191 Learning from defeats
Two weeks later, at the skeletons’ temporary camp.
During the past two weeks, the skeletons had suffered dozens of attacks from hordes of monsters, but were able to withstand all of them with only a few thousand dead.
The skeletons had learned from all the previous battles and now left most of the fighting to the monster skeletons and using the mages and alchemical items as support. The alchemical items that Athos created were all of the earth elent, generating earthquakes, pools of quicksand or earth spears that ca out of the ground, depending on the ingredients used.
Despite losing a few thousand soldiers, their gains were even greater and the army finally began to increase its numbers. The biggest gains were the hordes of flying monsters that attacked them.
Flying monsters were rare in the desert, so having the aerial advantage was crucial. They managed to hunt approximately 500 flying monsters, more than doubling their air force.
They also encountered their first clan since entering the desert, a kobold clan. It was a small clan with just over 1000 individuals and they were in the middle of the migration when so skeleton birds found them.
Kobolds weren’t really demihumans or descendants of giants and looked more like a bipedal monster species, but possessed intelligence on par with other demihumans. Vanilla personally led a team to attack them, killing over half the clan.
Unlike the monsters that seed to have a strong hatred of the undead and would fight until they died, the kobolds were smart and while the stronger ones bought ti, the weaker ones scattered in several directions and fled.
They even managed to gain a few hundred more undead and most importantly, reliable guides through the desert. These Kobolds knew distant areas that Treevor and Vanilla did not, so they would be better suited as guides.
.....
Inside the camp, Athos was heading towards the forges accompanied by Treevor and Emilia. Dwarvin had called Athos excitedly, saying that he had completed his new equipnt.
Athos really thought it took a while compared to all the other weapons made, but Treevor and Emília insisted that for custom equipnt that long was normal.
Dwarvin had called Athos a few tis over the two weeks to take his asurents and consult with him on what spells and enchantnts he was most likely to use, but he never let Athos get a glimpse of the armor in preparation, so it would co as a surprise to him as well.
“Why are you two following ?” Athos asked his unwanted companions as they entered the forge.
They saw hundreds of shared curses being carried out of the forge by skeletons, as well as several carrying debris of concrete laced with divine mithril. Athos took advantage of the fact that they would stay a few more weeks and decided to turn all the wreckage they had into tal and lighten the load they would have to carry in the carriage.
All skeleton mages with an affinity for air were brought into the forges and helped to separate divine mithril from pure concrete. The amount of divine mithril obtained was ager, however.
Maybe it’s because of the high energy conduction that the divine mithril had, but the amount obtained after lting several tons of concrete was only 2 and a half ingots. There were only a few more tons of concrete left and it was likely that they could barely complete the third ingot.
“I ca as a runesmith. Those damn dwarves said my weapons are only half decent, so I want to see what this arrogant dwarf calls real weapons.” Treevor spoke to his wounded pride.
“I ca back from the hunt half an hour ago and I’m totally out of mana, so I’m taking a break and decided to accompany you and make a request to the chief blacksmith.” Emilia spoke with a shrug.
‘I also want custom gear for myself. Astrus, Malti and Ruy have decent gear, while myself and Vanilla are lacking in comparison. My armor too weak and needs an ergency upgrade, while Vanilla doesn’t even have armor.’ Emilia thought.
“Master, you’re finally here! I must say this is by far my best work. Was the level of materials and ingredients I had so much better than anything I’ve worked on before, so it took a lot of trial and error until I get runesmithing everything.” Dwarvin welcod them as soon as Athos and company entered his personal laboratory.
His personal forge was set apart from the rest so that none of the dwarven skeletons working outside would disturb him.
“Trial and error? How much material did you lose” Athos asked as his pocket suddenly bled. Dwarvin had used monster bones as materials and those were easily replaceable, but tals and dragon parts were irreplaceable.
Dragon bones and fangs could still be obtained, but scales were limited. The dark fog that surrounded Simogo’s bones was solid, but it faded as soon as it moved away from the body, so it couldn’t be used as material.
“Don’t worry, master. Our material losses were minimal. I used death iron to test different materials and how they interacted with each other and then lted everything down again to test new combinations.” Dwarvin quickly reassured Athos.
“I only spent a single scale and an adamant nugget just to know how they would react to each other and how many enchantnts I could use in the final product.” He finished and arrived next to a human-sized mannequin.
It was leaning against the wall and covered with cloth that left no visible part, but everyone could feel an aura of power coming from it, even without using death vision.
“Take a good look master. This set is my masterpiece!” Dwarvin couldn’t stall anymore and removed the cloth covering the armor.
What lay beneath the curtain was a life-size earthen dummy of Athos, clad in armor of gleaming black scales, with a black sword and round shield hanging from brackets on the wall.
The armor was made of dragon scales mixed with corrupted adamant, giving the black scales a tallic sheen. Corrupted adamant was almost entirely black like other tals, but had a unique luster, unlike other corrupt tals which were matte.
His helt had intricate details on the sides and back, perfectly covering the dummy’s head, with a crown of straight horns on top. The horns were made of pure corrupted adamant and had a black crystal in the middle.
There were four horns in total, two of them just above the temple and another two on the back of the helt. The front part of the helt had a T shape and could open and close to the sides according to the wearer’s will, showing the mannequin’s face.
The edge of the scales on the armor overlapped each other slightly, ensuring flexibility without compromising defense. The overlapping scales also helped mitigate impacts even without activating enchantnts.
There were finger-sized black crystals embedded in the chest, shoulders and sides of the abdon. The armor’s shoulders resembled human skulls, while sharp spikes protruded from its elbows.
tallic spikes protruded from the knuckles of the gauntlets, while small claws get from all fingers.
The inner part of the armor was covered with thick leather, preventing the hard scales from damaging the wearer’s skin.
The black shield next to the armor was just as impressive. Dwarvin did not use scales for the shield, but bones from Simogo. The surface of the shield was rough and had a toothed saw slightly curved around the edge, at the request of Athos.
He was used to using his shield for both defense and offense, so having a way to attack using his shield was essential.
Two crystals were embedded in the shield, one in the center and one on the opposite side.
The sword was the best crafted. Its blade was almost a ter long and slightly curved, just like a dragon’s fang. There were three crystals arranged in the middle of the blade, at the base of the sword and on the poml.
The hilt of the sword resembled skeletons with arms outstretched on either side of the blade, with spaces between the ribs that perfectly fit the fingers of the gauntlet.
“And then master? What do you think?” Dwarvin asked haughtily, extrely proud of his work.
“Is perfect.” Was all Athos managed to say, his hands shaking with emotion as a smile threatened to break across his face. He still didn’t even know what enchantnts it had or how strong it was, but the energy it emanated and the armor’s design were enough to win his favor.
The armor scread Death Knight and Athos loved it.
“Damn it.” Treevor muttered in defeat, feeling defeated after seeing the masterpiece in front of him. ‘He was only able to create sothing so powerful because of the materials at his disposal. I could have done the sa with so much.” He thought for comfort.
‘Good luck Commander.’ Dwarvin replied smugly.
Treevor unwittingly sent his thoughts through the mind link, so every skeleton in the camp had heard his muttering.
‘I want armor like that, or at least sothing similar.’ Emilia thought as her orbits burned with greed. His thoughts were also transmitted through the mind link, but unlike Treevor it was on purpose.
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