Chapter Eighty-Two Shattered (Patreon)

Phillip settled into her armor. It had required some assistance and now she was swimming in the large set of fully enchanted plate-mail armor. Technically she could have triggered the resize enchantment earlier, but she wanted to do it all at once. Perhaps just a bit of theater.

With a smile, not that anyone saw it, she triggered the enchantment. Proper pants here we come!

Her armor shimmered in her view, folding and refolding. When suddenly she got a notification. One that left her a little uncertain about the outcome.

Hey Phillip. I saw what Tina did. Actually I knew it was going to happen. Sorry about my poor warning, but I did tell you that the Mischief would cause you pain. Now recall that I also promised that this would help you find your true love. So here is a gift from me. I’ve blessed your armor, making it fitting for the girl you are. Oh and do consider visiting a shrine soon, we have something important to talk about. Just finish my quest for you first.

Congratulations!
Your armor set has been blessed by the goddess Timura
Form change! Plate Mail Standard-> Mystic Princess Knight
Material change! Mythril-Titanium Steel Alloy -> Divine Adamantium-Neutronium-Mythril alloy
Updated Effects:
Protects the wearer from any and all attacks with a protective barrier. Equal in strength to the divine alloy the armor is made of.
Weightless: The armor is blessed with weight nullification, making it as light as a feather.
Enhanced Form: The wearer always looks like a divine fairy on the battlefield.
Fairy’s Grace: Steps as light as a feather and movement unhindered allow for incredible footwork and grace during battle. The wearer will move with the enchanting grace of a fairy.
Divine shield: Channel mana into the armor to project a powerful barrier. Strength is dependent on the mana used. Gain one thousand shields per mana spent with the same resilience as your armor.
Adaptive Shaping: This armor will always fit you, changing shape with you to ensure the perfect fit.
Soulbound: This armor has been soul bound to Phillip Greybeard.

She could still see the armor reshaping, but she was suddenly feeling uncertain about things. Phillip had seen fairies in battle before and she couldn’t ever recall seeing one wear pants. Before she could even worry more about the result unseen, another set of boxes appeared in her vision.

New Quest!

I know you aren’t quite sure about being a girl right now, but your window for true love is now. Enter the dungeon and speak with the avatar of the dungeon. Perhaps you will meet your true love? Oh and don’t kill any of the demons. This will also be a good opportunity to learn your newly changed body at little risk to yourself and don’t worry about failure. The dungeon’s curse won’t affect you.
Quest Difficulty: E Time Limit: 25 hours

Rewards:
Your true love and the start of your dreams

Failure:
A childless life without meaning

Phillip frowned. Enter the dungeon? With a time limit like that she would not have any time to practice. How was she supposed to fight when she was so much smaller? She sighed, well obviously she would have to rely on her spells. Fix that mana problem as well, or at least try.

Her line of thought broke as she heard gasps and realized her armor had finished reshaping itself. Her gaze turned to the mirror. Feelings surged through her. She was doomed, very doomed and as she feared her hopes for pants were shattered. Gone was the full body plate armor she had before. She didn’t have a helmet anymore, but a tiara instead. Her breastplate had shrunk and reshaped into a gorgeous silver top with blue highlights. It wrapped around her breasts perfectly. It covered her shoulders as well, but stopped just below her breasts. Leaving her belly completely bare. Her gauntlets had reshaped into a set of silver gloves. Her plate-mail pants were gone. In their place was a skirt of dwarven metal cloth that ended about halfway down her thighs. It had the same silver and blue color scheme as her top. Her boots and greaves had reshaped as well. Now, in place of the greaves, she had long metal cloth socks that stopped just above her knees. At least her boots still looked like boots. The boots were now silver with blue highlights, while the socks were pure silver.

The overall effect made her look like some kind of princess. Except she did have a few questions. Why was her belly so prominently exposed?

She turned red a moment later when someone lifted her skirt. Before she could react, Carol was commenting, “Might be easier to just design a full new set, not that you’ll need much more than a padded bra and some panties. The new form suits you very well.” she rubbed the edge of the skirt, “This feels like Dwarven Metal cloth. Wasn’t expecting that.”

She wasn’t either, but she wasn’t expecting her armor to be literally blessed either. Phillip sighed and tried to collect herself. While Melisa circled around her, after a moment she said, “By the gods you're utterly adorable in that! Like some kind of princess playing a magical knight!”

Phillip turned bright red. She was doomed! Doomed! Why did Timura have to betray her as well!? Unfortunately, her nightmare wasn’t quite over as Carol’s next words indicated, “Hmm, let’s get over to the shop. I can get you some better clothes done there and you are presentable now.”

Nelli settled on the floor while Master took care of today’s exam for 53. The girl was progressing nicely according to Master. Nelli had found her to be increasingly cooperative with the treatment plan. In addition to that, she was rather unmotivated. If not pushed she would simply lie somewhere doing nothing. Lack of energy was apparently a common symptom of her illness. Her coughing was much more violent lately as well, she had been coughing up black blood every time it happened lately.

Nearby Master commented, “Hmm, much cooler than you have been lately.”

53’s expression changed, “Lower? Does that mean I won’t need to be chilled?”

Master chuckled, “Not quite, the fever breaking is interesting, but we still need to keep you cool. Don’t want it coming back.”

The girl slumped a little, but didn’t protest. Even as the hope left her eyes. Nelli didn’t really understand why. He was being so kind to her, making sure she was well taken care of. Her illness was progressing just like Master wanted as well. 53 was getting so much personal attention too, most girls her age weren’t worth that. Not only that, but Master had prepared a few resurrection spells just for her. Something she knew wasn’t cheap. Yet he was ready to revive her when she died. In fact her dying was part of the goal. Master had explained how important that was. 53’s illness was helping him learn what they could take, which would in turn help him better with raising the other girls. Not only that, but it would better help him with treatments for when they get sick.

Curious about her lack of fever, “So what does that mean in regard to her illness?”

Master smiled, “Oh? That? Her blood is completely contaminated at this point, from what I can tell the black cells have started taking over her immune functions. Her fever going down is due to her losing her ability to fight it. Based on what I am seeing, my initial conclusion that the illness would kill her might be in doubt, though. Still a good chance of her dying, we will see.”

“It is?”

He nodded, “Yep.” he walked over and displayed something. She figured it had something to do with 53’s body, but she wasn’t sure what. “The way the black cells were attacking her started to change when we lowered the pod to near freezing. I plan to drop it below freezing from now on to see if I am right.”

“Change? In what way?”

“They’ve started to fuse to her normal tissues and fortify them. In most cases, they are still attacking her brain, in fact they seem to have become more aggressive in attacking her brain. Some of the black cells have started to mutate as well. What tests I have done indicate this is a response to the low temperatures. I already knew the black cells preferred the cold, but they seem to really thrive in it. Most interestingly is how the mutated cells are interacting with her biology, taking over vital functions. For example, while her lung tissue is continuing to break down, a new organ is forming in its place. Composed entirely of mutated black cell tissue. On a different note, a new organ is also forming in her belly, which I believe is a second heart.”

“It’s changing her? To what end?”

“Not sure yet, but it’s a very interesting result. I would guess most subjects would die before reaching this stage or recover from it. That would explain the lack of notes on this I found among the local healers on the subject of this illness. Likely due to their bodies actually being allowed to effectively fight. Since we didn’t let 53 fight it, the illness is starting to reach its terminal end phase. The next few hours are going to determine whether she lives or dies. If she does die, I’ll revive her as this is very fascinating. Keeping that in mind, I no longer need you to take her back to her pod. I’ll set up a pod here in the workshop so that I can keep a personal eye on her progress. Since you now have time, why don’t you go check on 15?”

Nelli nodded, she had been planning on doing that after getting 53 back to her pod. Since she suddenly had more time, she would do that and check on the others. It had been a couple of days since she had checked them and a couple of them were sick. Nelli figured she would check on how they were doing and now that she was thinking about them, it was almost time to give the report on them being sick. The sick infant’s found report was scheduled for tomorrow, but she would only report them if they were still sick.

Phillip stepped out of the shop. Happy to finally be away. She was wearing her armor again, but that was mainly due to her plan to hit the dungeon today. After stopping by the guild and inquiring about suspicious figures near her tent. Speaking of her tent that was her first stop, she had a bag full of dresses and underwear to deliver. She shuddered, glancing up at the sky, she noted it was well past noon. They had spent far too long in the tailor’s shop. Far too many dresses, and skirts. Not one item had included a proper pair of pants, either.

As neither Carol nor Melisa wanted to let her wear pants. Sadly Carol was also the only tailor with a shop in the whole town right now. Which meant Phillip was going to have trouble finding pants. In town at least. Hopefully it wasn’t going to be that much of an issue and not for too much longer. She was going to find those culprits and between the dungeon and the guild there was a good chance of finding a lead.

With that in mind, and a bit of hope in her heart she hurried away from the shop. Phillip certainly wasn’t going to stick around. That was asking for trouble. She was doomed enough as it was. That nightmare had lasted long enough and she was going to avoid a repeat.