Chapter 61: Threads of Magic
It was only when Simon began to sew the runes of cold protection into the rabbit fur-lined gloves that he had made that he even understood that he’d need to sew the runes of fire protection as well. Until that moment, his plan had been to make a set of cold-resistant armor and a fiery weapon, but then, as he imagined how he would use them both, he recalled the frost sword that the skeleton knight had wielded against him so many times and pictured all his carefully crafted magical furs going up in smoke as his sword caught his clothing on fire.
The truth was he would need not just protection from both frost and fire, and he wasn’t exactly sure how to do that. Well, he was pretty sure how to do one or the other, he corrected himself, but both… it was entirely possible that they would cancel each other out or interfere in some weird way that might be even worse.
Simon gave it a great deal of thought, but eventually, he was forced to set the gloves aside and focus on the simpler task of the armor instead. It was something that he could copy directly from the book like he had the sword schematic, and it was a lot less work.
The only problem was that in the end, when he was done, he had no real way to test it. Sure, it had only taken two days of diligent effort with the thread to apply the mark in just the right way, but the only way to know if it succeeded would be to put it on and brave the cold. Even at night, it didn’t get particularly chilly out, and there was no way he was going to go jump in the river wearing full armor and see if he stayed warm.
So, whether he liked it or not, he was just going to have to hope the whole thing worked and test it when he walked inside the door to the next level. Which meant that he would have to set aside the crude thing and finish empowering the sword next.
It was an ugly thing, with crooked lines and handiwork that would never be confused with that of a skilled craftsman. Despite that, though, he was pretty sure it would work once he completed the attunement ritual with blood and molten silver. But, as he prepared to do that, he realized that once he completed the spell, it would burn forever. He had no way to stop it.
“Make up your mind already, Simon,” he chastised himself.
He would have liked to have blamed the head injury he sustained, but his balance had been perfect for weeks, so this wasn’t that. It was just a lot to think about. He needed to finish his flaming sword, but that was awfully complicated, so he decided to work on the armor first, but since that was done, he needed to focus on the scabbard and…
He sighed. He wasn’t sure if he’d always been like this or if this was brain damage from his injury, but the amount of things that needed to be done before he opened the next door seemed almost insurmountable some days.