Kapitel 29: CHAPTER 29- ARMORY
Alaster meditated till his Mana was full, and then offered all of it. He did so until there was five hundred Mana offered. It only took him eleven minutes to recover his Mana. So, a little more than half an hour later and five hundred Mana was offered.
Alaster would have offered more, and he wanted to, but when five hundred Mana was offered, the skeleton's skull began to vibrate, like it was on the verge of exploding.
'There must be a limit of some kind, but how do I increase it?'
However, he did not allow himself to ponder it too deeply. He had other things to worry about.
The young man finalized his selection. Immediately, the skull stopped vibrating and the sickly green fog of his Mana wrapped around it. The fog floated there for a moment before it began to seep into the bone of the skull.
As the last wisps disappeared, the Skeleton seized, as if every muscle in its body tightened, yet it had no muscle. A moment passed and it seemed to be released. It fell to a knee and bowed its head.
"Can you understand my words?" Alaster whispered, not wishing to wake Astrid.
The Skeleton raised its head and nodded.
"Can you speak?"
It shook its head.
"What is four plus five?"
It held up nine fingers, causing Alaster to smirk.
"What is two times four?"
The Skeleton dropped its hands and hung its head.
"Hmm. Don't know huh. The answer is eight, by the way." Alaster sat down and leaned against the bone wall, the chill immediately beginning to seep into him, even through the thick fur around his shoulders.
"Intelligent, but not a genius." He whispered to himself, "Stand straight."
The Skeleton quickly and silently moved to obey.
"Do you know how to use a sword?"
It nodded.
"As anything more than a club?"
It shook its head and Alaster sighed.
"I'll teach you later. For now, I am going to make you some armor. Stand still."
Alaster pulled out a pile of Goblin Bones and began to work.
He worked on the helmet first, as it was the armor he was most familiar with making. However, the standard T faced Barbute, which is what the other helmets were, would not work for the Blackguard Skeleton. Alaster wanted the Skeleton to be able to walk through the city with him, without being recognized as a Skeleton.
As it was currently, it was obvious that it was not a human. Disregarding the fact that it was not alive and was only bone, none of the bones were where they should be, if it was a human skeleton. But it did have the general shape and size. So, Alaster hoped that once it was equipped in all bone armor, that it could be disguised as a human in armor.
So, Alaster needed a helmet that would conceal it as a Skeleton, without blocking its vision. Alaster had already done numerous experiments with the first few Skeletons and knew that the green ball of Mana in their eye sockets, did function as eyes. As such, they couldn't be blocked, at least not without blinding the Skeleton.
The helmet needed to cover everything except the eyes, and even then, the openings would be small enough that they couldn't see into them. Alaster doubted it would be possible. The eyes of the Skeletons glowed. Dimly enough that in the day, it was nearly impossible to see without focusing on it. But at night, it would be plenty obvious. However, that in itself wouldn't be much of an issue. Alaster was not planning on walking through the town during the night.
He grinned to himself as he got to work. There was always something satisfying about thinking through a problem and ending up with a creation you made as a result of it. Luckily, the Undead didn't need to breathe. Which simplified the creation of the helmet.
Alaster molded the bone into the desired shape and began to cleanse and strengthen it. Most living creatures needed to protect their heads. It was where the brain was. Any damage to the head could be disastrous, as Alaster's fight with the Bugbear displayed. While the Skeleton was not living, its 'mind' seemed to still reside in the skull. So, Alaster created the helmet as well as he could. By the time he finished, he was running out of Mana, but it was done.
The helmet itself was another Barbute variant. A Visored Barbute. Basically, just a Barbute with a face covering. Typically, the face would be able to be lifted, allowing the wearer greater visibility and ease of breath. But as the Skeleton didn't need to breathe, Alaster didn't bother creating the hinges. It was all one solid piece.
It was quite heavy too, comparable in weight to if it was made of steel, though Alaster strongly doubted it was as strong. It wouldn't bend, either. It would either weather the blows, or it would shatter. Alaster had imbued enough Mana into it, that the material took on a gray color. He hoped that it would pass for standard iron by any passerby.
Satisfied with his creation, Alaster stood up and reached up to put it on the Skeleton. As he had previously ordered, the Skeleton stood still and allowed him to put it on. It was a good fit, but Alaster molded it to become a perfect fit. But even that was not enough.
Alaster added some more bone from underneath and molded the helmet onto the Skeleton's skull. It was not connected as one piece, but instead locked together, with parts of the helmet wrapping around parts of the skull. Such a thing would have been impossible for a living creature, but for a Skeleton, it was perfect. It ensured that the helmet would not accidentally fall off.
Alaster took a step back and admired his work. The helmet was perfect. It completely covered the skull, hiding that it was dead. Without any muscle or skin in the way, there was more space between the inside of the helmet and the eyes, which only further decreased the chances of anyone seeing the green fog of the orbs.
The Skeleton stood a little taller than Alaster, prompting the young man to stretch up to reach eye level. Yet, even then, in the light of the fire, it was very difficult to see the glowing eyes. Alaster suspected that in the even brighter light of the sun, it would be nigh impossible.
"On a scale of one to ten, how badly does this helmet block your vision?" Alaster whispered to the Skeleton.
The Skeleton turned its head from side to side, looked up and down, and even tilted its head. Within a moment, it held up three bony fingers.
'Seven out of ten visibility? Damn I'm good.'
Alaster wanted to immediately get to work on the chest piece, but a sudden pulse of pain from his headache reminded him that it was the middle of the night, and that he wanted to be awake early. His Undead might not need to sleep, but he did.
'Blackguard, nod if you can hear me.' Alaster thought, and it nodded, 'Good. Night Child, go outside and climb to the roof of one of the buildings. You will remain out of sight and quiet but will not allow anyone or anything to enter the Shelter. Go.'
The Night Child immediately sprinted out of the shelter, the only sound being its feet scraping against the bone floor.
'Blackguard, you will stay inside the shelter and not allow anyone or anything to harm either I or the girl,' Alaster pointed to the sleeping Astrid, 'You will keep the fire small, in the bowl, and alive during the night. Do you know how to do that?' It shook its head.
Ten minutes later and after demonstrating numerous times, Alaster finally taught the Skeleton what he wanted to be done. Even then, he was certain the Skeleton didn't actually understand, but it did know the actions and when to use those actions.
'I am going to sleep. Wake me if there is a threat.'
The Skeleton nodded, but Alaster didn't see it as he yawned and wrapped himself tighter in his furs and closed his eyes.
It felt like he had just closed his eyes when he was violently shaken awake.
"What?" He grumbled.
"Alaster! What is this thing?"
Alaster reluctantly opened his eyes to see Astrid knelt beside him, "What?"
"That!" She pointed to the Blackguard, who at the moment was stoking the fire and adding another stick to it. Just as before, it was clearly just repeating the motions it had been shown, and not understanding the reason behind them.
"One of my minions." Alaster said, thinking it good enough and closing his eyes again.
"So now you have three!" Astrid exclaimed, shaking him in her excitement.
Alaster grumbled to himself as he sat up, understanding that she was too excited to let him sleep.
"No, I don't have three. That was one of the Night Children, but after yesterday with the Goblin Lord, I decided I needed something that is focused on defense and sustained battle." Alaster explained, scratching his arm.
"I thought I was your defense. Am I not good enough?"
Alaster looked at her, seeing that her head was low.
"You are a great defender. I would be dead if you hadn't protected me from those Goblins at the end. But you are still a living thing. That isn't," Alaster attempted to cheer her up, pointing to the Blackguard that had returned to standing and looked at them. "It will defend until it is killed again. I could have it hold back something while we run away and if it dies, that is just some time I have to spend to rebuild it. If you die, that's that."
"I thought you didn't want anyone to know you are a Summoner Type?"
"I don't. See the helmet? I am going to give it an entire set of armor so no one will notice that it is an Undead."
Alaster was quite proud of the helmet. Its smooth faceplate, angled slightly in the middle and gave the impression of an emotionless warrior. Which it was, as it was incapable of emotion. Alaster had quickly ascertained that. Despite it now having intelligence, even as simple as it was, it was still incapable of emotion.
"But how will you do the joints, you can't make the bone flexible. Can you?"
"No. Though it would make things a lot easier if I could. No, I was thinking of using some of the scraps of fur I took from the Goblins. Most of it is worthless, as rotted and full of holes, as they are. But there should be enough clean parts to put in between. If not, I'll think of something else."
"Is that what you're going to do today? I thought we were going exploring?"
"Yeah. I want the Blackguard outfitted entirely. I don't want to risk anything."
He didn't want to say it to her, but he was fairly certain that the Blackguard would be a much better shield than her. It was not as strong as she was, or if it was, it soon wouldn't be. But while living people could be distracted or slowed by thought, the Blackguard wouldn't be. It would see the world around it as just potential threats to its master or something to kill. It wouldn't hesitate to stand in between a threat and its master.
Astrid could grow in strength much easier than it could, as it required Alaster to become better with his [Bone Crafting] and [Skeleton Creation] abilities.
"If you turned one of the Night Kids into this, where is the other one?"
Alaster sighed, "Night Children. And it is keeping watch outside. It's hidden itself." Alaster admitted that he was horrible at naming things, but he actually liked the sound of Night Child, so he kind of took offense to Astrid saying the name wrong.
"I'm going to get to work on the chest piece now." Alaster said, pulling out another pile of Goblin Bone.
Despite wiping out nearly an entire Tribe and collecting their bones, Alaster would soon run out of bones. Condensing bone to make it strong enough to be considered armor took a lot of material. Alaster looked at his supply in his ring and suspected that he would have enough for a full suit of armor for the Black Knight, but not enough for a weapon or shield.
Alaster was not even sure what weapon he could make for the Blackguard. Bone was prone to shatter. Alaster knew that he would be constantly repairing the Guard's shield. But weapons also took a lot of blunt force. The Night Children's blades only worked because they were against weak flesh and was only used with forward attacks.
Alaster considered making a spear for the Blackguard, but he couldn't trust the shaft not to shatter. As Alaster made the chest piece, he was forced to admit to himself that he simply did not have the skill to make a weapon strong enough to be used by the Blackguard. As it was, he only had the sword from the Siphas family, and the Hatchet Colius forgot about.
Alaster was not about to give the sword to the Blackguard, that he fully imagined being expendable. And the hatchet was being used by Astrid. She had already told him that her Class seemed to use spears. But the hatchet was all they had.
The young Death Mage could make basic and crude armor, but they needed actual weapons. The shield Alaster had gotten from Iris, the Onigas City Lord's daughter, was still too heavy for any of them to use in actual combat. Even the Blackguard struggled to effectively wield it.
That did not surprise Alaster. After all, the shield was designed by an Expert, most likely for an Expert. Even Mage Type Expert Classes would have significantly more STR than a Warrior Type Novice. So for now, the shield was useless to them.
They needed actual weapons. For them, they needed to either get them from monsters similar to Goblins or buy them. And for that, they needed money. Of which they had none. Luckily, most Cities were well aware of the need for new Novices to grow stronger, so they decided to make an economy off it by offering rewards for certain monster kills or materials brought back.
Unfortunately, that required leaving the safety of the city walls. Something Alaster was not very opposed to doing, as he had grown up without large stone walls all around him. However, he was also fairly certain that the Goblin Lord was watching the city, just waiting for a chance to kill them.
Goblins were cowardly by nature, even the strongest of them. But they were also vengeful. Alaster had no doubt that the Goblin Lord would hunt them down. So, Alaster wanted to return the favor.
Alaster could not help but wonder who would succeed.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
Silver_Realm
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