Chương 29: Orders

The enchantery was on the first level of the city, and was by far the most prominent building in the area. It was carved into the base of one of the colossal trees so that the entrance was surrounded by roots the size of Parthenon pillars. Colorful flowers bloomed about the entrance, and the building was downright infested with all sorts of magical lights so that between the roots and living wood, the whole structure had an ethereal glow.

The living walls of the tree had been supplemented by some of the mushrooms the gorgons used for construction. The mycelia of the fungi were woven through the root structure. Each of the mushrooms growing out of the roots—each about as tall as Malachi—had their own subtle pulsing glow to their caps. As Arisone led them into the building, the mushrooms responded to her, and the shroud of hyphae that made up the door parted for them, revealing the inside of the enchantery.

The inside of the building was full of strange devices. Each device seemed half-alive, with roots or mycelia dug into the floor, but there were also shining brass components with bands of glowing glyphs around them or steel tools. It was as if the tools of a woodshop and blacksmith had been mushed together, but all given the rainbow-LED treatment of gamer accessories. Well, and if, say, half the bandsaw was a living tree, or a smith's forge was full of thin glowing mushrooms for some reason.

Malachi could have vaguely guessed what the glassware of the alchemist was used for. The only thing he actually recognized were the little glass vials full of magical essence because he'd seen Arisone using them. There were more rooms beyond, but curtains of hyphae decorated with painted beads veiled the doors.

"Hail, Arisone of Thessalinth," the gorgon inside said. Her scales were mottled gray and looked rougher than the other gorgons he'd seen. Her eyes were pale, nearly white.

"Hail, Lethis of Theveta," Arisone replied. This time, Malachi noticed each of the hair-snakes was making a specific sort of bobbing motion as they greeted each other.

"Uh, hail, Lethis. Sorry, my hair can't do that," Malachi said.

"This is Malachi of Earth, my Sentinel," Arisone said.

"I owe her a debt, and would offer her two gifts to repay it.""'Him,' but, uh, yeah, thanks."

"Ah, right. Human males are, strangely, the same size as their female counterparts," Arisone clarified.

"It is very confusing." Malachi took that as his cue and got out his stash of aetherite.

"Six cracked, one intact," he said. Arisone made a horrified face.

"He has not been trained in etiquette," she said quickly.

"What did I do wrong?" Lethis, the enchanter, said, "Explaining the grade of your aetherite to me is like instructing an adult how to change the color of their scales. But no offense taken."

"Oh. Sorry. I guess that makes sense."

"You may need to explain basic ideas of magic to her—him. Earth apparently has no magic." When Lethis nodded, Arisone continued.

"I will leave you two to it, then. I should return to the Council."

"Cool. Thanks," Malachi said.

"So what kind of stuff can I get?"

"Weapons, armor, and many useful items. You know about the limitations of enchantments?"

"Not really, no."

"I'll explain it as if you were a hatchling, then, and you can stop me if I condescend. You can wear five standard enchanted aetheric items, plus benefit from one or two aetheric weapons, depending on the enchantment type. Wearing more than that will cause the items' enchantments to destabilize, usually nullifying the power of at least one item while causing degradation of all the items. Some Classes can overcome that limit." Malachi nodded. He was wearing three enchanted items.

"Do my boots count as two aetheric items or one?"

"One. An aetheric enchantment can be spread across multiple objects. Though, if you separate your boots from each other, the enchantment will go dormant." Interesting, he thought.

"Arisone mentioned one of the Hadaun lords had a bloodline curse on his armor, which is why we had to feed it to the shrine-thing. That's not an aetheric enchantment?"

"Correct. The limitations on those are different… and complicated. The materials to create non-aetheric enchantments are usually very expensive and are not linked to your Magical Core, so they can be damaged or destroyed by certain hostile magics. They're most useful for non-combat items. A magic lantern. A self-drawing map. A magical compass."

She hesitated, then said, "To avoid a long, complicated explanation, I don't recommend having non-aetheric enchantments equipped, and I don't have the materials to make any that you'd find useful in combat anyway."

"Right, cool. So it doesn't really matter what the aetheric enchantments are on, yeah? I could have one on a breastplate, or that same one could be on a breastplate and two pauldrons. Is there a benefit to spreading the enchantments out, or could I just wear, like, five enchanted necklaces?" Malachi could see Lethis's hair-snakes looking around like they were embarrassed. Lethis snapped her fingers next to her hair and the snakes straightened out.

"Two things. One: it's generally a good idea to make the enchanted item as part of your armor because, even without a specific enchantment doing so, the very act of enchanting a piece of armor strengthens it and makes it easier to repair. The fundamental aspect of the armor is preserved as long as it has durability. A benefit to linking with the ethereal." He almost followed the explanation, but Lethis left no opening for questions as she continued.

"Two: aetheric enchantments can't 'fit' on jewelry. A belt or a pair of bracers is about as small an item as you can fit an aetheric enchantment on. Jewelry requires a special 'orn-aetheric' enchantment that come from ambrite, just like how a corona enchantment requires umbrite." Seeing Malachi raising an eyebrow, she said, "We have neither of those crystals in the whole city. The kinds of dungeons they come from are out of our reach." Good to know, though.

"Alright. So, first things first, I want an enchanted spear. Arisone said the intact aetherite needs a…

'imbued' item?" He quickly clarified, "I'm asking because I don't know how this stuff works."

"Correct. I work with the other grand masters to create weapons worthy of a hunter." She slithered over to a rack of weapons. Each weapon was gripped in the branches of the rack. As Lethis reached for a spear, the branch uncoiled, dropping it in her hand. The spear had a dark wooden shaft and a white spearhead that looked like bone. The craftsmanship was impeccable. Malachi felt his mouth watering.

"The shaft is polished ebongar wood. Our druids grow a special fungus inside a darkleaf tree. The resulting wood is tougher, and takes enchantments better. It also has a certain beauty." She held the spear out to Malachi.

"The spearhead is carved hydrabone. Incredibly durable and holds an edge better than steel. Our grandmaster uses both her bone necromancy and druid magic to fuse the two pieces together. Give it a few swings." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Malachi did, his heart pounding as he did. The weapon was perfectly balanced. It was light, but had just enough heft to it. It felt smooth beneath his fingers.

"Beautiful," he whispered reverently.

"The System Units classify it as the highest quality of imbued, so it can fit seven levels of enchantments. Your intact aetherite can be used for a level five enchantment. I'd recommend using three of the cracked pieces for a level two enchantment."

"Great. What sort of enchantments can I get?" Lethis held out her hand, and Malachi reluctantly handed the spear back.

"There are two basic types of aetheric enchantments. The first type are enchantments that synergize with your Magical Core. The second type are enchantments that don't. The advantage of the first type of enchantment is that they are more powerful, since they have extra energy to draw on. However, this comes at a cost of versatility.

If, for example, you had an elemental shadow core, a shadow enchantment would be more powerful, but you would struggle to harm a luminous wisp at all, as the creatures are highly resistant to all shadow magic." Malachi nodded.

"How many creatures are resistant to lightning?"

"Several. Root haunts, of course, as well as osteovines."

"Not just here. In the other realms." SERA? Did you want to chime in? The System Unit remained silent. Too many other System Units monitoring it, he guessed.

"That is harder to say. Lightning mages are common in foreign armies and hunting parties, so it works most of the time. And the spear will still be a spear. Something immune to lightning usually will still bleed."

"Yeah. And the first kind of enchantment is basing it off of the conduit strength, right? So as I get, uh, higher level spells,"—that felt weird to say out loud—"the enchantment is also strengthened, yeah?"

"Essentially." Malachi didn't need to think long about it. The optimal move would be to get versatile enchantments that were better now, then get a weapon that aligned with his conduits later, but he couldn't plan on getting another chance like this. How often would he be able to use the work of two grandmaster artisans who were giving him a spear made of special materials? A level five enchantment was two grades better than what a young lord had been using. No, what he was getting now would have to last.

"The level five enchantment should be something lightning related. Something that's as consistent and powerful at dealing damage as you can manage." And then, because Malia had always encouraged him to be a clear communicator, he added, "Does that give you enough information to pick an enchantment?" Lethis smiled.

"Yes. There's a lightning enchantment that will empower the spear with lightning that sometimes leaps to your other foes. Good for the hunter who is outnumbered, but also deadly against larger prey. And the second enchantment?" Malachi thought of his fight with the root haunt and osteovine.

"I have a protective conjuration conduit as well. But I need to be able to do enough damage to kill something trying to kill me, you know? So let's keep the spear focused on the offensive." The gorgon narrowed her eyes, and all her hair snakes turned their gaze to him at once. Malachi shivered. Still creepy.

"You are tough for your kind, hmm?" He suddenly found himself laughing, even though there was nothing funny about it. Flashes of recent memory shot through his mind like a bullet, and he saw the hoards of mantises swarming toward him, knowing he was going to die, but somehow he'd survived. It wasn't funny at all. He probably looked completely unhinged to Lethis.

He choked down a sadness he'd been holding down, burying it back where it belonged, in that deep place inside himself where all those other things were buried too. His last fight with his mother. The time his dad had— Malachi exhaled.

"Yeah," he said. Nice coping mechanism, bro, he could hear Malia say. Lethis obviously wasn't an idiot, but she didn't say anything about Malachi's weird little spurt of emotions.

"You have aegis?" Arisone had made it clear people tended to hide a lot of their abilities, but she'd also already seen him using the spell, so it wasn't exactly a secret. And, it seemed, it was an incredibly common ability.

"Yup."

"I know a rarely used enchantment. One your enemies on other worlds may not see often because many of the materials are only found in swamps like these. It would allow you to store a small amount of the power of your enemies attacks, then once per day, unleash them in a powerful retaliatory strike. That enchantment naturally connects to protection magic, but I can also make it connect to your lightning conduits."

The gamer in Malachi wanted to sit down with an encyclopedia and a spreadsheet and learn every single possible enchantment and what it could do, but that was probably the work of a lifetime. But if you couldn't figure it out yourself, pulling an OP build from the forums from someone who knew what they were talking about was the next best thing.

"I'll trust in your expertise," he said.

"Very well," Lethis said, looking pleased. She took the intact aetherite and three pieces of the cracked aetherite and set them to the side.

"I imagine you want another piece of enchanted equipment as well?"

"Yeah." He looked at the scars covering his arms from where the spikes in the dungeon had cut him up. They might fade over time, but for now, it was a clear reminder of where he didn't have protection. He thought about a helmet, but also thought about how Lord Tebor's helmet had limited the lordlings vision during their fight. Being able to see an osteovine lurking in the trees would allow him to avoid a fight entirely. He needed his peripheral vision. That, and he hadn't seen a single helmet in the city.

He wasn't sure the smiths could even make him something like that. The snake-hair seemed to preclude any design that he'd actually want. The closest thing he'd seen to a helm was a steel face-mask, or steel headbands with armored temples.

"Vambraces. With gloves, if they can be incorporated. Uh, do you have cool special stuff for that? If not, steel works."

"Knowing Arisone, you won't be here for that long. Steel would be best. I can take the measurements of your arms now and give them to the smith, leatherworkers, and tailors."

"Out of curiosity, what sort of, uh, leather and cloth do you use?"

"For enchantment work? The leather comes from the boars we farm. The tailors use silk from the domestic spiders and quilt it over wool. It feels quite nice on the scales, and once enchanted, the fabric becomes much more durable."

"Wool. Huh. Do you have… sheep?" Lethis gave him a puzzled look.

"No, it comes from the woolly rat, of course. Hold out your arm." As Lethis pulled out a notched stick and a knotted cord to start measuring, Malachi asked more questions about enchantments. A single piece of cracked aetherite could be used for a level one enchantment. It took three cracked pieces to make a level two enchantment, which meant he could get one slightly more powerful enchantment or three weaker ones. Here, he decided on flexibility.

"Something that protects against ice magic," he said, thinking of the ice mage. If that guy was still hunting them, best to have something that could protect him from the blizzards or that creeping frost that had fucked up his toes. But he couldn't protect himself from all the different kinds of magic. There were just too many of them. And he didn't have the slightest idea what the other Hadaun hunters could do.

"The other two I want to enhance my natural capabilities. Enhanced strength?"

"A common choice. I have the materials for level one version of the enchantment." There were several physical enhancements he wanted, but the materials didn't exist.

"Needs a moss found only near in volcanic springs," Lethis said about an enchantment that enhanced reflexes.

"Needs ethereal ice found only near the peaks of mountains," she said about another one. They at last settled on 'Enhanced Endurance,' which would apparently stack with his ability. Whereas 'enhanced strength' seemed to allow him to hit things harder and lift more weight, endurance seemed to help with muscular endurance. The first would help him bench press more, while the second would let him do more reps.

It didn't seem that anyone had quantified the benefits, but given what he had felt when he'd put on the mage's breastplate that enhanced vitality, he suspected it would be noticeable. And judging by the shit he'd seen out there, he'd need every advantage he could get.

"It will take a week," Lethis said. Malachi looked around at all the half-plant half-machine tools he didn't know the function of, most of which had glyphs he couldn't read.

"Including the armor?"

"Yes." Replacement steel armor had sometimes been delayed by a month in Portal Response.

"Sounds fantastic. Uh, do you mind if I watch you work? I'm really curious…" Malachi asked.

"Outsiders, even sentinels, are not allowed to watch. Many of the processes are secret, or could reveal abilities. So, no."

"Right, makes sense. Alright, thanks," he said, and left. He tried to play it cool, but inside, he was downright giddy. He hadn't been this excited for anything since… well, ever, probably. His very own, custom-made magical items. What could be cooler than that?