Stronger Together chapter 177

Six weeks later...

The  sun shone in my eyes as I stepped out of the svartalf compound. For the  first week I tried to get home as often as possible but eventually the  commute just became a hassle. I'd negotiated with my master to stay full  time for six weeks in exchange for a few considerations like daily  phone calls and deliveries of my medicine baths by Kara. Since he wasn't  against my daily klurkor practice that had been basically all I needed.

These past six weeks had been  insanely fruitful, despite not becoming a master smith by svartalf  standards or even anything close I was still able to learn an incredible  amount. I likened it to taking an intro to calculus class. I wasn't  anywhere as proficient as someone who had studied calc their whole life,  but since most human smiths were adding and subtracting I was a cut  above the average.

Despite  that, a month and a half of training wouldn't have been even remotely  useful to me in the fight with Fenrir aside from my knife maybe, if I  hadn't made a very interesting discovery down there. With help from my  master, I had invented a method to reforge godsteel. By using that magic  I'd been turning into constructs properly I could cast stable godsteel  back into it's "molten" state, allowing me to combine smaller piece into  larger ones. Of course nothing is free so the larger the piece the more  energy it took, but it was still a game changer.

Combined  with something my master called "Ancestral teaching" which enable him  to sort of meld with my consciousness to guide me (svartalves used it to  train children when they first started so they wouldn't accidentally  injure themselves but could still gain skill) we'd spent the last month  of my training on a project. The combination of skills enabled us to  work together to make an amazing suit of armor that I couldn't have  managed on my own with a thousand years of practice.

My  master poured every ounce of his skill and experience into the creation  and mobilized the entire council of elders to enchant the thing. He  said to think of it as a greeting gift for my apprenticeship, but I  suspect it was a combination of wanting Fenrir dead, liking me, and  wanting a chance to work on something truly amazing. Despite the immense  amount of power and resources poured into it however, full plate was  out of the question, I didn't have nearly enough power to recast a piece  that big.

The  new armor was a suit of lorica segmentata, enchanted by the best of the  svartalf race to create truly unique artifact that they considered to  be one of the great wonders of the world. Aside from the armor plates of  godsteel my master had contributed his own meager supply of olympian  bronze which he forged into the metal as tracework and to fill in the  runes on the enchantment. The final product was a black and gold  masterpiece that looked like a fusion of roman and viking armor that  belonged in a fairy tale.

Master  Brokkr was the only one in the clan who could even work olympian bronze  (though the mordite alloy titanic bronze was beyond his abilities as  mentioned in the books) and he swore it increased the power of the armor  exponentially. Runes for strength, speed, durability and a dozen other  powerful enchantments were woven into the powerful suit that would  enable me to stand up to even the strongest enemy. With this thing I had  a legitimate chance to survive a fight with Fenrir.

Unfortunately  there was no such thing as a free lunch. Because of the composition and  origin my Archangel Armor, as I'd named it (because I'd need to be a  fully fledged archangel to wear the thing consistently) , required  soulfire from my actual body to function. It drained the spiritual power  of my soul at an absurd rate, and the set would be unusable outside my  klurkor state's third form which meant I could only use it for a few  minutes at a time before I lost my humanity and access to the klurkor  state with it.

I  stroked the masterwork in the bag at my side and climbed into the cab  I'd called, thinking about all my girls waiting at home. I'd missed them  terribly the entire time I'd been gone, even with the phone calls. With  this new ace in the hole I was confident in fighting Fenrir as long as  we worked together, and going forward my lessons with Brokkr would be on  weekends rather than a live in apprenticeship. He'd been surprisingly  amicable when I told him I wouldn't be living there anymore, and it was a  pleasant surprise.

As  the cab pulled up to the house I felt an invisble weight lift from my  shoulders, aside from being super excited not to be pummeled by the  Goddamn Stick (I'd officially given it a formal name and added the  capital letters after the third week) it was just so nice to be back in  my own space. There was something draining about being away from home,  being back in a place you felt completely safe was just relaxing in a  way that you couldn't feel when you were out and about regardless of  your personal power.

I  hiked the bag with the armor over me shoulder and climbed out of the  cab, paying the guy with the little cash I kept on me and took in a deep  breath as I stared at my house. As I stepped up onto the curb I head a  deep bass woof and was barely able to brace myself as my now four month  old tibetan mastiff puppy slammed into me at full speed, now much bigger  than he had been when I left.

Luckily  I was a pre angelic metal warrior so I was able to catch the pup and  spin him around, cuddling with the enthusiastic form of Rumor as he  tried his best to get to the tootsie roll center of my head. I laughed  and sputtered as the puppy gave me a tongue bath and was so distracted I  missed Max jumping clear off the ground and onto my head, which was  substantially less charming now that the damn cat was the size of an air  conditioner window unit. Despite the pummeling I was pleased to see  them and I dropped the bag and tackled them to the ground, rolling in  the grass and playing with the animals for a while.

I  heard a feminine throat clear and rolled over with a grin to see Raven,  Barb, and Cinder standing behind me. The sound had come from Barb who  had an eyebrow raised "Gone for six weeks and when you get home your  first order of business is to wrestle with the dog and cat. Absence is  supposed to make the heart grow fonder." Raven rolled her eyes and came  over to lean down to kiss me, and I swept her off her feet and rolled  her onto the grass with the animals and I.

She  giggled, a sound I never would have heard when we first met, and  snuggled against my chest "It's good to have you back. And don't listen  to Barb, she missed you like crazy. She's been burying herself in work  with the company trying to stay busy." Barb stepped closer to try to  poke Raven with her shoe and got pulled into the tangle of limbs with  us, leaving a big pile of giggling teenagers on the lawn. Raven glanced  up at Cinder, who was standing by quietly "What are you waiting for? We  need help to pin him down so we can tickle him until he begs for mercy.  He's too strong for us to do it alone."

Of  course I wasn't trying to escape, but Cinder seemed happy for the  excuse and pounced on me. Despite all the fun we did have to stop, this  was a suburban neighborhood and people would bitch if we stayed out here  rolling on the ground too long. I personally gave no fucks, but if  Charity heard about it she would give me an earful, and even I feared  the wrath of Mama Carpenter. We brought the animals inside and I sat  down to get caught up on the last six weeks. We had a few days until our  fight with the big guy so I wasn't really too rushed to tell them about  my armor.

Kara,  Morgan, Andi, Yang, and Sam came tromping through, giving me hugs and  telling me they missed me and then they all sat down in the living room.  Despite being so happy to be home I couldn't help but show off a bit. I  showed them my godsteel knife, which I had named Snikt, because it was  funny, and which I had managed, with the help of my master to put a  sharpness enchantment on. I passed it to Barb, who I'd made it for  anyway. Then, with the present out of the way, I showed them the most  time consuming and powerful result of my time with the svartalves.

A  hush fell over the room when I pulled out the Archangel Armor. Even  having been in the room during it's creation I still found myself in awe  of the iridescent black sheen of the godsteel and the golden polished  luster of the olympian bronze. Even having seen it over and over I  couldn't get past how gorgeous it was. It was like when you buy a new  computer and for the next few months you just stop and stare at it  sometimes because you can't believe you own something that nice. I  displayed it with a flourish enjoying the looks of awe.

My  grin was smug as I filled them in "And this is the armor my master and I  made. It's one of the great wonders of the world, and I managed to make  it in only a month and a half with help from a master smith. This is  going to be our key to beating Fenrir. Even he can't stand up to me in  this." I slightly embellished my own role in it's creation, but to be  fair it would be impossible to have made it without me so I was the  reason it existed. I could see the shock as Barb and Yang flipped on  their magic eye spell and were almost blinded by the mastercraft  artifact.

A  familiar aged voice that made my skull ache rang through the room  "Oh-ho, helped, did I boy?" I winced and turned around with horrified  slowness to see my master standing on the other side of the open window.  Outside the wards, he'd apparently popped the latch with the Goddamn  Stick. I was kind of unnerved that thing had gotten through our  incredibly sturdy defenses. At my look of horror Brokkr cackled like a  witch "That'll come out of your hide during training boy, just you wait  and see."

I  cleared my throat "Master, what are you doing here? I said I'd come back  on weekends and that I couldn't do full time training anymore." I  pretended that my voice wasn't quavering as I addressed him, but I think  I spoiled the effect by holding the Archangel Armor up between us like I  could shield myself with it. That Goddamn Stick had traumatized me for  life and I absolutely did not want to take a hit from it in front of my  girl.

The  vicious old man smiled and tossed a bag through the window to land on  the floor. "Fool! I ignored you. You can't live at the compound fine,  but I'm your master boy, and you will learn even if I have to beat it  into your thick skull. Now come to the door and invite me in, then we  can start designing your forge. I walked around your grounds and didn't  see one here, which is unacceptable.