The next morning came with a slow start. Not because of any lingering injuries or trouble in the night. Jadis was back to full health thanks to Eir and a restful sleep, and the doubled night watch Willa had put in place encountered no issues from demons, drakes, or mysterious assailants. No, the delay came from a higher source. With the first light of dawn came a flurry of snow that quickly turned into a heavy storm. By the time Jadis and her crew had finished breakfast, the skies had dumped several inches of snow on the ground and didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon.
It was Captain Willa who recommended they wait before moving on. Visibility would be low so long as the snowstorm continued. Even if the bandits that had attacked them weren’t preparing another ambush further up the road, they still could have left more traps for their expedition to run into. With the heavy snow, it would be too difficult to check carefully for pitfalls or other traps. Better to wait for the weather to clear than to push forward recklessly.
According to Aila, Weigrun was known for its heavy winters, but it was still a month early for the truly intense snow conditions to occur. The early morning storm was likely to pass, so she agreed it was best to wait. Kerr and Thea, who had lived in Weigrun through the last winter, agreed with the recommendation as well, so Jadis bowed to their expertise. Privately, she wanted to push hard and catch up to the bastards that had wounded both her bodies and her pride. However, as much as that impulse burned inside her, she also knew that carelessly chasing after intelligent opponents into prepared positions had nearly been her death. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Without much else to do thanks to their weather delay, Jadis focused on cleaning and maintaining her armor while also practicing letters with Alex. As she occupied herself, her companions did the same, finding their own chores to keep themselves busy as they waited for the snowfall to lighten. One pair locked in conversation kept Jadis’ attention in particular.
“Are you sure it didn’t hurt?” Bridget asked again, a worried look on her face as she leaned forward in her seat. “I mean, from an outsider’s perspective, that looked intense. Not just intense, super-intense. I mean, I can’t think of a bigger word for intense, but fuck, you lived it. It really didn’t hurt?”
“No, it didn’t,” Sabina reiterated for the umpteenth time. “Sex with Jadis felt amazing, actually. Really, super, incredibly, powerfully intense, but still good! I still feel like my bones are made out of pudding and I feel weirdly empty inside after all that, but nothing bad!”
“Empty?” The orc gave Sabina a disbelieving look. “What, like, emotionally…?”
“No, physically,” Sabina shook her head vigorously as she tapped away with her tools. “Like, there was so much of Jadis’ cock and cum stuffed inside my pussy that I felt stretched beyond anything I’ve ever felt before, so it was kind of uncomfortable while feeling really good at the same time. Now that she isn’t inside me anymore, I kind of miss it and want to have her inside me again.”
“Oh,” Bridget responded with a nonplused expression, clearly not expecting the direct and unvarnished candor with which the smith had replied to her question. “That’s, um, interesting.”
“You should have sex with Jadis too,” Sabina continued, blithely unaware of Bridget’s unease. “She really is incredibly skilled at providing pleasure. I hired a prostitute once because I was curious to see what it was like and she had two classes related to sex and she didn’t get me to cum as much as Jadis did last night. I mean, I’m kind of a pushover when it comes to reaching climax plus I was really pent up because I haven’t been with anyone in a couple of years, at least before last night, so maybe that was part of why I completely lost my composure with Jadis but really she has such an amazing tongue and her cock feels unbelievably good once it’s inside you.”
“Okay…” Bridget mumbled as Sabina continued to pour out reasons for why the orc should let Jadis fuck her.
With how distressed the woman was starting to look, Jadis considered stepping in to distract the well-meaning but oblivious half-elf. However, Bridget effected her own rescue before Jadis was forced to intervene.
“What is that you’re working on, anyway?” Bridget asked with forced interest. “Looks complicated!”
“Oh, this is a rune circle!” Sabina said, holding up a square cut of leather. “It’s just the base, but this should work for any future Eldritch-based enchantments I work on.”
The piece of leather was about a square foot in size and had been treated to remain soft and supple. The material was a uniform color on the one side Sabina was working on and Jadis wondered if the smith had brought it with the explicit purpose of using it as some kind of template. She probably had, Jadis realized a moment later. Sabina had known she was leveling soon and was absolutely the type to come prepared.
When Sabina had woken that morning, she had answered the question Aila had asked the night before. The Eldritch attribute had been Sabina’s choice for her first boost to her magic stats. Apparently, she wanted to work on plans for enchantments that might be useful for boosting Jadis’ ritual capabilities. With the boost to her Eldritch stat came a better understanding of how related enchantments worked, or so Sabina explained. Just as Aila had once taught Jadis, gaining certain skills would boost a person's instinctive understanding of the related subject. For an enchanter, growing their related attribute made it so they had a better, intrinsic understanding of the type of enchantment they were working on.
“This circle is what all my enchantments will be based on in the future,” Sabina continued her explanation. “Well, the Eldritch ones, anyway. When I switch to Arcane or Divine, I’ll have to make new circles just for them that rely on different rune formulas, but this is the one for Eldritch. Usually I’d have to work my way up to a base circle that’s this complex but since Jadis gave me a huge boost I’m starting at a higher level than most other enchanters would be able to, which means the enchantments I’ll be making are going to be extremely effective!”
Bridget nodded along as Sabina spoke, but by the way her eyes were glazing over, Jadis could tell that the subject of enchantment crafting wasn’t the most thrilling for the warrior. Even if Bridget wasn’t all that interested, Jadis was. The possibilities that enchantments held were fascinating, and the mechanics behind how they worked were just as captivating for her.
Each crafter had to design their own unique base rune circle for the purpose of making enchantments. The runic symbols that lay between the outer and inner lines of the circle served as a kind of signature that was unique to the individual enchanter. Certain similarities could be seen, largely based on which of the three types of magic the rune circle was intended to work with, but no two enchanters' circles were alike.
The rune circle would serve as the starting template for the actual enchantment that would lie within it. The rune configuration that was set within would control the effects of the enchantment while the ring itself dictated the power of the effect. As the enchanter grew in skill and level, the ring of runes would become progressively more and more complicated as it became capable of handling more powerful spells. The enchanter would have to update the rune circle as their career progressed, usually starting with something simple that left room to evolve into a more intricate design.
While Sabina was only at level one in her enchanter class, the boost to her Eldritch stat Jadis had provided her with meant the circle she was crafting would need to be able to handle a large amount of raw power. It wouldn’t have the finesse of someone with the passive skills to supplement her, but it would be of far greater capacity than anything most crafters of her level range would be able to manage.
“The accuracy with which I transpose this rune circle, once I’m done with it, will make a big difference on how efficient and effective the enchantment I make is,” Sabina prattled on as she continued to stencil the design into the leather. “If I don’t draw one of these symbols the right way, like this little squiggle here, then the enchantment will still work, it just won’t be as good as it could be, like an impurity in a steel ingot that makes it more brittle than it should be. That’s actually why a lot of enchanted items that are mass produced don’t last as long as the custom-made ones. They’re quick to churn out but the enchanters making them aren’t being super careful with the fine details since they’re trying to make as many as they can. It’s part of why the military has so many enchanters constantly crafting items for them. They just don’t hold up under duress as well as they could if they were made with more care.”
“I’m sure any enchantment you make will be made with lots of love and attention,” Syd interjected as she joined Sabina and Bridget at their table.
Sabina smiled brightly up at Syd, eager to show her half-sketched template to her. Bridget smiled for an entirely different reason, grateful for the rescue and opportunity to politely slip away without being rude to the talkative smith.
“Everything I enchant will be made with my maximum level of effort!” Sabina announced proudly. “I’m positive that you and everyone else who uses my items will find them to be just as high-quality as my armor and weapons!”
“Without doubt,” Syd said as she rested her hand onto the table. Alex slid off her arm, wriggling across the table to stare at the leather square in front of Sabina. “Speaking of, what are you planning on making for your first enchantment? You should have a lot of possibilities considering the nature of your enchantment skill.”
Sabina gave the little demonling poking its tentacles at the edge of her leather a wary glance, but mostly ignored its presence as she spoke with Syd.
“Well, I’m honestly not sure. I don’t really know any Eldritch spells other than the ones that I’ve seen you use like your rituals and Mirror Shine. I could try to make something up, but that doesn’t usually work out so well. It’d be better if I had a simple Eldritch spell I can base my enchantment off of and work from there. It might not turn out exactly the same, but it’d be a more cohesive result than if I just winged it.”
“What if I told you about some of the spells I’ve been offered and never took?” Syd asked, her head tilted to one side. “Would that help?”
“It might!” Sabina chirped. “They’d be something to work off of at least. What spells do you have in mind?”
Jadis pulled up the list of skills and spells from her status sheet that she’d never chosen. Some of them were options she was still interested in potentially taking in the future, provided there weren’t stronger skills or spells for her to take. If Sabina could replicate their effects instead of Jadis having to use a skill slot on them, then that would be a major boon, even if the overall power of the spell wouldn’t be as strong as if she herself were casting it.
From her Mirror Knight class, she had Light Illusion, Minor Damage Reflection, Looking Glass, Moonlit Mirrors, Tilted Mirrorland, and Nightmare Reflection. From Perverted Ritualist of D, she had Ritual of Delayed Empowerment, Ritual Privacy Barrier, and D Enhancement Ritual. They were all good spells that had the potential to be useful in the right situations, some more than others. In particular, Jadis wished she’d had Minor Damage Reflection during her fight with Legs. She doubted the sniveling little shit would have been quite so eager to stab her if a portion of the damage he had done to her was reflected back onto him.
Syd read the list of spells out for Sabina, making sure she understood what each spell was meant to do as best as she could explain. She also read out her current spells, going into further details with them since she had intrinsic knowledge about them magically imprinted into her mind. Once Sabina had all the information Jadis could tell her, she nodded and went back to sketching out her rune circle.
“I’ll probably try something small but useful,” Sabina said as she added another symbol to her drawing. “I can’t do as much as I’d like with the limited equipment I have out here, but I might be able to make something out of the frost drake materials. Maybe an armlet or a gorget…”
Syd smiled as Sabina continued to list all the various small armor pieces she could improvise with the resources available to her. She was more talking to herself than anything else by that point, but that was fine. She was just glad to see how happy and excited the smith was to be working on her life’s dream. As much fun as Jadis had fighting and destroying things, it was nice to be around someone who was absorbed in creating things.
“Oh! Maybe I can make a saw-tooth sword from the drake teeth with an enchantment that creates nightmares in the vision of the person it hits!”
…even if the things that someone was creating were kind of deranged.
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