Following Master Hector’s grand speech extolling Bordan’s many virtues, there was little left to be said. The adventurers were informed that they would have a week to gather supplies and equipment as well as bring their affairs in order, after which they would march to the fort south of Pel Darni to link up with the army’s 5th division.

There was also a list of those who would stay behind. It was a depressingly short one, as the plan for the continued operation of adventurer activities had to make do with very little. The idea was to almost exclusively make use of the recruits that had fled to the Guild’s doors from the draft, shortening their training and forming them into parties headed by an experienced adventurer. It was not dissimilar to how the Guild handled recruits anyway, except that the groups were usually larger, and they were only given the easiest assignments to start with.

Now, the parties would be no larger than four or five, possibly even going as low as three, and they would have to handle all but the most dangerous requests. For those, two parties of veterans would remain – much too little to patrol an area of this size. It would be a hellish experience, throwing the recruits into danger with limited preparation and no downtime. Clearly, safety wasn’t the main concern anymore, and Edwin was certain that the next year would see a spike in adventurer deaths even among those who stayed behind. He wondered if the fact that most of the recruits had tried to evade military service had played a role in the planning…

As the crowd slowly vacated the yard, filing through the narrow doors, Bordan caught up with his teammates.

“There you are. Listen, I need to stay and get briefed by the Chaptermaster, but he said that I’ll be heading to the fort tomorrow, ahead of the rest, so I can prepare everything for their arrival. You can go with the rest in a week, of course, but I thought I’d ask if you wanted to join me tomorrow.”

Leodin shrugged. “Sure, I don’t have all that much to prepare anyway. Honestly, I could go right now if I needed to. No point sitting on my hands for a week, is there?”

Salissa nodded, signaling that she was in a similar position. Edwin scratched his chin, thinking.

“I still need to head to Armin’s, Master Quinnick said the gauntlets and helmet should be done sometime around now. Aside from that… Carrying the armor would be a pain, but If I pack it and have the Guild send it along when the others march down, I can be ready by this evening as well.”

“Great,” Bordan said, turning to follow after Master Hector. “I’ll see you here first thing tomorrow then.

With their party leader gone, Edwin and his teammates joined the slow exodus of adventurers. While there were some quiet discussions, most wore grim expressions and kept to themselves. The announcement hadn’t finished sinking in yet, Edwin supposed, and the older adventurers were probably contemplating how to break the news to their families. After the first shock, Edwin noticed that the world-shaking information didn’t really bother him much anymore.

Makes sense, Edwin thought. In a way, all of this is less real to me. For them, this is the only life they have, but when I die, I’ll just start over again. That is a part of humanity I will never be able to get back, I suppose. I will never again be afraid of death, never feel like every moment is a precious commodity. Ever since I became Edwin, I find that Immortality comes with a lot of hidden costs that I never thought of beforehand.

--- ----- ---

Upon entering Armin’s, Edwin was met with a curious sight. The store was packed, a number of the adventurers seemingly having headed straight to the western quarter after the announcement.

“But we’re in the army now, too.” Edwin heard a customer say to the beleaguered clerk. “We’re officially allowed to buy steel weapons again!”

“Even if that is the case, I can’t sell what I don’t have.” The clerk waved helplessly around the room, empty weapon racks adorning the walls. “Since the beginning of the iron ban, everything we had in stock has been bought by those with exemptions or requisitioned by the army, and the only items we forge these days are bound for the forts as well. I can take a custom order if you need something done, but there is nothing ready for sale.”

Edwin managed to grab the attention of the poor clerk who waved him towards the back rooms. Over the last few months, Edwin had been by quite a bit, mostly trying on the parts of his armor as they were made so they could be adjusted or resized, so he was well-known by those at the store. He passed through the main forge, nodding to a few smiths who turned at his passing. As he approached Quinnick’s private workshop, a journeyman informed him that the master was at lunch, so Edwin settled in to wait. Half an hour later Quinnick returned, greeting Edwin with a tired smile.

“Edwin my boy, good to see you! Come, I have something to show you.”

As he was ushered into the room, Edwin immediately spotted the pair of gauntlets sitting on a workbench. They looked phenomenal. Early in the process, Quinnick had struggled quite a bit with his chosen material, needing multiple tries for the legs and arms that featured long, single pieces.

Before Quinnick’s project, direshields were not used much in armor. The leather of the beasts was valuable, as it was thicker and more durable than animal leather, but the bone shields were either used as materials for non-combat related crafts or taken apart and used as single plates in items like adventurer coats. Keeping the long, segmented shield intact was tricky, and only feasible with the special procedure that Quinnick’s mage acquaintance had developed.

Almost giddy with anticipation, Edwin picked one of the gauntlets up and pulled it on. Like most of the other pieces of the suit, they were made from several separate shields of different sizes. The part that covered the arm and hand was surprisingly large, while each finger was protected by a single, small shield, the segmentation allowing it to bend freely. ‘Small’ was relative of course. Even regular steel gauntlets were hefty things, almost able to serve as weapons all on their own, and the nature of the material meant that Edwin’s were much thicker. He moved his hand around, bending it this way and that, making appreciative noises while Quinnick stood by with a wide grin.

“The mobility is way better than I feared,” Edwin said. “It looks so massive, I worried I might not be able to fight with them, but the fingers move great, and the wrist can still bend quite well.”

“Of course!” Quinnick harrumphed, feigning insult. “I wouldn’t make a gauntlet you can’t move your hand in, now would I? Here, see how far you can bend your hand. Now turn your wrist…”

After Edwin performed a string of tests, including picking up different objects and manipulating smear items like door handles and keys, Quinnick was finally satisfied and let him take them off again.

“These are great,” Edwin said, “but I’m really curious about the helmet. Last time you said you had figured out how to do it?”

Quinnick grimaced. “I thought I had. Turns out I was wrong. Here, take a look.”

Walking over to one of the cupboards, he pulled the helmet from one of the boxes. It took Edwin a moment to figure out which side was the front, but when he did his eyebrows started climbing toward his hairline.

“That… doesn’t look very protective.”

Quinnick shook his head sadly, turning the piece over in his hands to point out his process

“The idea was to have one shield start below the neck down here, bend up over the head and end above the eyes, then cover the sides with other plates. It worked during the initial fitting, but once the shield was treated, I wasn’t able to bend quite the same anymore. I never realized when doing the other parts of the armor, because I never had to work with an angle as great as the curvature of a head. I tried a few different things, but even when it fit, it left slits in the armor large enough for a blade to fit through – not what you want on the back of your head.”

“So, what now?”

“What else? Back to the drawing board. I’m running low on materials though, so I’ll have to get creative with what I have.”

“That’s a shame,” Edwin said with a frown. “I’ll be leaving for the fort tomorrow, and I have no idea when I’ll get back to Pel Darni.”

“The fort?”

--- ----- ---

“These really are horrible times,” Quinnick said, shaking his head. “My contacts told me about what was happening in Marrad, but I hadn’t heard they were conscripting the entire Guild. I shall try to finish your helmet quickly, you will need one once the arrows start flying.”

He opened a different cupboard and pulled out a bottle and two glasses, pouring a healthy amount of the amber liquid into each of them.

“To your health and fortune in battle,” Quinnick toasted. “May we meet like this again so you can tell me all about how my armor saved your life.”

“To those who fight,” Edwin replied, raising his glass. “May we all have the opportunity to return home and lament the inadequate craftsmanship of our armorers.”