Chapter 112: Ghost Reef Standard Issue
Coop tapped his fingers on the counter while he waited for the hammering in the back of the blacksmith’s workshop to cease. The smith had already been alerted to a customer when Coop entered the shop’s front door, but he was obviously in the middle of something that Coop didn’t want to interrupt. When the clanging finally stopped, it was only a few more seconds before the blacksmith himself burst into the public area of the shop from his private work area behind the counter. His oversized eyes lit up when he realized it was Coop who had come to see him.
“Oy! The Champion pays us another visit! Ya’ here to check your army’s new armor sets?” Garod barked as he wiped black soot onto his apron, leaving streaks against the rough brown surface. “I gotta say, they were more fun to work on than I would ever expect for somethin’ meant to be standard issue. Me and the Armorer had a blast.” He revealed while adjusting his oversized goggles out of the way, settling them onto the top of his head with a snap of their elastic band.
“Actually, I was going to ask you about rare materials and what I might find inside of a mana well… but I’d like to see them anyway.” Coop decided to compromise with his curiosity mid sentence. He hadn’t been a part of the planning of the army’s equipment, leaving that primarily to Shane and whoever he deemed would be able to contribute.
“Come on then, I have a fresh pair in the back. The rest are already in your shiny new armory.” Garod gestured for Coop to follow him into his private work area.
Coop rounded the counter, avoiding the assortment of foreign tools and odd metals on display, bypassing the raised shelves filled with similar miscellanea, and followed the alien into the back room. Two empty sets of armor stood in the rear, glistening in the flickering light of the smith’s flames like a casual pair of motorcycle body armors. Coop couldn’t help himself, oohing when he took the sets of equipment in. The armor looked cool.
They managed to be sleek and low profile, thanks to the magic involved in assembly, despite the metals, cloths, and leathers clearly being made in actual traditional ways. They were armored with charcoal gray plates of perfectly smooth, curved metal that seemed flexible enough to be molded for the individual wearer, a bit like Coop’s own form fitting ethereal breastplate, and had a matte finish which absorbed light rather than reflecting it.
Beneath the metal armor, flexible black leather connected the plates, contrasting with the charcoal gray, making the setup look like it was made for some kind of futuristic cyberpunk assassin. The leather was surprisingly soft when Coop felt it between his fingers and had an additional layer of tough woven cross sections of what he recognized as Erasimus’s manaweave. He wondered if someone had given the idea to recreate kevlar to the clothier.
“The angry elderly human had plenty o’ requests for the armor.” Garod explained as Coop touched the armor, describing the veteran that had consulted on the phantoms’ training. “Claimed he wanted it bulletproof and had to explain to us some of your ignition based pre-mana weapons.” Garod shook his head. “Scary stuff.” Coop was just glad they had experts to consult with the crafters. Outside of sports wear, he had no personal experience with any type of equipment that might be useful to protect against magical enemy assailants.
“What are these?” Coop wondered as he ran his fingertips along ghostly turquoise highlights that formed diamond shaped slivers that were situated almost like subtle racing stripes and decorative flourishes along the metal plates. The same greenish chips imitated the vertebrae of a spine down the back plate and seemed to barely undulate between different shades of the ghostly green he associated with spectral affinity.
Garod continued explaining while Coop explored the armor. “Mana siphons. Designed to help with magic defense and provide some minor advantages for the wearer’s resources. They’ll work best on your home territory thanks to your settlement upgrades.”
Coop nodded as he checked out the other pieces. A solid matte black helmet matched the rest of the armor and formed a perfect seal with the breastplate, almost as if it would be ready for a spacewalk. One of the armor sets had the opaque visor open and the other closed. A scarf-like layer of cloth rested on the shoulders and around the neck, reducing the profile of the padded shoulders giving the whole getup a post-apocalyptic ranger feel.
Garod reached up and did something underneath the edge of the waist. The armor transformed with the brief rustling of fabrics, so that the metals shrank or disappeared underneath and the helmet was reduced to something between a neck brace and a torc. He was suddenly staring at a reasonably fashionable leather vest with light cloth sleeves and leather pants with black combat boots.