“What have you done to this cloak, and don’t try to lie to us, boy!”
“Yes, boy, it won’t end well if you do!”
They had just finished dragging me inside their store against my will when I found myself suddenly released and with a bundle of black fabric shoved into my face.
Or at least mostly black, since I could see some light purple, almost cyan, and yellow lines mixed in.
“What did I do to my cloak? I just [Enchanted] it with some useful things”, I hesitantly replied, still reluctant on disclosing what I could do to some strangers.
“Are you an [Enchanter]?” The blonde cat-granny asked, while the red-headed one’s face slightly reddened as if trying to match.
“Well, no, but-“ I started answering, but didn’t get to finish.
“Then you shouldn’t have messed with things you don’t know about!!!” The increasingly reddening woman finally erupted, seemingly waiting for exactly this response.
“Hey, I studied about it in various books!” I defended myself.
“Books don’t make up for an apprenticeship under an actual master, boy”, the more collected of the two shook her head, when at the same time she was sending me a look that seemed to scream ‘are you stupid?’, which I did not appreciate.
“I’m not going to listen to the opinion of a crone that won’t bother treating their customers like actual people”, I acidly said, causing both of their eyes to widen in surprise. “What? Don’t tell me you’re so used to having others go along with your whims that you don’t know anymore how to respond to someone that talks back? That’s kind of pathetic”.
“Watch your mouth boy, we’ve had much more illustrious personage in this shop and even they didn’t dare talk to us that way!” The red-headed one, who was Flavinia, was the first one to snap out of her surprise, responding with an equally threatening tone, and some added spittle.
“Who do you think you are!?” The other followed soon after her sister.
“Now you bother with asking who am I? Not before when, let’s say, you accepted the commission?” I asked, actually bothered by their unprofessionality.
“Stop being so flippant, boy-“, Lavinia said through gritted teeth, but that word had made my eyebrow twitch for long enough, and so it was my turn to snap.
“I am a fucking man, and I will be treated like one!” I shouted, while pointing a finger at their faces, constantly switching between the two with narrowed eyes.
“Hmph, you’re two hundred years too early to adopt that reasoning with us”, one of the cat grannies actually scoffed.
Scoffed!
“Yes, exactly. You’d better stop getting mouthy with us!” The other sneered.
Sneered!
Who the fuck would ever commission something from these psychos after meeting them!?
“I’ll get as mouthy as I want, thank you very much. And you two crones are thousands of years too old to tell me what to do: The future is now, old women!”
An impossibly thin thread sped towards my calf, so I speared the floor of their shop with a [Totem] in response; the thread actually managed to crack one of the plates of my shield on impact.
“Our floor!”
“How did you do that!?”
The two evil grannies kept on having different reactions, but there was only one I could have, especially after they attacked me.
“Yeah, I’m leaving”, I said, turning around on the spot.
I made to grab the handle on the door, and I could feel both cat-women staring at my back with confident and malicious smirks. Too bad for them that I had already analyzed the [Enchantment] on the door, so it was pretty easy for me to generate a [Rune] on my palm, keeping it unseen, and dispel the harmful or protective effect that should have resisted me.
Under their shocked eyes, I twisted the handle and stepped outside.
“Don’t worry about the cloak, I’ll finish it myself if I have to”, I called behind me, without turning around fully to see their reaction.
There was no reason: I could already feel their hanging jaws and widened eyes.
“That feels like I’m perceiving more than simple emotions…”
It only took a couple of steps for them to snap out of their renewed shock.
“Good, because both my companions aren’t here.”
“Wait!”
“Let’s not get hasty!”
“We didn’t realize you could use [Runes]!”
“Obviously, that alone makes you an incredibly talented [Enchanter], even without a proper education!”
I stop dead in my tracks.
I purposely hid my use of [Runes], so how did they know?
I slowly turned around, and was welcomed by the sight of two worried older women with cat ears, emotionally fluctuating between exasperation and worry.
“How did you know?” I knew that saying that would probably oust me without a doubt, but I thought it preferable to repeating whatever might have helped them in their conclusion with somebody else.
“Can we talk about it inside?” Lavinia asked, with her eyes going to and fro the sides of the entrance to their shop.
But I was reluctant, to say the least to go back inside where they forced me to originally enter, and then tried to force me to stay, and there was nothing-
“Please?” Whispered Flavinia, the one that I had come to know as the more hot-headed of the twins.
“…Ok, fine, but no more bullshit”, I muttered while turning back around, sure that their enhanced senses would be able to pick it up.
What can I say? It’s hard to say no to an apologetic grandma!
I know that they were in the wrong, but maybe you should have acted more neutrally with them.
I have no doubt that you could feel what they were doing.
“They were testing me. Testing! How was I supposed to not take it personally when two strangers decide to have a go at poking me to see what happens!?”
[Buddy] didn’t seem to have other words of wisdom for me, so he shut up; meanwhile, I was back into the shop, closing the door behind me and feeling the [Enchantments] reactivating on their own.
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I stared at the two old cat-girl, and they stared back, and nobody seemed willing to talk.
Regretting it still a tiny bit even when I was doing it, I heaved a sigh and started talking first.
“Ok, let’s start this over from the top: What’s wrong with my cloak?” I said, while waving the bundled cloth still in my hand.
“Nothing is wrong with it”, the blonde twin reassured me.
“The problem is that it’s too good…sir”, I could see her grimace when adding the honorific at the end.
“None of that ‘sir’ crap: If you go from insulting my maturity to directly treating me with respect it just feels weird and fake”, I tried to bring the situation back on a neutral footing, hoping it would expedite whatever was happening.
“Understandable.”
“Yes…”
They had surprisingly different reactions this time, but at least it looked like we finally had come to an acceptable level of understanding.
“Back on the main topic then: In what way is it ‘too good’?” I asked for clarification.
Honestly, I probably knew where this was going, but I had to make sure so I wouldn’t accidentally reveal anything else about the impossibilities I could do.
“It took too many [Enchantments]-“
“-and too easily-“
“-fixing any discordance seemingly on its own-“
“-even contradictory ones started working together if left alone long enough-“
“Unprecedented!”
“Completely absurd!”
After the short rapid-fire on their part, I simply nodded, expecting that this was exactly what they were going to talk to me about. After all, even without actively using [Gaze] I could still feel the familiar sensation of [Adaptability] coming from the cloak in my hand.
“I get it now… but all I’m willing to tell you is that yes, I am behind this oddity”, I replied truthfully, but naturally abstaining from telling them the how.
I was already painfully aware of how unnatural the way I [Enchanted] with [Traits] was.
“You’re the cause!?”
“We thought that whoever taught you about [Runes] prematurely did it!”
Ah… fuck me, I still gave away much more than I intended to.
But at least now I know that they think somebody else taught me about [Runes]… which while it’s technically true, since it was [Guild Master] Rubicon that introduced me fully to the concept, I’m primarily self-taught on the subject.
“Can you explain how you did it then?”, Lavinia asked, extremely eagerly.
Ha, there’s the question that I really don’t want to answer to, but thankfully a simple ‘no’ will suffice-
“We’re willing to pay handsomely for it!” Exclaimed Flavinia, to which the other nodded her head furiously.
“Money?”
Don’t crab around.
“Ok, ok, it was a joke.”
Still, simply saying ‘no’ is probably the wrong way to go about this, because I now believe I understand what kind of people the two women are: A dedicated pair who go coo-coo about their passion.
And since their passion revolves solely around crafting, I highly doubt that they’d let go of the bone I accidentally dangled in front of their faces.
The moral of the story is ‘screw me and my big mouth’, I guess.
“As you had previously stated, although rudely, I am no master: What you see here is just an experiment on an attempt to mix [Runes] and [Enchantments] and make something that adapts to the other magical effects that are put alongside it”, I explained while shaking the cloak still in my hand, keeping the truth as hidden as possible but still giving them enough to believe that I knew what I was talking about.
Which wasn’t really the case.
“Mhh, that would explain the roughness and forcefulness through which it operates”, one said while stroking her chin.
“No directions, nor inputs, it only ‘goes’”, the other lamented thoughtfully.
“Hey! I’ve had the [System] and [Magic] as a whole for like a month: Give me a break, will you?” I felt the need to defend myself, after they started badmouthing the [Trait] that my entire [Race] supposedly got.
I could mentally remind myself that I wasn’t simply [Human] anymore, and I had something better now, but I still had contradicting feelings regarding that.
“Yes, yes. We’re not diminishing the significance of your accomplishments.”
“We’re just stating the fact that it could have been done with the help of an expert in the subject.”
I couldn’t tell if they were trying to simply appease me, or if they were hinting at wanting to tutor me.
“Innovation is only misused when half-assed.”
“Innovation through proper knowledge and research progresses a civilization through leaps and bounds.”
Ok, now even without my [Precognitive Aura] I could tell that they were trying to rope me in to work with them for the better of [Nexus]-kind. But after how they treated me at the start I was fully comfortable with giving them a big fat ‘NO’ as a response.
“Maybe you’re right, but it doesn’t matter to me, since I have no intentions to fix it since it isn’t broken”, I stated, which was answered by multiple huffs.
“What a waste of potential”, muttered the blonde cat.
“At least leave us a sample to better study!” Implored the red cat; or at least that’s what she thought she was doing, because to me it felt more like an order, so there was only an answer that I give in return.
“No”, I simply said, trying to show no emotion on my face.
Groans and more huffs came out of their mouth, but they didn’t seem keen to push me any further.
“Maybe I wasn’t the only one that got to see through the other party…”
I doubt they would value masters and experts so much if they did not have an impressive amount of experience already under their belts.
“Touché [Buddy]. Touché.”
“Tch, fine! Why don’t you look at your damn cloak already then, so you can be off?”
“Yeah, we have no more time to waste with cheapskates!”
Ignoring their sudden change in tone, I did just that and finally unfurled the bundle in my hand; unsurprisingly, it maintained the same length and general design as the old version, but even at a glance it was much smoother, even more so than the silky texture it used to already have. The old button-clasp that closed the top around the neck now was replaced by a tiny belt buckle, but one of those that you’d find in an airplane for quick release, and not one of those with holes in the belt.
And finally came what I thought was the biggest change: The back now had two bright [Runes] woven right into the fabric, exactly identical except one was upside down, and where the first one was golden in color, the second one was purple. They were the runes of [Change].
Esthetically wise it was definitely an improvement, but now came the true test of quality.
[Gaze of the Abyss]
Name:
Cloak of perfected Adaptability
Owner:
Darwin Dulcet
Type:
Cloak; cloth
Rank:
Legendary
Properties:
Improved Adaptability; Perfected Change
Materials:
Water Dryder Silk; Aether thread; Mythril
It was amazing… except for one thing: The had somehow managed to ‘improve’ my [Enchatment] based on my old [Trait] in a direction that somehow made it different from the one I currently had.
Was that even possible? I mean, I couldn’t change [Traits] for shit, and that was with me being able to see them and having an entire [Ability] meant to [Modify].
Just how good were these grannies!?
“How did you manage to modify my original [Enchantment]? I was sure that it was too complicated for anyone other than me to be able to mess with it”, I eventually decided to hide a bit of my true intentions, but still ask them the how.
“Are you mocking us now, boy!?” Lavinia asked with a scowl.
“Of course, we could see through the messy work of an inexperienced inept!” Flavinia slammed a fist to the desk beside her, with an harrumph.
‘Boy’ and ‘Inept’? I guess I did word that a lot like an insult.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just surprised because that was an [Enchantment] that I only managed to make experimentally, as I had already said, but after that, it resulted in something that I never managed to further modify; so I was just genuinely asking how you did it”, this time I deliberately chose my words, mixing in another kernel of truth, to calm them back down and maybe push them into revealing at least something.
Fortunately, it seemed to work, at least partially, as they visibly relaxed and assumed a more thoughtful expression.
“We get it now, but we’re not giving away the secrets of our work for free.”
“A favor for a favor: You recreate this ‘experiment’ for us and we would be willing to teach you the true depth of [Enchanting].”
With how often they finished each other phrases, or seemingly switched personalities, if I weren’t able to constantly see their hair color I bet this would I nightmare to understand who said what.
“So what do you say?”
As if to further prove the point I was trying to make in my mind, they asked the question together, at the same time.
“What will I choose, uh? One way or another, this feels like it will come back to bite me in the ass either way…”