Atrax took the paper and slid it into a pocket within his robes. “Thank you kindly. ‘Spose we’ll be heading off then, always some final preparation or other to make before a contract. You know how it goes.”
The five mercenaries and Freyja exited the bustling building. Freyja by now seemed more over her anxiety of being seen after spending some time inside with so many people around. Frazay asked the question everyone wanted to know the answer to.
“So? When’s the meeting supposed to be?”
Atrax pulled the sheet back out to double check the information. “Two days from now, at the Huraven estate by the river.”
“Gives us some time, then,” Frazay commented. “Lets us get Gabrelle nice and set up with what we can before we start. Well, by ‘we,’ I mean Xander, since he’s making the gear.” Frazay laughed. “If we’ve time, then maybe Graffus can show you how to properly swing whatever weapon Xander makes for you before we go on the contract, Gabrelle.”
“Oh, I’d like that, if it’s no trouble, Graffus.” Gabrelle’s voice was a mixture of pure excitement and timidity.
“Ah, I’m sure I can take some time to at least make sure you’re not gonna hurt yourself.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” asked Xander.
Atrax shrugged. “Personally, I’m pretty set. If you’ve got any errands you want to run or preparations to make, I’d suggest doing it sooner rather than later. Other than that, I have no suggestions.”
Graffus nodded. “I’ve got what I need for this one. Figure I’d take some rest and some beer before we get back to work.
Frazay had other ideas. “Well I want to do some window shopping, and maybe some regular shopping. Now that I’m only using arrows for skills, I’d like to try and get some good, high-quality ones. I’m sure there’s a fletcher around this town somewhere that will have what I need.”
Gabrelle spoke up, “I’ve got to break the news to my parents… I can’t just disappear. And I need to buy the supplies for my armor, too.”
“I think I’ll track down a good-looking smithy. Scope out my next money maker,” Xander said with a laugh. “Though right now, I think I just want to buy some more steel and some leather to make armor for Freyja.” He scratched the cat’s cheek as he said her name. He could sense that Freyja was interested in the idea of wearing armor from their bond.
“I pass a smith on the way to my parents’, I can show you where it is,” offered Gabrelle. “I can buy the metal I’ll need there while we’re at it.
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” Xander said.
“It’s off this way!” Gabrelle began walking down the street as the group separated.
“Come on, Freyja. Let’s go get you what you need for your armor. We’ll have you looking even more majestic.”
Freyja chuffed in response, rubbing up against Xander as they began following Gabrelle, almost knocking him over.
After what Xander felt was the equivalent of a few blocks, Gabrelle paused outside a building. Xander noticed a sign hanging outside the door depicting an anvil and a hammer.
“Here it is! Father says he makes good cooking knives. He’s bought a few from him.”
“Mm, well a good knife needs good steel, so he ought to have what we need,” Xander replied.
Making their way inside, they were met with a display room of various metal goods. Xander asked Freyja to wait in the entry room. Cooking knives were prominent amongst the items, but there were other creations as well. A few well-made daggers, nails, coat hooks, the smith here was clearly focused on more than just arms and armor. As they made their way further through the shop, they spotted the blacksmith, who was currently sharpening a newly made knife on a spinning grindstone, sparks flying. The two waited patiently for the man to finish. Once he put the blade aside, he noticed them and made his way over.
“Howdy there. What can I do for you two?” asked the smith.
“Lookin’ to buy some steel,” answered Xander.
“Me too,” added Gabrelle.
“Just raw steel,” clarified Xander, realizing that just asking for steel in a smith’s shop was rather vague. “Ingots, bars, scrap metal, broken pieces you haven’t gotten around to reforging. Don’t much matter to me as long as it’s good metal. I need, oh…” Xander paused and thought for a moment. “Probably eighty to a hundred pounds for myself. And she’ll need…” Xander looked Gabrelle over for a moment, measuring her roughly, “about thirty or forty pounds herself. So a hundred and twenty pounds of steel if you have it.”
The man’s eyebrows rose as Xander asked him for over a hundred pounds of steel. “That’s quite a lot of steel you’re asking for there, son. I’ve got it, sure, but what, pray tell, do you need so much steel for?”
“Well, I like to make things, and it helps with my class. I’m wanting to try and make some barding for my mount. She’s a bit large, which is why it’s such a large amount of steel. I was also going to make some pieces for Gabrelle here while I was at it.”
“Ahh, a fellow craftsman,” the smith said, smiling. “I see, I see. Well, if you’ve got the coin, I’ve got the material.”
A few minutes of haggling and hemming and hawing on both sides later, Xander was paying the smith for his steel, allowing Gabrelle to pitch in for her own portion. He’d also opted to buy some brass as well, to plate some of the trim on Freyja’s armor. He wanted her to look properly majestic, and it would also match the faceplate of his helm well enough. Xander was able to fit most of it in his inventory, but that still left about thirty pounds of steel to haul back to the inn. He’d have to reorganize his inventory again, he thought. He’d let it get sloppy and take up more space than it actually needed to. The smith had provided him with a crate to toss the rest of the steel in, considering the amount he’d purchased, and Xander realized how much of a difference [Unstoppable Force] made for him as he easily hauled the box up onto his shoulder.
Collecting Freyja, who had patiently waited for the two of them as Xander had asked, he parted ways with Gabrelle, who promised to find them at the inn and bring him some leather soon. Xander wandered back to the inn, on the lookout for a source of leather. He found one at a market stall halfway back to the inn. He felt like he got a decent price for the sheets and strips he’d bought and piled them into the box he was carrying.
Now that he had everything he needed for his project, Xander made his way back to the inn with no further stops. He took his crate to the open space behind the inn near the stables and sat down on the ground with Freyja, who had been faithfully padding alongside him. “Let’s get started! Let me see that big ‘ol paw and start making you your very own armor.” Xander dumped the steel from his inventory and molded it into several ingots of roughly twenty pounds each. Separating out the thirty pounds that Gabrelle had bought and placing that back into his inventory he started the process of creating leg armor for his fluffy friend. His final product, at least for now, protected conformed to the top of her paws, but did not wrap around them, to allow her the use of her claws and prevent it from interfering with her range of movement. Instead, it was riveted to the next piece of armor that covered what would be the forearm for a human, allowing it to move up and down some with the movement of the paw. The ‘forearm’ covering consisted of two pieces of steel. On one side they were hinged together, turning it into an elongated, steel clam. The other end of the enclosure did not fully close, but instead held a set of straps to tighten the armor to conform to Freyja’s leg. Several straps at the top of it held the piece in place by wrapping around the upper portion of her leg or looping over her elbow. The upper leg and shoulder were of similar clamshell construction and were held in place with straps that looped around the chest. Xander hated having to leave so much space around her joints, but for Freyja to retain her full range of movement and be able to run, sacrifices had to be made on armor coverage. Her body was much easier to cover, with large steel plates being able to be fitted onto leather and draped over her back, with a saddle integrated on top. Her neck was covered with overlapping plates of steel, and a helm was created that covered her skull and wrapped around her ears, leaving them unobstructed, to cover her jaws and cheek. The bottom was left open to allow her to open her mouth.
Dusting his hands off, Xander was finally satisfied. It was good timing, too, as it was beginning to get dark outside. He would finish the detail work inside after stabling Freyja and getting something to eat. Freyja was reluctant to be left in her special, and much larger than the others, stall, but stayed once Xander promised to come back for her in the morning. Him telling her that she’d also be served dinner there didn’t hurt, either.
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Xander rushed through his meal, eager to get back to designing and creating. He’d had an idea while walking back to the inn that not only could he trim the armor in brass, but perhaps he could inlay the runes in brass as well instead of simply etching them. It would look much more refined that way.
Xander went through the process of etching all the runes on the barding, first, once he’d made his way back upstairs. The process was becoming much quicker for him as he was able to use [Improved Manipulation] to flawlessly etch the runes he used most commonly onto the steel. Strengthening runes dominated the center portions of the armor, while along the edges, silence runes would prevent the armor from clanking against itself and ruining Freyja’s ability to stalk prey. Smoothness runes were placed on the underside in places where Xander felt like it might chafe. Now he would have to test the theory of inlaying brass into the rune etchings to ensure that the material didn’t interfere with the mana traveling through the runes.
Taking up a small piece of steel that he hadn’t used, Xander etched a single light rune and a single gathering array. The visible result from the light rune would allow him to see if the rune was being interfered with instead of trying to calculate if a strengthening rune was able to withstand more or less force from a strike. The dim glow of the light rune being powered was already visible as it was powered by the gathering array. Next, Xander took up some of the brass he’d bought, and wiped it across the runes, obscuring them for a moment. He used [Improved Manipulate] to transfer brass from the piece it was originally into the channels for the runes.
Much to his surprise, the light was actually glowing brighter than it had been before. Xander had considered that it might degrade or even negate the performance of a rune to fill it with another material or at best have no effect, but he had not thought that it would improve the rune in any way. Was empty air perhaps not a very good conductor for the mana flowing through the channels? It must not be, if brass inlay increased its potency. There was nothing magical about the brass that he could tell with [Analysis], so the only theory he had right now was that certain materials might channel mana better than others. He’d have to do more experiments with different materials to see what differences it made. But for right now, he had a lot of brass and a lot of empty runes on Freyja’s barding, so he got to work.
The finished product was polished steel trimmed in brass that was similarly polished, giving a golden appearance. All over the armor were small brass lines and characters where the runes had been engraved. Xander thought that Freyja would cut quite the figure in it. She would appear as if she were the mount of a great sorcerer, gleaming in steel and covered in runes as the armor was. Now, he needed to fill in his own runes with the leftover brass, but that would be a task for tomorrow, as he was getting tired. Besides, someone had begun to knock on his door.
“Xander? It’s me, Gabrelle. Frazay told me this was your room.” Gabrelle’s voice was muffled through the door.
“Coming,” called Xander. He stood up, joints cracking from his extended period on the floor going over all the runes, and walked to the door, opening it. Gabrelle stood in front of it, holding a pile of leather.
“Sorry it’s so late, it was really hard to get away from my parents, and then I had to try and find good leather and – Oh wow! Is that the armor you’re making for Freyja?” Gabrelle had spotted the pile of polished metal on the floor of the room.
“Mmhm, just finished it, actually. Pretty proud of myself, if I do say so.”
“It’s so shiny, ooh I’m sure she’ll love it. The steel and the brass will contrast with her fur quite well!”
“Huh, I hadn’t even thought of that. You’re right, it will look good against her dark fur. Anyways, you can dump those leathers wherever. I’ll get to work on your armor and some kind of a mace for you tomorrow. I’m a little rune’d out and I need some sleep. But don’t worry, I’ll have it done in plenty of time for your first contract. Come back by tomorrow when I’m working on it; I’ll need to measure it against you and see how it fits so I can make some adjustments and make sure it sits right. Don’t want it rubbing you the wrong way, after all.”
“I can do that, I doubt I’ll be going anywhere. Mother and Father were about as furious as I thought they’d be, and now that I’ve spent most of what I had on the leather and metal, there’s not much for me to do but stay at the inn.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope they come around. I can get where they’re coming from; it’s a dangerous profession after all, and I’m sure they just want to keep you safe. But acting like that is just going to push you even further away. At least we’re still in the city for now, so make sure you visit them when you can.”
“I hope they do come around. This is what I’ve always wanted to do, and it makes me sad that they can’t see that forcing me to be something I don’t want to has been driving such a wedge between us. Thanks for talking with me. I’ll let you sleep now. See you tomorrow.”
Xander laid in his bed and thought about his own parents. They’d always gotten along well enough, but he’d never moved back in after he’d had the first opportunity to move out. He couldn’t imagine having a conflict like that with his parents and having to live in the same home for so long. He’d feel like he was tiptoeing on eggshells all day. He missed his mom and his dad.
The morning came, and Xander rose at a reasonable time. Having his days filled with walking and activity had done wonders for his sleep schedule. He actually felt sleepy at a regular time, and so he naturally woke at a regular time. He went downstairs to grab breakfast amongst the other patrons of the inn before going back upstairs and bundling Freyja’s armor up and taking it out to the stables. Inside, he made his way to the panther’s stall, much to her excitement. She stretched, her claws unsheathing and gouging the dirt and rumbled out a chuff in greeting.
“Let’s see how you look in your new outfit!” Xander said, excited to have Freyja try on the finished product. Fitting the armor to the cat, he stepped back, appreciating his product. Freyja did indeed look majestic in her new gleaming steel armor. The brasses added just the right level of flair without being gaudy, Xander felt. “Very nice, very nice indeed. Everyone will be impressed with you, you big furball.” He gave Freyja some vigorous scritches on her exposed chin. Xander was sure that if she could purr, she would be right now. After getting her chin scritches, Freyja proudly pranced around a bit in her new armor.
“Let’s keep it on for now, help get you used to it. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot to you right now, but that set’s heavy, ya know. It might throw off your balance some.” Xander wasn’t sure how much the panther understood, but he enjoyed talking to her regardless.
Enjoying being outside with the panther, he decided to conduct his work in the sun, outside the stables. He sat down in the grass and started pulling out the steel and leather that Gabrelle had bought. He decided that, while he was at it, he’d pull everything else out of his inventory, too. He spent a half hour reorganizing his things to be more space efficient again, freeing up some more space in his available inventory slots. After that distraction, he began on Gabrelle’s armor.
Xander had decided that a brigandine, using the steel Gabrelle had bought as inner plates, would be a good balance of weight and protection. He started with the plates, turning the steel into small, thin sheets of metal. These would be sandwiched between two layers of leather and riveted in place, giving the leather its namesake studs. He soon had a large stack of steel plates and turned to the leather. Having never created clothing from leather before, it took Xander several tries with [Improved Manipulate] to form it into something resembling a coat. Xander then took the time to engrave the plates with a strengthening rune and gathering array each, filling them with brass now that he knew it was more effective. Having one layer of the leather coat ready made it much easier to create the second, since it was effectively just a copy of it. He then set about riveting the plates in place on the coat, with the rivets protruding from the outside layer of leather. After joining the two layers of leather together to create one seamless coat – Xander very much appreciated not having to stitch the leather together, as he knew little about sewing and even less about sewing leather – he started on the buttons on the front. He still had a good amount of steel, he hadn’t used all the plates he’d created for the brigandine, so he decided that steel toggles and buttonholes would work well for closing the coat. He’d sized it as best he could to what he thought would fit Gabrella, but he might have to shrink it in some places for it to fit more comfortably. The sleeves might be a bit long as well. Time would tell.
Now it was time to update his own arms and armor. The first thing he did was add runes of silence to his boots and greaves. He’d make no footsteps now. He provided the edges of the rest of his armor with a similar treatment, hopefully it would allow him to move more quietly even in his full suit of armor. Xander was finishing this treatment up when Gabrelle found him.
“Ah, Xander! I was wondering where you were, it didn’t seem like you were in your room. Oh! Freyja looks so cute in her armor!”
Xander could have sworn he saw Freyja strike a pose, loving the attention. “Sorry about that, just felt like working outside today, and I forgot to tell you. I’ve got your brigandine here, it ought to be pretty sturdy. Just need you to put it on and see how it fits, and then I’ll make you some leg plates, and a mace, too.”
“Thank you!” Gabrelle picked up the heavy leather coat and put it on, closing the toggles in the front. “It’s a lot heavier than anything I’ve ever worn before,” she said, shrugging the coat into place.
“I’d expect so, given that there’s steel plates in between those to leather layers,” Xander replied. “How’s the fit?”
“Mm, it’s a little loose in the shoulders. The sleeves seem fine, though,” Gabrell said as she stretched her arm out to test the sleeves. “The waist feels a bit big, but maybe it’s supposed to be like that?”
“I can definitely fix the shoulders up for you, but I think leaving the waist with some open space like that will allow it to absorb at least a little bit of a blow before it even impacts you. Here, hold still and I’ll get the shoulders.” Xander stood up and placed his hand on Gabrelle’s back, near where the shoulder blades met, and drew out some of the material to make it tighter. “Better?”
“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never seen someone alter a piece of clothing like that before. I could feel it tightening up around me! It’s an odd sensation.”
Xander chuckled. “It probably is, sorry. I didn’t really think about it. I know I mentioned a mace for you, but is there something else you’d rather have as a weapon?”
Gabrelle thought for a moment before answering, “No, I think for now something simple would be best. I’d honestly probably end up hurting myself if I tried to use a sword, I think. I’m hoping Graffus will be able to teach me some, though, because I do want one.”