Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"You managed to finish the Gambeson?" Seth asked as he visited Neeco in his room the next day. The tailor had thoroughly exhausted himself but he was already looking better after having a meal and a visit from Lynri. It seemed like Alison had also tended to him, during the night.

"Yes, here it is!" he said and pulled it out. Like the gloves and lining, it was made of ink black fabrics. It swallowed the light, making it hard to see any details apart from the contours. Unable to make out the characteristic stitches of a gambeson, it almost looked like a knee-length robe tailor-made for Evee.

"It's called the Garment of Demise, " the tailor commented and started to explain the effects of the relic-rated gambeson, as Seth's level in <Sewing> was not high enough to appraise it himself using <Eyes of the Maestro>

The Garment of Demise had two basic effects. Death Domination, Aura of Decay. Death Domination was the power Haa'Skon had shown Seth previously. The golem was naturally able to dominate undead, without using something like a skill to force his will onto them.

The golem had also shown the Aura of Decay, which was the power to exude the same black haze as Luf before she had gotten her body. Technically, it was the power of death leaking out, causing anything alive to rapidly decay. It could also turn corpses undead, if it didn't decay them to the point they couldn't function, like in Luf's case.

To rouse the Aura of Death the user needed to inject their magic power into the <Enriched Necron>. After the Luf's Aura of death was spun into a thread by Neeco Boos, it was the same for the garment. The problem was that it would kill the unprotected wearer inside,too.

Haa'Skon had no problem with that since there was no flesh, but even for Evee, who was an immortal witch, constant decay would have been a nuisance, if one ignored the terrible pain of dying of rapid full-body necrosis.

This was exactly what made the integrated circuit to guide this Aura of death away from the wearer so important. A faulty circuit or a missing set piece would simply spell death to the user.

Apart from these two effects, it also had the effects of Auto-Sizing and doubling its physical defense if infused with magic power. These were effects from Neeco's master-level weaving techniques. Apart from these, the gambeson was actually a disappointment as a defensive armament.

The physical and magical defense were barely 300, even with the doubling of the physical defense, it was not even half the defense of the gauntlets. Seth already knew that the fabric wasn't going to be any good for protection, but this was even below his expectations. He was just glad that Evee didn't really have to rely on defense.

However, there was one thing that made up for the lack of defense. The tailor explained that like the fabric he made from the elemental thread, the Garment of Demise was immune to physical damage.

This didn't mean it could block physical damage, but it meant that physical attack would be unable to permanently rip the magic power kept in shape by the effects of Neeco's skills. Strong magic was able to disrupt the fabric, but had to be really powerful.

“Wait, you never told me, that your elemental fabric had that kind of setting,” Seth complained. It was the first time he heard about this. He got even more interested in the potential of this kind of thread. So much so, that he was seriously deliberating about further raising his <Sewing> skill. If he raise this skill to the master level, his <Composer of Fusion> would also level up. If he then did stuff like boots and linings himself...

Seth shook his head. He was jumping too far ahead again.

“Thanks, Neeco. Great work.” he thanked the tailor and left the room with the gambeson. The blacksmith finally had all the parts of the armor that he needed to attune the circuit parts and then start on infusing soul armaments. He had finished engraving the circlet and gloves three days ago and had only waited for the gambeson.

“Sivri, can you prepare the mannequin for me? Set it to Evee's size, please,” “Will do.” the golden automaton said readily and set up the mannequin that Bess, the bowyer had prepared for him. Although the aura would only activate when supplied with magic power, there was no need to take a risk.

Slightly awkwardly, Seth started dressing the mannequin with the gambeson, the gloves, the boots, the helmet, and the cuirass. It was his first time dressing a puppet, but he managed to equip everything after a moment.

The mannequin was a special product that was able to supply magic power to equipment to test it, but before that Seth had to attach the upper arm guard to the Garment of Death. As they were needed to complete the integrated circuit, their position was one of the most important details. Using the straps of the arm guard he was able to fix them at a temporary position to test it, before permanently affixing it to the gambeson.

Once he placed the arm guards, Seth activated the mannequin and it became immediately obvious where the circuit was faulty since the mannequin started blackening wherever the Aura of Decay was not properly channeled.

After blackening the mannequin in a few places, the blacksmith quickly found where the partial circuits needed mending and proper alignment. There were a lot fewer flaws than he expected and after fixing them he could rivet the arm guards in place and finally start making the soul armaments.

As to what souls he was going to infuse into the armor, they were actually picked out by Evee from among the undead Crypt Knights of the Colossal Dungeon. The Underworld Fairy had ripped them from her own servant, the ones she stole from Eschok. The Colossal Lich had really turned out to be a giving tree for the immortal witch.

Each of the souls she had given him was massive, and at least rare. They were souls that had once belonged to valiant colossal knights and warriors. As such they all held various improvements to warrior and knightly skills. Originally, she had given him the souls for the Necronite Armor, but Seth had pulled them back out before he turned the armor into a Necromancer Golem.

The golem was still around. Arget Nore had already begun releasing slaves, but they had not yet come to redeem their discounted goods. Seth had made it clear that they wouldn’t deliver it to them, so they were currently waiting for a messenger to bring the payment and take the wares.

Having harvested the souls back from an already finished item meant that he had to fix the damage, but Seth was already quite apt in fixing minor damages. He had already done that and more the day he made the Necronite Golem.

The original Necronite Armor held nine souls, but the new set only needed 6. Seth had prudently used the downtime to boil down six of the nine souls into three with the Soul Refinery, strengthening their original effects. He had hoped to create another trait of some sort, but it was not that easy.

Of the six souls, the soul of a magic swordsman stayed the only one with a trait. Its trait was called “Mana Monstrosity” and improved the mana recovery depending on the environment. If the surroundings were rich in mana, it could almost double the recovery. Other than that, the souls mostly improved combat ability and defense.

Seth decided to start from the bottom, with the boots. Apart from the partial circuit, the boots he brought out were also both enchanted with the usual Agility circuit. He fashioned the soul armaments from two of the massive knight souls and then turned to acid and brush to enchant them.

Among the list of enchantments, he had asked Arget Nore for, was also an enchantment for <Magic Step>, the budget version of the Blink enchantment an enchanter could imbue into an item. It was able to allow the user a quick, one-directional charge. With this Evee would have had another option to evade or attack on the battlefield... but they didn’t give it to him.

Not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t have it. For a similar effect, he had to turn to brush and acid. One of the reasons Seth wanted to upgrade his enchantments was because of the cost efficiency.

Once a circuit was engraved, it only cost the mana it needed to activate. Demonic Etchings were more difficult and either had a weird price, or it cost him a lot of souls to get the power without any strings attached. It wasn’t a problem he cared about if outsiders were going to use it, but he preferred to keep the demonic influence low for his friends.

Even with Tano’Mol owing him, it didn’t mean he had an unending free supply. Especially since Tano’Mol was a wanted goat, he couldn’t pursue his business as openly as he used to. The bard wanted to save on that expense, but it wasn’t like he had an alternative at the moment.

He didn’t know the name of the Demon in question. It was a ballad from one of the books that Dean Remmington had given him. A big, old grimoire, and even the author of that book didn’t seem to know the name of the demon, it was only referred to by an epithet “Silence in the Fog”.

As Seth tried to channel this demon, he was overcome by a cold, wet feeling. There was no more conscious associated with the power that was flowing into the runes he was etching, but it felt like it was purposely sucking any warmth from his body.

The effect of the ballad and the resulting effect was called “Suffering Wind”. A misleading name, it sounded like a curse, but it was a kind of charge skill, and then again it wasn’t. The texts described it as a leap that turned the used into fog until they touched the ground the next time.

The state of fog gave immunity to physical damage, as well as earth and dark magic. In exchange the damage from wind, whether it was an attack, or natural wind, was quadrupled. The increased wind damage was annoying, but not something that ruined the deal.

To increase the usability of the leap, Seth went even further and enchanted both soul boots with it. This would double the number of times that fog leap could be used. Or the Underworld Fairy could chain them for more distance. By the time he finished, he was quivering from the cold and was happy when the demonic presence left.

Seeing that the etching on the soul was successful, Seth didn’t hesitate and infused the souls into the boots, before placing them in the Waters of Styx.

<Ding! You have finished a relic-rated item! >

<Fogstriders of Death(L)

Relic

Death Set 1/X

Phys. Def.:1275

Mag: Def:1555

1. Death Domination

2. +3 to <Heavy Armor>

3. +5 to all basic Knight-type Skills

4. +75% Damage with Weapons

5. +70 Agility

6. Active Skill: Suicide

7. Active Skill: Suffering Wind

8. +3000 Mana

Set Effects: To be updated.

One of a pair of boots that spell death for their wearer and his enemies. A diabolical piece of equipment from the hands of Master Smith, the first Master Enchanter, and Master Blacksmith of Urth.

Once rumors of the armor's power spread the item is guaranteed to become legendary.>

The number of effects was lower than his usual items, but that was okay. The only thing that surprised him was the second skill. <Suicide>? It took the blacksmith a good while to make sense of why such a skill had shown up here.

<Aura of Decay> was missing and <Suicide> was there instead. It was quite obvious once he got it. Without the set effect, that would allow the wearer to use the aura, infusing magic power in the the boots was plain suicide.

If he was right, every individual set item would offer this skill. It actually wasn’t a bad skill for Evee, as it could allow her to repeatedly kill herself if she tried to revive as a specific undead. However, the situation would probably have to be very dire for her to do something like that. Again, dying from necrosis was not a fun thought.

Putting the finished boots aside, Seth stretched and started on the next item after a short break:

The cuirass.