19 New Quest! Repair Gigas!

"Hmm." Hoat'l groaned as he inspected the crack on Gigas. "Well, its doable, although th' pieces needed are rare."

"Sky-Steel, right?" Ai asked, her amber eyes watching and copying Hoat'l's own scanning magic to see the composition of the blade. "Aye, miss Aiya. Yer eyes are sharp, lass. This blade was forged by the last giant in the world from Sky-Steel."

Ai choked. "Ahaha, well you see, I'm not Aiya, my name is Ai, now. It's a long story."

Hoat'l stopped examining Gigas, pointing towards his eye. "Eye? Like an eyeball?" He asked quizzically.

"No, Ai like Love in the eastern language." Ai said, shaking her head.

"Ya don't really look like a foreigner though, miss Ai."

Ai nodded. "It's what the system gave me, I think it's a play on something else, you see, if you take the simplified kanji of 'Ai' it becomes similar to a part of another name. I've been trying to compare it to other names I am linked to, but I haven't been able to find the connection. It's like an enchantment for weapons, alone, the runes don't make sense until it's all together to create the enchantment."

Hoat'l's eyes widened in sudden excitement. "Miss Ai, you know how ta enchant?" His excitement seemed to make his accent heavier.

"Eh, well I know how enchantments work in theory. I can see the code behind an enchantment, it's-"

"Split into three sections, aye, first the core effect that acts as the keyword, like {Strength of Essence} can be used ta create this [Unbreakable] enchantment, and this string of runes instructs the core code to coat each layer o' the blade in mana to reinforce it, and this last string translates that mana into a hardening effect. Aye!!" Hoat'l geeked out, interrupting Ai.

"And when you put it all together, it acts as a single coherent code that can do incredible things!" Ai finished excitedly. "Eh, but I thought dwarves were against enchantments? Like it ruined the meaning behind the construction of a weapon or something like that?"

This was typically true, dwarves tended to hate enchanting weapons, as to them, a weapon should be an extension of a warriors will and nothing more, that and dwarves tended to be greedy, preferring to create newer, better weapons.

Elves on the other hand preferred to enchant existing weapons, believing that the older the weapon, the more potential it had to become more powerful, this was actually true as the longer a weapon had existed, the more ambient mana the weapon would absorb and the more susceptible to enchantments the weapon would become.

"An' why do you think a dwarf would be 'ere in a human city?" Hoat'l asked with a smug look on his face.

Ai blinked. "Well, it's pretty common for dwarves to go out and sell their wares to outsiders, right?"

"Eh? Really? Hrmm... I guess it makes sense." Hoat'l stroked his beard. "Well, anyway, I'm an odd one, yes I hold the values of dwarven traditions, but one can'ae deny the potential of enchantments." He hobbled towards the corner of his smithy, pushing off piles of crates from on top of a chest, the lack of dust implied that this chest was opened quite frequently.

"Ye can'ae tell nobody about this, miss Ai. Please promise me." Hoat'l looked over his shoulder at Ai with a serious expression as Ai nodded. "I promise."

Opening the chest, Hoat'l pulled out a sword that was similar in construction to a katana, only with a straight edge, the boshi made a much sharper turn, and a small engine was sitting on top of the tsuba, secured with screws going through part of the handle and the habaki.

Activating her [Magic Sight], Ai could see the residual mana in the area constantly flowing into the engine, the engine then forcefully increased the mana age of the sword, although the efficiency given the amount of mana was negligible.

"Is that, a residual mana engine?" Ai asked although she already knew the answer.

"Aye, lass, this engine feeds mana in the surrounding area into the blade, but-"

"But forcing the mana into the blade is inefficient since it takes time for mana to soak into the blade itself, correct?" Ai cut off Hoat'l

"Aye, the mana absorption rate is only 7%. It works, but fer the life o' me I can'ae seem to get the blade to absorb mana faster." Hoat'l hung his head in defeat.

"What if..." Ai walked up to Hoat'l and conjured up an incomplete blueprint using a similar engine. "...you take the mana engine, and instead of forcing it into the blade, you coat the outside of the blade with mana, using these..." She pointed out a revolver-like 6-shooter half barrel in her blueprint. "...and draw the desired enchantments into these barrels, you could cover the sword in flames, or enchant it with wind that can be used in conjunction with a trigger of sorts to launch a sword slash across distances."

Hoat'l stared at the blueprint in amazement before waving his hands around, filling in some of the gaps of the blueprint with his own ideas. "Aye, aye! Lass! Ye be on ta somethin' here!" He drew a double trigger, one that would rotate the barrel, and one that would ignite the spell using mana stored in the engine.

Ai smiled as she drew up a long tube that could act as a mana battery that could be stored along the spine of the blade and double as a guide for the triggered enchantment.

"Lass! Can ye draw this blueprint on paper?" He asked as he brought out a massive roll of parchment.

Ai only smiled. "I can do one better, lay the paper out."

Hoat'l unrolled the parchment, placing small weights on the sides. Ai took control of the mana used to form the image of the blueprint and laid it on top of the parchment, she channeled slightly more mana into the design as it burned into the paper, releasing the spell, the blueprint was now visible on the parchment.

"Perfect! Oi, I can'ae wait to start working on this!" His heavy dwarven accent came out in excitement as he held up the blueprint like it was his most valuable possession. "I can'ae thank ye enough miss Ai, if there be anythin' I can do fer ye, please let me know."

"Well, I was hoping you could come with us, y'see, I am gathering a party of the most powerful adventurers to try and stop something big."

Hoat'l went silent for a few seconds. "Ah, sorry miss, that be somethin' I can'ae do. I retired fer a reason, lost too many of me friends in an expedition, can'ae find it in me heart to try my hand at adventurin' again."

Ai nodded. "I understand, how about this then, if we go and get the materials, can you fix Amari's sword for free? I wouldn't have a problem paying you, but we are short on coin. If you can't do that, it's fine, we still have a quest to turn in at the guild hall and we can pay with that."

Hoat'l shook his head. "Nay lass, I won't be askin' fer your coin. Ye fed my passion a million times o'er, its the least I can do."

Ai only smiled and nodded.

"Now ontae the material, sky-steel, ye happen to be in luck there." Hoat'l hobbled over to his shop counter, digging out a scroll from underneath. Untying the string binding the scroll, he unrolled it into a map of the local area and placed a stubby finger over a mountain range to the northwest.

"There'r some ancient giant ruins 'ere that've become a little too dangerous thanks ta some orcs that took over the area. Rumor has it that there was a decent sized cache o' the stuff near an ancient forge. If we can take hold o' that area, I can use the forge to repair the sword."

"Eh? But I thought you didn't want to leave?"

"Aye, but I can'ae melt down sky-steel with me flimsy forge o'er here. So I would hafta go out with ya to be able to make the repairs."

Ai hung her head low. "S-sorry, I know you really didn't want to leave."

"Bahaha! It's jus' some old orcs, me n' Amari could fight em with our eyes closed." Hoat'l laughed and looked over to Amari, who had stayed silent this whole time, smiling and looking at Hoat'l, he turned his head away, blushing.

Ai giggled watching his reaction. "Amari, you haven't said anything in a while, what are your thoughts."

Amari flexed her arms. "I thought you were cute, nerding out over this kinda stuff, I'm just excited to beat something up! Orcs are supposed to be tough, so I can't wait to see if they can stand up to me!"

Ai shook her head. "Just don't go offering to sleep with one of them if they can beat you, they might actually do it for that kind of reward."

Amari blushed. "Oi, that was just a joke, sis, a joke!"