I took out about thirty silver coins and placed them into a small bag she put into her mouth to hold until I told her to drop them onto the blade.
“Hubris,” I whispered, and the scepter came to me from its pocket dimension.
Enchanting more? This design seems interesting, how do you plan to make it more effective?
“I was going to add Kayda’s feathers and silver, so it’s conducive to electricity,” I explained and ran my hand over the design.
Intelligent, and you wish for it to produce electricity? Like lightning damage? Wait.
A gentle warmth radiated down my arms and into my chest.
You have gained much since last we spoke, master. You will be able to make things much easier, now. Combining your air and fire mana into the blade will produce a stronger tie to the elemental lightning you wish to make.
“Can I even do that?”
Do you not do so to make new spells already?
“I use the concepts of forging to make new spells.” I frowned and rubbed my head.
I will show you an easier way. Put the sword onto the deck, and take me in both hands.
“If I use two types of mana like this, I’ll be too exhausted to keep channeling it. The enchantment might be terrible!”
Trust me, master.
I growled and then looked to Kayda, who stared at me curiously, so I sighed and let her know. “When I say so, drop the coins onto the sword. Oh, here.”
I picked her feathers up and put them into her claw to help. Just in case I couldn’t use my hands to do it myself.
I closed my eyes and began the process of using elemental mana, envisioning the mana leaving my mana pool in two separate routes, fire going down my left arm, and air my right. Both meeting inside Hubris.
I will control the flow so that you do not lose much mana, we begin now.
The two aspects swirled down the scepter and into the sword in a bright yellow arc that made me gasp, and Kayda tilt her head back and forth.
My mana drained steadily, more steadily than it ever had while using aspected mana like this, but it still drained swiftly.
I am controlling it so that loss is minimal, and I add ambient magic to it as well to bolster your work. Focus your intent and will, master!
I did as Hubris ordered and focused my mind. First the silver needed adding… now!
Kayda dumped the silver in, and as the last piece disappeared from view, Kayda threw in the feathers, a flash of azure light around us came as a result.
Have her strike it with pure lightning!
She must have been able to sense the need, screeching angrily she zapped the metal of the weapon steadily until the end of my mana transference.
Name the weapon, master.
Arc Cutter
+15 damage, +18 Lightning damage
Special spell: Storm Roc’s Ire – caster invokes the anger of the mythic Storm Roc, calling lightning from the sky to smite their foe once. Cool down: 12 hours
Lo, unto the skies they eyed and saw her, wings spread far and her anger deeper than the oceans—they quake in fear of her rage and beauty.
Sword made by grandmaster smith Mikel Thornson and enchanted by adept enchanter Zekiel Erebos.
“Wow.” I blinked at the blade and grinned widely.
The blade was beautiful, and the silver that was supposed to fill the engraving wasn’t silver anymore, it was the same azure color as Kayda’s lightning magic. The blue lightning enhanced metal arced throughout the weapon, filling the center with smaller arcing branches that touched the cutting edge, but not ruining it.
I noticed that my enchanting had jumped two levels, putting me at level 48. Closer to master level! Yes. But two levels? Seemed a high jump, but I’d jumped that high before, hell higher, even. Something about doing things I’d not done before, branching out in my skills.
I moved my attention to the boots after a rest, adding more elemental energy to them with small bits of advice from Hubris. Then the rings, chest piece, and a set of bracers that I found in my inventory.
Four rings, one each for defense, mind protection, protection from the cold, and the final one to increase attack speed. Though the final ring took a little bit of mana to activate. I’d have to see if she had any since Muu did, I had to assume that she did too.
The bracers I enchanted to defend against elemental damage, a lesser version of the ones I wore since they couldn’t empower strikes with the residual magic that was absorbed.
The chest piece was made to be as hard and sturdy as mithril while being lighter than the leather that it was made of. That had been fun and easy, I also gave it a little protection from water magic, so there was that.
I thought about calling to Bea so she could shepherd her to me, but I held off. Now, I thought, what should I do about the kid?
She should likely have a way to defend herself. A weapon of some kind. But I’d have to see what she thought.
Bea, will you bring Vrawn and Odany to me?
They’re playing. Her simple response and lack of obedience threw me off. She had been herself this morning as well. You come to them. They’re having fun.
I turned to Kayda, who turned away from me, her head bobbed up and down as if she were laughing.
I inventoried my work and stormed out onto the deck to find all three of the people I sought and found them all playing a game of catch. Vrawn threw Odany up into the air, and the child would step up higher on the wind, then float gently back down as Bea called up to her in an audibly excited kind of bark.
The indignity gripping me as I had walked outside melted away when I heard the child’s giggling and saw her smile. Then Vrawn laughing and grinning as she was, relaxed and enjoying herself? I could get used to that.
Granted, I missed Maebe like crazy, but I knew she would be back as soon as she could. And I had to work on things here while I could, and patching things up with her would take some of the pressure off Maebe.
Not to mention, I wanted it too. I’d fucked up royally, and she had every right to be angry. I should focus on trying to fix things on my own.
I waited while they played for ten more minutes, the girl suddenly stopping and looking panicked. “I’m hungry.”
I found myself laughing probably louder than I had in some time, almost doubling over as all three sets of eyes swung my way.
“We can get you something to snack on.” I had some travel rations in my inventory that we hardly ever used, but it was edible, and it would hold her over, I hoped.
I took the brown square roughly the size of a pop tart and tossed it to her. She caught it and immediately tucked into it, eyeing the people around her dangerously.
“Vrawn, your weapon is ready, and I enchanted the gear as well.” I stepped closer to her and handed her the items one by one. Small sounds of awe and surprise came from her that made me grin.
She put the boots on immediately, looking like she felt better already. The other gear she threw on as well, admiring how everything looked, then looked over at me. “You said you had my weapon as well?”
I found my boyish grin spreading almost of its own accord as I held the weapon out in both hands. She frowned and removed the shirt I had used to cover it, Kayda hopping off my shoulder to assume her full glorious size so she could watch with pride.
“Oh, my gods, it’s beautiful, Zeke.” She lifted the blade reverently from my grasp and held it aloft, the sunlight shimmering off it. Kayda pecked the weapon, and an arc of electricity jumped between them, making her shuffle her feathers as if it tickled. She brought it down and closed her eyes as she stepped back, the arc she swung it through ending abruptly as she spun and parried an invisible blade from an imaginary enemy. The weapon looked light as a feather to her, and she maneuvered it so expertly that I found myself enraptured in her form and force of will.
Seeing her moving like this, you could tell that she had spent years and years developing her martial prowess until it was as finely tuned as a rock star�
�s guitar. She was the weapon, and it made me more than a little jealous.
“Woah…” Odany whispered as she shuffled closer to me, her eyes on Vrawn and Vrawn alone. “She’s so pretty! And she looks like she’s having fun.”
“Yeah, she does,” I admitted, and she grinned up at me. “I was going to ask—do you want a weapon?”
“If it’s like hers I want two!” Odany danced with her arms up in the air before staring back at Vrawn and attempting to copy some of the larger woman’s movements. Solidly planting her legs, the girl whirled her hand in a pattern similar to rolling your wrist and stabbing forward, then back again. She giggled, and when she “slashed” Dusty, the elemental threw her arms into the air and feigned death.
I watched Vrawn once more, and the sword itself began to glow an azure color as it wove a pattern of death through the air. Vrawn’s closed eyes and mildly labored breathing made me frown, she jumped and struck out at the air behind her with her foot and spun to land on the railing, her sense of the battle she fought almost as real as her surroundings. She shuffled back and pitched herself to the right and over the rail of the ship.
I grunted as my body moved on its own, the wind whipping over my face as I dove over the side and shifted into my eagle form with Kayda hot on my heels. As she fell, she fought even more fervently, Arc Cutter glittering in the air around her as she flipped through the air, keeping me away for fear of getting cut in half. She landed on the ocean in a three-point, superhero-style landing that made me groan at how goddamn awesome she was and then she began to fight again. The world around her forgotten.
She bared her teeth, her tusks flashing angrily as she grunted and snarled at the foes in her mind, and I had to work to stay aloft to ensure she didn’t hit the ship. As she cut the air in front of her, she lifted the blade with a savage cry, and azure lightning crackled around the blade. The sky split in half, and a column of lightning sundered the air before us and crashed into the water twenty feet in front of me, spraying my feathers with water and bringing Vrawn to her senses.
Kayda chose that moment to swing down and lift her from the water toward the ship.
I worked my way up the side of the ship and landed on the rail in my fox-man form, grabbing the rail with a clawed hand as Vrawn looked around her in a near panic. “You okay?”
“I haven’t had an inspiration that intense since before the war.” Vrawn let the sword’s tip rest on the deck as she looked at me, a grave expression on her face. “There’s a fight coming, Zeke.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Wait, what?” Muu took his clawed fingers and ran them over her head once more as we all stared at Vrawn on the back deck of the ship.
We’d gathered together after her prophetic vision, and she had explained what she had seen—experienced. It was a fight of downright epic proportions on the ocean with black creatures from the depths. The news was more than a little distressing to me as this whole thing was one of my biggest nightmares.
“They came from the depths in droves, and then something massive joined them, I cannot tell what it was, but it was larger than anything I have ever seen.” She looked distressed, so I found her hand and held it. “I do not know what this will mean, or how soon it will occur, but it is coming.”
“So, we need to prepare things.” Jaken frowned, his eyes closing for a moment. “Give me a little bit, I need to pray and think.”
I glanced askance of the others and mouthed, pray?
The others shrugged and mouthed paladin back, and that was that. I was going to need to do a lot of enchanting. If something was coming for us, then we needed to be ready, and we needed the crew to be ready too.
“Dinner isn’t for another hour; the captain is currently in a planning session with the gunner, gunner’s mate, first mate, and the quartermaster.” One of the older looking crew members explained when I had begun asking after the first mate. “Best not to disturb them, the captain is a bit… volatile when disturbed.”
“Very well, thank you.” He nodded and walked off, whistling a tune I didn’t recognize.
What’re we going to do? Jaken asked at last.
We can enchant the ship to be sturdier, the sails as well. Maybe we can also enchant the cannons? Zeke, what do you think? Balmur was busily scribbling in his book when he glanced up at me.
That could work, we might also want to try enchanting their weapons if we can. Between you, Jaken and Bokaj, you think we might be able to make some ballistae?
Muu’s head whipped over toward me. You’re talking about flinging harpoons? Like, Moby Dick type shit? At something that could likely swim off with us? Also, we look weird like this so let’s talk out loud for now.
“It doesn’t need to be attached to the ship you goober.” Bokaj rolled his eyes as he whittled something small. “Yeah, I have a decent amount of wood, though I don’t know about the amount of metal that Jaken could have. Why don’t you, Balmur, and Yohsuke, do what you did in the Great Below? With the shadows?”
“Because all we did was gather the magic for Maebe to shape and shoot.” I had to admit, it was a good idea. “Bokaj, Balmur, and Muu, I need all of you to work together and start a blueprint for a ballista. We can start by making one of them and ensuring it works.”
The three of them nodded, and Muu pulled out his little notebook for them to crowd around. James watched me expectantly, and I sighed. “I don’t suppose you brought any books on the ocean and its creatures with you?”
“You bet your furry ass I did.” James grinned. “I already started researching what was out here, and let me tell you—shit ain’t pretty.”
“Keep it up, when you find something that could be as big as Vrawn described, come let me know.” I made to move away, but Vrawn stopped me.
“I would like to prepare, as well.” She looked determined, and I nodded.
“I have a good job for you since you seem to be a good teacher.” I motioned to Odany, where she spoke to Dusty with Bea and Kayda watching over her.
“You want me to babysit her?” She frowned deeply, and I shook my head, then she brightened up a little. “You want me to teach her how to fight?”
“You will instruct her on her martial development, and I will instruct her with magic,” I raised my voice so that the others would hear me as well. “We bump it up to twice a day training from here on out so that we can be prepared. New shifts to watch the seas.”
“And what is our fearless leader going to be doing as we all bust our asses?” Muu put his hands on his hips and glared at me.
I grimaced at him and motioned to the water. “I’ll be going in to try and collect what forms I can for a couple hours a day so that we can fight back.”
He visibly blanched at my statement and went back to what he was doing without another word. “That’s what I thought.”
I turned to Vrawn. “Can you figure out what type of weapon Odany would do well with?”
“Of course, I carry an assortment of weapons to see who would be most suitable for a weapon type.” She smiled and left me standing there wondering when she had picked up sarcasm until she stood in front of Odany and produced weapon after weapon.
“Jesus Christ, she was completely serious.” Pulling my jaw up off the deck, I went to go see where Jaken was.
The sailors nodded my way, their curiosity making them pause in their various tasks to wave or smile at me. I did my best to smile back and be as friendly as possible. We would be working with all of them soon to protect the ship, so it would be rude of me not to.
I found Jaken standing on at the front of the ship where the rails met, and the waves were cut. He stared out over the ocean with his back to me, his platinum armor glinting in the light of the afternoon sun.
I stepped closer to him, and he turned to offer me a small smile. “Hey, man.”
“How you doin?” I reached over and ruffled his shoulder playfully, and he just shook his head.
“Wondering what Luna would think of all this.”
He motioned out to the world around us. “I find myself thinking of that question more and more often, wondering if coming here might not be the better option for her.”
“Coming here?”
“Yeah.” He frowned in thought then crossed his arms before him. “Like, if we do a good enough job here, maybe the gods could bring her and her mom over here. Maybe we could live here.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. “Yeah, that would be pretty wild. But wouldn’t you want to stay home?”
“That place sucks, man.” Jaken groaned and shoved my shoulder as if to wake me up. “The planet is dying, the people there are so full of themselves that they let others die for no reason, and what is there to do about it? I can’t do anything about it, I’m just one guy.”
I let that statement hang in the air a little bit, silently contemplating what I could say to help him feel better. I found it hard. Harder than I might have before I met Maebe and Vrawn.
“You’re right.” I shrugged. “Earth sucks. The humans there are, for the most part, somewhat shitty. And though you’re one man there, you’re one man here, too. And one man can change someone’s entire perspective. If you change one life for the better, you’ve made the world a better place. Think of Luna—if you were to raise her as righteously and wonderfully as you would love to, think of the people whose lives she could change.”
His eyebrows furrowed over his eyes. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that.” He put his hands on the rail and leaned forward. “So, the fight is coming to us. What’re the others doing?”
“They’re researching, and working on trying to get a blueprint together for a ballista, what we need to know is how much metal we have, and that’s where you come in.”
He opened his inventory and frowned. “I have a good bit of iron, copper, a little steel, and bronze. I have a good amount of lead. Silver, too, if I can work with it. And… about twenty bars of mithril.”
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