Chapter 22

We slept soundly in our new bed but made sure that the door was locked and jammed with a chair. While we knew that Tyr wouldn’t let anything happen to us, he had not expected Trovius to lay a trap in my room. Even if he were able to unlock the door, Torvius wouldn’t be able to get inside the room. When I awoke, a quick check of my bracer showed that it was roughly six in the morning and I could feel my bladder screaming for me to get out of bed.

“Girls,” I said softly, hating to have to do this. “I need to go to the bathroom, and I need you to make sure the door stays blocked until I get back.”

Amenthia groaned in protest but got up with me and made sure to block the door after I left. It was on my way back that I began to worry that they might not wake up to my knocking. When I got back, I unlocked the door with my key and knocked on it, telling the girls it was me.

“How do we know that it is you?” Enti called out through the door. “You could be Torvius, using magic to impersonate Pathios.”

“I didn’t know that you could use that magic like that, but I can prove it. The name on the Troth’ish’tal was my name from earth, Derek Masters.”

I heard the movement of the chair away from the door and it opened to show two scantily clad, happy women. They ushered me into the room, and I couldn’t resist the impulse to mess with them.

“I knew spying on you would help,” I cackled with glee. “Now you have let me in, and I will take what I will of both of you!”

Both girls had a frightened look for a second, then Amenthia got angry and jumped at me, while Entivala began chanting. I knew it went too far and I had cast doubt on the only way that could prove it was me.

“Okay, girls, I know it was mean, but I was only joking. It is really me – Pathios - you don’t have to attack me.” Enti continued to chant, while Amenthia continued to press the offensive and in a last-ditch effort, I grabbed her bow and converted it into a staff.

Both girls stopped cold and I realized that so far, we hadn’t shown anyone this function of the bow, nor had we done it anywhere we could have been spied on.

“That was a very dirty trick to pull on us, Pathios,” Amenthia growled. “Don’t ever do something like that again! Not when that piece of shit has threatened our lives to get to Enti!”

I bowed my head in shame, “I know, but I didn’t think that you two would react so negatively, sorry.”

“We know,” Amenthia said with a sigh. “Part of our training covered that men are idiots, that do stupid things, regularly. Mostly it is chivalrous stuff that we can accept, but this was just mean, so don’t do it again!”

“Yes, my ladies,” I responded, using a British accent. “I shall hitherto not cause strife or indignation to blossom from your ample chests.”

Both sniggered at my foolishness, which was a good sign and told me that I wasn’t in trouble, for now.

“Since the outcome of things requires us to go about our day, let’s go have breakfast and get some training in.”

Both girls nodded and we started to get dressed in what I was starting to think as our sparring clothes. As we dressed, it seemed like Amie and Enti were in an unspoken battle of who could tease me the most as they dressed. The exaggerated movements and slowed pulling of the various garments, up or down, was a very titillating sight. I made sure to make an obvious show of adjusting myself in my pants, causing them to giggle and smile. With the teasing out of the way, we left the room and found two guards standing at our door.

“We have been assigned by Tyr to guard your room until the new lock and key are completed and installed,” they told us.

We thanked them and headed downstairs to the dining hall to have some food. We ate quickly, not wanting to stay in the room in case Torvius might show up. Only minutes later, we found ourselves in the training area and I spent an hour with them going through their forms and sparring with them, this time showing them how to deflect thrown projectiles. This training caused them agitation when they failed to deflect them, causing the wooden daggers to hit their arms, legs and torso. When they would get frustrated, we would stop and then I would go through suggestions on how to modify the way they were doing it. After the second instance of this, Amenthia was frustrated enough to demand a demonstration. I shrugged my shoulders and gave her the knives and took the staff from her. I moved about two meters away and got into a ready stance, waiting for the first knife to be thrown.

I didn’t have to wait long and swatted the knife with a flourish of the staff. Apparently, Amie didn’t like that and threw two more, but with a few moves, those were deflected as well. I waited until I was sure that she had thrown all of them before I lowered my defences.

“It is okay to get frustrated in here - you need a lot of practice to get to my level - but it requires daily training. The only place you can’t let your frustration get to you is in the Dungeon. If you do, your frustration will make it even harder to deflect the projectiles and that could cost you your life. While the extraction stones do provide protection, we know that they have failed in the past through tampering. We know that there are forces angry with me and would like nothing better than to kill me or take one of you from me. I don’t plan on giving them the opportunity, so every fight will be considered life and death.”

“We understand, Pathios,” Enti replied, a touch of worry in her voice. “You have to do the same, because we don’t know what we would do if we lost you, either.”

I gave my bracer a quick look and saw that it was near enough to lunch time, so I ended it for now and we returned to our new room. We decided that we would shower together but leave the groping and fondling for later tonight. We finished and were dressed a few minutes before noon and happily made our way to Brot’k’s armory. As we entered, we once again saw the Arctic Elf arguing with Brot’k and I wondered what had crawled up her ass this time.

“Okay,” I yelled, “what the hell is the problem now? I thought that I had made things clear for you yesterday, you either do what you were hired for, or leave.”

Brot’k sighed and answered, “That is what we are arguing about; she showed up and said that she would make you learn your place.”

“That is right, you common piece of filth, who the hell made you think that you could command me to do anything?”

“I did,” Tyr stated, his voice booming with anger and authority. “You were brought here, Fra’tilia, to meet the needs of Pathios and his group. The Council has pushed for this to be made so, given his knack for finding those who are circumventing the rules of this world. You were brought here, not only because you are one of the best at what you do, but because your attitude was going to have you removed from your Pact house. Because of this you would have been forced to either take up a commoner’s job, or return to the northern kingdoms, a disgrace. So, you either follow his orders as if they were mine, or you will find yourself working in a tavern in the city. The choice is yours, so I suggest you choose wisely.”

The four of us looked at the Fra’tilia with a smirk of satisfaction at Tyr dressing her down in front of us. She stood with a look of shock and utter horror on her face, unsure of what to say or do next.

“Fra’tilia,” I said softly, drawing her attention away from the angry god. “Please have the equipment done as soon as possible, I want it ready for use in the Dungeon at the same time the armor sets are completed. However, I don’t want you sacrificing the quality of your work for speed. Brot’k will give you the designs, if he hasn’t already done so, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it.”

With that taken care of, Brot’k went to his workshop and came back with a stunning set of armor. The scales had been shaped and made smooth, though I couldn’t see how he had adhered the scales to the hide. The scales had been dyed the same color as the blade of the sword, while the hide matched the scabbard. All the accents were in red, matching the color of the sword’s cross guard. There seemed to be a piece of scale for every muscle group and even my sides had protection. There was still enough space between the scales to allow flexibility, but which left me susceptible to piercing weapons. As Amie and Enti helped me to put on the armor, he went back and brought out a matching set of pants. Like the upper body armor, every muscle group was protected by a piece, or pieces, of scale. The gaps in between the scales of the larger muscle groups allowed the flexibility to bend and twist as needed.

Brot’k smiled at my reaction to his work and said, “For breathability, I would suggest not wearing anything but your undergarments underneath the armor. You will find them uncomfortable and sweaty, plus they would cause the hide not to move as much as it should.”

I went around a corner and stripped my pants off to put the lower armor on. When I walked back in and donned the upper armor, I was greeted with looks of surprise and smiles all around. Even the ice princess seemed impressed with the look. I asked Brot’k for my sword so that I could move around some to get a feel for the capabilities. He ran into the back and returned with the weapon in hand. Once he returned, he held the scabbard so that I could draw out the sword. I backed into the aisle behind and began to perform some sword exercises that I had learned years ago. They would allow me to understand the weight and balance of the blade while also allowing me to understand the armor’s limitations as I performed the motions of the kata. I embellished and exaggerated the movements to really push the hide to stretch, hopeful that it would loosen up with more use. Overall, I was happy with the work Brot’k had done as well as confident that the armor would become more flexible over time, much like leather clothing from my world.

“Cassandra, will you gain access to piercing protection runesmith spells?” I asked as I returned my sword to its sheath. “I know that you won’t have any at this time, but I wondered about once we get deeper into the Dungeon. That way, when repairs and upgrades are made to the armor, you could add it to the hide portion to remove that particular weakness.”

She had to think for a minute, but said, “I believe so, I would have to be a high level runesmith to protect you entirely, but I believe by level five I should have access to a spell that would limit a certain percent of the damage.”

“That’s fine, we could adjust for that with enchantments as well, the mixture should create a potent protection system. For now I will make do. Don’t get me wrong, Brot’k, your work continues to astound me.”

“Think nothing of it, my friend,” Brot’k replied with a smile. “Besides, we can use the limitations in yours to ensure that Amenthia’s is even better.”

We both laughed at that before returning to the back. A few minutes later he came to us with my new scallops, which looked far more intricate than the last pair. The blades were still metal attached to hide, but bone covered every millimeter of the hide’s surface in an intricate pattern. The same was true of the one that fit over my bracer, though it had a space for the gem.

“What in the gods’ name are those things?” asked Fra’tilia, a curious look on her face as she looked at them.

Brot’k then pulled out a pair of gloves from his back pocket, the knuckles and areas that could be struck against an opponent were reinforced with bone. I put on the gloves, followed by the scallops. I was happy with their weight and design.

“These are called scallops and provide both a defense and offence in the case of being disarmed. The blades have both edges sharpened and tempered for combat, allowing the person wearing them to deflect or catch a blade. Due to their design, if enough force is applied, the weapon can be destroyed.”

She scoffed at that, but Brot’k only smirked and grabbed one of the older and more worn swords from a nearby shelf. He then attacked me with a downward, vertical slash, which I caught by crossing my arms above me, I then applied pressure and pulled them apart snapping the blade of the sword in half. While Amenthia had seen me do it firsthand, fighting Jonta, and Tyr through watching the collected data of the fight, the rest had never seen me do it before. They each had a different state of amazement on their faces, Brot’k at the strength of his work, Cassandra and Fra’tilia at the sight of me breaking the sword almost with my bare hands, while Entivala had a look of lust on her face.

“As you can see, these can be very effective in the right circumstances and actually saved my life when Jonta attacked me.”

I picked up the shard and handed it to Brot’k who took it, along with the hilt he had and placed it in the back room. He then returned with the final piece of the set and once again amazed me. It was the helmet. Due to the lack of movement, he had placed the bone in intricate designs matching the bracers and when I held it, I knew he had done more with the helmet than it seemed.

“I am sure you can tell that it is more than hide and bone. I had some metal left over from the scallops, so I used it to build the helmet. The metal is very thin and sits between two layers of hide, the bone then sits on top of that, adding another layer of protection. I wish I had been able to line the interior with something to increase the comfort of wearing it for long periods, but I had no clue what to use.”

“You could use some Ithshia hair,” muttered Fra’tilia, “it is very soft and a good thermal layer. I have some with me and can add it to the helmet before evening meal.”

I walked over and handed her the helmet, “Thank you, Fra’tilia, I know you will do your best and produce something really special.”

“After all I have said,” she uttered as she stared at me in shock. ‘You would say such things to me?”

“Tyr laid down the law, so there is no reason for me to hold a grudge. You had an opinion that was proven wrong, you didn’t hurt anyone I care about, so there are no hard feelings. I just want to put that behind us and start fresh, so this is how I plan to do it, the rest is up to you.”

She nodded slightly and went into the back room, I turned to see the smiling faces of everyone else in the room.

“That was a very mature attitude, Pathios,” Tyr said with a warm smile. “I am very proud of you.”

I thanked him and watched as his expression turned darker, causing Brot’k and Cassandra to find other places to be.

“Torvius is to be punished, but after you defeat him, meaning it will no longer be a fight to the death. I expect you to show the control and restraint that you have been showing in your sparring matches with these two ladies. I want him to be humbled by his defeat, and it to be used as a warning to future attempts. Then he will be exiled for his actions against a Pact House member.”