<~> CHAPTER 76

"So, Maximus, what materials do you think are worth dropping what I'm doing for you?" The short drakken asked. The five of us were standing next to a table that was low enough to the ground to accommodate the drakken smith's height. Even though all of us towered over the older lizard guy, he didn't seem fazed by it at all. One of his human apprentices led us to the back of the shop to meet with him and hung around watching the conversation.

"Lokk'at, My name is Maxwell, not Maximus," he corrected.

"Eh, whatever. I have lots of customers, hard to keep human names straight. What do you have for me?" he grumpily replied.

Maxwell slipped his pack off his shoulder and pulled out the umber hound pelt wrapped around all of the bones and set them on the table. The smith's interest was instantly piqued and he was spreading it out and inspecting it.

"We found this on the sixteenth floor. Helena over here killed it herself and she could use some better armor," Maxwell said while gesturing to me.

The smith's brow ridge furrowed. "The sixteenth floor? I know that is pretty deep for our dungeon, but there should only be goblins and a few other critters on that floor. How did an umber hound find its way there? Was it weaker than normal?" His final question was addressed to me.

"I don't know. I have nothing to..." I struggled to find the word I was looking for.

"She's never seen one before. She doesn't know how strong it is," Piper said, finishing the thought for me.

"Strange," the smith said while continuing to examine the fur. "This pelt looks like an animal got to it before you skinned it, but it died of this knife wound here I think." His clawed fingers were holding up a rough edge along the pelt.

"We think the umber wolf may have had spatial magic too," Maxwell added, not acknowledging his observation.

Lokk'at looked up from the pelt to look at Maxwell directly. "You're lying."

"Not if her story is true," Piper said nodding at me.

"Okay, you're lying then," he said dryly.

I shrugged. "I don't know what happened. The person at the hunter's association told me it may have used spatial magic, that's all I know."

"What kind of armor do you want?" the drakken said switching gears.

"Uhh..." I paused.

Lokk'at sighed. "Do you want something similar to what you're already wearing, do you want something like Maximus, or do you want something else?" he asked with an annoyed tone.

"It's Maxwell... Can you make her something that can quickly adjust its shape to fit the user?" Maxwell asked the drakken.

"That sort of thing is possible?" I asked suddenly very curious.

The smith grimaced. "Is it possible? Yes. Can I do it? No. You would need someone more skilled than I am in enchantment for that. My enchantment is okay, but it's not that advanced. You're more likely to find something like that in Ironcastle."

"Should we wait on the armor then?" I asked my friends.

"Hold on, hold on," he said trying to cut off that line of thinking. "Even if I can't do that, I can make something that would be compatible with that sort of enchantment later on after you find a better enchanter. I would still bet my skill in armorcraft is better than most of the hacks in Ironcastle... at least the ones you could afford anyway. I charge much less for my work here since I can make it up in volume. Charging less is worth it if I can get the opportunity to work with exotic materials. I'd be willing to give you a discount if I can have some of the leftover pelt when I'm finished."

"What's to stop you from being stingy with the material you use when making the armor?" Aria asked. The suspicious tone to her voice was clear to everyone.

Lokk'at glared at Aria. "Nothing but my honor. Maximus and I have known each other for a while, I wouldn't cross him like that. It's bad for business."

"My name is Maxwell."

"Bah, whatever," the drakken waved away. "A majority of the material will be used in the armor, you have my word. The parts I would be collecting are mostly cuttings and possibly some of the end bits that wouldn't get used anyway. Plenty enough for me to power enchantments in other gear, but not enough to be useful in the armor I would be creating for you. I also won't need all of the bones, you can keep those after."

"How much?" I asked.

Lokk'at looked over the pelt again. "After the remnant pieces... eight tigers. Firm. That's what I can offer you."

I froze, caught off guard by the number. That would be most of the money I made from the dungeon. I looked at Luna, looking for help.

Luna noticed my gaze and smiled. ("I'd say it's worth it. There will be more opportunities to make money and strong armor that could be improved through enchantment later would be a good investment. It may even save your life, we're not sure how well your regeneration might fare if you got stabbed through the head or the heart. Armor and weapons are usually a delver's largest expense and your weapon is good enough to not need a replacement anytime soon. Eight tigers is a lot of money but once we don't need to siphon so much toward the debt, all of us will have a lot more spending power.")

I sighed. "Fine. Eight tigers for the armor then."

The drakken smiled a large toothy grin with his lizard-like face.

"We don't have much time before we need to leave town though," Maxwell added.

Lokk'at squinted at him. "A rush job? Really? With an umber hound pelt of all things?... Bah, I'd normally charge you extra for that but truthfully, I was already planning on doing this tonight."

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"Uh, Sir? There's that priority order for the merchant..." the nearby apprentice suddenly interjected.

The drakken sneered. "I hate that guy though, he can wait another day." He turned back to us. "What style do you want? You never said. Your armor suggests you're a scout but she has the bow and you have the Axe, so it must be a hand me down or something."

"Oh, I found this in the dungeon." I suddenly felt a little embarrassed by my armor. "And uh, I guess something similar to Maxwell? Oh, but something that won't restrict my legs too much."

"She's more of a skirmisher than a defender," Maxwell helpfully added.

"Hmm, protective and heavy but not too restrictive. You look like you're muscular enough to handle that. If you're a skirmisher you'll want a repair enchantment. I can do that without taking too much load away from other enchantments," he said. Luna worked extra hard to fill in the blanks for me as I tried to keep up with what he was talking about.

"Will that be extra?" I asked after I caught up.

"No, that's normal for a custom fit armor. It's included. Any issue with armored skirts?" he asked.

"I'd prefer not, I feel like it might get in the way if I'm running," I replied.

He looked down at the pelt in thought. "I think I can come up with something. Come back tomorrow around sundown. I'll be done by then. I have to take this to a tanner to get this cleaned up and flash processed." Another sentence that Luna had to walk me through. I'm getting better at picking things up myself but this guy doesn't even give me a chance.

"Deal, when should I pay?" I asked.

"After," he said with a nod. "If you don't come back for the armor, I'm keeping it. Don't ask me to do it as a rush order and then disappear on me. I don't take deposits when the materials are this rare," he added.

"Take her measurements," he said to the apprentice.

"Yes, Sir." He came over with a roll of twine and started marking measurements down with chalk in a shorthand I couldn't identify. The smith was so absorbed with the pelt now that he basically ignored us for the rest of our time there and the apprentice led us out of the back room once he was finished.

"So, a jewelry shop now?" I asked.

Piper nodded. "I know a place that should be good for having custom jewelry made and would know how to identify those crystals. They should also be able to make something with that frost salamander gland for Luna."

We spent some time walking through the beautiful city to the jewelry shop on the other side of town. It was in the afternoon now and the canal was reflecting the light of the western sun across the buildings, giving everything a warm afternoon glow. The air smelled so fresh and clear here, but it was a bit thinner from the higher elevation compared to what I was used to.

"This is the place," Piper said indicating a shop with a fresco of gemstones on the outside of the building.

"Looks expensive," Maxwell commented as we approached the door.

"Quality is expensive," Piper replied with a shrug.

The shop we entered had a few other people in it but what immediately got my attention was the cases all around the room full of beautiful looking jewelry of all different colors. Some of the jewelry in the cases were literally glowing. As we walked through the room, the jewelry glowed with more mana as we reached the back wall.

I turned to the side when I heard a gasp from a short red-scaled drakken woman who was looking right at the hunk of crystal tied to my waist. "Is that corscant crystal?" she asked aloud.

I glanced at Luna who tried to translate it, but the word didn't have any different meaning to me using the rings, it sounded the same.

"Yes, I wanted to see about making some jewelry from it and having this crystal identified," I told her.

"Great! Follow me! No wait, go stand over there! I need to go get someone from the back!" She pointed to a counter off in a corner away from the display cases before running off.

"Have you heard of corscant crystal?" Piper asked us. Everyone shook their heads with me.

We waited for a while and an older drakken returned with the drakken woman that greeted us. In the meantime, I had unhooked the large chunk of crystal that I had been using as a lantern and set it on the table along with the four shards larger than my palm and the six fingernail-sized pieces. The drakken man's eyes lit up when he reached the table and looked over the crystals.

"My name is Angela, and this drakken here is a master jewelry smith, and also my uncle, named Trevor. He has a lot of knowledge on what kinds of things can be made from these crystals," Angela, the female drakken, said.

"Who taught you to harvest corscant crystal like this? I haven't seen purity like this in a long time," the older drakken commented, skipping any formalities.

I glanced at Maxwell who just shrugged in reply. Since he was no help I just answered honestly. "No one taught me how to harvest it. I just collected the parts of the crystal that looked the most saturated with magic."

"May I touch them?" he asked.

I nodded. "Sure. What is corscant crystal used for? I originally just collected it because I thought it was beautiful and I wanted a souvenir from the dungeon."

("Helena, you probably shouldn't admit that you have no idea what the crystal we're looking at is worth,") Luna told me through the rings.

("No matter where we go, we'd have to tell someone the truth. Besides, I don't intend to sell it anyway. I want something made from it,") I replied.

What he replied with was so filled with jargon I didn't understand any of it. I had Luna translate word for word for me. ("Corscant crystal is used to amplify magic resonance. Essentially, it functions as a strong magic focuser for spellcasters and it can be used to create very powerful enchanted jewelry when combined with other magic infused gemstones. A chunk this large is almost unheard of, if it were fashioned into a staff or scepter it would make most casters nearly twice as powerful.") As Luna translated, her voice became more and more excited by the prospect.

The older drakken noted the palm-sized crystals. "These ones would make for good amulets, and the smallest ones would make for good rings or bracelets. The rings would be better paired with other gemstones to amplify the effects of enchantments but the amulet-sized ones would be best as general amplifiers for spellcasters as well. Though the effects would not work well if they were also using this large chunk as a staff," he said gesturing to various crystals.

"Would these be suitable crystals to take mana store or mana regeneration enchantments?" Piper asked.

"Suitable?" The question made the drakken laugh. "When paired with altotite, corscant crystal make the best mana store and regeneration rings." Both Piper and Luna looked like they were about to faint from the news of how valuable this find was for us.