Modern Age Online

“5 in the morning!” Kaleb said as he drank his fourth cup of coffee.

An alarm in his communicator had woken him up by blaring loudly. Apparently, Farrah had signed him up for a 5 o’clock patrol. He had driven around with Claire for two hours before they called it. Two boring hours of driving up and down the streets between the two parks. Claire was an excellent riding partner though, she kept the conversation alive while Kaleb drove. After they had completed the patrol, Kaleb drove her home first before going home and making an enormous pot of coffee.

“It’s not like you had to go very far. Besides, I figured it was better to get it out of the way early.” Farrah answered defensively.

“Gah!” Kaleb said. Both in anger and because he burned his tongue. “It was a fine idea, but could you warn me next time? Or lets not have a next time, huh?”

“Sure, Sure.” Farrah said dismissively.

Kaleb sighed loudly before pouring himself another coffee and moving into his lab. As he entered a delicious smell wafted from the garage. Turning Kaleb saw smoke rising from the tiny chimney in Daivor’s house. The smoke twisted at odd angles then curved underneath the closed garage door. So the at least the garage was free of smoke, but Kaleb had another, more important, point to make.

“Where in the hell did you get bacon?!” Kaleb shouted down at the little house.

Daivor stuck his head of a front window and grinned around a mouthful of food. Kaleb twisted his head in disgust and walked over to his workbench. He wanted to get a start on the blueprints for his friends. As he mentally went over what the others wanted, he heard Daivor leave his home.

“What’s up first, boss?” Daivor asked as Kaleb picked him up and set him on the worktable.

“Enchanted equipment. Got any tips?” Kaleb asked

Daivor looked over Kaleb’s shoddily drawn ideas before responding. “Did you finish that book of yours?” When Kaleb nodded he continued. “Remember that thing I was working on before you left?”

Kaleb gave another nod as Daivor moved to the far corner of the worktable and picked something up. When he walked back Kaleb saw he was holding a device made of springs and wires. It had five metal rings at the end of five separate spring and wire bundles. The thing looked like a torture device for his hand.

“This will keep your hand steady while you are sketching runes or imprinting. Although I suggest you start with runes.” Daivor explained.

“Aren’t runes more temporary?” Kaleb asked as he slipped the strange device onto his hand. As he did, he checked its stats.

*Enchanting Training Glove (Lvl 4)*

Durability: 80/80

Shock level: 3

Upgrade Slots: 0/3

Creator: Daivor

Description: A glove that enhances the skill-experience gained while Enchanting. Delivers a mild shock when the user's hand wavers too much. Once the users Enchanting skills are at double the creator’s level (4), the glove become useless. Bound on equip. Can not be used outside a Sanctum or equivalent.

“Damn, could we make more of these? We could sell them to Enchanters or Wizards.”

“Yes, runes can degrade, but they are a good start to learning how to channel your Magic into something. I recommend you start there and build up to imprinting. If you fuck up the imprinting, then you have to scrap the whole project. Get the basics down first.” Daivor moved to the back of the table again while still speaking. “As for your second question: Most of the magical community would probably have their own devices. But I can make a few more.”

Kaleb nodded. thinking of the Under-Town market. “Just a few more. I’ll see how they sell when I go to Under-Town tomorrow.”

Daivor picked up several bits of wire and springs and set work. Kaleb for his part grabbed a paper and pen and started write the runes he could remember. Once he was done he checked it against the Enchanting book’s Runic library. He couldn’t remember all of them but he did all right. As he copied the ones he had missed, he looked at the Enchanting Glove.

“Isn’t this thing supposed to shock me when my hand shakes or wavers?”

Daivor glanced up from his work. “Channel your Mana into it, Boss.”

“Channel my Mana?”

“Yeah, focus your internal energy into your hand while you are writing the runes. It is a training glove, genius, so you have to practice your magical channeling too.” Daivor explained.

Kaleb shrugged his shoulders and tried to focus his attention on his right hand. He thought he could feel his hand warm up. But he wasn’t sure if that was magic or his imagination. As he picked up his pen and went back to copying the runes, he felt a harsh jolt of electricity shoot down to his elbow.

“Sonofabitch!” Kaleb yelled as he dropped his pen. The jolt felt like getting smacked in the Ulnar nerve.

“HA! Yeah, it tickles. Doesn’t it?” Daivor laughed not looking up from his work.

“It didn’t exactly hurt, but it didn’t feel good that's for sure.” Kaleb said picking his pen back up at looking at his hand. “Plus maintaining concentration makes drawing the rune even tougher.”

“That’s kind of the point. Remember though, the better you draw the rune, the stronger the effect and the faster it will set. That goes double for imprinting.” Daivor explained.

Kaleb nodded before he went back to work. The combination of maintaining his Mana in his right hand and trying to concentrate on the runes wasn’t physically taxing but the mental strain took a toll of him. He kept at it for what felt like hours, drawing rune after rune. Soon Daivor moved over to look over Kaleb’s work.

“Why are you doing so many, are you going to use all of them? You should memorize the ones you will use often and practice those.” Daivor said.

Kaleb shot an evil look at the diminutive Gnome. “Seriously? Now you tell me? I’ve been writing for hours!”

Daivor gave him a weird look. “It’s been an hour, boss.”

“What?!” Kaleb glanced a nearby clock and was surprised to see that the gnome was right.

It had felt like he had been writing for hours, focusing on his hand and the runes. He sighed and sat back on his stool. He mentally thought about getting a new chair with a back. Kaleb glanced over at Daivor’s own work. The Gnome had completed one glove in one hour. Not a bad work rate, honestly.

Looking back to Daivor, Kaleb asked. “Taking a break?”

“I need you to get me more wire. And if I can offer advice. Why don’t you pick out what equipment you want, what Enchantments you’ll need, then set the rune as a guideline for imprinting later?”

“Will that work?” Kaleb asked as he retrieved a few handfuls of wire for his Gnome companion

“Sure, you just have to not put any Magic into the rune. So what do you want to start with?” Daivor asked.

“How about Jar-lock’s armor? It should be a simple build. Just some light leather armor using the Ifirt skin with some protection Enchantments. From the looks of the stuff last night, it’s all good to go.” Kaleb said.

Daivor nodded while rubbing his beard in thought. “You should remember: Equipment built from the body of an Ifrit will have some decent fire qualities. Either defensive or offensive, so any fire runes would be almost useless. Better to go with a standard Protection rune.”

“That I can do.” Kaleb said as he went into his living room and gathered up several pieces of Ifrit skin.

He looked over the skin as he set it on his worktable. Those Blue Goblin people do good work, they had the skin tanned and ready for crafting. Kaleb supposed Derana had ordered his men to prepare the materials for selling once the hit-men killed Kaleb. He wondered if the other materials from the Ifrit had time to be prepared.

He used his own armor as a broad outline and cut an outline from the skin. He had to guess at Jar-lock’s dimensions. The brawny warlock was more barrel chested then Kaleb, so he was going to leave extra skin around the shoulders. But he remembered a certain rune. It took some book diving, but he found what he was looking for quickly. A resizing rune, three concentric circles decreasing to a single point.

Kaleb set the skin to the side and quickly practiced the rune a few times on a piece of paper, asking Daivor. “How many runes can a material hold?”

“Depends on the material and the rune.” Said Daivor, working on his next Enchanting Glove.

“So the resizing rune…?”

Daivor laughed from his spot near the end of the table. “Ha! That one is designed to be used with others. It requires a low amount of Mana to set and last a good while.”

Kaleb nodded as he drew the rune several more times. Once the Enchanting Glove stopped shocking him, he practiced the rune a few more times then set down the pen and paper. Judging himself ready, he carefully drew the rune on the prepared Ifrit’s skin. The skin’s sponginess made the lines he was drawing difficult to see. But after a few false starts he got the rune onto the skin.

Once he was done he called Daivor over to check his work. While the Gnome looked over the skin Kaleb began practice the protection rune. Daivor tilted his head left and right, studying the rune for several minutes before finally declaring it good. Kaleb practiced the protection rune for a while before preparing to write the rune on the skin.

The protection rune wasn’t much harder than the resizing rune and ultimately took the same length of time. Once again, he had Daivor check his work and once the Gnome declared it passable Kaleb took a short break. The whole process wasn’t long, but he found himself tired just from his fear of messing up the rune. After both he and Daivor took a short break to replenish themselves Kaleb asked.

“So how do I imprint these suckers?” Kaleb asked rubbing his hands as he and Daivor walked back from the kitchen.

“Well, lets use the runes as a focusing point. First: Place your hand over the resizing rune, second: Think of an image, Third: Link that image with the thought of resizing something,” Daivor explained before Kaleb interrupted.

“Can it be the same image as the rune?”

“Sure, but remember: You aren’t putting Magic into the Rune, you are imprinting an image into the skin. Here, the runes will help you focus, but normally all you have to do is focus on an image and hold it in your mind as you channel Magic into the armor.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Kaleb asked as he placed his hand over the resizing rune.

“Not really, with runes: The rune holds the Enchantment and eventually fades. With imprinting the equipment holds the Enchantment and only comes off once the equipment brakes irreparably. Runes function as a middleman for the Magic. We are going straight to the root.” Daivor explained.

Kaleb nodded as he closed his eyes and focused on an image of something resizing to fit more comfortably. He summoned that warm feeling into his hand again and imagined it flowing down into the Ifrit skin. As he did, he felt a slight tug on his outstretched hand. He maintained the image in his head as he poured Mana into the skin. He felt himself feeling drained as he opened his eyes to see something burning bright orange between his hand the Ifirt skin.

Nearby he thought he could make out Daivor smiling wide.