I folded my hands together. “Best thing you can do to thank me? Use these. Both within the tests and outside them. And if they don’t work the way you want them to? Let me know. I can make adjustments, or hand the item to someone else and make you something different.”
I took out a plain copper bracelet and passed it over to Marissa. “If it makes you feel any better, this was the simplest item of the bunch. One of my favorites, though.”
She accepted the bracelet, turning it over in her hands. “What’s it do?”
“If it detects you sending mana through your arm, it sends more. It’s a standard design for Guardians, nothing fancy. Won’t interfere with your abilities — it just makes them stronger.”
Marissa snapped the bracelet on, grinning. “Means a lot that you ‘membered what I wanted. Can’t wait to hit something and see how these work.”
“Figured you would like them.” More digging through my bag before I produced a leather glove. “Ah, Sera. Yours.” I tossed it to her.
She caught it with narrowed eyes. “This is a House Cadence symbol.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. I kind of had that made for you.” I winked at her.
She took a deep breath. “I…don’t think I’m—”
“I never gave you a proper gift to welcome you into the family. But you’re family, and it’s about time I started treating you that way.”
She slipped off the blank glove she’d been wearing, trying the new one on. “It’s…a little big.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t know your exact size, so I had to guess. You’ll grow into it.”
“I’m seventeen, Corin. I don’t think my hands are growing that much more.”
I waved a hand dismissively. “We can get it tailored. That’s not the enchanted part.”
More digging through the bag, until I produced a metal bracer, which I passed to Sera. “I was going to make you a demi-gauntlet like mine, until I realized that would cover the house symbol. You should be able to strap this over the glove without a problem.”
“This what we talked about before?” She inspected the runes on the surface, then started strapping it on over the glove.
“Yup. See the bottom rune? The one that looks kind of like a guy with horns?”
“That looks nothing like a guy with horns, Corin.”
“Okay, but you see what I mean. I’m not an artist.”
“Thank the goddess for that small kindness.”
I raised three fingers in a rude gesture. “Anyway, if you want to use the bracer, touch that with your other hand and channel just a little bit of mana into it. Like what you’d do with a dueling cane. That primes it, and it’ll use the full mana reserve next time you try to summon something.”
She nodded. “How much did you manage to store in there?”
“One hundred and twenty mana.”
Sera blinked rapidly. “I didn’t think you even had that much.”
I lifted my necklace, showing off the “46/46” displayed on it. I’d gotten much stronger over the last three weeks of rapidly making items, but still nowhere near the mana held in that device. “I don’t. I cheated — there are four separate storage runes in there, each with 30 mana in them.”
“That’s still more than I thought you could do in one session.”
I tapped the necklace to my right hand, changing the display to “58/58”. “I couldn’t charge that much if it was mental mana, but the mana stored in those is gray. I charged them from my hand.”
Jin gave me a quizzical look. “Why do you have more mana in your hand than your attunement?”
Oh, right, I hadn’t told everyone about that.
“Paralyzing fear. Nothing for you to worry about.” I tapped the necklace to my forehead again, setting it back to monitor my mind. I got nervous any time it wasn’t actively doing that.
Jin raised a hand to his lips, looking like he wanted to say something more, but he remained silent.
Then Sera hugged me. “Thanks, Corin.”
Humancontacttoomuch.
I patted her awkwardly on the back, suppressing a shudder. It’s just Sera, I told myself. Hugging Sera is fine. She’s safe. You’re safe.
Comforting her when she was injured had been easier because I had initiated it myself. I still wasn’t good at handling other people touching me. It was easier with Sera than anyone else, but she’d surprised me. I probably would have panicked less if I had a chance to brace myself.
“Uh, you’re welcome. Thanks. Hope you like it.”
She released me a moment later, to my great relief.
Patrick looked at me expectantly.
I strongly considered pretending I didn’t get him anything, but it was too much effort. “And, of course, I saved the best for last.”
I tossed Patrick the ring, a House Cadence symbol on it.
Signet rings weren’t common in Valia. Gloves usually served the purpose of marking a noble house here. Rings were more common up in Dalenos, where they tended to be more traditional.
If we’d been down in Edria, I’m pretty sure my gesture would have been considered a proposal for marriage.
Heh.
Anyway, the ring itself wasn’t a big deal like giving him a glove would be, but it was still a symbol of the house, which made it a good gift.
And, it was metal set with a gem, which made it great for enchanting.
“Nice!” He slipped it on his pointer finger immediately. Fortunately, it looked like a good fit. I’d assumed correctly that he’d wear a ring about the same size as I did. “What’s it do?”
“It’s similar to what I made Sera and Marissa. It enhances your spells, but more like Marissa’s. It puts a bit of extra mana into every spell, rather than using it all at once like Sera’s. Also, it only works for lightning. Apparently, gray mana works for enhancing lightning, but it wouldn’t help other elemental spells.”
Patrick grinned wide. “Lightning’s the best, anyway.”
“Excellent. So, now that I’m bankrupt, let’s get to the actual planning session.”
We spent the next couple hours talking strategy and going over everyone’s new capabilities. We’d all been talking pretty frequently over the last ten weeks, so nothing was particularly surprising.
Sera still had access to the creatures she’d bound during the Survival Match, but she didn’t have enough mana to summon the wyvern. That was fine, as far as I was concerned. The ogre and karvensi were more than good enough. The karvensi had been considerably weaker than the wyvern in terms of raw power, but its intelligence and flexibility had made it just as effective, if not more so.
Patrick had been training with Meltlake constantly, but he’d shown a stronger affinity for lightning than her traditional fire spells. Fortunately, Meltlake was still capable of teaching those, and he’d picked up a couple noteworthy spells — a lightning storm that would periodically rain bolts on enemies, a weapon electrification spell, and a chain lightning spell that would jump between enemy targets.
Marissa had spent the vast majority of her time developing her shroud. When I briefly turned my attunement on, I was shocked by the intensity of it. Her shroud was already vastly stronger than the phoenix sigils I’d made us, and she seemed to be maintaining it without any effort. I wondered just how much damage it could deflect and what else she could do with it.