Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

“Ah, a broken Olthoi Slayer Spear! Made from the long pedipalps of the Olthoi Nobles and the deadly pincers of the Olthoi Mutilators!”

“My thanks, Lady Vundanewall.”

“Ah, this Dagger made from the pincers of an Olthoi Slasher is in need of fixing! Here, let me issue you another!”

“You help is appreciated, Lady Vundanewall.”

“Ah, one of the old Wands made from the stingers of a Paradox Olthoi Needler! It is dangerous to wield these now. Let me issue you an updated version!”

“We appreciate your help, Lady Vundanewall.”

And so on it went, moving from one item to another, her eyes just barely flickering as she made sure to inform us what each item was made from, then take them and issue us one of the new models that had ‘replaced’ the old ones.

Every time, despite the obviously canned patter, Kris thanked her warmly and differently, as if nothing was wrong, and indeed, the Olthoi Hunter was almost glowing with gratitude and relief.

The treatment continued as we moved through the broken pieces of armor, and then the body parts we’d actively salvaged. The Olthoi Hunter enthusiastically swapped creature parts for fully crafted and ready-to-go pieces of armor.

“What is this? The full carapace of a truly monstrous Paradox Olthoi Sentinel, one of the personal guards of the Paradox Queen?”

There was a sense of satisfaction behind the robotic delivery.

“Armor can be made from this that draws on some of the anti-magical properties of the Paradox olthoi themselves, but it will interfere with any spellcasting that you do. Is this a problem for you, K-Kris?” she asked.

“Non-Casting armor? For me? Why, no, that is not a problem, Lady Vundanewall,” Kris smiled, and eight canines gleamed, startling the Olthoi Hunter enough to make her pause at the sight.

-Lass,- the Mick /said softly to me as I watched all of this from the side, -Queen Elysa be sayin’ that Shayla Vundanewall be an old member of their band o’ fighters against the olthoi, way back when. She left the group after Thorsten chose Elysa over her, an’ Elysa has nae thought of her fer close on forty years an’ more, now. She didn’t think she were living or dead… she just never thought o’ her at all.-

Which was the exact mental process we’d been telling the old timers to go through for many of the ‘NPC’ people they’d run into in the past. Mental fuckery around them was a sign they’d been messed with by the System here.

Queen Elysa was not a member of the Markspace as yet. It wasn’t that we didn’t think she’d qualify, but she felt she’d be too influenced by it and us to trust joining it.

That was significant, because how had the Mick asked Queen Elysa such a question at this time of the morning?

-And she never visited the Olthoi Hunter...- I decided to /reply.

-Aye, were beneath her to visit such a specialized Collector, although there were those who hated the olthoi and were in an informal network to oppose them, she were a font of information, supposedly.- He /paused a moment. -And nae, Elysa can’t think of the names o’ more than two o’ them. Although she remembers the fellow in Redspire who spurred the killing o’ the olthoi on Marae Lassel with his rewards, Behdo Yi.- He /paused again. -No idea who paid for the stuff he was willing to give out for those pincer rewards, either. A Collector or Olthoi Hunter-type they just gave a name to? I seem t’ remember him being a Sho researcher o’ old Empyrean places...-

The Olthoi Hunter received the whole carapace, grunting at the weight, but somehow managing to hold over five hundred pounds of chitin without falling over. She turned around, and suddenly there was no carapace there, but she had a neatly stacked set of light brown, white-veined chitin in her arms. “Please accept this armor and wear it in battle against the horrid swarms!” her atonal voice recited to us for the first time.

“Lady Vundanewall, one of these days I’m going to get to talk to your smith and find out how to make these things myself,” Kris said archly as she received the bundle of armor. “Rest assured I shall put it to excellent use.”

It wasn’t magical, so it had to be made to fit the wielder, and just a glance from her my way assured me that it was pre-measured and would fit her.

Which meant something could indeed observe her quite closely...

“Do you wear a set of this, Lady Vundanewall?” Kris asked calmly, setting her bundle on the Disk there and starting the deft process of putting the new suit on piece by piece. She didn’t have to worry about chaffing with her skin like bronze and more damage reduction than steel, so underarmor and padding wasn’t required, and she just strapped it on with real experience.

There was that sensation of a record skipping as you looked at her and she went off-script. “I wear a set of the traditional olthoi armor made from olthoi matron parts, K-Kris,” she finally responded, the words seeming to escape her as her face was caught between frozen and showing emotions.

“Ah, the old purple and blue stuff? I saw some drawings of them, but there was obvious magical and some exotic alchemy involved in their creation. All the existing suits shattered and decayed during the Fall, and weren’t available for use when they were needed the most, nor did anyone know how to make more.”

There was a flinching and a shudder from the Olthoi Hunter. “The process to make them rapidly is very magic-intensive. If more time is taken, they would not be so susceptible to irregularities in the manafield.”

Kris just nodded as her armor linked up. I narrowed my eyes as I noted there were no straps on her armor.

They knew she didn’t need straps to hold her armor in place, her Vajra could do so for her. She’d never slapped on armor here yet.

“I would like to vein this armor with adamantine. Can you give me a copy of the process by which these armors are made so I can adapt the process to it?”

There was a flicker of light in her eyes, and her voice went even flatter than before. “You can modify a unique armor like this?” her voice spoke as she stared at us.

We were both pretty sure that it wasn’t her who was speaking.

“Of course. I would know how to work chitin if olthoi existed on Ispar, we would have worked the process out long ago, as well as using olthoi Weapons. It is not rare or impossible, just new and different, and has to be approached appropriately. It’s just an alchemical synthesis of leatherworking and armorsmithing, after all.” Her casual dismissal of the work involved was completely unfeigned.

Everything was custom-fit to her like a master armorer, although I noted that it was not a perfect fit. QL… 35 or so. Extremely good, but not Rantha Quality. “That’s like a somewhat lighter set of +III Full Plate, Kris?” I piped up with a sniff. “I’m surprised you’d even wear something at that level…”

There were ways to make non-magical arms and armor effectively +I to +IV without Slots, requiring the right materials and sheer excellence of craftsmanship, whimsically called Jade Craftmanship. The Sentinel chitin obviously qualified as a material, but only up to QL 35. It would take a 40 for +IV. Given that you could do the job magically for +IV at a mere 32 QL, and hit the mortal limit of +V at a 35, there was rarely a need to do such a thing… especially since it all had to be crafted, not Infused or Invested, which meant massive crafting multipliers needed to get something like that done in a reasonable amount of time.

Both Briggs and Sama Rantha had been Master Smiths at the top of their rankings back in the Power of Ten. They could totally turn up their noses at QL 35 stuff, but almost nobody make Jadework stuff, it being too time-consuming and not stacking.

“Well, yeah, that’s why I need to upgrade and refine it. Can’t believe something made out of olthoi that strong only got to a 35… Well, they probably only took the process to this level and found better things to wear, or just didn’t have the skills to reach higher Quality Levels.

“Adamantine with a couple Slakes and reinforcement is definitely better, but this will do if I can reinforce it suitably.”

Loot-shaming someone who no doubt thought they’d dropped a particularly fine set of trophy armor on someone for an epic kill in the classic video game style… and found it just didn’t do the job it was meant to. The old olthoi armor had been non-magical and unbuffable, but had been at least as strong in its protective values as mid-range enchanted armor.

Adamantine was really hard to beat as armor, however. It might be heavy, but that stacking DR it had was nice. If you were going to be hit and take the damage, every little bit less you took was great.

From Kris’ standpoint, Mithral just didn’t do the job. Either your Armor didn’t restrain your Dex at all, or it wasn’t worth making special armor to that effect. Obviously she didn’t care about the weight at all.

“So, equal to mithral, it seems?” I asked as she slapped on the backplate, just fixing it to her back and leaving it there while she fit on the breastplate.

“Fundamentally. Probably has better elemental ratings in some regards,” she said dismissively, vambraces clicking into place with fascinating speed and surety, and no magic involved at all. I noted she made no moves towards the gauntlets at all, which, since she wore enchanted Gloves, didn’t surprise me. No transferring the magic to this armor! “Repairing it will likely be a pain since it’s non-magical. Eventually it’s just going to break and be useless.”

“The armor will protect you from magical spells and elemental attacks that normal armor would not!” the Olthoi Hunter spoke up hastily, and did that sound a bit petulant?

“Yes, it’ll act like Energized Armor without needing the magic as a result of the chorozite within it,” Kris nodded casually, reaffirming the fact. “Truly useless without it, makes it at least a good filler.”

“The process isn’t that secret, but it does have some value. Perhaps a showing of your valor to earn the right to gain it?” the Olthoi Hunter asked somewhat awkwardly.

“If you say something stupid like getting the head of a Hive Queen, I will laugh at you,” Kris answered to that, and, I noted, did not address her by name. “We need the armor before we take on the hives, not afterwards.”

There was motion at the edge of my Detects, and I snapped my head around in that direction as Kris finished up with the bracers. She also turned around and looked out the barn’s entryway.

“We have some buggy visitors again,” I murmured. I glanced at the Olthoi Hunter. “They aren’t coming from Arwic, and are bee-lining here.”

Kris’s eyes flashed. It was entirely possible they were just Summoned out of nowhere just to satisfy the conditions for this fight.

“The town is regularly attacked by olthoi swarms looking to keep Arwic uninhabited! Aid me in killing them all, and I will give you what you want!” the Olthoi Hunter stated, but there was a bit more legitimacy to her voice now.

Well, it wasn’t like we couldn’t kill them, it was just open field instead of controlled conditions.

There was a swirl of magic and the Olthoi Hunter’s classic Olthoi Armor was Summoned right into existence around her, equipped out of extra-dimensional storage, while her Crossbow appeared in her hands again.

If the normal pattern of such Quests was trying to repeat, she could kill all she liked, but the numbers of the Swarm would actually only go down if we killed them, seemingly being replenished as she dropped her victims.

“Not a problem. More bugs is fine by me!” Kris chortled, and it was time to go kill some more olthoi.