Bab 108: 106: A Company of Fools I
"Chase…" Jane said meekly as she stood over me. I was seated at my workbench in the vault of the laboratory. I was trying to etch runes into a metal bangle that I had made and was nearly done. "…Chase come on talk to me. You haven't said a word to me or Iris in two days."
I ignored her and continued etching, mostly to hurry up and finish my engraving but also cause I was a little mad at her and Iris still. After Baset had dismissed the class and the three of us were in the safety of the laboratory Jane and Iris spilled the beans.
Jane was a princess which in hindsight was obvious considering the fact that Iris always called her lady Jane. I had suspected that she was a member of nobility, the daughter of some Duke or Vizar but not a real-life princess. Though what pissed me off about it was the fact that other people knew about it before me.
"Oh by the love of Osiris Chase would you grow up and talk to us already!" Iris snapped. I groaned and set down my tools and looked up at the girls.
"Suuuuure! Why don't we talk about the fact that Jane is the princess of Egypt! Or how about after everything we have been through in the last month and a half you two didn't trust me to not go blabbing that she's a princess even though you already told me what your real names are!" I snapped.
"We've only known you for a month and a half! The fact that Lady is a princess is a closely guarded secret!" Iris snapped back.
"That didn't stop Loki from knowing!"
"That's different Loki is a Paragon. I met him before when he came to the palace." Jane said with a sigh. "I didn't like him then and like him even less now."
"Humph!" I huffed then went back to work etching the runes.
"Chase, knowing that I'm princess Jane Soloman puts your life in constant danger. There are a lot of people who would hurt or kidnap you just to get to me." Jane said.
"Well in case you missed that fact when you both saw the worst day of my life, I'm used to having my life threatened on a daily basis!" I snapped.
"No…we didn't miss that…" Iris said. I looked up from my work and saw Iris and Jane looking away, with guilty looks on their face.
"Chase if it means anything I was going to tell you after the assignment was over." Jane said. Iris snapped her head to look at Jane.
"YOU WHAT?!" Iris bellowed. "You didn't discuss that with me!"
"I was going to do that too." Jane quickly added then turned to Iris. "Honesty thought Iris, has Chase shown any signs of being untrustworthy?"
"No…he hasn't." Iris said Begrudgingly.
"Honestly he's probably the most trustworthy person on campus. But mostly because he's insane."
"Hey I'm right here you know!" I barked as I finished etching the last rune. I put aside my engraving tool and picked up the small pot of rhank that I had made last week and dipped a tiny paintbrush into it and slowly brushed the rhank into the engravings.
"Still I find you trustworthy," Iris said.
"Thanks…" I said in a monotone then glanced over to Jane. "Can you at least tell me why you didn't announce that you're the princess or why nobody here in Egypt seems to know that you're royalty?"
"At this point there's no reason to hide anything anymore." Jane said with a sigh. She pulled out the seat in front of me then sat down. "This might surprise you but the Royal family of Egypt is…not as uniform as one might suspect. Assassinations and takeover attempts are so commonplace it's treated as a game by many members of my family. Around five hundred years ago my ancestor Queen Arastefi Solomon declared that her children's names and faces will only be known upon her death. She had a second palace built and the location was known only to her. The guards and servants never leave that palace. The current palace staff are the descendants of those original servants and guards. Not a one having stepped foot outside the palace grounds their entire life."
"So what's the point of all this?" I asked, looking up from my work to look at Jane.
"Protection. Queen Arastefi hid her children away until her death as she promised and on that day her oldest son was revealed to the kingdom and crowned pharaoh where he did the same with his children. Originally they weren't allowed to leave the palace at all until death but as the centuries went on the rules became laxer. I am only the third generation of Solomon that has been allowed to attend college and only because nobody knows who I am and also because it is Andromeda College." Jane explained.
"And only because I accompany her." Iris added. "My family has protected the royal family for over five hundred years. I've been trained since birth to give my life to protect Lady Jane…I failed in Tolapo village. I won't again."
"You didn't fail Tri-clops." I said placing my brush down as I finish tracing the runes with rhank.
I put the bangle between my hands and started channeling heat attribute mana into them. I slowly warmed up the bangle so that the rhank would react to the heat and bond with the metal. I read in Grandma Lulu's journal that if items are treated this way even if it is broken as long as all the pieces are found and some mana is applied then the pieces will repair themselves to their original shape. Though this only works with enchanted items made of metal.
"Jane is still alive, she was injured, yes but she still lives. As long as you see another day there is hope that you can learn from yesterday." I said. I switched my mana attribute from meat to cool and heard a loud hiss as the bangle rapidly cooled. I opened my hand and inspected the bangle, seeing no warping of the runes. "Hopefully this will help make your job a little easier."
I tossed the bangle to Iris and she caught it in mid-air. While she inspected it I stood up and walked over to one of the safety deposit boxes on the far side of the room and opened it. Inside were two more bangles, I pulled them out and walked back over to the girls where both Jane and Iris were inspecting the bangle I handed her.
It was extremely simple, a single steel ring wide enough to fit over the wrist with the words Sho'lajah artifact company etched into the metal. On the inside ring of the bangle however, I engraved a custom spell just for the three of us.
"This is for me?" Iris asked. I nodded then handed Jane her bangle then slipped on mine.
"I made them to celebrate my new company and as my only two employees you both get one too." I said. Iris frowned and turned to me.
"Since when am I your employee?" She asked. I smirked and pointed to Jane.
"Since Jane publicly acted as my head of logistics!" I exclaimed. "She is now publicly tied to Sho'lajah artifact company, and is known as the woman to talk to about getting enchanted items made! Things you say are rare and extremely valuable. This might put her in a dangerous spot and as her bodyguard you would do whatever it takes to keep her safe…even work for me."
"YOU DICK!" Iris growled. I chuckled and slid my bangle on.
"Don't worry, I care about Jane too. I'm not going to let anything happen to her. Hence the bangle." I said. I channeled mana into the bangle and I started casting an axiom spell sigil two orbs of light formed over the bangle, one red and the other blue. The orbs turned into arrows, one pointing to Jane, the other pointing to Iris, or rather the bangles they were holding.
"What the…?" Iris muttered as she looked at my bangle.
"It's a location spell. All three bangles are enchanted with it. It's designed to show the caster which direction the other two bangles are, that way we get separated we can find our way to each other." I explained.
"It's ingenious…" Iris said slipping the bangle on. She quickly added. "…from a security standpoint at least."
"It'll also serve as good advertisement." Jane said sliding on her bangle as well. "And speaking of advertisement…I'm surprised that word of you starting a new business hasn't gotten around campus already."
"I figured it wouldn't'." I said. I started gathering up my tools and slipped them into my backpack then walked over to the safety deposit boxes and opened the one below the one I got the bangles out of and pulled a few small rings out as well as a couple of pendants and slipped them into the backpack as well. "In order for news of my company to get out what happened with the Morgan would also have to get out. So instead of spreading the news everyone that was in attendance is probably keeping that one to their chest at least until a bunch of new enchanted items starts flooding the market and they no longer could."
"That makes sense." Iris said then narrowed her eyes at me. "But that doesn't help you so what are you planning to do with all that?"
"Start a frenzy…" I said with a devilish smirk. The girls shared a look and then sighed.
"Where are we going?" Iris asked. I arched a brow and looked back at them.
"You're not going to complain about my smile or say I'm going to get you almost killed again?" I asked, just a little disappointed.
"At this point Chase, that's a given with anything involving you." Jane said. "So where are we going and what do you gave planned?"
[They are ready for you Sssssstar Ssssssshaper.] Alpa'nagia said through our link.
[Good. Send them my way.] I replied as I stepped outside of the lab with the girls. It was dark out and thankfully a new moon, which for what I had planned was better. A few lanterns and street lamps were coming on but still plenty of darkness around.
"Well, you know that Alpa'nagia was an ascended sonic viper before I did my body modification stuff on him and changed him right?" I asked.
"Yes….?" Iris replied, the suspicion her voice was so thick it could drown flies.
"And that ascended evos can control base form evos of the same type?"
"Yes, chase that's basic knowledge and why ascended evos are so valuable," Jane said. "But you do remember that sonic vipers were a regional specialty of the Tolapo? There aren't any here in Andromeda."
"No, but there are plenty of evo-vipers…" I said smiling broadly as the sound of a few hundred wings filled the air. The girls and I looked up to see hundreds of evo-vipers flying in a swarm above us.
"How?!" Iris gasped.
"Alpa'nagia, Turns out there's not much of a difference between a sonic viper and an evo-viper. With a little bit of a push, he can control evo-vipers even if they already have a splicer." I replied.
"Ooooh, that's a terrible thought. Chase in control of an army of evos." Iris groaned. I rolled my eyes at her and pulled off my backpack.
"I'm not going to attack anyone! Just use these to promote a little business…" I pulled out some of the rings and necklaces and threw them up in the air. Evo-vipers immediately flew down and snatched them up in their fangs and flew off to random locations across campus. I then grabbed some more and threw them up in the air until I was out of rings and necklaces. Once that was done I snapped my fingers and the rest of the swarm broke up into smaller groups and flew across campus.
"What are you doing?" Iris asked.
"I inscribed all those necklaces with a spell that transmits a message once they are touched by someone without the mana manipulation and conversion spell. The rings are inscribed with random spells, low-level, pretty harmless stuff but each ring and necklace has Sho'lajah artifact company on it." I said pointing to my bangle.
"So you plan to have the evo vipers leave the necklaces and rings in random places all over campus…and once people find out that enchanted items are being left everywhere they are going to want to find them all…especially considering how rare and expensive even weak enchanted items are…." Jane said.
"And once they can't find anymore they'll start wondering what this Sho'lajah artifact company is and start looking for it. I'll say it'll take about one week, two weeks tops before people know about us." I said.
"So what's the plan in the meantime?" Iris asked.
"A lot of hard work. We'll need to come up with a business plan, start sourcing materials, figure out delivery of goods, quality control, pricing, and range of goods…and that's just the start of the stuff on the business side. We'll have to do all that plus our school work, studying my grandmother's journal, great-great grandfather's journal, and Deilopho's books to learn more about runes and spell craft….I'm going to be busy…" I said with a groan.
"Okay, I'm surprised. You seem to have thought about this a lot more than I originally thought." Iris said.
"I will admit that the decision to make a company was an impulsive one….as in I thought of it the moment Baset said all those people would be there. But I'm not going to half-ass it. Especially now that PP over here is attached to it." I said pointing to Jane.
Jane looked oblivious for a few seconds then looked to Iris and then back to me with the most diplomatic smile I've ever seen.
"Chase…were you referring to me when you said PP?" Jane asked. I smiled impishly at Jane and nodded.
"Yeah I decided to give you the nickname pampered princess but that's too long and I'm pretty sure you don't want me calling you princess in public so I shortened it to PP." I explained and grinned as I saw the vein in her forehead start to throb.
Iris started snickering like a child and covered her face.
"PP…." She whispered before bursting into laughter. Jane flashed Iris a warning glare and then turned to me.
"Chase, I know you have a thing for calling people embarrassing and sometimes insulting nicknames but I do not like being called PP." Jane said.
"You think I liked being called Tri-clops in the beginning?" Iris asked only again to receive another glare from Jane. I giggled and started walking down the road from the laboratory.
"Oh come on! PP fits you so well." I said teasingly.
"Don't call me PP!" Jane demanded in a harsher tone.
"Fine!" I groaned then flashed Iris a smirk. "I'll call you little PP instead."
"That's even worse!" Jane yelled. Iris couldn't contain her laughter anymore and fell to the ground and let out a gut-busting laugh.
"Oh come on little PP don't look so down." I teased. Jane growled and started casting an offensive spell sigil, an ice ball formed in her hand and she threw it at me. She just barely missed and froze the ground where it landed solid.
"Call me that again and next time I won't miss!"
"Geez alright! No need to be so aggressive…" I muttered then started channeling volt attribute mana throughout my body. "…Such an angry little PP…"
I took off running just as Jane started shooting icicles at me. Iris laughed hysterically on the ground, taking loud baying breaths and muttering she couldn't breathe. Jane slung offensive spell after offensive spell not caring how much mana she used. A few of them would have hit me if I wasn't channeling mana.
Still, despite my situation I found myself laughing along with Iris as I darted around the laboratory lawn.
"CHASE KINGSTOOOOOOOOON!"
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Hutexa_The_Djinn
Hutexa_The_Djinn World Fact: Since the art of making enchanted items was lost long ago it is assumed that any new enchanted items found in the global market were found in a ancient ruins or tomb. Thanks to this fact there is a booming industry of people who dive into ruins and times to find enchanted items left by ancient splicers.
[HUTEXA_THE_DJINN HERE! A new Saga is here! This is the start of a new journey for Chase and the girls hope you enjoy.]
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone