It came as no surprise once we were home, life went back to normal, I definitely didn’t expect anything to change between me and the McGraves despite my victory in the duel… it's fine, it's even better this way I have a lot to work on now anyway.
The first thing I needed to do was come up with a workout routine. I can admit that even in my last life I wasn’t exactly the best at taking care of myself, I was 30 when I died and well… I could count on one hand the number of times I went to any form of gym. I did own a treadmill, sure it was used as a coat rack, but it still counts!
It’s not lost on me that it took being transported to a world full of magic to realize that having a bit of physical mass to throw around wouldn’t be a bad thing, just a little bit of cardio could have helped in the duel and if those are going to be commonplace, I should prepare for it.
The regimen that I came up with was… simple, to say the least. But I don’t want to dedicate a lot of time to it, and I have no desire to “bulk” up. Just a simple enchanted treadmill that now has a speed regulator on it after the sprained ankle incident, and a few basic workouts like squats and pull ups… I don’t actually know a lot of exercises given my lack of desire to learn them in my last life, but they should help. Riley actually knew a few basic stretches she had seen guards doing so that helped a lot in designing my routine.
It turns out Riley’s father is a guard for the town! I never knew… I should ask her about herself more. I know her mom is a cook in the main house, but I don’t even know her birthday… Not that she ever told me anything about herself, she has always been kind of aloof whenever I asked, saying it was unprofessional but now… Well since the duel, Riley has been more open to my questions, receptive to me talking with her, it’s nice; she even works out with me in the mornings now which is amazing! she is surprisingly… limber, not that I was staring.
With my physical problem being worked on it was time to address some other issues with the fight I had. First and foremost, I need protection! I made a few spell shield bracelets that should negate the less physical magical attacks such as fire, wind, sound, ect. But during testing I learned something alarming; if a rock fired from a stone shot hits the spell shield it will block the “magic” from propelling the rock but… well it’s still a fucking rock, and magic may be bullshit but physics is a bitch.
This I did ask Riley about and apparently normally a spell shield will offer some physical protection as well by using the users magic to push against the object, not to mention most mages don’t rely on just their shield to counter spells but often deflect them with spells of their own which is problematic if the wand I am holding isn’t suited for deflection.
So, armor… this was difficult. Armor in this world is either made from heavy metal and is only used when needed; or, made from heavy leather with metal supports over the vital spots used by hunters or traveling soldiers. Neither of these options are particularly appealing because, well, they are bulky and uncomfortable. Sure, I can add enchantments, as is often done, to lighten the armor but I was looking for something a little less intrusive.
I mean I did draw up plans for a suit of armor that I will commission once I have grown a little more, but as it stands it would be a waste of money. For the time being I needed something I could wear on a semi-regular basis for protection so through a lot of trial and error, and one very loud explosion that led to me being banned from the kitchen. I created a magical cloth!
Ok, I didn’t make magical cloth, what I did make however was a resin like magical conductor that can be applied to clothing like waterproofing wax. I got the idea on one of my very rare trips into town to speak with a smith. We found ourselves in a seamstresses shop across from the smith and I asked her about some waterproof gear she had for outdoor work. She explained how she has a wax substance that she heats and applies to the clothes to make them repel water and I, being a genius, figured “why not magic”.
Turns out there was a very simple answer to that question. You can’t engrave cloth, which is how traditional enchanting works, and even if you could, cloth doesn’t conduct mana well at all! Leather can to some degree, and you can even imprint it with an enchantment array, but Riley helpfully told me that wearing nothing but leather wouldn’t be very “lady like” and shot down my entire leather wardrobe. Which is honestly fine, I do have some leather pants and a nice long jacket I can use when the need arises, but I wanted something a little more… discreet.
So, with all that in mind I needed to find a way to enchant cloth. My first attempts of having Riley just sew an enchantment array onto a shirt didn’t work out at all since the mana could flow through the thread. But, with the seamstress’s knowledge along with experience from my past life I had an idea. What if I coated the thread in mana crystals? And that is when I blew up the stove.
Turns out melting a mana crystal is significantly more difficult than I thought. I knew it would take a lot of heat and given I had already enchanted the stove I figured it should have been easy with enough power going into the heating array… I just overestimated the amount of strain a simple heating enchantment could take before it became a fireball, apparently two dozen mana crystals was well above that threshold.
After Riley finished scolding me about burning most of my hair off again, I am sure my eyebrows have started growing back by now, and commissioning a kiln to be built in the back yard I was able to successfully melt a crystal. Unsurprisingly just dipping thread into a melted mana crystal didn’t work. And pouring it onto anything predictably resulted in a fire. Not that I expected either of those two things to actually work, even if it had once hardened it would have just turned back into its normal glass like crystal. So with that in mind I got to work trying to make a mixture using the melted crystal.
I am almost positive what I did wouldn’t have worked in my last world, but magic is bullshit and just tossing a few bricks of wax, the seamstress was adamant about not telling me exactly what it was made out of but I assume tree sap of some kind, into the molting crystal resulted in a rubbery like substance that… took more than a few tries to get just right. I needed it to have enough crystal to conduct mana and enough wax to still be pliable. Turns out that ratio is one part crystal and eight parts wax. And with that I had a workable solution to coating fabric in a pliable mana conductive material…
Ok fine, so the coating has its drawbacks. It is what I assume vinyl would feel like if you made a shirt out of it, but it works. The clothes don’t have a lot of give to them, and they are super shiny… and glow very faintly in the dark. But it works! Having Riley sew enchantment arrays into the cloths using the mana thread, seriously she is a goddess with a needle I don’t know what I would do without her, and coating it in the rubber I can make magical cloth that has the desired effect. I chose wind magic as the base for the array, kind of mimicking an airbag from my last life. It’s still a work in progress but it no longer knocks the wind out of me when it activates so I consider it a win.
Now, it won’t hold up to being stabbed but it offers some slashing protection and does great against blunt force! I barely even felt “falling” out of the second story window onto my back.
With my protection about as good as it will get for now, I was able to focus on my third and final problem! I need a weapon! It’s something I have thought about in the past, but I didn’t really pay too much attention too, figuring my wands and staff would be more than enough if I needed them. But my last resort amulet kind of screws me over too given its super short range and indiscretion on who it affects means I really need a way to defend myself once I use it.
Building up some muscle should help but I still don’t much like the idea of going toe to toe with someone with just my tiny bare hands; I got really lucky in that fight last time but I can't rely on everyone being so shocked when I erase their magic like that. I am, after all, very small right now. The problem here was what kind of weapon? As far as I can tell this world has the equivalent of middle age weaponry, nothing too fancy just swords and spears and the like; but no guns. Given my abysmal knowledge of guns and how they work instantly shut down any hope I had of making one too, so that left me with every man’s hopes and dreams. Fucking magical sword!
And just as quickly as that idea came, it was squashed! Media lied to me, swords are really hard to use! Like sure I could pick one up and poke someone, but I hardly have the time to learn how to use one effectively! No, I need a weapon I can just pick up and use with minimal training; I have far too much going on to “learn” how to fight with a weapon, with my enchanting and Riley watching, I need a simple and effective tool to use at close range!
Enter, the short spear. It’s perfect, simple to use, highly effective and deadly with just a little bit of work, plus it’s basically just a pointy stick. I can beat someone with a stick! And since it's mainly wood, which just happens to be my specialty in enchanting, I can make it a magical spear easily by using a mana crystal as a counterweight… fine, it turns out that though my fine motor skills are great for engraving I apparently have all the grace and finesse of a dead cat. I tried to make the sword work, along with daggers, an ax, even a mace at one point but after fumbling around with all of those I think it is safest for me if I just use a stick with a pointy bit that’s nice and far from my fleshy little legs.
The question then was just what spells to enchant into the spears shaft? I have probably a hundred rock bullet wands at this point, and a few fireballs too, after I managed to make the array properly and cut down on the mana usage, so I didn’t need any more of those. But I don’t actually know a whole lot of spell arrays that can be used to attack. I found rock bullet in a book in Rinehart’s library; and the fireball was a happy accident from a simple heating array. All the other ones I know are more utility than anything else, even the ones I learned from Riley are all sound based spells that just make the user louder.
It was just a little over a year after my trip to the capital that something unexpected happened. One day, after our morning workout, Riley knocked on the door to my makeshift workshop; I’m sure the room was originally an underground storage room, but it was serviceable.
“Lady Emillia,” Riley knocked again, which was strange since she never called me “lady” anymore and had given up on actually knocking half a year ago.
“Yes?” I called back as I tapped a finger on the spearhead that had just arrived. I can make wands and staffs all day, but metal working is beyond me. So I ordered one from the local blacksmith. It was… good. I think. I mean it was metal, pointy, and hard as hell to scratch; so, I guess it was ok.
At my acknowledgement she cracked the door, “are you decent?” She asked, causing me to pause.
I looked down at my heavy leather apron and gloves that Riley insisted I wear while working despite my amazing new armor, atop my “under-armor” that consisted of a very tight shiny black shirt and matching short shorts that were designed to be worn underneath normal clothes. “Yes?” I replied knowing full well my glowing undergarments were not considered “dressed” by any stretch of the word.
“Good,” she opened the door fully and, after taking in my appearance, quickly stepped in shutting the door behind herself. “You are hardly decent. Where are your clothes?” Riley, as a “vocalist”, has an amazing stage whisper. Silent to anyone but the person she wants to hear, I think it’s a cone like effect but haven’t tested that yet.
“I mean…” I tugged at the apron, “I am wearing clothes. It’s even clean,” I poked at a black stain on the apron that might have been a burn mark. “Kind of,” I amended.
Riley narrowed her eyes, she’s really cute when she’s mad, her nose wrinkles up and it causes all her freckles to move. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”
I sighed, “it gets hot down here while I am working,” I shrugged as I pulled the apron off and deposited it onto the work bench. And with my best innocent smile I asked, “so what’s up? I mean I won’t complain if you just want to watch me work…”
She held up a hand to stop me as she looked around nervously. Riley was… tentatively receptive to flirting. She never flirts back, but she never stops me or gets angry, normally just giving me a soft smile and shaking her head. I would put money on her thinking it was just childish banter, but as I said she never actively stops me… or defects at all. “You, Lady Emillia, have a guest.”
Oh, that’s why she keeps calling me lady and looks fidgety… wait a guest? “Who the fuck would visit me?”
