Vol. 2, Ch. 98: Gearing Up
Later in the evening, Neska and Juni met up with Brent and Syra outside the dormitory where Trevor stayed, on the southern end of the campus. They received more than a few stares from the students, many of them humanoids, avians, and even a few elven.
“You’d think they would realize that we’re fellow academy members,” Juni said irritably. “Have we broken some social taboo I wasn’t aware of?”
“No. The Awakened and everyone else are allowed to co-mingle,” Brent shrugged before leading them inside. He had to stoop a little at the doorway, though his ears still brushed the doorframe. “Honestly, I knew about Trevor’s tinkering, but I didn’t realize he’d been working this much on it.”
“I think this is a little too convenient,” Syra said, her anemone hair laid back as if she were agitated, too. “Ten coins says the first of us to test out one of his items gets cursed. Why us?”
“Because we’re sociable?” Neska proposed. “Plus, I think if we check out his dorm room, we can rule him out as a conspirator in the plot to undermine the academy.”
“You’re smitten with him,” Juni said crossly.
Neska gave her an unblinking stare. “I am incapable of being smitten with someone.”
“You stammered when you talked to him about hats.”
“Small social anxiety. It happens.”
Juni rolled her eyes, even as she wore a knowing smirk. “Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that.”
A moment later, Brent knocked on a dorm door, a large oaken barrier with additional runic reinforcements etched into the wood. Neska couldn’t readily identify them, but her hat suggested they were defensive wards reinforcing the door and the surrounding wall.
A bit paranoid, perhaps? She did note several other doors had protective wards identifiable by their auras. When she allowed her vision to slip into the thermal spectrum, she also noted a slight gradient of heat on the doorways and a web of thin lines of warmth in runic shapes, whirls, and slashes that looked almost elegant.
“Coming. One second.” Neska heard the sound of metal sliding, chains rattling, and the click of more than one lock. Trevor poked his head out the door, peering at Brent, smiling politely. “Thank you, guys, for coming. Anyone give you any trouble on the way in?”
“Why would they?” Neska asked.
“Uh…not too many Awakened visit this dorm.” Neska looked down the hall and saw a few doors decorated for posterity. One of them had a scorched clawmark on it; the other seemed to have an icy imprint that didn’t melt.
If she were a betting snake, this was the dorm that was unofficially for the elites, as in Kasfew, and other select members of the big families of Valos. She’d have to slither carefully here; while the annoying bird was someone she knew how to handle for now, she doubted that others would be so easily dissuaded.
“No. We didn’t run into any issues.” Neska gave a noncommittal shrug, though Syrona remained tightly wound around her neck and shoulder, letting out a hiss as she peered down the hall.
Trevor opened the door to reveal a spacious dorm room, larger than hers and Juni’s, with only a single bed tucked in a corner. Almost half the room was taken up by what she swore was various lab equipment, and she stared at the alchemist's bench.
It was amazing. She didn’t remember what, exactly, every single component was; she knew their value by the magicite glassware used, precision measurements, pipettes, tubing, and a healthy stock of items for creating runes and rune precursors. Including some that almost looked like thinly drawn wire. Maybe for sewing into fabrics, or very tiny runes?
“I’m moving in. This is a witch’s dream dorm,” she breathed out.
“That’s uh…very, very forward of you,” Trevor stammered, laughing nervously. “Would you require a cauldron?”
“Would I like one? Sure. Do I need one? No. You get better results from mixing in proper glassware,” she shrugged. “It’s for posterity. So, Trevor, why ask us?”
“Well, I know Brent, and he knows you guys, so…I guess I’m a little shy about asking for volunteers?” his face was awash with anxiety. “No pressure, I assure you, I’m just…Well, I want to have something to present that really works well.”
Neska heard more than a hint of some ulterior motive. “Is this for a project? Or is it personal?”
“Both, if you can believe it.” Trevor straightened up, his words firmer. “Every person in this war effort has contributed something. I have yet to complete anything. And I can’t abide by that. I’m no warrior, and I’m barely a competent wizard. I put more into Perception than my Intelligence, which should be my primary Attribute. But I chose a different path than the one bestowed upon me.”
From what Neska gathered through others and her own hat, the primary means of enchanting weapons, armor, and equipment was done one of three different ways. The first was the material choices: certain materials carried intrinsic magical properties that would carry over to their equipment, either directly or abstractly.
The second way was a far more controlled process: runic shaping. Just like the runes that she used for her rituals, these were applied here except directly onto the equipment, either glazed, etched, or stitched on, as applicable. Because each piece of equipment was typically considered unique, it was difficult to mass-produce the result, and each item and piece of equipment required considerable care to ensure that the intended effect was captured.
She also knew that the materials were not cheap. Unlike the runes she used for her rituals, these were permanently affixed and needed to provide a persistent effect, regardless of time elapsed from creation. They also needed to be highly damage-resistant and checked for material compatibility, so that the rune did not crack or otherwise dissipate its energy into the air. They needed to be reliable. Usually, these runes were stitched into the inside lining of a fabric or leather; metals were more forgiving.
The third way, sort of an indirect means, and less permanent, was rituals. Rituals could create different effects on weapons or equipment than a rune could; they were powered by magical symbolisms, rather than calculated and predictable runic effects. Rituals could be permanent or temporary, depending on how they were cast and if any tributes were implemented in the casting process.
Neska was fascinated by the idea that maybe she could use bits of her scales, those freely shed, or use her venom as a component in a ritual enchantment of various items. “Trevor, I have to ask, what are your tribute sources? What materials do you use?”
Trevor got really quiet for a few seconds. "I run by charity–whatever scraps I can get from the smithy that one of my friends works, whatever Brent can get me, too. I’m always seeking volunteers for various components. Preferably, the ones that either grow back from various monster species?”
“Hope you didn’t get any leather from ‘questionable’ sources, Trevor,” Brent said with a grunt, folding his arms and spreading his stance wide. “How come you didn’t tell me you were this deep into development? What's so novel about this?”
“Ah, the crux of the challenge! Scale!”
Neska rubbed at her scales. “I presume you mean that in the context of production capacity?”
“Huh? Uh, yes, definitely,” he affirmed hastily, raising one finger in the air. “You know how the uniforms are custom-tailored to each Awakened?”
“Yes, they have to custom-size it. Though I think the respirator masks in the alchemy lab also adjusted size a little,” Neska admitted. “What of it?”
“The problem is morphic materials: those made of materials or with runic effects are difficult to make. But my father worked on something he was dismissive of at the time. They call them Modular runes.”
He showed them a blank rune template, with Juni peering intensely. “I can read runes a bit, but this looks like a partial instruction. What of it?”
“It doesn’t make much by itself. But the runes talk to each other, through mana links woven between the sets. Each can alter a portion of the armor or equipment, as needed. A massive transfiguration is split between instructions, making one complicated transfiguration several immensely simpler configuration changes. A sleeve lengthens, coattails of a duster extend for our lamia to armor her serpentine portion, or adjust for Brent’s barrel chest.”
“I am not shaped like a barrel. It’s floof,” he growled.
Neska saw the implications of it. “You’ve been inspired by the distributed casting of rituals, correct? Where one witch or other caster can split the mana load between several others?”
“Correct. But the runic instructions are rather difficult. You’ve seen that your own runes have rather simple descriptors, with the outcome determined by the caster's mana flow. Three runes put together in a different sequence can have a drastically different effect, you follow?”
Neska tapped her snout gently. “You must have far more than just a theory on this. Have you tested it?”
“Not fully. I tested it with various pieces. Observe.” He showed a shimmery blue fabric with faint gold thread embroidered. It looked like the sleeve of a gown or a robe. He slipped it on his arm for emphasis. “It’s currently sized for me. Miss Semou, would you care to try it on?”
Juni took the fabric in hand, then slid it over her furry arm. “Uh, spoilers, it doesn’t fit. Except there is…interesting, there’s a toggle on the Interface I can trigger. Is that your work?”
“Yep!” he beamed. "Go ahead, activate it.”
Juni's skepticism remained for a split second, and Neska saw the gold thread glow. In seconds, the material had shrunk to fit over Juni’s arm perfectly, and even wrapped around the fingers of her paw like a dress for a ball or other formal occasion. She poked at the material gently, bewildered. “Okay, that's practical, but that’s just a sleeve. How does it all coordinate?”
“For fabric, it's easy. The threads are woven into the material, and the base material acts as a conductor so the runes ‘talk’ to one another, as you see elsewhere. There are also smaller nodes, or sub-runes, that run this process," he said, showing a very small rune between the threads. “I'm still working on the fashion part. But this is a work in progress. I do have a few prototypes. I'm also lacking volunteers. People didn't see the appeal or the incredible utility of this new magical tech."
Juni let out a sound of amusement. “ So, is this why you want to make armor for us? So that we can be volunteers for making additional components?"
"Well, most monsters are not fully understood in terms of how their blood, scales, and feathers can all be used for armor components. For example, Cassia's venom, as you've demonstrated in class, is unexplored. I believe there's a way to imbue metals with venom properties. I have yet to test it, but I am confident it could give this morphic material additional, substantial protections, or other utility options."
He pointed to Juni. “For instance, taking blood samples from Miss Semou here could allow me to align a weapon or equipment with a geomancy affinity, bypassing certain resistances and immunities of foes or magical protections, or conferring a resistance to the element, or blunting heavy physical impacts with what we call an inertial damper effect. While this has been done infrequently, mass production of said capabilities has been slightly elusive.”
“Why has no one else attempted this?” Neska asked. “Surely the value of protecting the Awakened or arming them with resistance-bypassing attacks would have been pursued by the academy or the military, even.”
“Two reasons: Resources, and practicality. It has been decided by many in the military upper echelons that magical equipment can better serve humanoids and their classes, owing to a greater knowledge base. It has also been assumed that the Awakened functioned quite fine on their own, without equipment,” he said, his hands fidgeting.
“Or, the obvious one: We’re second class, and on our own,” Syra said sourly.
“Way to be a wet blanket,” Juni said, rolling her eyes. “But you don’t have that mindset. Why?”
“Because my father saw no worth in it, when I told him about my ideas.” He clenched his hand tightly for a second, exhaling through his teeth. “'You’re too young, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ That’s what he told me. I’ve grown up watching the Varadur encroach closer and closer with each year. Boys from my father's lands and factories have gone to war, and come home in boxes, if at all. I have never known a life without an existential threat looming. I kept asking, 'How can I bring at least one person more home alive?'"
He closed his eyes and flinched at that memory before focusing on Neska. “So yes, I know what it’s like to have your achievements and contributions discarded. Maybe not on the same level, but I can appreciate everything the Awakened have done that has kept my family and many others alive.”
Neska coiled forward a little. If there was a litmus test that Trevor was genuine, it was this. “You have fabrication equipment here, yes? I propose we work together on some projects. I know we have field exercises. I want you to equip us as a team with simple garments. Plus, I would like to test some of our abilities to see if their effects can be transferred."
“We are?” Juni asked, her tone edged with skepticism.
“We are,” Brent affirmed. “Cassia’s been messing around with her venoms, if you haven’t been aware, making some work-in-progress weaponry. But what did you have planned?”
“In addition to alchemical grenades? Equipment that overlaps our weaknesses.” She pointed to a half-finished project on his desk. “Is that a gelatin mold?”
“It is. Why?”
“Help me make some new weaponry, and I’ll help contribute to the rune effects. I have some training in them. And we’ll help test these for proof of concept. If only to prove that the value of such items has been greatly underappreciated.”
Trevor’s face lit up. “Y-you’d do that? Really? Brent, you know her better than I. What should I expect?”
“Something totally crazy,” the wolfling added with a soft chuckle. “You’re guaranteed to call her a crazy snake at least a dozen times, and–”
A wailing siren began emanating outside in the quad, and Syrona hissed and coiled herself tightly around Neska’s neck, the small creature trembling. Neska saw Brent’s ears go on end, and even Syrona looked distressed. “Guys, what does that alarm mean?”
Trevor clenched his hand to keep it from trembling and glanced outside. He turned to them, looking grave. “Trouble. That siren indicates the Varadur broke through the holding line. That means the academy is going to active alert.”