Eli's POV

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I woke up the next morning with a faint sense of distress. When I remembered what it was I was distressed about, the urge to just stay in bed for the day pushed me down from my attempt to get up. But then I remembered something.

The patrol.

When they tried to rescue me a whole patrol squad had died. This memory only made me feel more horrible.

'Eli, one step. Life happens just one step at a time' I said to my self. I had to think about what I would do next, not wallow in self-pity.

'All right. Hmmm, the flying shin braces should do fine.'

Well, flying would be too generous, it was more like powerful jumping. I didn't know if it would work but my experiment with Jeff proved it was theoretically possible. Since my lines of connection worked with Jeff's diagram this meant that as long as there was a connection anyone's diagrams could work with each other.

Group projects weren't really a thing with diagrams, as there were too many obstacles to the simplest tasks when you couldn't see big portions of what you were working with. Sure anyone could use spirit magic to find the square to activate it if the crafter didn't make the button obvious, but the 'guts' of the craft were still unseen to all but their maker.

Collaboration also meant that whatever you achieved would have to be split with someone else. Irregardless of the fact that getting mages to work together is like herding cats, it also has no real benefit. Resources were the main drawbacks in crafting new items, with the human talent mostly being focused on keeping those precious few resources from going to waste. Making improvements to a design took a back seat to making as few mistakes as possible leaving work on innovation as a messy, expensive rarity only the most well to do academy's could afford.

What my shin guards did was make it so that the craft would have a line be incomplete around the legs. Since it would have a slight bump sticking out where the connection would be, they could connect it through the air pocket temporarily with spirit magic. It had a series of wind spells that would activate based on which side connection was made.

Of course just having all the thrust come through the legs was a terrible idea. So it connected to a piece of leather that would fold over the soldiers back. With that I had adjusted its thrust so that the whiplash from the sudden movement wouldn't snap the users neck. I then activated it and I saw the faint ethereal wisps of pseudo-real wind appear and go into their designated triangles. Then it activated, which left a nice little shower of leather confetti milling about the air for a single second as the device tore itself apart. Fortunately, it was on the wood floor where I had it anchored with a block of several bricks.

The general idea was to put the various outputs sprinkled around the different sections so that it would distribute the strain on the leather but I was apparently too optimistic about the leathers strength. The other reason was to make it easier to maneuver mid air but I didn't have the time to work out how to get the leather pieces sown together and reinforced to the point it would be able to handle that many conflicting directions.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I had to make due with having the various triangles release their payload in a single direction with the left leg activating the ones the right side thrusters and vice versa. Activating both the shins guards would activate all the thrusters and a special line of dual pairs running down the spine. These would be for long jumps as opposed to the other functions quick sidelong dodges. I was just happy I could have the whole thing sewn into a single piece, other wise I would have to consecrate it. Which would have meant another long night, not to mention hunting for incense and candles.

The leather armorer looked at me questioningly when I came to him with a new order of leather equipment and a specially made back piece with extra leather sewn on for the spaces that would be subject to the most wear and tear from the spells. But my money was good so he took the order.

As I was putting on the last few triangles I realized the fatal assumption that I had made. I had crafting as a magical ability, so does that mean my spirit magic could interact with diagrams in these cases while the average persons spirit magic couldn't? Fortunately my maid would be stopping by to clean up soon so I could get my answer from her. When she came in I showed her the leather pieces and explained the problem I was having.

"So would you be willing to help me test whether your spirit magic can connect to a magical item I make?" I asked hopefully.

She looked excited and nodded vigorously.

Of course, I wasn't about to strap the woman up in a barely tested device that could very well kill her so I made a simple water bark craft with the line connecting the triangle and summoning circle dotted with a single hole. She put her connection in after I explained a little bit of crafting lore to her. The shimmering water cube sprang up, although not as suddenly as she did when she practically danced on the spot and clapped.

I had to admit seeing her move around was quite a sight. She may have had the fur of a goat from her head to her collar bone with grey horns sticking out like bike handles but her head had a distinctly human shape with a snout of white fur running along the nose ridge. The abundant female parts of her body bounced up and down with her movements in a very distracting manner but thankfully she was too busy to notice my slight lapse in concentration.

"Here, as a reward for your help." I said as I handed her the piece of bark.

She beamed at me and gave me a bear hug

"Thank you!" a voice suddenly sounded.

I looked around trying to understand where that had come from. Then I looked at the woman who had already backed off, looking rather nervous. Taking a chance, I reached out with my spirit magic.

"Was that you?" I asked.

"Yes" she responded through the spirit link.

"Humans seem to be very odd about spirit magic, so we keltons try to be sparing in its use. We struggle to audibly speak like humans, aside from shrieks, yells and certain musical notes, so the impulse to use it comes naturally as speech to us.... but you don't seem upset." She said, getting less nervous as she talked.

"I'm fine with it as lo-" I started when she suddenly moved over to the spot where I had been experimenting earlier. She looked over the sprawling bits of leather laying everywhere and turned around to stare at me. She put her hands to her hips and huffed.

"I swear, every time I leave you alone you make a huge mess. This isn't even as bad as the forest of bark you leave laying about when making your items. I can only pity your mother, poor creature having to endure this for years on end." She said when she came back up to me, with a mix of scolding and teasing.

"Mother learned to love her lot in life, as I'm sure you will. The demands of magic are great on us all." I said, trying to convey my most mysterious tone through the spirit link.

She raised her eyebrows and huffed then went to go out the door.

"I didn't catch your name by the way." I said as quickly as I could before she got out of range.

"I am Salamede, good sir" She said.

"ELi" I said, shaking her hand.

She went out to get her cleaning supplies while I headed out to beggar some wind constructs at the classrooms.