Rebirth of the Nephilim

Returning early to her allies, Jadis took some time to check with the generals, Wilhelm, and Noll. With the drastic decrease in Demon attacks, the marching column was making better time than had been predicted after the farmland ambush, though thankfully the soldiers were not letting their guards down. The generals, despite whatever conflicts Jadis might have with them privately, were competent leaders who were used to putting their duty first, their personal desires second. Salvius and Ovinius kept their men on a strict regiment, enforcing vigilance and discipline.

With less enemies attacking their flanks, Wilhelm was not kept as busy, though that did not mean that he was idle. Rather than remain defensive, the Hero and his companions roamed further afield, seeking out Demons at a wider range and purging them from the path that lay ahead of the army. Thanks to their efforts, the suffocating smog that the loathsome belgramathr expelled from their sack-like bodies was lessened greatly, meaning that not as much effort had to be put into protecting the masses from the noxious effects of breathing the terrible miasma in. The healers were still kept busy, and Ammy and Sorcha were still working hard to purify the air, but Wilhelm and his fighters’ efforts had a noticeable impact.

Noll, having been designated the de facto leader of all the various mercenary groups, had taken to personally training the men and women who looked up to him. While his demeanor remained ever gruff and prickly, an outside observer could not help but notice the effort he put into guiding the fighters who were struggling. Yes, his words were blunt and his actions sharp, but those that chose to listen rather than be offended showed noticeable improvements in their combat effectiveness.

Both Noll and Wilhelm were doing important work. But fortunately, neither were so busy that they didn’t have time to join Jadis on a little hunt.

Having confirmed their willingness to accompany her on her mission, Jadis returned to the Leviathan, where she found Sabina still hard at work crafting the new enchantment she had thought up overnight. At some point, someone had convinced the focused smith to put a shirt on. Or more likely, someone had forced it over her head while she was still working, as the shirt was all that Sabby had on. That was about expected when Sabina was on one of her enchanting binges, so Jadis paid no special attention to the lack of dress. Which was to say, when Sabina still remained distracted and concentrated on her task after Jadis had tried to get her attention, she used the lack of pants as easy access to her lover and managed to get her focus moved to her, with the only cost being a few minutes and a well-used tongue.

“I think I can make that,” Sabina panted as Syd lowered the half-elf’s foot from where it had been perched on her shoulder. “If I can get Tiernan’s help, we can probably make something fairly quickly, if we have the right materials. I don’t think we do, though, unless Tiernan has some supplies that I don’t know about, which he probably does have supplies I don’t know about, but I can’t really know that they’re the right supplies that we need since I don’t know about them.”

“What would you need?” Syd asked as she took the panties that Maeve passed to her and pulled them up Sabina’s legs for her.

“Dragon wort,” she answered absently, her mind already turning on the idea that Jadis had given her. “Lots of dragon’s wort. It’s a one-time enchantment, so minimal eleria, but the right kind of host material will be needed otherwise the spell will fail before the enchantment fully completes. Dragon wort, steel plates, lots of bee’s wax, no tallow because that’ll react badly, dryad’s heart, pine resin, probably coal but maybe charcoal should work too, a bag of sulfur—”

“Hold on, did you say Dryad’s heart?”

“Hm? Oh, yes,” Sabina nodded vigorously. “I’ll need something to keep the more volatile elements balanced so that it doesn’t all go off before you want it to. Dryad’s heart should be able to do that.”

While Sabina continued to rattle off her list of ingredients to the self she had crouched in front of her, Jay stepped away from the makeshift workshop and approached the central hub of the buzzer network that the eccentric smith had crafted. Meli was manning the device since Maeve was occupied, so Jay addressed her concerns with her.

“Dryad’s heart is a plant,” Meli explained. “It has a bright red flower with heart-shaped petals. It looks nothing like the actual heart of a Dryad, since we do not have blood, but I do not think my people were consulted when the common name was given to the flower.”

“Any idea where we can get it?” Jay asked, her concerns having been suitably allayed.

“My family grove will have it. The flower is not uncommon.”

With a list of needed ingredients in hand, Jadis made sure to fill everyone else in on the details of the plan before flying out alone. With her incredible speed, she was able to cover the distance to Soteria’s grove in very little time, relatively speaking. It felt like it took more time to fill Meli’s family in on the progress of the march and everything that had happened since her last visit than it did the actual flight, though realistically that wasn’t true. Soon enough, Jadis had gathered what she needed from the Dryads and, after giving them all her thanks and passing on Meli’s love, she departed for Thracina.

It took even more time to get the steel plates and other items from the human city than it had taken to get ingredients from the Dryads, mostly due to the senators who tracked her down to pump her for information on the war effort, but she eventually got the remainder of what she needed and was able to rendezvous with the army shortly after sunset. Delivering the complete list of requested materials, Jadis found that a fully dressed Sabina already had Tiernan with her in her workshop, and the two were busy analyzing four flat copper discs that were laid out on her workbench.

“What are those?” Jay asked as she set a crate of steel plates down.

“The result of Sabina’s genius,” Tiernan said distractedly as he carefully examined one of the discs with a critical eye. “Simply one more invention on an ever-growing list of revolutionary ideas.”

“It’s the enchantment I thought of last night while we were having sex,” Sabina explained with her usual level of excited energy. “I don’t know which orgasm it was, but during one of them I was hit with a bolt of inspiration! Then I had another orgasm and I forgot about it, but it came back a little while later when we were all done for the night! I don’t know if it was because of the way Kerr kept fucking Eir or if it was because of all of Alex’s tentacles distracting me but—”

“Not that I don’t enjoy hearing about beautiful women and their climaxes,” the Arch Wizard interrupted with a suppressed smile, “but perhaps you should focus on explaining what the enchantment does, rather than what inspired you?”

“Oh, right! Anyway, the enchantment idea I had was a variation on the vision helmet I made, except not for helmets! I think Aila is really going to like it! Actually, we should put it in place right now, that way you can see what it does and she can, too! It won’t take more than a few minutes!”

Picking the copper plates up, Sabina rushed to the cockpit of the airship where Aila was sitting at the controls. Then she ran back to her workshop to grab a handful of nails and a hammer. But once she had all the tools she needed, Sabina got right to work installing the copper discs.

Each one was approximately eight inches in diameter, and about one inch thick. Four tabs had been placed around the perimeter of the disc, fitted with holes that would allow a nail through, so that the device could be secured to a flat surface. There was nothing on the front of the copper plate, but the underside of the enchanted object had a rune mark on it that Jadis vaguely recognized as being one of the many she had seen while Sabina had been crafting her vision helmet. Jadis had no doubt that a far more complex system of enchantments lay within the copper shell.

With hammer in hand, Sabina nailed each of the four discs into place around the four corners of the front windshield of the Leviathan’s cockpit. Once all had been properly secured, she motioned for Aila to touch each one.

“Fill up their magic completely,” Sabina said as the redhead focused her magic power into the discs. “They can’t hold too much, but I’m pretty sure they should last for four hours of continual use before needing to be recharged again. Hopefully I can make a better version in the future that’ll last longer, but I didn’t want to use up too much of my eleria supply when I’m working on an airship.”

“Alright,” Aila said as she took her finger off the last one. “They’re charged. That took about one hundred and twenty points. Now what?”

“Wave your hand like this and—ah! There we go!”

A sudden dull flash of light caused everyone to jump as Sabina’s hand moved in front of the windshield. Across the glass a film of faintly shining light appeared, translucent and almost invisible, yet definitely there. As the others watched, Sabina motioned towards the window and, as smoothly as any touchscreen device Jadis had ever seen, the image of the dark landscape ahead of them zoomed in to a one hundred percent increase in magnification.

“You already figured out how to make a screen version of the vision helmet?” Jay asked in shock. “That’s fucking amazing, Sabina!”

“It was actually easier to make than the helmet,” the smith admitted with a bashful grin. “The components didn’t have to be as small to fit inside of a helmet. The trick was getting them to all connect together when they aren’t touching. I would have had to make a big metal square to fit over the windshield otherwise, for the eleria channels, but I realized that I could do sort of the same thing I did with the magi-buzzers so that they can communicate their enchantments with each other, except on a smaller scale. It’s not perfect, but I think I can make it better with enough time!”

“It’s wonderful,” Jay said as she lifted Sabina into a hug and kissed her. “You’re absolutely brilliant, Sabby.”

“Thanks!” the smith chirped happily as she leaned her head against Jay’s armored shoulder. “Do you want me to start working on your idea now, or should I tell you about the level I got from making the discs?”

Jay froze, then tilted her head back so she could look Sabina in the eyes.

“You leveled again?”

“Yeah!”

“Sheesh,” Maeve muttered from the back of the cabin. “Not sure you should even bother taking her out to hunt Demons at this rate…”

As Sabina and Tiernan got to work on crafting the hastily designed enchantment that Jadis had requested for her nighttime mission, the half-elf explained where she had put the points from her most recent levels. From her leveling trip with Jadis the day before, and the level she had just gained from creating an interactive vision enhancement screen, Sabina had gained an even-numbered level in both her primary and secondary classes. That meant she had four points to spend, which she had put into her Focus. She considered it the best investment for her at the moment, since she was using her magic power more and more often to power enchantments that she was crafting for testing purposes.

Sabina Sarto

Race: Human / Elf Hybrid

Primary Class: Passionate Smith (32)

Secondary Class: Enchanter Smith of the Reborn (24)

Tertiary Class: None

Combined Level Rating: 56

Health: 600/600

Magic: 260/260

Attributes

Strength: 25

Dexterity: 15

Agility: 15

Vitality: 15

Fortitude: 10

Endurance: 30

Arcane: 585

Divine: 56

Eldritch: 0

Focus: 26

Resilience: 10

Will: 20

   With all those levels in her enchanter class, it was easy to forget that her Passionate Smith class had gotten all the way up to level thirty-two. Innovations in the world of magical enchantments were one thing, but Sabina was still actively crafting with all manner of advanced smithing techniques while riding aboard a moving airship. That fact had to be doing something for her experience gain.

“It’s called Enduring Hands,” Sabina explained to Tiernan as the two hammered together on one of the steel plates that Jadis had retrieved from Thracina. “My father has the same skill, so I knew it was a great one for me right away. ‘Your hands suffer less from the duress and fatigue caused by continual crafting. Accidents that would cause minor damage no longer harm your hands and arms, and your Fortitude and Resilience are doubled against the effects of a forge’s fire.’ Super useful for smiths. I got it later than my dad, but I still got it, so I’m happy. I’ve heard of some smiths who had really high Fortitude were able to stick their hands into a forge and pull the white-hot metal right out, no tongs needed! I definitely can’t do that since my Fortitude is only ten, but maybe someday I’ll get some skills and put some points into that attribute enough that I’ll be able to work the hot metal barehanded! That would be kind of fun!”

Pausing in her work, Sabina tilted her head to one side as a stray thought obviously struck her.

“Actually, since Bridget can turn into a fire person now, I wonder if she can hold hot metal in her hand for me? Does fire from other sources hurt her? Is her body hot enough to heat metal on her own? I mean, if we put a metal rod in her mouth, or maybe her butt it doesn’t interfere with her breathing, could we heat it up enough to—”

“Sabina, my dear,” the gnome waved a hand in front of her face. “This is still going to take at least an hour, maybe two, before its finished. And then I will be accompanying Wilhelm on his part of Jadis’ daring mission. As I would very much like to get this done so that I may find some sleep sometime in the next day or so, can we speak of shoving iron rods up your compatriot’s ass another time?”

“You’re right,” Sabina nodded as she adjusted her chisel to a new position. “That’s an experiment for later.”

As the two got back to work, Jay quietly left the Leviathan so that she could deliver a dire warning to her orcish lover. The inquisitive mind was a wonderful thing, but some questions were better left unanswered. For poor Bridget’s sake, if no one else.