233 Prep

Remian met him at the airship docks of Fal'Herim. "Hey, Tim. Sorry for asking for help so suddenly."

"It's fine." Tim waved it off dismissively. "So, you're really going to challenge the Flaming Salamander Lord to a duel?"

"Yeah, we can't afford to offend the Wood Emperor. Kor'ag-dras was quite clear on his demands." Remian winced. "At least he gave us a fighting chance."

"Literally." Tim rolled his eyes. "Well, if it's books you want, I've got you covered. I have the best collection of magic books in all of Fal'Herim. In fact, it's safe to say I have THE collection of Fal'Herim."

"What did you do?" Remian asked, eyes wide. "Tim, did you steal everyone's magic books?!"

"No, I bought the national library." Tim answered. "It was going for cheap."

"You BOUGHT the library?! Is that even legal?!"

"Apparently Asda needed to raise disaster funds." Tim shrugged. "She's started selling off a lot of public property. The national library, the airport, half the schools, the entire sewage system, and the southern bazaar were all, as of this morning, privatized in my name. Along with three more Industrial Districts."

"Wait a minute. Didn't you already run Fal'Herim?"

"Operationally, yes, but owning it legally is a whole lot more satisfying."

"Well, then, it sounds like you really made it big." Remian said. "With so many districts and utilities, your net worth must have skyrocketed."

Tim coughed. "Actually, most of them are literally just piles of rubble at the moment. The national library is actually half in ruins. We might have to dig the books you want out of the wreckage."

***

Thankfully, that wasn't necessary. There was just one shelf specific to elemental magic, it had twenty-two books, and it was in an intact portion of the priviliged zone of the national library.

"So… that's it?" Tim asked, as they packed the books up. "You're just going to take the books back to study and then fight the Flaming Salamander on your own?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"What about that other fight, the one against the King Challengers? Who are you bringing for that?" Tim asked.

"Well, it's a team fight against Boss Wilds, so I figured we'd do it like Adventurers." Remian shrugged. "A defender, a healer, a couple of damage dealers, and maybe a support mage. Markus and Phoebe will do for the first two. I haven't figured out the rest yet."

"Is Markus going to be okay? I heard he got buried under some rubble." Tim frowned.

"He had a few broken bones, but Phoebe said they were on the mend. If we focus our healers on him, we could probably speed up his recovery time. There's only so much mana to go around now, but I think we can give him priority."

"Who do you have in mind for damage dealers?"

"Joshu and the twins come to mind. They're all skilled archers, but getting them to qualify against Lords would be tricky. Actually, getting Phoebe to qualify would be tricky too, but there seems to be some sort of allowance for a Challenger's Mate."

"Are Frames allowed?" Tim asked, right out.

"…I actually don't know. I guess we can let Markus try to use one and find out."

"What about sending in Bellower and DD and all?"

"Bellower actually was killed and eaten in that last wave. We had them all stay far away from us, but it seems that the Bone King got hungry." Remian said, darkly. "DD isn't in very good shape either. He's nursing a few broken bones. Jujar is just too slow, and Spike seems to be very nervous about the whole affair. Forget it. I'd rather bring in a team of well-equipped, experienced Adventurers."

"What about Carrie? Or Shadowflash himself?"

"Can't. They're fighting under the Star Wolf King."

Tim thought for a bit more. "Are you sure you want to bring Phoebe? I mean, her superpowers won't work on non-humans."

"Superpowers? What superpowers?" Remian blinked. "But anyway, she's the only healer who can get through with that Challenger's Mate clause. Everyone else would have to fight to qualify, and I doubt Lydia could face down a Lord Challenger all by herself."

"So… you're officially together, then?" Tim raised an eyebrow.

"THAT's what you're concerned about?!"

***

In the end, Remian decided on Song Chen and Spike for damage dealers. They would just have to deal with Spike's nervousness as best they could. If not for that nervousness, the big fellow could actually do a better job as a defender than Markus, and then Markus could take a damage dealer spot. He also called Joshu to try to qualify, just in case he actually could.

"I wouldn't count on it." Markus grunted, and immediately set about preparing to fight as a defender. He went and had Tier 5 runes inscribed on all his armor, his tower shield, gladius, and javelins, fully sponsored by George. They even had his shield heavily reinforced.

"Beef up his weaponry, too. We might need him to do some damage in the end." Remian told them.

"Huh." George outright handed Markus his glaive. "Give it back when you're done with it."

Unwilling to settle, Remian had them reinforce George's Glaive with Flaming Bronze and two Tier 6 runes. He actually wanted to add a third rune, but by then Fal'Herim's top runesmith was already asking for overtime pay, extra vacation days, and threatening to quit due to excessive demands.

Right. They were at Fal'Herim. All this wouldn't be possible at Kara-Goth, which lacked high-Tier runesmiths, but Remian had the team assemble at Fal'Herim to prepare their gear for the big fights. George brought them over on an airship accompanied by a couple of dozen support crew.

Fal'Herim itself was half ruins, but there were many survivors, especially those Tim brought to the Underground, and many of them were grateful enough to join Tim's workforce. Tim had one of his new Industrial Districts focus on high-end personal armaments, and Remian's Team served as his first customers. His people were scrambling all over the district building and renovating structures while gearing Remian's team up at the same time.

"What about Spike? What do we do about him?" George asked Remian.

"I was thinking we'd give him a layer of armor on top of his shell and inscribe runes on that." Remian suggested.

"Do we even have enough time to forge that much armor?" George grimaced.

"What if it was chain mail? Just a layer of linked chains? With runes?"

"You'd want large, flat surfaces for runes strong enough to cover all of Spike. Armor plates at least the size of Markus' shield, I think." George mused. "But we probably don't have the time for something like scale-mail. I'm thinking just a few plates over vital spots, linked together with chains. As long as they can hold the runes we want, they should do better solid armor."

To the Top Runesmith's relief, he was not asked to work on Spike's armor. That work was left to lower level Runesmiths.

Song Chen had to have a whole new spear made. In order to put together a Tier 6 spear, he had made a foray into the deepest part of the Emerald Woods and came back with a suitable piece of Ancient Emerald Heartwood for the haft. George offered Flaming Bronze for the head, but Song Chen preferred Misty Steel. It was a water-elemental metal on par with the fire-elemental Fire Copper, a whole Tier lower than Flaming Bronze, but Song Chen wanted something less noticeable, and better able to utilize those spear techniques that attempted to confuse opponents. But Misty Steel simply wasn't up to the job when dealing with Tier 6 runes. George ended up having to trade five bars of Flaming Bronze for a single bar of Aqua Silver.

"What about armor?" Song Chen asked.

George wordlessly beckoned. One of the support staff pushed over a handcart filled with leather pieces.

"This is…?" Song Chen trailed off.

"Tier 6 leather. The best remaining parts of our old friend Bellower." George said, solemnly.

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"Bellower's leather?!" Song Chen grimaced. "I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable wearing it."

"Not the way it is now, no. But we'll fix that." Tim said, and put his best leather-workers to the job.

"That leather's not going to hold runes very well." George added. "For the sake of the runes, I was going to suggest small plates of Fire Copper added to the armor, but since you went for Aqua Silver, we better change it to Misty Steel. Otherwise, you'd have an elemental dissonance between your Fire Copper and Aqua Silver."

As for Joshu, Arnold had his own ideas.

"Is this even going to be allowed?" George asked, eyeing the drawings.

It was a customized Frame armed with a runic crossbow so big, it may as well be called a mini-ballista. The bolts for that mini-ballista were three feet long, and a whole inch thick. While carried around on the Frame's back, and could be fired in the Frame's hands in a pinch, it was really meant to be fired from a tripod which would take a bit of time to deploy. Other than that, the Frame emphasized mobility and a bit of armor.

"It's going to be a serious drain on mana, though. You could run it on your own mana for a minute, but if you're going to use it to fight an hour-long battle, I suggest you power it with a blue crystal." Arnold warned. "Exhaustion is going to be your biggest problem. It might not be an issue if you're fighting from a fortification with plenty of crystals and time to rest, but if you're running around and dodging a Lord Challenger while you shoot, I strongly suggest you end it quickly. There are twenty bolts loaded onto the side quiver; but I suspect you'll run out of energy and mana long before you run out of ammunition."

"Would it really qualify as a Tier 6 weapon?" Tim asked dubiously. "I mean, the runic ballistae at Kara-Goth are easily ten times bigger."

"It should qualify as the peak of Tier 5. As long as you hit a weak spot, it should do the job."

Tim shook his head. "With an outfit like that, your fight is going to be over in a matter of seconds. Either you'll take down your target with one shot, or you're dead. Or both."

"Is there a way we can put better defenses on it?" Joshu asked glumly. "I don't want to be dead."

"It's already highly focused on precision and mobility. To ask for more defense…" Arnold shook his head. "I have some theories on how it could be done, but right now, we don't have the time to experiment."

"What about increasing the mobility? Put in a function to suddenly make him move quickly to one side?" Remian asked.

Arnold hesitated. "I could install a jumper function. It would make the whole Frame even heavier, and even more power-draining, but it would let him quickly jump ten feet away and land safely."

"Do that. It could be his only chance at survival." Remian said grimly. "Like Tim said; Joshu's battle will be decided in a matter of seconds."