Unruly Summon Chapter 36: Equipment (Patreon)

"This isn't working," said Tony.

"No, it's too soon to give up," said Glenda. "We've got to make this work."

"A spell of this magnitude was never going to be learnt in a single day," said Tony reassuringly. "It's time to return to Odimere."

"I still don't believe we'll ever be able to grasp it," said Johanna. "Rather than waste Thomas's time trying to teach us, it would be better spent casting it himself, and then learning to imbue it into a staff."

"I... I still want to try," said Daniel. "But yes, we're out of time for today."

Minoru didn't state her opinion. She was sat on the floor, eyes closed, a look of frustration on her face.

"I agree with Tony," said Christine. "It's a long walk back home, so it's time for us to return. Thomas, please would you clean up this area?"

"Okay, but first, there's something I'd like to try."

After all, I'd almost fully recovered from my earlier use of mana while the others were practising. I could cast Miraculum again and still have plenty of capacity left over. "Maius Omnia Visus," I started, so that I could see what I was doing, followed up with, "Parvus Miraculum!"

I had no idea whether a reduced form of the spell would work, but if so, it would hopefully be easier to learn and require less mana. Yes, it would be weaker, but if that meant people could actually cast it, it would be worth it.

The good news was that it worked, and while it had still taken a lot of mana, I judged it was no longer out of range of a capable non-heroic mage. The bad news was that the range was so low I didn't even need to move to see the end of it. Perhaps fifty yards.

Another spot of good news was that the existence of a lesser form also implied the existence of a greater one. No way would I have the mana capacity for it right now, but my capacity was still growing at an inhuman rate. Tomorrow, I'd likely be able to perform three Miraculum casts in a row. A week from now... Perhaps I'd give it a go.

"Well, that was interesting. Might still be good to practise with, but not useful for clearing land," I reported.

"There's a reduced form? Why didn't you mention that earlier?" asked Johanna.

"Because I didn't know. That was the first time I'd tested it."

"You just... invented a new spell? Without even knowing it existed?"

"It seemed a reasonable guess; don't most spells have lesser forms?" I shrugged. "Anyway... Miraculum!"

Once again, I sent the local wildlife darting away in shock. My students, having experienced it once already, barely flinched.

I'd noted the healthier crops in our first experimental casting, but this time, in the spirit of continued experimentation, I'd kept my eye on the nearest field, and they definitely perked up. In retrospect, it was an obvious result; the spell healed, even if that wasn't my focus, as evidenced by Toby's ears. It wasn't just purging miasma from the crops and soil, but it healed the plants from the damage they had suffered.

"If there's a reduced form, we can try that tomorrow, right?" asked Daniel.

"Yes," agreed Tony. "I'll arrange for a carriage from the cathedral, so we'll not spend as long walking, and will have more time available."

"Thank you," said Daniel.

"That spell wasn't as obviously out of our reach as Miraculum, and even a short range is plenty if it will make monster meat edible," said Johanna. "One more day, then. After tomorrow, we can't keep monopolising Thomas's time. We can still practise the spell after that, but we must let him get on with purifying as much land as possible."

"Yes, that's sensible," agreed Tony. "We'll pick you up by carriage, if that's acceptable."

"It is," nodded Christine.

Minoru gave an unhappy growl as she sprung back to her feet, but I felt Johanna was the one being sensible. Stephanie had claimed to take a week to learn the basic spell Lux, while Wendy had taken half an hour. A huge range, but even at Wendy's speed, learning a spell on the level of Miraculum in a few hours seemed a stretch.

Thankfully, we reached our home without incident. Mary and Wendy had already returned.

"How did it go?" asked Wendy.

"As expected," answered Christine. "It would have been miraculous had they grasped it in a single day."

"A pity."

"Well, I for one am not giving up," declared Minoru. "I'm sticking to you like glue until I learn it."

"No hogging Master!" declared Mary, walking in from the kitchen with a pout.

She was wearing a black pleated skirt and purple t-shirt, apparently having followed my request to get herself some casual clothing. That was reasonable enough, but I didn't quite understand the other change to her appearance.

"Is it my imagination, or are you wearing makeup?" I asked.

"You noticed!" she said, beaming. "Wendy didn't think you would. Just a little bit, yes; I'm out of practice, and we didn't have any good mirrors. I'd quite like to grow my hair back out to the length it was before... before... but that's going to take ages."

"Before what?" asked Minoru, but no-one answered.

"Isn't hair healable?" I asked, before remembering Stephanie and her resistance to cutting hers. "Guess not, but then how does everyone with a healed head wound not end up with bald patches?"

"There's a difference between growing existing hair and healing what has been lost," replied Wendy, but I didn't really see the logic. If hair grew back when healing a wound, how did it know how long to grow the hair to? Why would cutting the hair update that 'saved' length, but cutting the scalp wouldn't? Then again, who was I to argue about the rules of healing magic? Coming from Earth, the fact there was magic at all was already against every rule I knew. Maybe it was just that there was a time limit, and a lost arm not quickly healed wouldn't be able to be regrown either.

"Oh, makeup!" exclaimed Minoru. "I did mine rather... uh... provocative this morning, and I'd quite like to change it. If you want to practise, feel like a beauty session?"

Mary gave a conflicted look. On the one hand, she obviously wanted to, but on the other she seemed to be taking the fact that she was now the third best healer in the group rather badly. "... Go on then," she admitted.

The pair of them vanished upstairs.

"You're okay leaving Mary alone with a demon?" asked Christine.

"Minoru isn't the one who tried to murder her a few days ago."

"You're never going to drop that, are you?"

"Of course not!"

"Anyway," declared Wendy, interrupting us. "Aren't you going to ask what I bought?"

"Why do you sound excited?" I asked, suddenly nervous. In retrospect, sending Wendy to buy stuff was something of a risk. There was a real danger she'd come back with bikini armour or something equally ridiculous.

"Wait and see!" she said, which wasn't reassuring. "First, some leather armour. Christine was right about the army cancelling orders, and us being able to get their stuff for cheap, but obviously that means no custom made stuff or anything particularly high end. I found some good quality armour made from warg hide, and the tailor has adjusted it for you. He wasn't too happy about not being able to measure you himself, but I'm sure Mary's measurements were fine."

As she talked, Wendy dropped a sack onto the table. Inside was a collection of pieces of black leather, but none were neatly folded. From the looks of it, it couldn't fold; the pieces were too stiff. There was enough of it for full coverage. There was even a helmet, albeit an open faced one.

Not bikini armour, then, which meant the interesting bit was yet to come. Not that I could see any way for weapons to go too badly wrong. Perhaps they were bright pink or had a flowery hilt?

"Warg leather isn't the best material available, but it's the toughest leather that can be manufactured in quantities large enough to outfit an army," nodded Christine. "I doubt you could have found anything better at such short notice, and with its stiffness, it pairs well with battle aura, but Thomas should get a custom set should the opportunity arise."

"I picked up a small shield, too, but it's just a standard steel thing. More for completeness than anything else. For weapons, I found a decent spear with a steel shaft and darksteel tip. I also totally lucked out with this sword. It was a custom order from a complete idiot, who came to collect it while I was paying for that spear. He refused to pay the agreed price, trying to use the end of the war as an excuse for a discount, and the blacksmith was so incensed he gave it to me instead, for even less than the commissioner was offering."

From another sack, Wendy produced a rather boring shield, with no ornamentation whatsoever. It was little more than a curved disk of steel with some padding and handles on the back. She followed it up with a mostly boring spear, a rod of steel about my height, but with a blackened head. Finally came a sword that was longer and broader than any I'd used before, but with my hero cheats, I didn't see any issue wielding it with one hand. It was forged from a silvery metal, with an ornate hilt and guard. Even the blade was engraved.

"Mithril?" asked Christine, surprised. "A lucky encounter, indeed. Perhaps a bit larger than Thomas is used to, but we'd struggle to find anything better made by human hands. Unless we happen to visit Kalolamenz, that should last for the rest of Thomas's time here.

So the best weapons were crafted in the dwarven kingdom? Someone had mentioned importing from them, so that wasn't a complete surprise.

Picking it up, it was lighter than I expected, given the size. My blessing had translated the material as mithril, so it wasn't a surprise that some of the connotations applied. Nevertheless, despite the unexpected find, I couldn't see Wendy getting excited about a sword.

"So, what else did you get?" I asked, certain there was something else.

"A bunch of magical catalysts and reagents. Enough to build some basic defences around this place and to have a go at imbuing Miraculum into a staff. And also, this."

With the flourish of a magician who'd just pulled off a particularly impressive sleight of hand, Wendy pulled an ornate circlet of metal from beneath her cloak and set it carefully upon the table.

"... That's a tiara," I pointed out.

It was obviously designed to be worn on the head, and given that the silvery colour was an exact match for the sword, I guessed the frame was mithril. It was twisted into a floral design, and set into the centre of each flower was a white gem. Front and centre was a much larger diamond, and I could feel the mana bleeding off the thing without even needing mana vision."

"Wendy..." said Christine, slowly and quietly. "Please tell me you didn't steal that."

"Of course not!"

"The money Minoru loaned us wouldn't even come close to paying for that treasure, if it was even for sale in the first place, which I am absolutely certain it was not."

"Can someone tell me what it is?" I interjected. "Apparently Christine knows already, and I'm getting the impression it's pretty famous..."

"Vena's Grace," answered Christine. "It's a holy relic of the church, only ever bestowed on those who achieve the rank of saintess. And again I must ask, why do you have it?"

"Maybe I'm a saintess?" laughed Wendy.

"Be serious!" snapped Christine, who was looking almost as disturbed as the time she realised I knew the attack on Mary had been staged. Wendy getting her hands on the relic was obviously a big deal.

"Spoilsport. If you must know, it was nothing to do with me. Archbishop Alexander personally dropped it around earlier. Said he'd tried to talk to King George, but wasn't able to get through to him, so he'd offer what aid he could instead. It makes sense, given its power, and the situation of the kingdom. He does want it back when we're done, though."

Christine relaxed a little upon learning that the Archbishop of Odimere had delivered it in person. I, on the other hand, still had an issue.

"It's a tiara," I repeated. "And it's flowery."

"Tough," shrugged Wendy. "It's not as if we can modify it into something that better fits your fashion sense. Christine wasn't joking about this being an important relic, so no way can we remodel it."

"Besides, it's not as if you'll be wearing it in front of people," said Christine. "No-one beyond us must know you have it."

"Especially the bishops of the church..." added Wendy. "The archbishop was quite clear about that. He gave the distinct impression that he hadn't, exactly, gone through official channels to lend us this."

"Fine," I agreed, glad I wasn't going to need to wear it down the street. "I suppose it'll go well with my dress, at least. So, what does it do?"

I suffered an odd moment of confusion, expecting Mary to correct 'dress' to 'robe', but it never came. Apparently, playing with makeup was sufficiently absorbing for her to not be paying us any attention. It seemed another step in the right direction of getting her mind back.

"Remember my brief lesson on foci?" asked Wendy. "Well, it's basically nothing more than a focus. The only thing that makes it special is that it's a very powerful one. While wearing it, it's doubtful you'll be able to cast any non-white spells at all, but white spells will require only a third of the mana. It'll triple the number of Miraculum casts you can perform per day."

Wow. As timing went, that was pretty cool. "That plays well into something else I learnt today. I tried applying the 'parvus' modifier to Miraculum, and it worked first time. Pity I couldn't wield enough mana to try pushing it in the other direction."

"Oh..." said Wendy, immediately grasping what I was implying. "This should be fun..."

"But not tomorrow," said Christine, shooting down the idea immediately. "As we said, you can't use it in front of the other members of the church."

"Okay, not tomorrow," I agreed. "No harm in giving my capacity another day to grow, anyway."

"And not anywhere near the city, either," added Wendy. "Given the weight of Miraculum, an enhanced version is likely to outright demolish nearby structures."

Yes, okay. That would be bad. Although, personally, I was more worried about what it was going to do to my throat. Was lung prolapse a thing? I wasn't sure I was looking forward to finding out.