It had been a couple of weeks since Evren made the first mold for the scales he would be using for his armor. Although it had been suggested to use mithril, Evren eventually went with adamantium. The main reason being, "It matches my sword." In the time since he finished the last mold, he has been making rings for the chain base of the scales. He had a couple thousand already but still wasn't sure if that would be enough. The scale shirt he would be making would cover the chest and back, shoulder and upper arm, and would hang down to below the groin. He would also make bracers and shin guards with scales attached.
His upper legs, and his head wouldn't be covered, and he was going to just use leather gloves for his hands. Under his armor, he would be wearing reinforced leather pants for some protection on his upper legs, and a leather jerkin with holes perforated in it for breathability. When asked by Walter if that would provide protection, Evren said, "If it gets through the scales, do you think leather is going to stop it?"
When he would be finished with his armor, he thought about making some arrows for Fletcher to use that he could cast 'discharge' on. He was considering using adamantium but thought scarletite or mithril would be better because of their better capabilities to channel magic.
As for the armor for the others, Walter would be getting some sort of plate or banded mail, he was thinking of some chain mail for Fletcher, and Isobel with reinforced leather. But didn't know where to get the leather from. He was thinking that the leather he got from the large pigs would be too heavy when he suddenly remembered he had the pelts of those two wolf creatures that breathed fire on him when he first got to Plinth.
When he got home for the day, he went to his pile of pelts and dug the two pelts out. The pelts were black and flexible, but he remembered he didn't want to use them because he didn't have the tools to properly process the leather. But now he should. He was going to get Levi to make the armor for her. His skill in leatherwork paled in comparison, to Levi's.
As for Harley, he wasn't sure at all. He was thinking maybe a mithril chain shirt to wear under a cloak or perhaps leather to reduce weight. Harley's strength and endurance would be key here. If she could keep up with chain armor, that would be fine, otherwise they would have to go with leather. Ultimately, he would have to ask her.
Evren decided to let that keep for the night. He pulled out one of the books he hadn't gone through yet and it turned out to be a book describing the monsters in the forest south of the Aernide Fortress, and within the Aernide Dungeon until level 145 which was the deepest anyone had gone. He discovered the two creatures that he found in Plinth were called 'flame hounds' and he thought, well that's very fitting.
The things he would have to look forward to being not the lamia and harpies, but the medusae that begin on level 96. They have an ability to paralyze people with a gaze and their bite can cause a metamorphosis of body tissue to rock. Evren was glad the rest level was before that level.
Following the medusae were the draconic levels with the weakest wyverns being first and leading up to the dracoliches that the party that got to the 145th floor got stopped at. The draconic levels also only had bosses every ten levels instead of every five. Evren assumed that the dracolich level went to level 150 with the lich following on the 151st floor. If the lich is stronger than a big dragon skeleton, Evren got concerned about heading down that far.
The next morning, Evren brought up the question of armor with the others. He informed them of his thoughts on the matter and they all said they would think about it, except for Isobel. The idea of using flame hound leather for armor excited her and she put in requests on how it should be made, Evren laughed and said, "I can help, but Levi will be making your amor. I'm terrible with leather."
Isobel pouted and said, "Fine."
Evren rubbed the center of his forehead as if to prevent a headache from appearing, "I said I'd help so we'll both talk with Levi later."
"Yay!" Isobel cheered.
Evren looked at Walter and asked, "Are you sure she's a guard?"
Isobel replied by sticking her tongue out at Evren.
"Well anyway, let's go for a run. Isobel, don't forget to come back half way and do sprints." Isobel nodded and Evren turned to Harley, "How are you coming with running?"
"I can almost make it to the end, Mr. Evren." She replied.
"That's good. It's quite an improvement from what you did at start. Keep it up." Evren said with a smile. Harley only responded with a smile and a blush.
Evren started running and left everyone behind. He reached the halfway point and turned around, getting to the training ground around the same time Isobel did. The two walked over to the firing line and sprinted forward to the 50-meter line and turned around, sprinting back. Isobel took a break, but Evren kept going. He had told her that he wanted her to be able to sprint the entire distance and not jog it, so he didn't mind if she rested, as long as she gave her all when she sprinted.
He had plans to set up an obstacle course for her, so she wouldn't just be fast in straight line distances. He wanted to increase her dexterity and endurance so she would be safer in a fight.
As everyone set off to do their personal training, Evren sat down with Harley to explain the more difficult spells involving healing. In order for heal spells to work properly, an understanding of how the body's natural healing was done needed to be understood. He spent the better part of the morning explaining how the body worked, what cells are. How the organs work and what blood is and does. When she finally understood that much, he explained to her how the magic works to repair the damages done to the body. The differences between a 'heal cut' and a 'heal burn' spell, and the different types of bone fractures and how they need to be fixed with 'set bone'.
He couldn't do much to help her in the way of casting the spells, except for 'heal cut', 'heal burn' and 'restore.' For those, he did the injuries to himself, which Harley didn't like, and allowed her to heal him. To give her practice and training, she would go through the town and help the people with any small injuries they had. And she had been told to tell them if anyone got injured to come see her. Any injury she couldn't heal would be brought to Evren for him to coach her through healing.
Once Harley was off and working on her magic, he got with Isobel and taught a new move to her. This one involved blocking with the non-knife hand and cutting the armpit. He got her into the habit of any time she touched the "hand" that held the knife she would cast 'shock.' Once she got a good understanding of the move, she was left to train on her own.
Fletcher would practice shooting arrows, but in addition to this, every other time he shot at the 50-meter target, he would use a training arrow and cast 'charge' on it before firing the arrow. He was now using 'charge' instead of 'discharge' because Evren had gotten too many complaints from the townsfolk about the noise produced by the 'discharge' spell. And, when Fletcher ran out of arrows, he needed to run down to the 300-meter target to retrieve them and wasn't always lucky enough to find all of them. Evren wanted Fletcher to use both 'charge' and 'discharge' as one would cause damage, and the other a distraction. If used properly would be a great advantage in a fight.
Once everyone else was set in their personal training tasks, Evren worked with Walter on his sword fighting skills until noon, when training was over. Evren took Isobel with him over to Levi's to discuss the creation of her armor with him. Levi was excited to be working with flame hound leather and promised he would take his time to create the best armor for her, ever. They discussed looks, function and design while drawing and making notes on several sheets of paper.
Once they were all satisfied, Isobel headed off to finish her guard duties. Evren went to the forge and began making the scales for his armor. Levi had made the leather tunic he would be using and was building the armor around the tunic so it would fit comfortably.
"You're making things more difficult for yourself, you know. It'd be easier to make banded or even plate." Levi told Evren.
Evren stared ahead and then looked at Levi, "Yeah, probably." He took a deep sigh, "If I'd have remembered about that flame hound leather before making all the dies, I probably would have used that. But now that I've made them, damn it, I'm making the armor!"
Evren spent the next two weeks working on making the scales. He had no idea on how many he needed, so each night, when he got home, he'd lay the scales out on the table in the pattern for the armor. He'd spend hours arranging and re-arranging the scales to get them to not only look right, but also be more effective for the type and the area.
Once he started assembling, he'd need to rivet each ring together, and he estimated two to three rings per scale, depending on the location. The upper edge around his neck would be lined with a leather collar to keep the rings from biting into the skin around his neck. The bracer and the greaves would be less scaly and more resembling banded mail as the scales would be riveted to the leather.
At the end of a month since starting to make the scales, Evren had finished and would begin assembling the armor in the house. He would cold hammer the adamantium rivets in place for the rings using a couple tools he made to make the process easier. When he got around to riveting the scales to the bracer and greaves, which he used leftover flame hound leather to make, he had to use a different tool, and since the rivets were heavier, he needed a more solid place to work, so he took Levi's old anvil and set it up in the house to work there. It took him another four days to finish making his armor.