Mark looked at Isoko, studying her reaction as she tried out the armor he had made for her, as she looked at herself in a big mirror. The armor was thin but solid, using a design of Andria’s. It was not the final set of armor Mark was going to make for her, but it was a good starter armor. He had strung it together along with some other things in the last hour; final things that he really should have put together before now, but he was doing it now, and it was what it was.
Normal weapons and armor didn’t really matter when fighting kaiju.
An assortment of weapons held to the side, in racks, and maybe Andria would enchant a few more of them later, but for now they were well-balanced, and tuned for cutting. Daggers for everyone lay in a pile in a box over there, each one dipped in wax so they didn’t cut through the box. The wax was a nice trick Andria had told Mark about, and thanks to Tartu, they had wax aplenty.
Sally’s swords turned out to be way too heavy when she used them like normal, so Mark had given her a normal set of swords like he had given Titanfist, but a whole lot better made. The molecular imperfections in the blades were all but gone, and when she expanded a blade to a kilometer long, it still looked… mostly well made.
So Mark still had some areas he could improve. It was fine.
Tartu got a pile of assorted adamantium weighing in at 1 ton, located downstairs in storage. Everyone got a literal ton of adamantium, while Eliot had gotten 20 tons. Eliot had no idea what to really do with it, but he’d figure something out. Mark suspected he would make more drones with it, or maybe some ‘bones’ for the hull of the ship.
Isoko was getting the first set of armor, but Sally was next. Sally was probably going to be easier than Isoko, since all of her armor would basically be metal plates that would probably break off if she misjudged her shrinking/growing. Her armor would be like the ablative plate armor subscription that Mark had had back in Memphi, but with adamantium plates that she could put onto the netting that was her real armor.
Isoko’s armor was real armor, since she didn’t change sizes.
“How’s that?” Andria asked, finishing up with a strap on Isoko’s shoulder. “Full range of motion?”
Isoko moved her arm around, but it caught when she pulled her arm back all the way, exposing her armpit. The shoulder pad clicked against her back in that dull way that adamantium clicked against adamantium. “Not full range, but a lot better… Hmm.” She angled her arm back a few times, trying to get a feel for it. “Ah. Don’t like.”
Andria said to Mark, “Then you need to adjust it, now.”
“You’re not going to be raising your arm like that in real combat anyway,” Mark said. “And to remove the part of the armor that impedes that part is to remove protections from your neck.”
“… Ugh, yeah,” Isoko said, lowering her arm. And then she reached out and TT’d the air to grab a sword on the wall, to slam the hilt into her gauntleted hand. She messed up. The sword slammed hard, ringing the air like a dull gong, and then it missed her grip, or she missed actually catching it, and it went spinning over her head to spear into the wall, then through the wall, catching on the hilt. Isoko winced at the weapon and said, “Uh… Whoops.”
Andria had briefly freaked out, mithril appearing in the air around her, and then she stepped away, muttering disgust.
Mark watched her go. She was stressed.
Everyone was stressed.
Mark asked Isoko, “Did you do that on purpose?”
“… No,” Isoko said, wincing a second time. “It’s, uh… dense. Hard to TT. Denser than before. Whatever you did to make it into a weapon made it kinda… really strong.”
Mark kinetically yanked the sword out of the wall and put it back on the rack with all the other ones. He pulled an estoc off of the wall, too, and floated that one to Isoko’s hand, saying, “Why go for the longsword. You prefer the estoc anyway?”
“… So I might have made a mistake there, too.”
“What are your worries, Isoko?”
“I have a full list of anxieties that I’m fully ignoring.” Isoko looked at the floating patch of glittering darkness next to Mark, asking, “What’s it look like, now?”
It had been about 8 hours since Mark met with Freyala and started to understand the fragment of a divine mirror. He had used it extensively since then, to check everyone out. Mark pulled the fragment over his right eye now, and checked Isoko out again.
She was a prismatic platinum glow, adrift in the world, but also right where she was. A few specks of brighter iridescence glowed in her body, in her head, heart, stomach, and lower, and also in her arms and legs. But as she moved around, those bright parts moved around, too. Looking at Isoko —looking at anyone— was like looking at a cut-out window into a different world, while only being able to see a part of that world at any one time.
Mark had, at first, offered to hand the fragment over for other people so they could look through it themselves, starting with Isoko because she was the first to ask about it, but Lola had shut that down hard, saying that Mark was NEVER to give that to anyone else, ever. Including his friends. Including Lola, or anyone. Isoko had reluctantly agreed that Lola was right.
Isoko still liked hearing Mark describe her, though.
“You’re a window into a world of prismatic glows. Platinum and shining. All the sky looks shaded with your influence, but it’s barely there at all. The window is you.”
Isoko grinned a little. And then she frowned a little. “Freyala really isn’t with me, huh.”
“Nope.” Mark looked at the floor, at the walls, at Eliot’s Power, soaked into the Dreadnought. It was gold and flaming, but it was different than before. Mark hadn’t noticed it back then, but he noticed it now that several hours had passed. Before, it was fully-golden flames. Now, it was more yellow. Amber-gold. “Hearthswell is still here in Eliot’s Castellan, but she’s fading, too. Eliot’s amber-gold is showing through Hearthswell’s pure gold. More ‘warm fire’, less ‘divine fire’.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Every one of the 5 people who had gone through the Second Awakening was losing that divine connection to the god that had once Chosen them. Eliot’s Castellan was still pretty much Castellan-colored, though, because he had imbued the Dreadnought with that power long before now. It would take time for the original colors to change, for the mana to switch out, but it also might never switch if Eliot’s mana-recapturing wards worked how they should work.
“Barely any gold in me, huh?” Isoko asked.
“Yup.” Mark said, “Eliot himself is fully amber-fire. Tartu is still pretty golden. Sally is turning more clear-ish. Andria is full-mithril.”
Isoko looked in the mirror, and thought of Freyala, saying, “I still feel her, though. She’s still there.”
Mark looked a little to the right, feeling Isoko’s vector go a little internal and Elsewhere. Freyala’s golden ghost materialized with one hand on Isoko’s shoulder. Isoko’s soul-coloring turned a little bit more golden, but that golden color was just a splash of difference in a silver-rainbow sky.
Mark said, “She’s still there when you pray.”
Isoko sighed a little, feeling relieved. And then she chuckled and a tear fell. She took off her gauntlet and dabbed her face, pretending everything was fine as she said, “So you can’t see Kardi with it, huh.”
“Not unless she contacts Thrashtalon at that moment, but I should be able to spot all Chosen of Thrashtalon easily, if they’re not fully obscured by Thrashtalon himself. Seeing the other gods in people is a lot easier. Freyala is right there, all the time, when I look at Lola, David, or Derek.”
That made Isoko feel better. Isoko took a deep breath and looked in the mirror, at her black, adamantium armor. It was not flattering, but it was highly functional. Isoko was happy with it, for now.
Isoko told Mark, “I’m still gonna need a wind sword of Empire!” And then she looked at him, adding, “A wind sword of the Xerkona Emperor’s Empire.”
Mark laughed.
Isoko smirked. “I’m serious.”
“That’s why I’m laughing. It’s utterly ridiculous. The whole thing!”
“No wonder Aluatha wanted to assassinate you,” Isoko said, looking in the mirror again. “They had an unprotected sovereign in their nation. Of course they wanted to kill you.”
“… Oh shit. Oh fuck. That’s… that’s why?” Mark groaned, put his hands over his face, and said, “They knew what the tramway assassination attempt meant, too! Do you think that Okuana knew? And that’s why they were trying to get me to come with them? How about with what Executioner Walter said to us? Where does the conspiracy end…” Mark dropped his hands to stare at nothing. “Fuck.”
Isoko shrugged. “I bet a whole lot of people were told to do a thing, with none of them knowing what any of it meant at all, like the Collective before the Battle For Memphi. The real question is did Addavein know, and if so, then why not warn you? Or do anything at all? Like, he wants a human connection, right? So maybe he orchestrated things to make you an Inheritor of Xerkona.”
Mark stared off into nothing. “I didn’t even think about that…” He frowned. “… No. I don’t think he knew. Knows? Maybe he knows now. But he didn’t back then… maybe. Or maybe he does know, and he didn’t think it was any big deal at all? I could see that happening. I’m just a guy. I don’t have the power to actually get him active in the HVP or anywhere else. And he’s playing a long game, right? So… No. I’ll ask him, but I doubt he knew about this kaijushit with the Inheritor of Xerkona stuff.”
Isoko hummed, and then she picked up her helmet. She stared at it for a moment, then turned to Mark and asked, “Put a princess crown and some elf ears on this, please.”
Mark did as asked, though he grinned the whole time.
Isoko put the helmet on, and it was more like a skullcap than a full helm, thanks to Mark’s adjustments. She got a crown of 10 points, just like Mark’s ‘tyrant dragon king crown’ he had made and showed off to Elaria, Aurora, and Marigold Metallic way back when they were at the Southern Crossing, but Isoko’s points were about half as large as Mark’s. Her ear decorations were about 20 centimeters long. The delineation between the helmet and her head was rather stark, going from blacker than black, to pale skin. Isoko looked at herself in the mirror, and then she went Full Platinum, and all of her helmet turned the same color as the rest of her.
“Hmm,” she said, and then she added, “Bigger points, please. I want to know what I’ll look like when I betray you as your evil chancellor and take your crown for myself.”
Mark smiled, and then he just made her a whole crown for herself, much bigger than the one he had toyed around with before. He added some ear-extensions to this one, too, then he floated it to her, asking, “You like the ears?”
With a big smile, Isoko took off the helmet and put on the crown, adjusting it till it fit, and then she went Full Platinum, looking at herself in the mirror, touching her ears. She hummed, then said, “I do quite like it without the ears, but I suppose the ears would grow on me over time.”
Mark laughed.
Isoko grinned, and then she took off the crown and handed it to Mark, bending a knee as she did so and intoning, “My liege. Your crown.”
Mark intoned right back “You would do well to keep your place among the vassals, upstart.”
“A thousand apologies, great master of metal, our highness of Xerkona.”
Mark took the crown and put it on… and the ears melded with his own, and the crown hovered menacingly, and Mark kinda broke down, just a little, saying, “Oh gods, this is so fucked up.”
Isoko reached out and held his arm, saying nothing, but meaning everything.
