S01E07B – Red Moon Preparations (Part 2)

S01E07B – Red Moon Preparations (Part 2)

___

The Enthana sisters recommended a shop called Algrig’s. The shop had a few other customers as well as small detail of shopkeepers attending to them. The Gnoll proprietor immediately recognized the sisters when they entered and he called out to them.

“If it’s Amaduscia’s whelps! Come on in!” he laughed “What do you have in mind for tonight?” he and the sister’s embraced, all three’s tails wagging.

“Good to see you again, Throun!” The girls said in unison.

“Our friend…Philia here.” Kvaris flicked a thumb at her “She’s got us a nice Apport ring for three weapons.”

Throun whistled. “That is quite a work of art, you must be a really talented Artificer, miss Philia.” he bowed lightly.

“...and there’s more, she’s got a Wand of Duality and a Companion Rogue’s Shillelagh.” Kinu added. “So we’re looking for some good weapons.”

“Very well, tell me what you want.”

Kvaris thought for a while “We’ll keep our original swords sheathed, for now, we want a spear we could use one-handed, A long sword; longer than our usual ones but light enough to carry, and a throwing axe.

“A greatsword for me and a throwing spear. Sammy of the Nightmane tribe.” Sammy added.

“Get her some good ones.” Kinu said.

Throun gestured to the back of his shop and the girls headed that way.

“Corsecas.” Throun said, handing them to the Enthana sisters.
The two girls hefted the polearms given to them. They had longer blades, almost like a short sword and had two prongs almost half a foot wide each that looked like a crescent moon. It had a counterweight at the back and featured an enchantment that allowed the user to wield it one-handed without any issue.

“Very nice.” Kvaris said “These prongs will be helpful in pushing back our victims.” Kinu nodded in agreement.

Kinu caught Philia’s attention, who was also having a look at the various weapons. Sammy on the other hand was trying out various greatswords.

“What is it?” The blond girl asked.

“We’ll put our Shillelagh onto these.” Kinu said.

“You’ll need a weapon to go with it.” Philia advised her. “It has to be a one-handed blunt weapon.”

“May I suggest this?” Throun held up a heavy-looking war hammer.

“It doesn’t matter how heavy it is once it’s stored in the companion charm.” Philia said, “it can be as heavy as you like so long as you can carry it one-handed, that is the condition.” She handed them a pair of charms on a lanyard. They looked like a little stylized club. The girls took the charms and held them over the hammers. Focusing their mana into the charm, the hammers vanished and the charm changed its appearance into a miniature version of them, which the girls quickly tied near the center of their spears.

“We’ll take these.” Kvaris said. “Now for the next weapon for our rings. We need a long sword…”

It didn’t take them long to find a sword that matched their criteria; longer than their kreigsmesser swords and double-edged. Meanwhile the throwing axe they chose came with an enchantment where it would temporarily multiply into randomly three or five (it was random) when thrown, so long as they channeled some energy into the axe.

“Alright, that's three weapons for the ring.”

“Can we have two wands of duality?” Kvaris asked.

Two wands? Philia wondered. She had five. She looked at Sammy, who shrugged, she only needed one.

“Very well. What are you thinking?”

“The first wand of duality will go to our long swords. We’ll use a flail, for the other wand it will be a second sword for our shield.” Kvaris explained. She glanced at Kinu who briefly considered the idea then nodded in assent.

Philia looked at Sammy again who waved her hand in agreement.

Kvaris and Kinu briefly consulted with each other regarding the flails they would use. They picked a pair that resembled a threshing flail and about the same size; having a long handle but still enough to be wielded one-handed. Its striking head was also pretty long and was enchanted to manipulate its weight. As a result, when attacking, the head would suddenly increase its weight and thus strike with far more force than usual, before reverting back to a lightweight but tough striking head. This prevented the user from losing their grip or injuring or straining themselves.

As for the second (or third) sword, they picked one that had a similar length to their long sword, also double-edged and straight.

Using the Wands of Duality, the pair then cast the spell to merge their long swords with their flails, while their shields were merged with the second longsword.

Sammy on the other hand, touched her halberd, which she named “Silent Storm” to the greatsword of her choice. In addition, she also picked a short throwing spear for her ring-weapon.

At the back of the shop, the girls tried out their weapons as it had enough room for them to test it out. Philia had Cecil take out from a long box an ornamental-looking short sword. It looked too beautiful to be used in a fight.

“This…” Philia said “...is the Guardian Sword. Are you familiar with this?”

Sammy nodded “I’ve heard of them.” she said, taking the sword. She touched the sword to the handle of Silent Storm and the ornamental sword glowed and broke down into a cascade of fairy dust-like particles. Sammy then stepped away from Philia and then performed a series of strikes with her halberd.

To Philia’s delight, a pair of flying longswords appeared and lashed out along with her. The blades looked like they were plated in platinum, with gold inscriptions running along its length. Most peculiar about the swords’ designs were the double swept-hilt handguard which rendered it impractical for handling. It looked like a longsword cosplaying as a rapier. That said, the impractical hand guards were a moot point as the weapon was apparently being controlled telekinetically.

As Sammy performed different strikes, the swords would appear afterwards, she showed that they could follow through with her strike, or swing the opposite way, or swing in a completely different path. In one instance, she thrust her halberd forward, and the swords performed a scissor-like cut after her thrust followed by a cross-slash as she pulled back her weapon. Sammy then alternated between the halberd and great sword to great effect. As she switched weapons, the current one faded into fairydust but regardless of which weapon she used, the Guardian Swords would activate.

“It seems.” Sammy said “that my Shield Maiden Pauldrons aren’t violating the conditions after all.”

___

The quintet met up with the rest of the group in one of the courtyards of the Fenrir Guildhall, pausing briefly to confirm the registration of Philia Lovelock as a Daos-folk (people with short bovine horns) artificer and Gwen Hartpenny, her Ciltran maid, Sammy Smith as a warrior and Viel Yulga as new members of the Whales.

“More pretty girls.” Siria, the receptionist remarked. “Ingrid’s at the third courtyard, I’ll be joining up with the defense by the way.”

“You can fight?” Philia asked. The pretty blond elf nodded.

“I used to be an adventurer myself. Solo usually, thought I do join a team occasionally. Siria Bluethorne, I’m a sorceress.” Siria replied.

“If you’re solo, you can join up with us.” Cecil suggested “Ingrid’s still looking for new members. We’re planning to go to Teth-Odin afterwards, if we survive.”

Siria giggled. “How many girls does your tamer’s master want in his party?”

Cecil and Philia laughed, shaking their heads. “Ingrid is the real leader of our team…”

“I’m serious though.” Cecil said “Ingrid is the one who calls the shots in our party. She’s only a pet in paper.”

“I can vouch for that, back on Earth, despite working in a troupe of other Starchasers, she was a lone wolf.” Philia added. Siria looked at her quizzically, not knowing the term.

“It means she prefers to act alone.” Philia explained. “The fact that she has a party means she trusts and loves them.”

Ingrid and the rest of The whales were at the third courtyard of the Fenrir Guild. There were several adventurers milling about, mostly huddled together in groups, discussing strategies and plans for the upcoming battle. More than a few glanced at Ingrid who once again froze herself.

Philia evinced no surprise in seeing Ingrid in that state. She could feel a large amount of energy flowing into the floating marquise-shaped ice formation, and knew that Ingrid did this when preparing for a particularly intense battle. Something Ingrid didn’t get to do on the day Philia was captured by the enemy, but that was the point of conducting an ambush.

Philia cleared her throat to catch the team’s attention as they were conversing with each other on what to do in the upcoming battle.

“Ingrid’s currently gathering energy, she won’t move until the battle starts.” She declared to the team. They looked at her. “I know, I’ve fought alongside her many times. At this point, Cecil will be providing her information. I know I’m not the leader of this group, but considering the weapons that I, Zefir, and Cecil will be using, we plan to go to the city hall tower, the highest point in this town and provide supporting fire. That means shooting at the incoming monsters. Viel, can you help us with setting the recall point?”

Viel’s eyes brightened up. “Yes!” she chirped. “Let me get my Magus Inscriptor!”

Cecil moved over the south-west corner of the room where he had already set aside all the furniture in the way.

After a few moments Viel held up what looked like a fountain pen. Leaning into the portal, she touched the Inscriptor on the floor of Cecil’s room while letting her aura flow into the magic tool. “Spin me around!” she said.

As a slime, Cecil had no problem turning around in a perfect circle, keeping the portal level as he did so. Following Viel’s directions, they made a few circles on the floor, the Inscriptor letting out light sparks that reminded Cecil of welding but nowhere close to being painful on the eyes. Next, came her writing various runes on the edges of the circle.

As Viel worked, Cecil asked her “once you designate a ring-weapon, can you change it later?”

“Very difficult.” she replied without looking up, focusing on her work. “It’s a complicated process. The fact that Philia even tripled its ‘capacity’ while impressive and unprecedented makes it even more difficult to alter later on. All the same, these rings were well-made.”

Philia nodded and smiled smugly.

Cecil thought for a bit. “Will they interfere with any enchanted weapons?”

Viel shook her head “They won’t. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any point in using weapons like these. Most adventurers would usually have some form of enchantmnt in their weapons and most people that own these have some kind of enchanted weapon or two…”

Philia waited and let everyone test their weapon switching. It was instantaneous. She watched as Kinu and Kvaris performed practice swings with their different weapons; swinging at first their flails and then their swords on the return stroke before summoning their corsecas to perform a thrusting attack.

Kvaris grinned confidently. “Thanks Philia, these will work nicely.”

Sammy nodded in approval as well.

“Just keep your heads on your shoulders, you three. Zefir, Viel, Gwen, let’s go. We need to get to that tower and setup our gear now.” Philia said. Zefir didn’t argue and he immediately got up from the ground.

As the Garm girls watched the three of them leave, Kvaris leaned over to Kinu. “Can you trust that Elion-Nosco princess?”

Kinu shook her head. “Not really, but she and Ingrid spoke like long-time friends, also, we don’t have proof she’s actually an Elion-Noscoite much less a princess nobody’s ever seen. For all we know she’s just some runaway aristocrat friend of hers…but that weapon did look potent enough.”

Kvaris hmm’d in assent “Agreed, at the very least it allows Cecil and Zefir to join the fighting.” and with that the two and Sammy began planning together regarding fighting together as a team.

A few minutes later, Siria approached the trio.

“I heard from Cecil that you three might need some sorceress support…”

____

“Got any experience shooting?” Philia asked as they made their way out of the guild hall.

“I started out in the boy scouts.” Zefir replied.

“Where are you from by the way?” Philia asked.

“Sarasota.” came the cat boy’s reply.

“Don’t ask his name.” Cecil said.

“No, please, ask away.” Zefir said.

“Zefir?”

“I meant, don’t ask his previous name.”

“I’m Philia Lovelock, formerly Star Lotus. So what was yours, Zefir?”

“...”

Zefir breathed deeply and smiled broadly.

“Dick Wood.”