Chapter 179 - Preparations

“It’s amazing,” said Zeke, holding up the breastplate. Like his previous armor, it was red, but it had white highlights along the ridges. Otherwise, it was unadorned, but the metal had a pearlescent sheen to it. “I expected it to have kind of a marbled look to it, though.”

“That’s not how blood mithril forges,” Taggert said, crossing his arms over his chest. He had finally finished forging Zeke’s new set of armor, and it had turned out better than anyone could have expected. “Once it’s smelted down, what’s left is the metal itself. There’s still going to be some of the ore in there, but, well, you can see it.”

Zeke could, and he was more than a little impressed. “And the runes didn’t get distorted or anything, did they?” Zeke asked.

“Not a bit,” Taggert said, grinning broadly. “You sure I can’t convince you to stick around? I can promise you that –”

With a wry smile, Zeke shook his head, “I think you know me well enough by now to know that money isn’t really a great motivator for me. I have things I need to do, and I can’t do them in Jariq. Besides, I think the Sultinate is eager for me to be gone.”

Taggert gave a huff. “Can’t believe they threatened you!” he said. “After everything you did…”

“They didn’t technically threaten me,” he said. “They just encouraged me to move on.”

Of course, that encouragement had come on the heels of his conversation with Carlos, and it was probably meant to be underscored by the threat of assassination. Even if Zeke was stronger than most, he would still find himself periodically vulnerable, and that wasn’t even considering his friends. Abby wasn’t as durable as he was. Nor was Talia. Or even Pudge. And Zeke couldn’t guard them at all hours of the day. He might not fear the Crystal Spiders’ poison, but he had few doubts about how effective it would prove against his companions.

No - it was past time he moved on. Besides, he had a quest to complete and an ascension to worry about.

“Listen, Raphael – I appreciate the offer, but I’m leaving in a few days,” he said. “I’ve got too much I need to do to stick around here.”

“Fine,” the man harumphed. “But you’re always welcome here. Remember that if you get into trouble.”

“Thanks.”

After that, Zeke and Taggert inspected the remaining armor. It was broken up into seven pieces, just like his old armor. A helmet, breastplate, a pair of bracers, tassets, pauldrons and greaves. At Zeke’s request, it was largely unadorned, save for a few subdued flourishes Raphael couldn’t keep himself from including. Zeke didn’t mind, though. The man had done amazing work. Now, there was only one thing left to do: complete the runes.

Back when Zeke had commissioned his first set of armor, he’d left the entire process up to Luigi, the blacksmith from Beacon. That had been a mistake, as evidenced by the fact that the repair enchantment had been overwhelmed by the fire ants, and then completely destroyed in the fight against the demons. When he’d gotten it, he’d only been level fifteen, and as such, it had been extremely powerful. However, because of his insane leveling speed – and the increasingly powerful foes he found himself facing – it had quickly become outdated. He wanted to change that.

Luckily, he had not only picked up the expertise necessary to enact such a change, but he’d also managed to find the materials to facilitate it. The first key ingredient was, predictably, the blood mithril he’d gathered beneath the keep; it was one of the most durable metals known to man, and it had the added benefit of being a perfect mana conductor.

Second came the gem-like feather’s he’d gathered after the fight with the raptor amalgam. Prized for their ability to not only conduct mana, but to store it as well, they’d become an integral part of Zeke’s plan.

Finally, after selling the bulk of his loot and splitting the proceeds with his companions, Zeke had been able to afford some of the more exotic materials Taggert had suggested. Chief among them was a special sort of quenching oil made from the blubber of a leviathan. Zeke didn’t know much about such creatures, but they were supposed to be, at their weakest, Boss-Tier monsters. Most were monarch-tier, though, which made anything harvested from their bodies extremely expensive. The oil in question was infused with mana that would, in turn, facilitate Zeke’s plan.

But now, after the forging, the last piece of the puzzle awaited completion, and he had no intentions of doing it in Taggert’s shop. So, after thanking the smith, he dismissed the various pieces of armor into his spatial storage; even though Taggert was ignorant of the ins and outs of the ability, Zeke had been unable to hide its existence. Likely, half the elites in Jariq knew what he could do by now.

“I’ll show you the results later,” Zeke said, waving at the smith. He liked the man, but he knew that Taggert only really cared about advancing his own wealth and power. His friendship was a means to an end, and nothing more. Still, Zeke wasn’t averse to using that to his advantage.

Outside the shop, which was on the edges of Union territory, Zeke found Pudge waiting on him. The passersby gave the giant infernal bear a wide berth, casting nervous glances in his direction. Pudge, for his part, took it as his due, playing it up by letting a small flame dance in front of his snout. It wasn’t big or hot enough to do much, but it impressed the pedestrians enough.

“Stop intimidating people,” Zeke said, reaching down and ruffling the dense fur at the base of Pudge’s neck. “Ninjas don’t draw attention to themselves, remember?”

Pudge huffed in annoyance, thinking, Ninja people and ninja bears different.

Zeke laughed. “When you’re right, you’re right,” he said. “You’re definitely different. C’mon. I want to get outside the city and summon the tower.”

Pudge asked, Leave?

“Not yet. We still have some things we need to do here,” he answered. “But soon.”

Good. Not like city.

As the pair took off at a jog that was a good deal faster than a sprinting Olympian, Zeke couldn’t really disagree with his companion’s assertion. Certainly, he was more comfortable in Jariq than he had been in Beacon, but he still didn’t feel like he belonged. For a wild animal like Pudge, it was even worse, and they were in agreement that the sooner they could leave the desert city behind, the better.

Of course, Zeke’s stay in Jariq hadn’t been without its benefits. He suspected that without the Pools of Serenity and the baths’ unique healing properties, he never would have recovered so quickly or completely. On top of that, there were plenty of goods available in Jariq that were absent in the wilderness. Zeke and his companions had used the five weeks well.

Never was this more apparent than when they reached a point a few miles away from the city, where Zeke erected his tower. He looked up at it, shaking his head as he was once again reminded that he had absolutely no idea how the ability worked. On a few occasions, he’d tried to study the underlying runes that governed the tower, but all that had gotten him were a series of increasingly painful headaches. It had gotten to the point where he had been forced to abandon his curiosity altogether – at least until he progressed along his artisan’s path to the point where he could handle the complexity of the runes.

The appearance of the tower had mostly reverted back to its pre-demon realm form. It had gotten a bit bigger, especially in circumference, but the material had gone back to the white-and-red stone that he now recognized as the unprocessed form of blood mithril ore. In addition, the balconies were back, and the overall shape was less villainous than it had been in Mal’araxis.

Once the tower was summoned and stable, Zeke strolled up the ramp and through the huge, carved double doors. Inside was the familiar atrium, complete with a giant spiral staircase at the center and statues depicting his various adventures ringing the outer wall. The floors were patterned in crimson and white, and the staircase bore representations of all his companions. Notably, Carlos was not among them.

Zeke hardly noticed the atrium’s familiar decorations as he mounted the steps, eventually finding his way to the floor he shared with Abby. One of the tasks he and the others had accomplished while in Jariq was the furnishing of the tower; before, the furniture had been sparse and cheap. Now, though, it was well-made and luxurious. Zeke hadn’t really been involved in picking styles, but he couldn’t deny that everything suited him. The décor was simple, yet of high quality, with comfort being a priority over aesthetics. Zeke was more than a little eager to get away from the city and back to living in his real home.

For his part, Pudge found his way to his own room, where he quickly went to sleep on a pile of shredded bedding.

But for now, he wasn’t concerned with that. Instead, he’d come back to the tower because it had a curious ability to enhance mana regeneration as well as his concentration. It was a subtle effect, but it had become more and more noticeable the longer he spent away from the tower. Now, he needed it if he was going to enact his plans and turn his new armor into something really special.

That was how he found himself in what he’d dubbed his meditation room. It wasn’t overly large, with unadorned walls, and it was empty save for a few scattered cushions. But what it lacked in amenities it more than made up for in isolation. In that room, with the door shut, he felt completely separated from the rest of the world. Originally, he’d intended to use it for his exploration into his various paths, but it would do nicely to complete and empower the runes of his armor, which would be, at best, a difficult task.

“Greatness doesn’t come from playing it safe,” he muttered to himself. Then, without further ado, he retrieved the first piece of armor – the breastplate – from his spatial storage and went to work. Using the extra-sensory perception that let him see past the engravings on the inner surface of the breastplate, Zeke concentrated on the underlying collection of glyphs and symbols that he’d attached to the physical representations of his runes.

In truth, Zeke had no idea how it all worked together. He understood the runes well enough – after all, they weren’t that complicated – but he didn’t know why they had to be anchored to the object by physical engravings. But that was okay. He didn’t need to understand the minutiae to make the runes do what he wanted them to do.

Suddenly, his heartrate spiked as he was beset by a feeling of overwhelming dread. That had been the same attitude that had very nearly killed him in the demon realm, hadn’t it? Then, he’d leapt before he looked, and as a result, he’d touched upon a power he neither understood nor could contain. It had come close to tearing his body completely apart.

But this was different, wasn’t it? He’d spent so much time preparing, studying, and practicing his runecraft. He was prepared, wasn’t he? His mind told him that, yes, he was prepared, but his fears screamed at him to take a step back and reassess. To prepare more. Not to do anything until he fully understood the implications of what he was trying to do.

It was a fool’s errand. Zeke was only a novice in the realm of runecraft, but even that small bit of expertise told him that the kind of understanding that would negate any and all risk was a long way away. More, it was impossible to attain that level of expertise without taking on a significant degree of risk. No – he needed to push forward.

Shoving his anxiety aside, Zeke refocused on the runes, infusing them with mana and making the connections he’d purposefully left off. As he worked, time slowly slipped away. He finished the breastplate and moved on to the pauldrons. Then, the helmet. The greaves. One bracer, then its twin. The tassets. In the end, it took him a little more than twenty-three hours to finish his task, and when he did, he was exhausted, covered in sweat, and wholly satisfied.

He let out a deep breath, his shoulders slumping in fatigue.

“Finally,” came a voice from nearby. Zeke turned to see Abby leaning against the wall. “I thought you’d never finish.”

“Sorry,” he croaked. Abby reached down and grabbed a pitcher at her feet. That made him realize just how thirsty he’d been, so when she handed it to him, Zeke wasted no time before tipping it back and downing the fruity contents. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “Did you finish? Did it work?”

Zeke nodded. “It should have,” he said. Nodding at the pile of armor, he said, “Inspect it yourself.”

Abby’s eyes narrowed as she activated her inspection skill, [Keen Eye]. Zeke was still a little fuzzy on why most people had different skills that did the same thing, but it was a mystery he didn’t expect to be soon solved.

“Impressive,” she said after a few seconds. “Does this mean you’re ready?”

Zeke nodded. “I think so,” he said. “But we should probably talk about what we’re going to do. I don’t think we’re going to get lucky enough to stumble on another warlock, so our quest might be out of reach.”

“Oh? You think so, huh?” Abby asked, a smirk playing across her face.

“You know something I don’t know, don’t you?” he asked.

“Do you ever even look at what you have in that magic basement of yours?” Abby asked.

“Uh…sometimes?”

“Tucker left something for you,” she said.

Zeke turned his attention inward, focusing on his spatial storage, and it didn’t take him long to find a familiar jar. He summoned it, and when it popped back into existence, he said, “How? I thought he used it.”

Abby shrugged. “He was a mysterious guy,” she said.

Looking at the jar – or more importantly, at the black-and-purple mist it contained – Zeke said, “It’s different, isn’t it? There’s less of it.”

“If I had to guess, he used parts of the warlock’s soul,” Abby explained. “Enough that it can’t talk or anything anymore. I’m not even sure if it’s alive.”

“Alive is a relative term for a soul,” Zeke said. “But I get it. It feels less real than it did. You think it’ll satisfy the quest, though?”

“I think so,” Abby said. “Which means we’ve got a wyrm to slay, right?”

Zeke grinned. “Right,” he said.