“Armor design? What of it? The whole business is constant attempts at one-upping your competition with nonsensical additions. Some guy added a water reservoir for a normal suit of armor. Another gal added a set of oversized pauldrons to her armor. When you want good armor, find a smith who’ll work with you.”

-Quote from famous armorsmith Vilkan Naris

*=====*

“So those guys were clock cultists, huh? Never would’ve thought that the clock goddess would take in worshipers.”

Fara shrugged, taking a few bars of dull green metal from the chest and bringing them to the workroom, placing them on the work table, “I wouldn’t have either, but it’s just how these things work. So, what kind of style of armor do you want?” she asked, “Normally, there’s the choice between bulky and sleek, but I can mix the two together.”

“Hmm…” Mori groaned, “Wait, does [Machine Affinity] affect armorsmithing?” she asked.

Fara laughed a bit, “Well. there is [Armorsmithing Affinity], but it’s only ever used by people who make a living off of armor. From what I’ve heard, it mainly affects your ability to make new types of armor and to make it faster. If you’re well read in mechanics, like yours truly, then you’ll learn some basic armorsmithing techniques and ways to adapt them to your needs.”

Nodding, Mori traced a finger over one of the spare bars of metal, feeling its toughness with her dead finger, “So… what if I were to say I want a set of nimble armor that can let me jump around as I please? Oh, and one that doesn’t skimp out on fun clockwork gadgets; though, I haven’t gotten much use out of this grappling hook… Is there anything else you can put in it?”

“Slow down,” Fara said, holding up a hand, “I know you want to get right into this, but we need to take stock of what we have first.” She stood straight and pulled over a box filled to the brim with clocksteel components, “So, first thing’s first: are you integrating the suit into your lich body?”

“Of course I am,” Mori said, almost scoffing, “Why wouldn’t I?”

Fara shrugged, “I don’t know, but I can’t assume anything. Second thing…” she trailed off, staring at a very specific box sitting on one of the shelves in the workroom.

Mori followed her look and groaned, “I… look, I don’t know what kind of thing she put in it, and I don’t want to get permanently changed for no reason. But…”

“Mori,” Fara tenderly said, “I know you don’t want to blindly trust it, I’m the same, but this is different. Whatever that is, it could give you the edge we need. So please, for me…” Mori stopped for a moment, nodding with complete calmness in her eyes. She stood, striding over to the shelf with wide steps and grabbing the box swiftly. She pulled the bottle from its case, watching its lava lamp-like color for a moment before ripping the cork from the top off and pouring it down her mouth. Instead of falling to the ground as she expected, the liquid stuck to her bones. The combined mass of magical liquid crawled down her spine and onto her ribcage where her soul sat, the crystalized fire of green, black, and purple slowly flickering.

The potion latched to the fire like a spider’s web, wrapping the flame in a cocoon of bright, vibrant color. Mori waited, and waited, and waited more. In spite of her waiting, the cocoon showed no sign of opening or changing, making Mori sigh in relief, “Well, that went better than I thought it would. Fara, does it look weird?” she asked, turning to see Fara sketching something on a large piece of paper. Waltzing over, Mori took a glance at the drawing and smiled, “Oh, that’s good! Though, can you make the knees a bit less bulky?”

Fara looked at Mori, and her cocooned soul, and back to the drawing, “Well, that’s already pretty thin, Mori. All that space isn’t armor. It’s space of the mechanical parts.You know, gears, pressure sensors, even a couple of actuators since we had plenty of money for this project.”

Mori looked further at the sleek, almost bone-tight design of the armor and nodded, “Really? I thought that upgrading the Kharon would have broken the bank a bit.”

Fara shrugged, “A bit. We’re left with just over thirty thousand right now. That’ll get us a few good things, if we need anything extra to what we have, but nothing extraordinary. All that matters right now is that I have plenty of stuff to give your suit an edge in anything you do. Though, I can’t get any pure mana-infused metal like Mom got; they only really sell that sort of stuff in Mount Averus. Even then, they go for something like ten thousand chips per slate, so it’s not cheap to add,” she said, eyeing the armband on Mori’s metal arm, “Speaking of additions, did you ever figure out what that armband did?”

Mori nodded vigorously, “Yep! When I was fighting that scorpion thing-”

“Check your messages from the system, they’ll tell you it’s called a Crasher.”

“Alright, that. Anyway, when I fought the Crasher, I was intending to let it snap through one of my arms to get a good shot at it, but the armband activated.”

“Oh?” Fara sounded, “The Crashers have a very strong snapping force with their pincers. What happened?”

“The armband blocked it! There was this cool shield that stopped the attack! It surrounded my arm and the claw couldn’t break through.”

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“Do you mind if I…?” she trailed off, hands reaching out for the jewelry. Mori grinned and loosed it from her arm, handing it to her. She looked at it for a few moments before sighing, “Yep, I don’t know how this works. The good news, though, is that I can probably use it in the final armor design, maybe even make the whole thing nearly invincible!” she excitedly said, placing it next to the metal, “So, what do you think of the design so far?”

Mori looked at the design, a sleek armor that she thought would have been fiendishly complicated to make, and nodded, “I like it, but what about the helmet? Are you adding one?”

Mori watched Fara’s face scrunch up in slight displeasure, “Well… there’s a tradition…”

“Like how you have to name a skiff or else you’ll wreck it?”

“Close, but not exactly. It’s more rooted in practicality than anything else. The helmet is almost always designed by the one who will wear the armor as both a way of personalization and to specialize its function. Some people prefer a standard helmet that just protects the head while others prefer more… elaborate features. Mana scanners, compact weaponry, other types of vision, that sort of thing,” Fara explained, putting Mori deep into thought.

After a moment’s thought, Mori shook her head, “I can’t really think of anything too important that I would need. The only thing I can think of is something to find dead bodies easier, but I can already do that with my death bolt spell… You know what? Fara, I trust you with my unlife. You design it. If it’s something that the wearer designs to make it their own… Well, you get the picture. All I want from it is something that… I guess fits with the overall design of the armor.”

Fara seemed like she wanted to reject and argue back, but she took a deep breath and gave Mori a stern look, “Mori, are you sure? The helmet is the focal point of the person beneath the armor. It’s the place where the face of man meets the face of metal. It’s… just so important that I want you to be happy with it.”

Mori did not hesitate, nodding while draping an arm over Fara’s shoulder, “That’s why I’m asking you to design it. Ever since I came to this world, I’ve been with you. The only time we really separated was when we went off to the wyrm hunt. You’ve done so much for me, Fara. That’s why I say I trust you to design it. And it’s not like I’m going to be running off to do something else, either. I’m staying right here, helping you with this.”

A touched smile crept onto Fara’s face, “Mori… Alright, we do this together.” Mori nodded, they bumped fists —a gesture that Mori had taught Fara before— and they began. For hours, they worked on the fine details of the armor, adding illustrations and carvings that Fara said would make her more trustworthy. On her left arm, Fara had convinced her to have a carving telling the story of the Creator’s descent into Granulous, beginning with a farmer praying to whatever god would listen to save his village from roaming monsters and ending with the gods creating the Sa’rk system to save the world’s people.

Accepting Fara’s suggestion, Mori then added the story of the two Greek heroes who tried to kidnap Persephone from the underworld, only to be punished by Hades. She found it a tasteful reminder not to ever succumb to hubris, as was one of the most consistent themes in Greek mythology.

After some more debate, they settled on having two illustrations from Granulous and two from Earth. It was, as Fara said, a way to show the intersection between Mori’s forgotten life on Earth and her new one on Granulous. Mori somewhat disagreed, but did agree with the idea in general.

The second Granulous myth was, apparently, the largest battle between Clockworks and the followers of the Creators in recorded history. Dozens of heroes and other figures were supposed to be part of the myth; Fara promised to not make the limb the story was to be carved on seem overdesigned. Mori, for her second illustration, chose the story of Orpheus, the man who convinced Hades to give him a chance to lead his wife from the underworld.

Once the outlines for the illustrations were completed, the two shifted to working on the helmet. Fara pitched her design, which was a sleek helmet whose top looked like a crown, and Mori instantly accepted when she saw the rough draft. After a few more revisions, the helmet design was complete.

Stepping back, Fara seemed to take in the sprawling drawing, complete with each of the illustrations’ and decorations’ rough draft. Sighing in contentment, Fara nodded, “Yep. This is good. Aerolat,” she said, turning to the appearing specter, “Can you go get Avar? I think I’ll need his help to make this.” He nodded, leaving as he came.

Mori looked over the plans as well, turning her head as she looked at the design from different angles, “Alright, so it’s basically an armored exosuit?” she wondered. Fara gave her a faintly confused look, “Oh, exosuits are these machines made for people to wear that let them be stronger, faster, all that.”

Fara nodded, pointing to the part of the drawing that held Mori’s skeleton, “That sounds about right. In your ribcage, there’ll be twin dynamos that can easily supply the amount of mana needed for the suit to work. Along with that, I added a couple of capacitor arrays that will be able to store a lot of mana.”

“I feel like you talked about that before, mana storage. How does that work?” Mori asked.

“Well, everything can hold mana if it’s consciously put in there, manually or by machines. Some things have a higher mana capacity than others, so they make better batteries. For example, I’m going with a lead-iron magic alloy for the capacitors because it’s both widely used and good at what it’s meant to do.”

“I see… Wait, what’s the mana capacity of the green metal? Or the rosy stuff?” Fara hesitated for a moment before she nodded, holding up a bar of green metal from the table. Mori felt the mana seep into the bar, but it almost immediately dripped from it like a wet sponge, “Not much then?”

“Huh… Normally things explode if too much is put in at once… Well, that’s convenient. Anyway, let’s go with the next one,” Fara replied, picking up the rosy metal from a shelf. Again, Mori felt mana seep into it, but unlike the green metal, the mana held in the bar, “Oh? Well, let’s see how much can be put in here…” Fara pushed more mana into it, feeding it more and more until she breathed a sigh, “Damn… that’s a lot… Actually, that’s more than the lead-iron alloy… Well, I guess we’re using this then.”

Mori grinned, “That’s good, but did you really have to risk blowing us up to figure that out?” she laughed.

“I… uh…” Fara trailed off, reddening. Mori grinned again and wrapped an arm around Fara’s shoulder, “I… I could have screwed everything up, couldn’t I have?”

Mori nodded, putting on a serious face, “Yeah. Be careful, Fara. I don’t want you to get hurt and me having to ask the gods for your soul back.”

Fara slowly nodded, “Y-Yeah… That’d be bad.”

At that moment, the door to the workroom opened and the ghastly visage of Avarice appeared, “Mistress. Fara. We’re doing something?” he asked.

The two women smiled, “Yep,” Mori said, “We’re building me a suit of armor!”