Lanek looked around the darkness in exasperation, fully prepared to tell off yet another Void entity despite them being able to crush him like a bug. The darkness began to fade away, giving way to a stone chamber lined with weapon and armor racks. Still weird, but at least I’m not in the damned Void again.
“Hello? Anyone there?” He called out after waiting in silence for a few minutes and aimlessly looking around the room. When he received no response, Lanek turned his attention back to exploring the room. This took quite some time as the chamber was quite large, but there didn’t appear to be any way to exit the room. He didn’t find any doors, hidden or otherwise as he concluded his extensive search.
“Alright, guess I just have to wait, then? Not like I’ve got shit to do.” As Lanek browsed the racks around him, he couldn’t help but curse.
He wandered from rack to rack, eyeing those weapons and pieces of armor that he recognized and puzzling over those that he didn’t. There was a shocking number of items that he could sort of guess how they were used, but that he had never encountered before, either in person or in the books and video games he had consumed back home.
The equipment also seemed to be grouped by culture if he had to guess. Granted, he was no expert when it came to medieval weaponry, but it was hard not to see the similarities between weapons and armor from the same culture. One section was filled with gear that looked like what he had seen in museums when he had lived in Germany for several years. Another section reminded him of the items he had seen when he had visited Norway to meet his extended family for the first time. After some searching, he also found sections dedicated to Japanese and Korean style equipment as well as some eastern European equipment. Well, he assumed that it was from eastern Europe, he was only really familiar with the sabre and some other pieces of Hussar gear.
“Do I just need to pick something? Is that what you’re waiting for?” He called out, once more receiving no response. “Good talk.” He said with a sigh. Well, it’ll be nice not to have to compromise if that’s what I’m expected to do. They have pretty much everything short of firearms in this place. Hmm, I wonder if this world ever developed muskets? Not that it matters, even if they didn’t I wouldn’t have a clue how to make them or gunpowder. Nope, no perfect knowledge to conveniently uplift society here just because I was a history buff back home.
While browsing the selection, he came across a surprising variety of chain whips, but chose to walk past them. His previous weapon had saved his life and given him Sanguineus, but he would never have kept it if he had any other choice at the time. Even when he had other options, he had only kept using it because Sanguineus was bound to it.
With each rack he passed, he attempted to [Identify] those items that appealed to him, but the ability would not activate in this place. Lanek assumed that he was meant to choose something based on his tastes or abilities and nothing else. One thing he was sure of was that he was going to get a spear of some type while he was here. He wanted something well-made that would give him a bit of range to work with. Additionally, a spear was definitely easier to learn than some other weapons he could pick and he could learn from Liv. Hell, he had already learned the basics from the Night Arrows.
Also, now that he had Maximilian, he would need a weapon that he could use while mounted. If he was allowed to pick multiple weapons, he wanted another one-handed weapon of some kind. It didn’t need to be a sabre, but that was definitely on his radar at this point due to how effective it had been.
He kind of wanted a katana, but discarded that idea when he found himself in that area of the chamber. Not only did he have no idea how to use one, but there wasn’t anyone around that could teach him, which made sense considering the empire that had used them was somewhere far to the south. However, there was a spear that caught his attention in that same area, sitting right next to the naginata he had always thought to be an interesting design. This new spear had a bit of an odd design that he had never seen before, having a meter-long straight blade that looked to be suitable for both cutting and thrusting. The shaft of the spear was a bit over another meter in length. The blade itself was unmarked, but the shaft was made from a dark wood that was almost black with silver-inlaid runes carved into it.
He shuddered when he took a closer look at the spear blade, noticing its design. The blade was triangular in shape, with one side of the blade being flat while the other had a peak that flowed down to the edges. The wounds caused by such a blade would be horrific. He wandered a bit more to look at various other spears, but found himself drawn back to that one in particular. In the end, he picked up the spear, reasoning that if the blade was designed to make large wounds that would cause his opponent to bleed out then it should help with his [Bleed] skill as well. Lanek wasn’t quite sure it would work that way, but it couldn’t hurt and the spear looked like it would be effective either way.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As soon as he hefted the weapon, it disappeared from his hands. Shortly afterward, a notification appeared.
Yari selected. Please continue.
Nice! It looks like I do get another choice. Hmm, I’ve seen yari before, but weren’t their blades much shorter than this? Oh well, it’s not like I’m familiar with every variant. I’ve only every seen the short blade and the trident-looking variants. He walked away from this section of the chamber despite some very interesting weapons, such as the weapon with a heavy curved blade that was attached to a shaft that was just as long and curved that promised a devastating chopping attack. However, he needed something a bit smaller to complement his new spear.
Lanek wandered a bit before finding himself before the straight one-handed swords. For some reason, he felt drawn to this section, making him wonder if he was truly picking out the weapons or was being guided. Trusting to this feeling, he let himself be drawn along, his gaze scanning the weapons before he felt the compulsion to stop hit him hard. Resting on the rack before him was a sword that looked like it would have been used in the Crusades. It was a beautiful blade, but he had no idea why he was being guided to it as every weapon in this place was crafted just as well.
The weapon was similar in size to his lost sabre, which he greatly appreciated. The overall weapon was a little over a meter in length, with 85cm or so of that length being the blade. The pommel of the blade was circular, with a coin bearing the image of a tree embedded in it. The crossguard was gently curved and had several runes carved on both sides, although Lanek had no clue what they meant. Finally, the hilt was wrapped in dark brown leather. Reaching out, Lanek lifted the blade and watched as it disappeared as well.
Arming Sword selected. Please continue.
Lanek watched as the weapons in the room all disappeared from view even as the chamber shrank in size. All that remained were racks of armor. Shrugging, he continued browsing, immediately discounting the plate mail and those pieces of armor that looked difficult to put on. He didn’t like the idea of anything that would be extremely rigid or time-consuming to put on. He was already a little concerned about the yari interfering with his mobility due to the length of the weapon.
With those criteria in mind, he examined several types of brigandine coats that could simply be tossed on. It didn’t take him long to find one that caught his attention, similar as it was to his previous armor. This particular suit of armor consisted of small rectangular metal plates sewn onto a cloth backing horizontally. The space between each metal plate was covered in chain mail, providing flexibility and protection for those areas that needed to bend and move. Additionally, the armor had a high collar with small hexagonal plates to cover the neck. The cloth itself was black while the metal had a sort of gunmetal color to it. The chest piece actually draped down to cover the mid-thigh. Once past the waist, the armor had far fewer metal plates and consisted almost entirely of chain mail with about a dozen large circular plates interspersed evenly across the front and an equal number on the back.
Once the coat was in place, the user could then attach the arms. It used the same rectangular plate sewn onto cloth design, but it also had smaller plates and chain mail to protect the elbow and wrist joints. These plates were arranged vertically rather than horizontally. Like his previous gauntlets, these were not complete gloves, but rather a series of metal plates and chain that would guard the back of the hand and fingers up to the second knuckle.
To his delight, he saw that it also had leg protection, which would be very important if he engaged in mounted combat. As with the arm portions of the armor, the metal plates protecting the legs were arrayed in a vertical pattern.
The more he inspected the armor, the more he liked it, mostly due to how modular it was. If he was in a hurry, he could simply pull the armor over his head to protect his neck, shoulders, and torso while leaving the rest behind. Granted, he would prefer to wear all of it, but you couldn’t exactly predict emergency situations. Adding the extra armor wasn’t exactly time-consuming, however. To put on the gauntlets, one simply had to push their arms into the sleeves and push their middle fingers and thumbs through loops to hold it into place around the hands. Also, each sleeve had a cloth extension that went over the shoulder which had straps that were meant to be tied under the opposite arm to help hold the entire piece in place.
The thigh guards were actually not attached to the rest of the armor and was instead belted on at the waist. Once in place, the thigh guards would be held in place by straps that went around the thigh. Finally, the shin guards were simply tied into place and were likewise not attached to any of the other pieces of armor. In all, it was very similar to samurai armor, just without the helmet or traditional cuirass.
Making up his mind, Lanek placed his hand on the suit of armor. It too disappeared from sight just as a notification appeared and the chamber began to fade back into the darkness.
Karuta Yoroi selected. Calibration complete.