Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (104/?)

The Vunerian and I were caught in a standoff. My eyes locked onto its beady little black sown-on dots-for-eyes and the rounded little muzzle that kept it in a look of perpetual mouthless contemplation. 

My emotions refused to settle, as I was forced to reconcile between the massive cognitive dissonance between the disarmingly adorable orb-of-a-plush that was the Vunerian, and its doppelganger standing incredulously next to me. 

This forced my eyes to do several double-takes between the inexplicable object of my burning interest, and the comparably life-sized less-cuter version of it forced upon me by fate and circumstance.

However, the physical similarities between the two didn’t die down with each cock of my head.

No.

If anything, they only steadily increased. 

From the proportions of the stuffed plush, all the way to the color of its fabric, and the shape of its head, and even the little outfit it wore — it was undeniably designed to resemble a Vunerian. The only real difference between this orb and Ilunor, was the little sown-on miniature crown two sizes too small for its rounded head.

This bygone conclusion was quickly confirmed by the tortle proprietor himself; the man taking a moment to address my non sequitur of a question. 

“They are indeed plush in form and factor.” He confirmed, giving a smile yet quirking his brow, almost confused. “It would seem to me that my lady has a certain affinity to the top-of-the-pile item in particular?” He gestured towards the Vunerian plush. “These stuffies are indeed quite the coveted collector’s item, Viscount Vunerian in particular being in short supply as of late.” The man paused for a moment, and with a surge of mana radiation, began lowering the plush down from its perch atop of the plush pyramid. 

The hard-sell tactic continued as I was presented with the orb-of-a-Vunerian that was Viscount Vunerian, or, as I was dying to call it… “I think I’ll call him King Kobold.” 

This seemed to be the last straw as the Vunerian stomped his way between me and the tortle, raising an arm towards the plush in the process. “You will do no such thing. His name is Viscount Vunerian, and I will hear no more of this casual slander!” He seethed between a soot-filled breath, before turning to the tortle proprietor with an ultimatum. “Shopkeeper. I demand that you return it. The newrealmer is clearly not deserving of such a coveted item.” 

However, instead of any dead air or increase in the room’s overall severity, the opposite quickly transpired. As the shopkeeper began letting out a series of ragged-breathed laughs, completely defusing the Vunerian’s attempt at intensifying the situation. 

“I am but a humble shopkeeper, my lord. Withholding an item for purchase, is outside of my authority within the jurisdiction of crown herald lands.” The man replied with an almost faux-piety, as if straddling the line between expectant decorum and his own brand of senile joviality. “It is up to the fair knight, whether she wishes to follow through on my offer.” 

This prompted the Vunerian to grumble, turning towards me with an expectant glare. 

Another standoff soon ensued, one that was actually aimed at the flesh-and-blood Vunerian this time around. 

But one that ended just as quickly as it began.

“I’ll take it!” I beamed out, squishing the plush tight between my hands as I could just about make out the soft squishy polyfill and gel-like stuffing within it through my gloves’ haptic feedback; a soft, airy, pathetic sounding squeeeeeeeek being generated in the process. 

‘Your worship pleases me!’ It squeaked out pathetically. 

“It has a fricking voice box?!” I muttered out in excitement, going for another big squeeze! 

‘Guards, off with their tails!’

“This is incredible.” I cackled out through an ear-to-ear grin, finding my whole body jittering in the process. 

This realization, of course, warranted another big squeeze. 

‘Taxes are due! I demand my taxes!’

“Emma… I believe this might be just a bit too much.” Thacea cautioned, gently gesturing to the now-steaming deluxe kobold next to me. 

Thalmin, however, clearly had other ideas in mind, as he moved up to pat me on the shoulder. 

“I’m curious to know what manner of muse inspired such a flavorful impression!” He proclaimed through a wide-eyed grin. 

“ENOUGH!” The Vunerian finally exploded, releasing a continuous flurry of steam from both of his nostrils. “Either forfeit your purchase, or be done with these displays of immature impulsivity!” 

I took a moment to once more exchange glances with Ilunor, my hand firmly cinched above the plushie’s belly. 

Surprisingly, the ultimatum wouldn’t come to an end by my own hands, but by another, unexpected set of clawed fingers — as Thalmin came in to gently poke the rounded thing’s belly, generating a prolonged squeeeeeeeek in the process. 

‘Fear my ire, beware my wrath!’

“Well what do you know, I think he pulled the words right out of your mouth, Ilunor.” I chuckled lightly, before handing the plush off to the tortle. “I’ll take it!” 

“Splendid! I shall have it packaged post-haste.” The man announced, gently handing the plush over to a satyr assistant who’d skittered onto the scene not a few moments after the back and forth began. 

With the first knick-knack in tow, I feared what impulse purchases might come next. 

Though a part of me remained excited for the prospect of Field Cultural Research, as we moved deeper into the store, to the tune of a grumbling Vunerian.

We eventually arrived at a section of the room with what looked to be a sight-seer book perched precariously on a plinth, covered on three sides with a series of multicolored curtains that radiated a not-so-insignificant amount of mana. 

Though somewhat unnerving and looking like it’d be more at home at some cultish ritual, the display case on the very front of the plinth completely undermined and defused what threatening aura it had. As within this case, were a series of what I could only describe as— 

“Are those postcards?” I shot out.

“Indeed they are, newrealmer.” The tortle responded, before gesturing to the setup with a venerable smile. “For this — is the imbuer of dreamscapes.” He announced proudly. “An artifice which imbues your likeness upon a predetermined landscape of your choosing, with whichever pose you wish to make at the time of the imbuement.” 

“A false-shard.” Ilunor announced, as if intending to further expand on the tortle’s talking points. “An intentional fake for that matter. A simple novelty with the intention of providing a fleeting moment of vapid entertainment to those possessing poor tastes, or simple inclinations.” The Vunerian hrrmphed, turning his nose up at the whole affair. 

However, by the time that he’d finished his tirade and turned back towards the setup, the Vunerian would find both me and the mercenary prince already posing behind the plinth — the tortle following suit with what appeared to be a wand in his hands.

The look of disappointment on Ilunor’s face was immeasurable, and I could only imagine if this simple act of ‘poor taste’ was enough to ruin his day.

Regardless of his personal reservations on the magical photo booth though, Thalmin and I were downright having fun, as a mutual creative spark seemed to arc between us through nothing more than simple knowing glances. This was in spite of the obvious encumbrance in the way. 

So with little more than body language, we just began vibing, shooting pose, after pose, after pose — going from simple hand gestures, to parallel arm-raising, all the way to more complex and involved stances that required coordination that came in the form of just winging it. 

The goofiest and most involved of which, involved what I could only describe as an inverse parallel ‘dab’ that bordered between a videogame emote and a genuine gym-approved flex. 

Though not everything was mindless whimsy, as all the while, the EVI maintained careful overwatch over the ‘mechanisms’ of the photobooth. 

The plinth and the precariously perched sight-seer book seemed to act like a ‘camera’, one that Kathan seemed to control with his wand, creating brief surges of mana radiation that were capped off by bright flashes of light seemingly emerging from within the curtains themselves.

Following each surge, and after what sounded like the crackling of sizzling pork belly being cooked in a cast iron pan, came the final product of our mutual whimsy — a postcard, with our silly poses doctored onto it. Interestingly enough, the postcard actually cycled through several of our poses, even going so far as to change the ‘time of day’ within the background; sort of like a digital photo album. Though despite the obvious changes in time between each pose, it appeared as if almost all of the backgrounds seemed to either remain perpetually cloudy, or lacked any visible specks of starlight within the night sky.

All in all, the photobooth ended up consuming a good fifteen minutes of our lives, though it appeared as if Thacea had fared somewhat better than Ilunor — as the princess actually spent her time browsing and appraising the hand-made knick-knacks with some degree of amusement.

“Aaaaand that should be all of our most popular ‘destinations’.” Kathan spoke through an amused grin. 

That little announcement clearly elicited Thacea’s attention, as she walked forward to ‘collect’ us from our little side quest, only to be roped in by my eager arm as we committed to just one more photo. However, before we could continue, I couldn’t help but to let out a sigh, urging an otherwise haughty Ilunor to join us. 

“No, earthrealmer, I refuse to take part in these impetuous acts of classless—” He stopped in his tracks, letting out one yelp, as I reached out to grab him once he came into arm’s reach. 

Following which, Thalmin soon took over chaperone duties, holding onto his squirming form as I attempted to strike something of a pose with Thacea. 

A countdown quickly ensued following this.

As in little more than— 

“One… two… three!”

—was the photo snapped.

A small sizzling later, and our peer group was immortalized with Elaseer in the background. 

With Ilunor squirming under one of Thalmin’s arms, the aforementioned prince holding as confident of a triumphant pose as he could given the circumstances, whilst Thacea remained almost entirely removed from the chaos in a more ‘reserved’ Victorian pose, separated from Ilunor and Thalmin by me, connected only by my arm draped across her shoulder. 

A single ‘V’ formed by both of my hands concluded the chaotic ensemble, as I couldn’t help but to grin at the finished product.

“This is incredible work, Kathan, thank you.” I proclaimed with a wide dumb grin towards Kathan, the turtle once more going for a big bow, only to be interrupted by Ilunor who took one good look at the photo and grumbled.

“If we are going to commit to such childish plays… then we are going to do it right. I demand a re-imbuement!” 

This demand… would result in another fifteen minutes going up in flames, as Ilunor finally got his ‘win’ today in the form of a couple dozen photos, all taken with his perspective in mind.

All in all, we had a concerning number of novelty postcards sent to the cash register, though thankfully, and out of some strange sense of responsibility and good will — the Vunerian agreed to cover it all out of his own pocket.

Following this, the souvenir shop crawl continued, as we passed by not just novelty snow globes this time around, but little figurines of various mythical creatures, scale-models of anything and everything from coaches and wagons, all the way up to impressive spires and castles. The largest of which took up an entire section of the room, hidden behind a curtain to make its reveal all the more impressive. 

With a height about two physical stories tall, and a width and thickness that spanned a good twenty or so meters at its widest point, the scale ‘model’ was massive. However, that sheer massiveness wasn’t just surface-level either, as Kathan was more than eager to open up the thing using spell after spell, cutting away through the sheer bulk of it like a knife being used to cut straight through a layered cake; revealing the living guts within. The most impressive feature being one that Ilunor yawned at — the plumbing. As a cutaway showed that even that aspect was taken into account, giving the whole structure almost too much realism.

This architectural marvel that looked to be a cross between the great European cathedrals of old, and some grand ancient megastructure like the pyramids, was later revealed to be an actual replica of some crownlands noble — a fact that Ilunor was surprisingly reluctant to continue touching upon as we eventually moved towards the final few novelty items of the store.

One of which seemed to be your bog standard mirror. 

Though Kathan insisted through a joking breath that it was in actuality: “The Magic Mirror of Desire.” A magical artifact that would reveal your most coveted of desires.

Upon being asked how it worked, the man simply shrugged and replied cheekily. “Why don’t you take a gander in the mirror? Perhaps the answers you seek shall appear within.” 

Sure enough, the mirror did nothing for me.

However, when Thalmin approached, its surface immediately began swirling. 

A sense of curiosity hit me, as we were all drawn to the sights and sounds the strange artifact was emitting, until— 

“Swords. You are looking… for magical swords!” A disembodied voice spoke, as the mirror quickly shifted to reveal what looked to be an elven blacksmith in front of a forge. “You look like a strapping young lad! Ready to fight, ready to tackle the world! What you need then, is a manasteel sword, enchanted and mana-shaped, from Banvardi’s forges! At Banvardi’s we have all manner of weapons at your disposal! From polearms to greatswords, to battle axes and war scythes, at Banvardi’s, the only limit to lethality is your willingness to kill!” 

We all blinked rapidly at what was effectively just a— 

“That was an advertisement.” Thalmin uttered out in frustration. “So that’s the magic mirror of desire?” He turned to the shopkeeper, who merely shrugged and smiled. 

“Well, it is accurate is it not, your highness?” He responded, once again straddling the line between decorum and his old joviality.

With an ‘I told you so’ look from Ilunor, and a nonplussed expression to move things along from Thacea, we finally landed on the last item of interest within the store.

What appeared to be—

“The sword of legend!” The storekeeper picked up the display case item, which was effectively a boring, run-of-the-mill looking ‘starter’ sword from any typical MMORPG.

“Alright. What’s it supposed to—”

“The sword of legend is an ancient, and dare I say it, legendary sword crafted from the original proprietor of Banvardi’s forges! Legends say that the sword shifts and contorts to fit the wielder, or more accurately, changes to personify the essence of its wielder.” The tortle explained, before shrugging. “Or so I’ve seen, anyway. You can try it if you’d like, there’s no hidden fees or charges here.” He continued, actually maintaining a rather lax attitude for someone who should be peddling these more expensive items. 

Thalmin and Thacea, unsurprisingly, refused to participate.

What was surprising however was Ilunor finally stepping up to the plate, grabbing hold of the sword from the hilt, and clearly wielding it in a way that showed his lack of experience with anything larger than a butter knife.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

Though that lack of experience wouldn’t take away from what I could only describe as the manifestation of the rule of cool. 

As a brief flash of light marked a change in the sword’s features, as it suddenly glowed an ethereal golden glow, before turning into this almost semi-molten, yet-still solid blade of burning yellow gold. 

“Impressive! Very impressive.” Kathan remarked with an approving nod, as Ilunor began waving the thing around, like a kid in a toy shop. 

“A weapon isn’t a toy, Ilunor.” Thalmin cautioned with a growl, stepping in, and ripping the sword from his hand. “You should treat weapons, any weapons for that matter, with respect.” He chastised the Vunerian, before realizing that the sword had changed whilst in his hand.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

A gust of wind emanated from the blade. Which quickly turned from a flaming molten rod of gold, into what I could only describe as a shiny and polished sword coated in a thin layer of ice. Snow seemed to follow it wherever it went, as the mercenary prince examined it from hilt to tip. The shape of the sword itself soon changed from Ilunor’s rapier shaped blade, to something more akin to a great sword. 

This seemed to at least amuse the mercenary prince, perhaps more than he let on, as he held it tightly in his hand for the longest while, refusing to even comment on it before handing it off to Thacea.

The princess, meanwhile, seemed less than enthused about the gesture, but accepted regardless.

However, upon fully grasping the blade—

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

—a deep and dark purplish hue quickly enveloped all light within a five meter radius. Following this, the blade itself started reshaping, forming into a shadowy purple blade made of pure dark flames; shaped into what the EVI quickly likened to as a ‘Cinquedea’. 

If there was one word I could use to describe Thacea’s sword, that word would be edgy. 

And I kinda vibed with that aesthetic.

The princess, however, quickly handed the sword away to the shopkeeper, who took it off her hands with little fuss.

Though it was clear that both Thalmin and Ilunor were a bit bothered by the whole affair.

And it quickly dawned on me exactly why that was.

As such, I took it upon myself to quickly request the sword from Kathan, hoping to defuse the situation.

And defuse it I did…

As I grabbed hold of its hilt, expecting something equally grand, epic, or at the very least… interesting to happen if only to distract the two. 

Instead, the whole thing outright flopped like a wet noodle. 

The seemingly solid mass that was its metal blade, somehow losing all semblance of its structure, deflating and thus collapsing in on itself into a sad sagging heap.

Ilunor, seizing the opportunity, broke out into uncontrollable laughter. 

Thalmin, meanwhile, attempted to mask what was clearly a similar reaction… to varying degrees of success as he tried to look away… only to bare his fangs in a dumb grin whenever he couldn’t help but to look back at it.

“Now now, first-years, this…” Kathan paused, letting out a chortle in the process. “... was to be expected.” He proclaimed, grabbing the sword back from me as he quickly placed it back into its case. “The newrealmer is clearly wearing some form of a mana-masking suit of armor. Thus, the sword of legend had nothing to draw its attenuation from, resulting in… what you seem so amused by.” 

The laughter from the Vunerian was slow to die down, and continued all the way until we reached the cash register.

It was here that his smile began to wane, as the damage from our little sidequest was laid out to bare.

“One Vunerian Soft Toy, Fifty-five unique instances of imbued memorabilia [Postcards], one novelty desk ornament, one snowglobe, one figurine, and one intermediate-sized model ship.” He rattled on, as he quickly turned towards the rest of the items we perused. “Unlike most stores, I do not charge for any interactions with my exhibits. The experience garnered from watching the youthful toying around with these enchanted amusements… is in itself priceless to me.” He explained in a heartfelt instance of earnesty. “Your total comes to three-hundred gold. One-hundred and eighty for the imbued memorabilia, and one-hundred and twenty for the rest of the items.” 

Ilunor promptly began the exchange of currency, once again allowing for it to float up and into the man’s cash register from his purse, resulting in a grateful bow from the tortle.

“It was a pleasure, my lords, ladies, and highnesses. Please, if you ever feel the need to peruse my wares, know that I am always open. It’s not like I have much else to be responsible for, after all.” He ended that goodbye off with a somewhat dour note. One that I ended up bringing up to the Vunerian as I posed a simple and straightforward question.

“Ilunor… what exactly did that noble shop owner mean by that—”

“It’s a matter of noble familial dynamics, earthrealmer.” Ilunor cut me off before I could finish that question. “I’d rather not touch such a topic, if at all possible.” 

It was with a nod of acknowledgement that I filed that topic under ‘to be discussed’, along with a flurry of other subjects I needed to address when we got back to the dorms, or when the opportunity arose to finally address them.

=====

Nexus. The Crown Herald Town of Elaseer. Ambassadorial District. The Adventurer’s Guild Hall of Elaseer. Local Time: 1710 Hours.

Emma

We arrived, admittedly, a bit later than expected.

However, this tardiness was definitely not reflected in the sheer flurry of activity we arrived to find the guild hall in. 

Because even before we arrived through those now-open double doors, we were met with the sight of exactly what I’d expected from a fantasy realm.

Actual, honest to god, adventurers.

Beings of every possible race, from elves of various heritages, to lizardmen, and from satyrs kobolds, to even snake-like hybrid humanoids — all clad in varying states of armored readiness. With the vast gap in equipment quality quite evident, as the most well dressed seemed to be frequenting your local premium pay-to-win store, whilst the less fortunate seemed to have kitbashed their armor from whatever they could scavenge off from dungeon loot chests. 

All in all though, the once-spacious hall was now packed. 

And it was clear why that was, as we quickly found out, we were more than partially to blame for what seemed to be a whole day’s worth of commotion. 

“The legitimacy of this job is y7%w&l [ERROR T-201A. 72% Approx: suspicious], I think.”

“That’s my thought too… except it’s got the boss’ stamp i#&lt [ERROR T-201A… approx N/A.] on it.”

“That ain’t something you see il7%$d [ERROR T-201A…. 59% Approx: everyday] now is it?”

“Any of you desperate enough to pick up that cabbage merchant’s quest?”

“You dumb or something? He’s offering up quarter-barons to catch some mythical creature, and not even the real kind!” 

However, the adventurer’s various reactions weren’t the first thing on my list of worries.

As I quickly turned towards the EVI, my eyes scrolling through the list of error codes in the field manual. “EVI, T-201A, that’s a translation issue right?”

“Correct, Cadet Booker. I am unable to parse certain words as they do not exist within my existing reference language databases. Nor am I able to ascertain their meaning to an acceptable margin of error, as seen within the working language databases. I am currently working through translation utilizing inferential analysis-by-context.”

“I’m assuming you’re able to do this because most of the words spoken are still in High Nexian? Grammar too?”

“Correct, Cadet Booker. Although the quality of translation will be proportionally impacted by the frequency and density of High Nexian used within a given unit-set of translation.”

“That makes sense… I’m assuming it's also the unconventional ways they’d use High Nexian too, that’d make things even that much more complicated?”

“Affirmative.”

“Gotcha. Well, we have contingencies for this. Just keep me posted on the expansion of the working language database, and I’ll see if we can buy some Common Nexian to High Nexian dictionaries somewhere later. That’ll definitely give you something to chew on, EVI.” I chuckled inwardly, prompting the EVI to respond with a set of loading bars—

… 

…

—before simply marking the ticket as resolved.

No sooner was that little tangent resolved, did the guild commander finally arrive on scene, approaching me with a vibe of discretion as we were quickly ushered to a quieter part of the room; with only a scant few eyes on us.

Most of the adventurers more than likely saw us as just some rich academy students not worth paying much mind to.

“So, what’s the news?” I promptly asked the guild commander with a level of barely-restrained excitement. 

To which I first received a sigh in response, causing my anticipation to waver, and my anxiety to heighten.

“I’m afraid there are no takers yet, my lady.” He announced a matter of factly. “This… actually may take more time than we had initially assumed.” 

I felt as if we’d hit our first real brick wall in this whole day of breakthroughs and whimsy, as I shuffled and slumped in my armor, crossing my arms in the process. 

“Alright then.” I sighed, before turning towards the gang with a noticeable level of melancholy. “You guys can head off to do other things in town. I’m more than happy to wait here until we get  someone, or until curfew’s up and we have to head back up.” 

A series of nods followed, as thoughts and concerns over whether even waiting until night would net me a single taker.

However, these thoughts, worries, and concerns, suddenly took the backseat, as a voice boomed loudly from deep within the crowd.

“Ah! Yes! This quest shall do!” Two voices rang out at about the same time, as I turned to face what I could only describe as the most stereotypical fantasy protagonist I could imagine, with an entire adventuring party to boot. The man responsible for that proud proclamation, was a blond-haired elf, dressed in fine plate armor that glowed with an iridescent fire, seemingly emanating from within the polish itself. Next to him, was… what seemed to be a kobold, but upon closer inspection, was clearly not. As he stood a good bit taller than most kobolds I’ve seen thus far, and his muzzle was just that much more sharpened and longer too. Beside the Vunerian was an avinor dressed in what was comparable to renaissance-era mercenary armor, with all of the flashiness that that entailed. Finally, there was a fire elemental, who quite literally gave the group a radiant aura. 

This group, radiating with both energy, experience, and above all wealth, held up the job listing high in the air.

It only took me a moment to realize that the listing wasn’t ours however.

As I turned to look at the source of the other voice, emanating from a good few feet below the elf’s larger than life presence.

There, next to the radiant group, was a smaller, more disheveled collection of adventurers. 

A dwarf, who I could only assume was its leader, held up my job listing as high up as he could above a helmet far too battered and scuffed to be worn.

Next to him, was a small kobold, dressed in a tunic two-sizes too large for her, wearing what I could only describe as a single piece of platemail that covered them from their chest to their shins.

Continuing the questionable ensemble was a bat, wearing just casual commoner attire, with only a lute and a simple bow on his back. 

Finally, there was a bear, his eyes worn and almost lifeless, glancing over to the fire elemental of the premium group. 

“This heat is far too intense for me…” He groaned out, before slumping his head back onto the table with a loud thud.