Once we finished up the last of the spears Callie took her half back to her own barracks. I passed mine to Gabe, but before I could meet up with Demia for instruction I got a message from Camden. Alister showed up in person to let me know that I was requested in the basement of the manor to begin work on my new armor.

The seneschal escorted me to the door down to the lower floor, opened it, and then stepped back. I raised a brow at him. “You’re not coming?”

He snorted. “Sonia and I don’t get along. I don’t enter her presence without the Baron present. It usually starts a fight. Just follow the stairs, she’s waiting for you.”

Shrugging I set off into the basement, my stomach fluttering slightly in nervousness. This felt…consequential. Important in a way I couldn’t comment on. My first set of real custom gear. Important and unique to just me. As long as I’d been doing this, all my gear had been generic. Even the suits that Abel’s brother Cicero commissioned for us weren’t specifically tailored to our abilities. Though Callie’s had been close.

When I arrived in the room, it was empty except for Sonia. The tall redheaded smith was standing beside the black cube she’d been smithing on. “Sit.” She said bluntly when she saw me, pointing to the top of the cube. I walked over and climbed up onto it, taking a cross legged position and looking down at her in cautious curiosity.

“You’re not going to like…turn me into a hat or something?” I asked in a faux casual tone.

She smirked at me. “Too tall. Stovepipes are so out of fashion.” At my lack of response she snorted. “No, I’m no haberdasher. I told you these items would need to be exposed to your Skills to imprint the signature of your power onto them, and so I can analyze how they resonate. I take it you have a decent idea of exactly which Skills will work for which material?”

I nodded. “I think I have some idea. What material do you want to start with?” I was excited to see how this worked. I’d channeled Skills through gear before, but the way she described this made it seem different. This gear would allow me to tap into my forms and Skills without almost any strain. That might not sound amazing, but considering that my Piece of Mind skill let me do two things at once…I had ideas.

Turning around, she walked over to a table covered with a variety of materials, grumbling about overwork as she dug out a small pile of bones that I recognized from my last visit. “Bones from a Stareater thrall.” She said with a grin. “One of the most effective materials I have on hand. Only barely E-rank because of all the damage.”

I nodded, already sure what I needed to channel into the bones. She stepped up, laying them down in my lap with my hands wrapped around them like I was holding a bowl in my arms. “You sure this will be enough?” I asked. “I’m only barely touching some of them.”

“It’ll be fine.” She said with a lazy wave. “Just do it. I’m excited to see exactly what makes you compatible with such a rare and difficult to work material. Not many have Skills that allow them to harmonize with such a destructive element.”

Without responding, I closed my eyes and triggered Mephistopheles. The black flame washed through me, pouring into the bones. I expected them to burn, but whatever fire the Stareater Thrall had been consumed in was much more destructive than even my black flames.

Rather than burn, the bones began to glow. Well, that was the wrong word. Glowing things gave off light. This was the opposite of that. They started drinking in light, to the extent that the dark was radiating off them in a similar fashion to a glow. Sonia told me to sit still and hold it, so I did, not using too much effort since I wasn’t attacking.

Mephistopheles wasn’t easy, even with a Sapphire soul. I could hold it for a decent chunk of time I was pretty sure, but I wouldn’t be able to do much else. That was what had me so excited about this set of armor. If it offset the difficulty of my forms, I could use other abilities in combination with them more easily, or even use more than one of them TOGETHER.

Runes lit up along the surface of the cube, visible in the variety of reflective metallic surfaces as Sonia circled me, muttering to herself and occasionally smacking me in the head and telling me to sit still when I hadn’t moved a micron.

“Alright.” She finally said. “You can move. That’s…a complex working. Messy and oddly lacking in cohesion for all that it functions properly.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mentioned something like that before, studying the patterns. You’re not using enchanting? Runes can be made to do almost anything with the right modifiers, why bother studying anything.”

“I am using runes, they’re just more…natural.” She explained. “I’m sure you’ve seen items before with naturally occurring form runes. Gems or metals or wood where exposure to a certain type of energy or a reputation for a certain type of renown causes them to form specific energy patterns?”

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That did sound familiar. I remembered a year or so ago, back on Callus, Callie had been talking to a fae who had offered her a sapphire with a naturally occurring water form rune. “I have. It’s kind of like formations right?”

She waggled a hand as she took the bones one by one with the other, carrying them gingerly to the table. I noticed her glove lightly smoking and worried a bit, but she just ignored it. “Sort of. Higher level enchanters certainly prefer to use more efficient runes, and the naturally occurring ones are the most naturally suited to the environment and materials.”

“So by studying them you can learn what kinds of runes and patterns are most effective for certain tasks rather than trying to brute force it?” I asked, catching on.

Grinning, she snapped her finger and tapped her nose. “Got it in one. Micromanaging your runes manually and forcing the energy is the hallmark of an enchanter with either no Skill or FAR too much. Experienced crafters can make things manually that can equal a naturally formed item and with far more flexibility. For people like me though, this little trick is far more reasonable.”

“What about my Skill?” I asked curiously. “What did you mean about it lacking cohesion? I made it myself and it works fine.”

That got a laugh. “No it WORKS. It doesn’t work fine. You’re holding it together during use with your unnaturally powerful soul. It’s functional, but it’s not well crafted. Skills aren’t just random imagination smashed together into a ball. The warp and weft of stats and energy has patterns, and the more you understand them and apply them to your Skills the less your soul needs to be leveraged to effect them.”

I hadn’t even considered there might be better ways to construct stats, but thinking about it I’d already seen an example. My wish ability. Something about its construction was so absolutely flawless it tripled the efficiency of stats used. If I applied any changes or synergies too it, that modifier dissolved.

Not once in all my time with the power had I followed that bit of information to its logical conclusion. Skills could be badly or expertly made. Mine were apparently mishmashes of total nonsense held together with twine and packing tape.

“Does that mean that you’re going to make a better version for my armor?” I asked slowly. “So that I can not only use them easier, but slowly refine them into better Skills?”

She shook her head. “I’m not a Skill specialist. I’m an Arcane Armorer. I can’t teach you how to fix Skills. I can make armor that help you utilize yours to their fullest, and in that vein, take this.” She passed me the Phantasmal Platinum.

I held it up, looking at it cautiously. This one I was less sure about. I had the sneaking suspicion it might resonate with my wish power at first but…how would that work? If this stuff boosted wishes everyone in the family would use it. No, it did something else.

Dreams weren’t just wishes though, they were also visions of possibilities. I squinted at the thing for a second and then triggered Eye of Revelation. It began to shine, swirls of energy rising off it in strange patterns. Through the haze I could see faint visions, shadows and hazy figures projected across the walls.

She took it from me. “Sensory Skill? How fascinating. Something for the head. Maybe a crown?” I opened my mouth to respond and she waved me off. “Not your concern, silence.”

Next she handed me the Amethyst. This one was simple, I channeled Belial through it, and the stone began to blaze and flicker with green lights among the facets of purple. Next she passed me the roll of hide, the Abyssal Wraithskin.

Holding it, I was able to identify that the material was much thinner and more tightly wrapped than expected. I was holding a much larger spool of it than I’d thought, and I was sure she’d have enough for my gear.

This one had been a hard pick. I could go defensive, or offensive, or any number of other potential utility options…but I was sure I knew what this stuff was resonating with. I channeled State of Grace. The skin of a wraith, Abyssal or not, was meant for freedom of movement. Combined with my danger sense that would be my best possible outcome.

As I watched, the material shimmered, becoming sort of semi invisible before returning to normal. I passed it to her and she snatched it up. “Perfect!” She cheered. “Now MOVE!”

I did, hopping clear as she dumped all the materials there. After a brief pause, she strode over and snatched up another bolt of cloth, a purple silk I hadn’t interacted with before. Stalking back to the cube she slapped it, and then reached into her apron for a series of tools she laid out as it started to hum, the same energy and projection coalescing above her.

And then, she started to craft. Her hands moved in fits and starts, sometimes flowing, sometimes jerking frenetically scissors split the fabrics, a small handheld blowtorch blazed up, rendering the platinum molten, and she handled it with just one hand as the other worked the leather and then the silk.

As I stared, openmouthed, my armor began to take shape. The bones were ground up into a paste, mixed with some of the molten platinum to form a dark metal, the leather was stacked, reinforced, and then stitched with platinum threads drawn from the seemingly ever expanding molten ingot.

The armor was huge and imposing, covered with intricate spiderwebs of silvery scrollworn. The joints and vulnerabilities were lined with the dark metal made from the bones, and as she poured the last of the bone dust into half of the remaining platinum she started to twist them together.

Metals mixed with each other, forming a black and white damascus, which she shaped into a wide crown with jagged spiked sticking up intermittently around its circumference. Into the front of it she set the Venomblood Amethyst, and as soon as she did, I felt the whole thing sort of…shift. There was an inaudible click as the power in the set merged into one glorious whole.

As she finished the armor, the purple silk was sewn into the leather with the platinum wire, tying the whole thing together. It even went with my mask, the damascus of the crown and the winding patterns of the scrollwork somehow creating a harmonious image with the grain of the wood. Stepping back, the Arcane Armorer grinned over at me. “Well, here you go, Solomon. A raiment fit for a king.” And damned if it wasn’t. I’d expected the crown to be too much, but it called to me. I couldn’t wait to try it on.