Adeliza took the cast iron with bronze lined armour and smashed it with the hammer, she kept hitting the iron against the anvil until she was left with a fine powder. She set the bronze aside and began to set up some crucibles and build temporary forges to fire up some crucible steel to make armour that’s both strong and light.
Mia helped with whatever she could. Kathy basically just held the tools and handed Adeliza whatever she needed at the time she asked for it. As She worked, she mumbled to herself.
“Damascus is usually used for weapons, but… quicker is probably better… can always just fix it later… don’t remember the recipes exactly…”
She mumbled to herself as she scanned what she had on hand shrugged her shoulders and built a tank big enough to quench armour with a spell the people who’d come to watch her work didn’t recognize.
They were surprised when the green sap smelling and slightly viscous liquid came flying from the direction of the last battlefield to fill the tank. Few of the civilians knew what the liquid was but all the girls and a few passing soldiers knew.
“Mia, how do you feel about armour quenched in elf blood?”
As she spoke, she was grinding small stones and leaves in a mortar and pestle.
“Why?”
“I don’t have the equipment I have back home, and blood is as good a substitute as I’m going to get for magic-infused water, we don’t have the time to make it ourselves.”
She added the substances she was grinding into the tank of blood chanting quietly as she did so. The blood began to faintly glow and change to a more violet hue.
“It’s not perfect but it’s the best we have at the moment.”
“How long does magic water take to make?”
“Anywhere from 3-47 years.”
“Years?”
“By a skilled artisan. With these hands, it’d probably take longer. I could just make it Damascus steel but that’d take days with the size of what we’re making and if I mess up any part of it I’ll probably have to scrap and restart the entire piece. I’d prefer tungsten, but I didn’t bring any with me. Any steel will probably be stronger than whatever the world in this age produces though.”
Varying powders she was grinding and mixing into different crucibles. After pouring in the iron sand leaves glass and whatever powders and flax, she chose to throw in. She sealed the crucibles and put them in the temporary tower forges before lighting them up and asking Mia to systematically check the forges every 15-30 minutes to make sure to fan the flames add coals and so on as necessary.
In the heart of the human territory, within a heavily guarded castle, past a fairly well-guarded room, a fairly strong man reclined lazily on a golden throne with a harem of scantily clad women around him catering to his every need.
Through the doors without knocking another member of the king's harem appeared before him put the items she carried down on the ground and swiftly assumed a pleading position, with her face down and arms behind her back forehead knees and feet flush with the floor.
“My king, a messenger bird has delivered great news that could change the tide of the war.”
As the doors closed behind her a couple of the girls standing at the king's side left his sides and began removing and replacing every article of clothes the girl was wearing to match the rest of the girls in the room. her previous clothes were set aside in the back of the room by the doors and the king gestured for her to proceed.
She rose from her place on the floor and brought to him the book and the report from the front lines. About a foot before his throne she stopped and bowed again holding out the documents to him where they were taken by a spectacled woman at his side who began reading the contents of the letter to the room handing the book to the king for him to flip through at his leisure.
“General Yohan of the fifth armed battalion,
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Reporting on the return of the new hero after her departure to repair the artefact on the mount' of heroes.
On this day I have confirmed with my own eyes the long-forgotten, and scarcely spoken of, myth that the original heroes were all reincarnations of the same hero. For on this day I spoke with a woman who greatly resembles the dead hero Hanz in speech manner and charm.
She also professed to remember being Hanz and gave her reason for not telling anyone she was the last hero. Reason being, she tired of explaining it every century and people refused to believe it half the time.
Enclosed is a book she claims contains all the knowledge the elves, brought to the mount' of heroes, had with them at the time.”
The girl in glasses put the letter down on a table at the king’s side for him to read over later if he should wish to and the old king smiled.
“Bring me the reincarnation of the hero. And tell my sister the father of her child yet lives.”
The girls sat around a table outside Mia’s family bakery eating sweetened bread for lunch. It would be another few hours before the metal they’d heated cooled down enough to handle so they were taking a break from completely remaking her armour to eat some lunch.
Mia and Lili were sitting on either side of Adeliza and Adeliza continued to carry Kathy around on her shoulders. Kathy was relatively pleased though she was being hand-fed by Adeliza because her hands were full carrying the halberd and hammer, she was given to watch.
“Hanz!”
“Adeliza!”
“Adeliza, right! Sorry. The king has summoned you to the capital.”
She had taken another bite of her bread while he was talking and he had to wait for her to finish chewing before she responded.
“Is Davie still running the kingdom or did he finally croak and leave it up to his retarded son Phil.”
“Phil died in a war defending the stronghold you died in front of.”
“Oh, good I always hated his advances. But then that leaves…”
“Yes, king Davis the second has summoned you.”
“You tell that little pervert that I’m busy fixing the crap job you did on Mia’s armour and I’m going to be here until it’s done. If he needs to see me, he can come here.”
“I’ll just tell him you said you’d meet him at your earliest convenience.”
“Ha! Ask him how my daughter is doing while you’re at it. Hope that incestuous little cretin didn’t try to make her his bride.”
“I wish you wouldn’t speak ill of the king so openly and so loudly.”
She waved him off and continued eating. He sighed deeply and dejectedly before going off to continue on his own work. The girls almost missed dinner working on the armour, but Adeliza got it to a satisfactory shape and quenched it by nightfall… at least the chest plate that is.
Bathed in the evening light streaming in through an expensive looking window the king was reclining in his bed surrounded by sleeping women about to nod off himself when another messenger came to disturb him.
“Yohan has responded to your command to summon the reincarnated hero.”
“Since I’d rather get to sleep sooner than later let’s skip the formalities.”
“As you will.”
A look of relief appeared on the face of the woman sent to give the king his news tonight she kept her distance and began reading the letter.
“General Yohan reporting in response to the king's order to retrieve Hanz,
She responded in a disrespectful manner I fear you can vividly recall the nature to which Hanz is prone. She says she’d like to finish helping the new hero Mia with the modifications to her armour before she leaves the town in which we are now in.”
“How long could adjustments take?”
“I’m just getting to that part my king, Adeliza, the woman with Hanz’s memories has completely scraped and begun the process of reforging the set of armour in its entirety dissatisfied with the piece sent over. I passed by while she was hammering at the new piece and overheard her calling the court armourers by various profanities I couldn’t dream of reporting to the king.
She says it might be several days before she can make the journey.”
The messenger quickly put her head down in a bow as the king had thrown a chalice in anger at her. She trembled on the ground in fear trying not to upset the king further by fleeing. Eventually, the king’s wrath subsided, and she read the last line of the letter.
“She said she’d meet you at her earliest convenience.”
“Fine, tell her if she’s not done within the week, I’m sending her to the elves with the next peace treaty.”
His grin in the dim moonlight did not go unnoticed by the bowing girl. She quickly took her leave as soon as she could and closed the door behind her.
In Mia’s bed, the current hero struggled to sleep as she’d awoken in the middle of the night to find she’d been stripped in her sleep again and was being sandwiched between her master and Kathy. She didn’t want to wake them but she also didn’t want to be in this situation, especially because tonight she was the only one who was stripped.