Chapter 1.10

Karson

Sometimes I really wanted paper so that I could take notes. I’d had a dozen ideas throughout the day, but only one brain to think them through, and a limited amount of time to actually focus and try them out. Some of my more radical ideas were going to have to wait until we had a safe place to stay for more than a few days.

My primary goal at this point was making our group more durable. The improved enchantment for the bracers was a great first step. I had some ideas about how to create a shield of magic, but would need to experiment to puzzle it out. I had plans for space expansion, so we could tuck away absurd amounts of material in small boxes or bags. I even suspected I could do something like that to create a little pocket dimension, assuming I ever figured out how to get us enough mana to do something like that. But all of these ideas kept slipping by as I focused on one thing or another.

That frustration aside, supporting Ax in his enchantments made the most practical sense. His abilities were more readily useful without a lot of time commitment. We walked all day, with Ax conjuring bits of metal and tossing them into the wagon as we went. I watched carefully, and was able to figure out the core pattern in the conjuring spell. The material itself seemed to be mostly intent-based, like much of magic that we’d puzzled out so far. Ax seemed limited to the elements under his control - earth and fire. Despite being able to see magic the way I did, courtesy of the ring I gave him, he seemed to lack the fundamental grasp of how magic worked.

My understanding was somewhat intuitive, being able to recognize patterns and repurpose them, but without the true understanding of any one element. That is, unless you count the body magic that allowed me to heal, and the soul magic, which was still largely a mystery. But my ability to recognize how magic worked meant that over time, I would be able to make some really cool things that Ax could never do. He was a sorcerer through and through, while I was learning more every day.

But that was no different than back home in Detroit. Ax got most of the way through a masonry trade school, lasting until about a month until completing the course. Then he learned that welders were in short supply, made two to three times as much money, and had a two-week class starting a few days later. He dropped masonry like a bad habit and moved on.

I, on the other hand, had gone to college and stayed an extra year. Not because of freshman partying, either. There were so many subjects that fascinated me that I wound up taking an entire year’s worth of extra classes simply because I wanted to.

Both options worked out, at least until the Cult of Kronos derailed us, and both paths seemed to playing out here as well. This time, however, we would be working together far more than we had ever done before.

Over the course of the day, Ax and I basically figured out that the mana cost and time cost of conjuring a material directly corresponded to its rarity. Iron, nickel-iron, and copper were extremely easy. Silver was challenging, gold almost impossible with our mana budget. Titanium was also pretty easy, although it required too much mana for Ax to shape like he’d done everything else. That indicated that mana was substituting itself for heat when re-shaping metals. If we wanted to make titanium alloys, it would require a way to get temperatures hot enough to melt the materials. Considering true steel wasn’t possible in this area of the world for another thousand years for this same reason, I saw this as a problem for another day.

The end result was that I figured out how we could create a basic conjuring machine. We would need two, in fact. One to conjure copper, the other for tin. With that, Ax could make bronze for whatever we needed. I was planning on watching him make the alloy, so that I could learn the correct ratio and figure out the spell so that we could automate that part, too. We had six more days of travel at this speed, and I wanted us to have a full load of bronze to use or sell by the time we arrived.

We took a break around midday, and Latona offered to help me fetch water from the stream running a dozen yards away from the road. The oxen needed several big buckets worth, and our water jars were all low.

We used our swords to hack through the underbrush next to the stream so that we didn’t scratch ourselves up. Once we were past the brush, there was a two to three foot step down to the stream bank. I set down the buckets, took off my hat, and scooped water to splash my face with. The heat had been brutal all day today.

“May I ask you a question, Lord Karsos?”

“Only if you call me Karsos, at least in private.”

“Very well, Karsos,” she said. “Why did your brother decline my father’s offer?”

I loved being right. I laughed inwardly, covering my pause by splashing my face again.

“Well, we have our own goals, and couldn’t be tied to one place,” I said slowly.

“Is it because I’m too small? Xene says he loves how big hers are,” she said while grasping her chest in emphasis.

So I was suddenly moved from ‘friend zone’ to the ‘girlfriend’ category, I thought. This whole thing was beyond amusing. I had to work hard not to smile or chuckle. “He… umm… does like them larger…”

“Oh,” she said, and her shoulders slumped. Then she perked up. “You made yourself taller with your magic. Can you make me bigger?”

“I guess? You really want to do that for Ax?” I had been thinking about strength and size, speed and agility. My own body modification was only a test. I hadn’t even considered cosmetic applications.

“Well, I have to do something,” she said, as if I was an idiot. And perhaps I was. I was thinking with 21st century values and expectations. In the dark ages, having a strong husband was desirable, maybe even necessary for survival. The culture was far more primitive, although no less complex. And perhaps that desire was spurred even further, considering her current instability and recent losses.

Well, this was a problem I didn’t mind helping with. Ax was definitely going to owe me one.

“This is experimental magic,” I said. “If you start feeling unwell, or wish for me to undo the changes, let me know.”

“Can you do it now?” she said excitedly. I nodded, and before I could even blink, she was unpinning the top of her dress. Her perky boobs came into view, and I had to concentrate on being clinical and not letting my blood run south. She didn’t actually need to show them to me, but it made sense for us to be able to see them.

I set my hands on her shoulders and let my body sorcery flow into her. Like I had done for myself the night before, I encouraged her body to rapidly grow under my direction. Her breasts swelled visibly. A few minutes later, she told me to stop. They were a few cup sizes larger, but still rode high and tight on her without being oversized. As an added perk for both her and Ax, I went ahead and increased their sensitivity as well. There you go, brother, have fun.

Latona was all smiles when she re-fastened her chiton. We filled up the water and returned to the wagon. After leaving the water buckets for the oxen, I walked past Ax on my way to grab more water jugs.

“Dude, you are so fucked,” I said in English as I walked by.

“What? Why?”

I laughed but kept walking. He would find out soon enough. I saw Latona huddling with Xene and whispering. Danae came over by got roped in, who in turn dragged Hegesandra with her. I heard titters as I headed back to the stream.

When I got back, the mood around the wagon was light and conversations were flowing like I hadn’t seen since leaving the village. I didn’t doubt for a moment that more tears would be shed for those that had been lost. But for the first time since the raid, it felt like everyone was focused on the future with hope.

Xene and Hegesandra finished the first two jerkins that afternoon. One went to Danae and the other went to Latona, albeit with a few jokes about ‘last minute alterations.’ Ax still hadn’t twigged to what was happening, but I caught him looking at Latona a few times. I think he noticed something was different, on top of her being just his type - even more so now.

We began to notice others walking the roads in the distance behind us on the third day. We spotted them mostly from the tops of rises in the terrain, and they appeared to be walking on foot without any wagons or animals. When I drew Ax’s attention to them, he looked grim and told everyone to stay sharp.

“I suspect they are refugees like us. We’ll need to be extra sharp after we camp for the evenings.”

I didn’t doubt Ax’s opinion, but it gave me an uneasy feeling. After conferring with Ax, we decided to double our watch so that two people were awake at night, instead of just one.

Lacedaemon had taken to picking up odd lengths of wood as we went along, and in the evenings had been using a wedge of metal to shape it. On the third evening, he corralled Ax for some help, and between the two they turned the boards he’d been carving into a square shield rimmed in iron. The shield was two feet wide and three feet tall. He had also collected enough material to make bronze, and I was able to observe the process. I was confident I could modify the conjuring machines and combine them into a more complex device that made bronze, so I set myself to work on that.

Before I did that, I realized something obvious. We would need money, and probably a lot of it. We had used up an entire sack of wheat feeding the oxen, so I emptied the sturdiest crate into the bag. With Ax’s help, I banded the box in iron, with a simple enchantment to fuse some of the extra iron around it, with a simple way to split or fuse the bands with a bit of mana. It was a rudimentary lock, but would have to do for now. I then took a piece of copper and had Ax attach it to the lid of the crate. After a bit of spellwork, we now had a silver conjuring machine that would conjure silver drachmas with our double-Kappa stamp on it. It was low-powered using whatever ambient mana it could pick up,and was able to produce a drachma every hour or two. Even at its slowest pace it was dropping twelve drachmas in a twenty-four hour period. By the time we arrived in Assos, we would have a decent stockpile.

Ax kept himself busy forming simple buckler shields out of the bronze he made, while I improved on our bronze machine. It was far more rudimentary than I knew I could make. Each of the original conjuring machines was really a small block of copper. I tied them both to a strip of iron with some leather scraps that Xene gave me. The iron strip was enchanted as the alloy forge, and as the controller of the copper and tin conjuring blocks. I configured the spell to draw one part tin for every nine parts of copper, and to forge the two metals into bronze ingots of five pounds each. By my estimates, it would probably produce three or maybe four ingots a day. Each ingot could make a small shield, or maybe a helmet. This would have to do.

By the time it was done and it was my turn to take watch, it was middle of the night. Hegesandra was on watch with Alector, so I woke Danae to go with me. We settled under the scrubby bush of a tree near the street. The sweet, sappy scent of the tree’s branches permeated the air, the high moon giving us a decent amount of light.

We sat in silence for awhile. This wasn’t unusual for Danae, who was easily the quietest of the entire group. I attributed it to the loss of her family and friends, although she had not actually spoken about her own experience. The night was chilly, with a light breeze. I wrapped my cloak tighter around myself, and saw Danae shiver.

“Karsos?” said Danae tentatively.

“Yes?”

“Did you really make Latona’s chest larger? She wasn’t pulling a prank?”

“I did,” I said. Oh boy, I thought, here goes another one. She was lithe, with dark brown hair and striking blue eyes. But like Latona had been, she had a smaller bust. It suited her figure, in my opinion, but my thoughts on the matter rarely counted for such things.

“I was wondering if you could help me, too.”

“I see. You want to be big breasted as well?” I asked, feeling a hint of amusement.

“No! Absolutely not!” she said vehemently.

“Okay?” I said, now confused.

“It’s been hard for me, the last few days,” she said, quiet once again. “Everyone in mourning, missing their family and friends.”

“And you don’t?” I asked.

“You know what I felt when I came back to the village, and found my family dead?” she asked. “I felt relief.”

“Why is that?”

“My parents have been trying to marry me off for years,” said Danae. “My father was doing well, his land productive and his herd of sheep growing. He made a nice dowry for me and my sister. He was even thinking of adding a second wife, since my mother hadn’t borne him a son and he could afford two. But I never wanted a husband. I refused two suitors outright, so my father married me off without my permission. I ran away, living in the woods hunting. I returned to find the man had married my sister instead, and my father was beyond livid with me. Ever since, I’ve stayed gone hunting for long stretches. I provide meat and hides to my father, who could barely tolerate my presence. My mother lectured me constantly when she was in a good mood, and beat me when she was not. My sister offered no comfort, and I had no friends who understood.”

“It must have been difficult,” I said. “No woman should be forced into marriage.”

“I knew you’d understand,” she said. “When Axieros gave Latona a spear. You’re not from Hellas, are you.”

“No, our homeland is very, very far from here.”

“Do you miss it?”

“We’ve hardly been gone long enough to miss it yet,” I hedged. After a long pause, I continued. “Yes, there are definitely things I miss about it. But there is no going back, only forward.”

“I miss the woods. They were my comfort. I even befriended a naiad named Melite,” she said. “I don’t even feel guilt for not missing my family or my village.”

“How did you escape the attack?”

“I had a fight with my father. He demanded that I stop with my ‘childish play’ and be a ‘responsible woman for once’. I refused again, and stormed out before he or my mother could beat me. I headed into the woods, but realized I’d forgotten my bow and waterskin in my anger. I decided to wait until they fell asleep so that I could sneak back in for my hunting gear. I heard the screams from the woods, so I climbed a tree. Three gigantes passed underneath me only moments later. I stayed in that tree all night.” She shivered again, but not from the chill air this time.

“So what did you want of me?” I asked. “You wished for me to do something.”

“I want to be strong and fast,” she said. “Stronger and faster than any man, so that I may make my life as I want it.”

“You are asking for far more extensive changes than I did to Latona,” I cautioned.

“I know, Karsos,” she said. “Is it too much to ask?”

“No, I wish to expand my abilities with my magic, so willing candidates are welcome. There is some danger that I could make a mistake and injure you, however.”

“Would you heal the injury?”

“If at all possible, yes I would. But there is still a chance--”

“I’ll do it,” she said, cutting me off. “I would risk all to not be weak, to be free.”

“Those are not the same thing,” I said.

“They are to me.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Not while we are on watch, for neither of us would be able to keep proper sentry. I wish to study gigantes and cynocephali bodies, should we run into them again. This will give me insights. In the meantime, I can do what I can to help you achieve peak human strength.”