Lillene

Enjoy!

They moved on, but that wasn’t the last body they saw. The area where the corridor they were following crossed another had clearly been heavily contested. Serenity saw six others in similar garb to the first dead man and one man in armor. 

The armor wasn’t the same as the armor on the statues near the entrance, which was clearly at least partly ceremonial. Instead, this armor was almost aggressively plain and functional in design. It reminded Serenity of the armor that Vengeance once wore in more than one way. The only major difference was that instead of the matte black that Vengeance had preferred, this armor was a glossy black almost like an insect’s carapace with red swirls scattered across the surface. It immediately made Serenity think of the Night Fire Affinity, which made Serenity turn towards Blaze. 

Blaze stared at the body with an expression Serenity couldn’t read. It almost looked like he didn’t care, but he wouldn’t have been staring if he didn’t care. Serenity was about to say something when Blaze stepped forward and tugged on the dead warrior’s spaulder, the piece that covered the shoulder. 

Shockingly, the armor responded. A red glow started at the point Blaze touched the shoulder armor and ran down the back of the armor. When it reached the mid-back, it highlighted a line down the back, then along the bottom of the back armor and up the side, back to the shoulder area. Another line mirrored it originating from the other shoulder. 

Once the back armor was completely outlined, it split in the middle and lifted up and to the sides, connected only at the top. Below the lifted back armor, a pair of almost gauzy-looking red wings with some random-looking black markings unfolded. The entire thing looked very much like a beetle that was ready to fly.

Serenity took a second careful look at the body. It was definitely four-limbed, not six, and seemed more or less human. The helmet meant he couldn’t actually see the face without disturbing it, but he doubted he’d learn anything from a casual inspection that he didn’t already know. “I take it you recognized the armor. Something from the legends?”

Serenity carefully avoided using the names Cronus and Apollyon; while he had a very good guess that they were the same god and that that was the god who attacked A’Atla and was also the one with the Night Fire Affinity, he still wanted to avoid becoming so fixed on the idea he’d ignore other evidence. That was all too easy to do. All he was basing things on was a dead man’s final message, after all; Ea could have been wrong about who killed him.

Admittedly, Serenity didn’t have any liking for Apollyon. He was responsible for the curse on Rissa and her family. That was more than enough to make Serenity angry with the god. He could still admit that he didn’t actually have any hard evidence that this was the same god, however; the curse on Rissa’s family didn’t use Night Fire while everything here seemed to. That wasn’t evidence against the connection but it certainly didn’t help.

Serenity leaned forward and examined both the armor and the wings in more detail. The wings looked delicate, but he didn’t even have to touch them to know the material was sturdier than it looked. There was obvious mana running through it; he recognized part of the pattern as material reinforcement. 

The rest of the spell created by the enchantment was interesting. Serenity thought it was based on the same principles as his telekinesis. It was worth studying and playing with to see if he could improve his spells at all. It had to be powered by monster cores, unfortunately. The sheer amount of mana it was using even without lifting anything was more than could really be supportable in combat. That meant he’d have to improve it significantly to make it a worthwhile spell. It was annoying how poor an enchantment could be and still be worthwhile as long as you were willing to burn enough money on supporting it.

The armor had similar magic running through it. The armor reinforcement was a bit stronger and there was a clear shield as well, though the shield seemed limited to the armor itself. Serenity recognized all of the pieces of those spells; they were outdated and generally inefficient, though it was true that the reinforcement was excellent for its Tier with that particular set of spell variants. They were simply so expensive that they weren’t worth using unless you over-Tiered the spell, in which case the benefit could easily be matched or beaten by using a more efficient on-Tier variant shield. 

Or, of course, if you were wealthy enough to power an enchanted item that was horribly mana-hungry. It would consume an insane number of monster cores, far more than Vengeance had ever had available. Serenity, on the other hand, had so many monster cores on hand that he could continuously power such an enchantment for years at the combat level, which was far more consumption than standby mode. It was slightly disconcerting to realize that some of the things he’d always thought of as ridiculous made a lot more sense when he was in a position to afford them.

Serenity wasn’t certain what Tier the armor was designed at, but it was clearly close to his own Tier, far too high for Earth as it currently was. He couldn’t test how strong it was with the enchantment running, but the fact that it could support the enchantment was good enough. Even physically weak material could make excellent armor if it could support a good enough enchantment. 

Even more interesting was the fact that the armor clearly had some way to completely stop the drain on whatever powered it, since the power source seemed to still be good. Unlike A’Atla, the armor wasn’t powered by the artificial nexus. He definitely wanted to know how it was turned off; he could manage situational triggers with spells but he’d never seen a really good one applied to modern equipment. He’d found some that had it, but that was either back when he didn’t have any idea how important it was or it was late enough that he didn’t have access to people he trusted to share the information with.

Before Serenity’s thoughts could spiral any farther, Blaze finally cleared his throat. His voice was thick with emotion. “There’s a suit of armor almost exactly like this in the temple.” 

Blaze made a vague gesture, sort of flicking off to his side or maybe behind him. “Back where I was born, that is. My ancestors wore armor like this. The one in the temple didn’t work anymore; no one knows enough about it to repair it.” 

Serenity wasn’t about to push Blaze to say more than that until he’d had a chance to process what he was feeling right now. Serenity knew all too well what memories could do. Whether they were good memories or bad ones, all that mattered was that they had meaning. It was obvious that the armor meant something to Blaze. 

It meant something very different to Serenity. The armor confirmed that the deity who flooded Ea’s building with magic and traps and sent a summoner to attack the interior camp was involved during the fighting inside A’Atla’s powerplant, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Instead, the important part was that the armor worked. That meant it could be examined by people who were trying to learn how to make similar things.

In other words, it meant that someday Serenity might be able to have armor other than his own scales. The armor didn’t even have to be specifically better as long as it was close; flight was a huge advantage. More importantly, his family and friends could someday have better armor that used the ancient techniques and combined them with modern technology to make something better than either. 

He needed to make sure it made its way into the hands of someone who could make that transition. He wasn’t certain who that would be, but he doubted that Samantha and Liam were the correct people. They were researchers, not armorsmiths. Maybe he could recommend that they work with some of Katya’s family? 

That sounded like an excellent idea. Now that her family had resettled on Earth, they were happily making enchanted items while researching Earth’s options. Serenity didn’t entirely understand all of Katya’s complaints about her family, but that much was clear from her letters. It was too bad he couldn’t also call in Princess Ceney, but Ceney was almost certainly still busy with the aftermath of the invasion of Zenith on Zon. “Samantha? I know of someone you might want to bring in when you start to look over that armor. Maybe a couple people, actually. It should help to have people who know something about making enchanted armor.”

“You know people who can make enchanted stuff and you didn’t mention it.” Samantha spoke slowly, almost making each word its own sentence. She gave a long sigh. “Of course you do. Give me their contact info and I’ll see if I can get them added to the program.”

Serenity wondered what she’d think when she met Amani. He was kind of looking forward to seeing it.

There was nothing else to look at here for now; they’d have to take the armor with them when they left if they didn’t find anything more important, but there was no point in carrying it farther in when they’d just have to carry it back out.

There were no more basilisk attacks before they reached the destination Serenity had selected. 

The room looked really strange, almost more like an obstacle course than an engine room. There were a series of raised stone platforms scattered around the room; at a quick glance, they seemed to be somewhere between a foot and a half and two feet tall and rectangular, with one side a little wider than the platform was tall and the other only about half as long. 

Most of the platforms had at least one spike rising from the raised surface near one of the edges. When there was only one, it was in the middle of a wide side of the platform, while if there were two they were at opposite ends of the rectangle. Only one platform didn’t have a built-in spike. It was larger than the others and was the only square platform, with both sides of the square about the same as the larger side of the other platforms.

Serenity blinked in confusion. That was the dumbest arrangement he’d ever seen for controlling something. Were you supposed to sit on one of the platforms with your legs on either side of a spike? It would be hard to get into position and uncomfortable if you stayed there long; stone, even A’Atla’s stone, was cold. Maybe there was once padding, but that wouldn’t remove the “hard to get into position” problem and it would only help with the discomfort. Surely it would make more sense to have movable chairs? He was pretty sure he’d seen the remains of some elsewhere in A’Atla.

The double-spiked platforms were probably for two people, but they weren’t really wide enough. No, on second thought, they were probably intended for one person to touch both spikes. That also seemed like a poor design. While you could do that, if you were going to hold something like that for any period of time you’d want armrests. 

Really, the square one was the only one that made sense; it was easy to sit down on and certainly wide enough for a person to be comfortable. The spike was definitely inconveniently placed, however, unless you weren’t supposed to touch it very often. In fact, if the point was simply to have the spikes within reach, both it and the double-spiked benches made sense. Serenity still didn’t think the single-spiked benches were reasonable.

Lillene

Have you ever tried using a first prototype? I have, and … let’s just say that there are always features that are changed after the first try, things that seemed like a good idea or just weren’t thought about. If you’ve done something similar in the past, sometimes they aren’t too bad, but … sometimes they just aren’t very usable.