that may not be the case.
It was true that, according to her Monster Seed Origination menu, she could only make up to Large Elemental Orbs for the purpose of being Monster Seeds, but did that mean she couldn’t create something larger on her own? She could make walls of Steel and bars of Iron without having them be Monster Seeds, so why not condensed Mana Elemental Orbs.
She hadn’t even thought of it before because she didn’t really consider Mana to be a “material” like Iron, Cotton cloth, or even an Oak plank of wood; it didn’t really have a physical state of substance except when it was condensed into an Elemental Orb, so she never really played around with it other than when she first discovered how to create their Tiny versions – and had unlocked the others just by spending Mana to create their Seeds.
Can I make…an even larger Orb?
Right now, the Large Elemental Orbs were approximately a third the size of one of Violet’s hands, which allowed her to hold two in her hand relatively comfortably. Sandra wanted to see if it was possible to make one at least twice the size of a Large Elemental Orb – so she went back in her mind to the day she created the very first one: a Tiny Fire Elemental Orb. If she remembered correctly, she had pulled out 50 Fire Mana and brought it forth into a spherical shape before she mentally condensed it into a much smaller sphere – and just like that, it was done. She had then created Tiny examples of each element but had never bothered to actually create anything larger.
After telling Violet to hold off on adding anything to the Stasis Fields, Sandra switched her focus to the farthest room she had excavated behind her Home; she was going to try something that could be dangerous and she didn’t want to risk the safety of anyone or anything in her dungeon. Even if it exploded (which she severely hoped it didn’t), there was quite a lot of space in between the last room and anything vital.
Sandra knew that the Elemental Orbs she could create as seeds cost 50, 100
, 400, and finally 800 Mana for the largest; what that meant was that she needed to use 1600 Mana to create one twice the size of her Large Orb. Without further ado, she pulled out 1600 Fire Mana from her Core and had it float in the middle of the room; it was actually quite a large sphere with at least a 4-foot diameter, but she knew it would shrink down when she condensed it.
Within seconds, she remembered why she was happy enough to unlock the other sizes of Elemental Orbs – because it was hard. The Mana wanted to squeeze out of her mental grip at every opportunity; whenever she thought she was condensing it all together as one, a large hump of Mana would slip out of her control and stick up where she wasn’t expecting it. She equated it with trying to shape a massive ball of clay with your bare hands, except your hands weren’t big enough to fully reach around the entire sphere – and every time you pushed in one place, it would make another section push out.
It was frustrating, but after nearly ten minutes of straining at the mass of Mana and almost giving up, she started to see a solution. The problem was that Sandra was trying to push it all in at the same time, obviously, so she figured she had to cut down on how many sides she was focusing on; since she was working with a sphere, she currently needed to concentrate on hundreds or thousands of spots on her project all at once.
Therefore, she made a cube.
It was strange and a little foreign at first – since she was accustomed to handling orbs and spheres – but in less than a minute Sandra got a handle on the large mass and formed it into a relatively equal-sided cube. As soon as it was in the shape she wanted, she pushed in on each side and condensed the Mana down; she found that it was much easier to concentrate on only six areas at once, though she had to admit that it was a little harder to keep pressure on each face of the cube to ensure it stayed the same shape.
The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) Page 12
