I was allowed to get up on my second day as promised by Carol. She said she would rather I not leave the library as the streets would be crowded after a battle. I didn't mind this much, I am small after all and I would rather not get trampled to death after narrowly avoiding a terrible fate, no thanks to a certain ignorant guard. I paced in my curtained section of the dome as I tried to imagine a form for my foci to take.

I knew what materials I would need to make them from if they were to be of use, but I still haven't had any experience with weapons since my arrival so a form was far from easy for me to envision. I thought about a spear, but with my size and the weight in mind I knew that was going to go badly. I wanted to take pistols off the table altogether. I may know the concepts and could likely make one, I didn't move to a fantasy world to play modern warfare though. Still, this is my life on the line, and having a pistol might be useful someday.

I laughed as I imagined doing an impression of a certain girl with a penny railgun dominating Magras' best mages. I put the thought aside, maybe I'll find a way to make it happen later. I was hitting a wall in my creative process and needed inspiration. I wandered down into the library looking for books on arms and armor to try and find something that already existed that interested me. I would have asked Carol, but she seemed to have left the library.

I found three separate books that I figured would be useful based on the titles. Two of the books were Carol's and the third was from one Gustav Pendragon. Carol's books were titled Arming Yourself: A Guide to Improvised Weapons and Built to Serve: The Knight's Edition. The second book focused more on armor, but there was a section dedicated to the weapons a knight would carry. The other book had a very unique title as well, it implied that the people that came to Magras ahead of me had formed some sort of country. It's title was, Weapons of Mass Hysteria: the Weapons Muricans Would Kill For.

Apparently the United States of America made their presence felt everywhere, even in the afterlife, I mused. I took the books to one of the reading areas on the second floor and opened all three in a semicircle in front of me. I skipped pages until I started to see actual weapons being listed in Gustav's book ,and I stopped when the equipment portion of the knight's book began. I saved the improvised weaponry book for last as it was less important to my current situation than the other two.

The Murican book wasn't in any discernible order, blades and axes were freely intermingled with the guns of my former world. It seems nobody was able to make the guns here, but that didn't give me any sort of urge or incentive to start making one. Some of the weapons were so ludicrous that I wanted to throw the book away. Who in the hell thought sword-chucks were a good idea? The book had game terminology and jargon I had never before heard laced through it. I found a few recognizable weapons that wouldn't destroy half of Magras, but dismissed them due to difficulty of either production or effiency in my ability to weild them. I closed the book and set it aside. I was somewhat disappointed in their lack of knowledge or lack of common sense, I wasn't sure which. I was even slightly embarrassed to be an American by the point that I stopped reading.

The knight book was little better. It was better in the sense that it was at least more logical, worse in the sense that I had already dismissed all of the items in it as being too cumbersome or too difficult to learn on my own. I couldn't assume that there would be a willing trainer for everything after all. I got really lucky with Carol, but I wasn't willing to bank on lightning striking twice in my favor.

I set that book aside as well and opened the improvised weapon book. I have little hope for it, but it may inspire me to improve on the idea and make a real weapon. As expected, a majority of the material covered are things that you'd find in a bar fight. table legs with nails driven through them, that sort of thing. I did see that a chain was listed and remembered a fantasy book I checked out from an Earth library that featured that as a weapon. It was a good book. I lumped the chain with the whip though, difficult to control and harder to master. There definitely wouldn't be anyone teaching skills for such a weapon.

I paused while looking at the gauntlet, sensing someone reading over my shoulder. I glanced back and saw Carol looking at the book I was reading, "What are you looking for in there?" She asked without looking from the page. "I hit a wall, I can't decide on a form for my foci and I don't feel anything calling out to me in those books." I answered while gesturing to the two previous tomes I set aside. "So what do you think of the gauntlets then? You stopped turning pages a while before you noticed me." She smiled as she admitted that she was watching me struggle. "I like the idea, but I'm not sure the blacksmith could manage such fine work." I thought about the process. "I would need tools far too advanced to shape the metal as I'd want, the blacksmith could easily make the parts, but he probably couldn't make them the way I want them to be."

Carol took my hand and I allowed her to lead me to the first floor. I wasn't sure where she was taking me, but it wasn't out the front door because we were heading to the north-western corner. The front door was centered on the east wall, I looked in its direction then at Carol, trying to figure out what she's up to. She seemed focused on the lamps attached to the wall so I stay silent and try to be patient.

She released my hand and stood next to a lamp with an enchanted light that glowed slightly off color from the other ones. I usually avoid the first floor scrolls, so I'm not surprised that I didn't notice it. "You're one of very few people that I'm showing my lab to, never tell anyone about it. I've cleared out the old experiments, so it's safe." She paused, apparently to build tension for a big reveal. "I've been making mana powered versions of your old world machines while you were away in the mines." She pressed a small button behind the light of the off color lamp and a section of the floor sunk in and slid aside. "I have other hidden sections like this, but you are not to enter them even if you discover them. Valuable magic experiments are going on in them and they must not be disturbed." She said in a matter of fact manner.

I could see steps leading down, I tread carefully in the low-light condition until I reached a cavernous square room that was just under half the length of the library. Machines lined the walls like relics in a museum, I could see she'd been very busy indeed and wondered if her other experiments even existed with the amount of time and money that must have been invested in this workshop. I was very familiar with everything here even though I hadn't used such tools in decades.

There were two different powered grinders in one corner, an old Bridgeford model mill was asitting next to a drill press in front of me, and on the left there was a powered English wheel. There were many other machines in the room, but these four caught my eye immediately as tools I would need for what I planned to make. Upon closer inspection, the design of these machines was definitely only something I would find in a fantasy world, but they would serve their purpose well enough.

I looked at Carol and said, "You're a genius, and I'm going to need some material to work with." I stopped and gave Carol a hug, which she seemed quite uncomfortable receiving, then darted back up the stairs to my room. I pulled out a piece of charcoal from my belongings and asked for a large scrap of leather from Carol. She opened one of the satchels she brought home yesterday and handed me something much nicer than a scrap. I told her what I needed to do and she offered me a a cut of cowhide that would be too thick to pass as vellum.

I measured out the length of each arm and made a the line stretch about two inches past what I would need to cover the length of my arm. I then made the line out into a rectangle and noted that the plate of metal needed to be around three quarters of an inch thick. I planned to use two such blocks of metal along with the facing bit on the mill to create an elbow length armguard. I was informed politely that I may only have enough in my savings for one such bolck.

I told Carol I would settle for that as I handed her my savings, it would be three month's worth of the average worker's pay. I realized at that point that I had four vouchers which entitled me to eight carts of mana treated iron. I asked how much that would be worth out of curiosity. It turns out that I had enough mana treated iron that if I sold it back to the smithy I could narrowly afford to buy the other block I wanted. I handed over the vouchers and told Carol I'd entrust the haggling to her.

I cut out some shapes from the nicer leather she tried to pass to me earlier as I awaited her return. I made twelve straps and punched holes in them for where the buckles would adjust. I took the other six an put a slot where the fastener would be once I made it. I heard the door to the library open and I rushed down to help bring the materials to the workshop. Carol was panting as she probably had to run an obstacle course through the crowded road to get these blocks. I honestly thought it would take longer, but she told me they rushed it since the iron was needed at the gate.

I got her a drink and suggested the take a break as I carted the silver blocks to Carol's lab. She followed me with her glass and insisted on watching me work. I stuffed a pair of cotton balls in my ears and warned her that she should do the same as the tools can be quite loud. I set a bucket in place beneath the mill and made sure that I was using the correct attachment.

I started working and the dull whine of mettal digging into other metal drowned out all other noise. I made a tear shaped depression in the block that ran the entire length of the block of pure silver. I found it odd that I was using a bit that appeared to be gold to chip the surface of a harder metal, but the weirdness quickly passed as the piece began to take shape. I carved a a two-inch angular spike at one end of each arm-guard in the making and made sure to toss the extra metal in the bucket.

I tried to collect all the metal dust as it was too expensive for me to lose. This was a lot of pressure for me since I hadn't done so much as look at a machine in what was easily thirty years. I managed to get all my cuts right somehow even without computer assistance. My luck seemed to be working hard to earn its keep today.

I took the two pieces over to the English wheel and set one in place. I tuned the settings to as close to perfect as I could get them and gave the piece a sharp bend down the length of silver. I managed to get close enough that I could adjust the bend with a few taps of a hammer in the right places. The second piece gave slightly more trouble as I accidentally bent it too far. I spent some time carefully hammering the piece out to fit. The pieces wrapped comfortably from the undrside of my forearm over the top of my antibrachial bones.

I placed a small drill bit in the chuck of the drill press and secured my armguards with a small pair of clamps. I carefully made six holes in each one for the leather straps to attach to. I used a standard mana-infused copper screw to attatch the straps and milled the screw's end down to the nut. The heat from the milling process caused the screw to deform a bit inside the threads of the nut and fuse them together.

For the last metal pieces I would need to melt the dust and excess pieces back into a solid so I could recast them as two uniform blocks. I wore the unfinished armguards all the way to the smithy, with Carol escorting me, and asked if I could recast the two blocks myself. The smith was bewildered, but allowed me to complete my task while studying the metal on my arms closely. I took the two small blocks the moment they cooled and we headed back to finish with the fine work.

I decided that the end product would be a set of neko te, an old ninja tool usually used my female ninjas. I would have used shuko as the design if I hadn't needed to use my fingers to draw runes. I made ten caps that ended in sharp points and used strands of woven silk, Carol told me were called mageweave, to attatch them to the leather that would wrap around my hands. Mageweave would give the mana a strange quality where the force I passed through it would become a strand rather than a globe as it usually is.

I connected the edge of the armguard to the clawed glove using more mageweave and presented my (to me) unfinished work to my teacher. I know I asked too much of her today, but she seemed impressed by the neko te and armguard combination. I had to explain why it was unfinished though. I want to fill the depression in the armguards with molten obsidian and sink the crysatls I intend to use most into it so I can always use those spells. I was laughed at, but I still think she was impressed by the idea.

At that moment both of our stomachs growled and we realized we hadn't eaten all day. I made(slightly burned) dinner as thanks for putting up with my selfishness.