Broken Lands

Attuning equipment was an interesting concept. It seemed almost more like a security system than anything else to Sophia. It definitely wasn’t the same as the ones used on Earth, but the concept wasn’t new. It wasn’t common for delvers, since monsters wouldn’t try to deny them the use of their equipment, but it was very common among people who expected to fight other sapients.

Sophia didn’t think it came up much, probably because of the enchantments meant to limit it. An extreme lockdown that also limited how many items you could use might be useful occasionally, but it definitely wasn’t the best solution for most things unless you really expected it to happen a lot.

Maybe it served an additional purpose. Would it make the armor easier to command? That probably wasn’t too important for most enchantments, but it might well be vital for the ability to quickly don armor. Even for things where it didn’t make it faster, making something require less attention in combat was a significant improvement. That might well be worth limiting the amount of equipment you could wear, especially if the limit was close to the amount you could practically carry and use.

“There, finished,” Vramt announced. Sophia hadn’t seen anything as he severed his connection to the armor; she really did have to get that Mage Sight Ability soon. “Dav, since you’re already wearing the armor, this shouldn’t be too hard. Try to see if you can feel it. When you do, the Guide should ask if you want to attune the armor.”

Dav frowned and closed his eyes. Seconds later, he opened them and seemed to stare at one of the Guide’s screens. “Yes, okay. It says it’s attuning.”

“That always takes a while,” Vramt stated with a nod. “For something like this, it might take hours if it works at all. It gets faster as you level, fortunately; for me, that set of armor would take less than an hour, probably less than half an hour, even though it still took several slots.”

“If it works at all?” Dav didn’t sound entirely happy about that. “What happens if it fails? Does the armor just act like mundane armor?”

“It can,” Vramt tilted his head to the side as he agreed. “More likely, the Guide will ask if you want to accept a partial binding. In that case, you’ll only have access to the most central of the armor’s magic, probably either the size adjustment or the rapid donning. Unless you break the attunement, the armor will automatically attune more as you level. If you hear about a growth item, that’s what people usually mean - an item too strong for them that they’re growing into. It works well, so it’s not that unusual, but it does mean that you can’t attune anything else until the grown item stops its attunement, including replacing another item. If you de-attune something, the growth item will take the slots until it reaches full attunement. Not that that matters for you yet.”

“Can you pick which abilities are disabled?” Sophia thought the size-adjusting feature was probably the least useful, now that the armor was adjusted. It seemed unlikely that it had to keep running to keep the armor the correct size and shape, since it hadn’t reverted when Vramt broke his connection.

Vramt shook his head. “No, that’s only possible with a forced binding, where you override the Guide’s choices. I never did one, so I can only tell you what I’ve heard. Forced bindings are supposed to be difficult, can disrupt any other attunements you have, and will prevent future attunements until you can hold the attunement properly. I’ve even heard that they can be impossible to unbind until you’re strong enough. They’re also supposed to let you use the full capabilities of items you couldn’t otherwise use.”

“That sounds like a pretty good trade,” Dav mused out loud. “Especially since we don’t have anything else to attune.”

“Most people don’t think so,” Vramt contradicted Dav. “It’s not that difficult to get more items. If you are going to have a forced binding, though, this is the time.”

Sophia frowned at that. The contraceptive enchantments might require attunement. At the same time, if it got Dav armor he could actually wear, it might be worth having only one contraceptive enchantment. “We might have a second. We’ll have to buy it from Arryn; Aymini said that would be better than any potions she could provide.”

“Then you should go get it,” Vramt prompted. “That gives you the best chance of keeping it functional with the armor. If it’s small, it’ll attune more quickly. That should mean that there’s simply less space for the armor. That’s exactly why most people don’t attune multiple items at the same time; they all take longer and while the weakest usually finishes the fastest, you can never be certain, just like you’re never quite certain how many of your attunement slots something will take.”

Dav paused in the doorway. “Do I have to keep the armor on?”

“While it’s attuning? Yes. It really only has to be close to you, but for armor it’s best to wear it.” Vramt didn’t wait for another question; he gently closed the door in Dav’s face after using it to encourage Dav to get out of the way.

As it turned out, buying something from Arryn wasn’t hard; finding him was. He was happy to part with a pair of contraceptive enchantments worked into amulets to be worn under clothing or armor for what seemed a relatively small price. Each one was about the same price as a dozen of Aymini’s concoctions, but they would last for months. Arryn said they could even last years if they weren’t used much, but Sophia sincerely hoped that she wouldn’t have to put that to the test. She was fine with hers wearing out in a few months.

It helped that the materials they’d scavenged from the monster-maker that held the Shard of Kestii were valuable. Sophia wasn’t sure how they compared to the value of the armor they’d gotten from Vramt, but she sort of suspected that they’d gotten a good deal on the armor. She didn’t think the same about the contraceptives; Arryn was a merchant, after all, and even if he wished them well that didn’t mean he’d sell things at a particularly good price.

Attuning the amulets was just as easy as Vramt made it sound. Sophia’s finished in about half an hour, while Dav’s took over an hour. That had to be because Dav was also attuning armor at the same time.

With Vramt’s recommendation that Dav keep the armor on and the weight of the armor, Dav relatively quickly found his limits. He was able to keep moving and keep fighting, but after a few minutes he was a little unsteady and imprecise. It was a lot more weight than he was used to, and even though it moved well it wasn’t quite as flexible as his clothing. Sophia ended up helping Dav practice aura control instead of any of the other things they might have wanted to do.

Lunch came and went, followed by dinner, and Dav’s armor still hadn’t finished attuning. They were back in their room cuddling as best they could with the armor on when Dav froze.

“I have the choice,” Dav told Sophia. “I can cancel the attunement, accept a partial attunement to the size changing enchantment, or attempt to force a stronger attunement. There’s a warning that forcing the attunement could harm me or the armor. I don’t remember Vramt mentioning that.”

“I think he said something about it being impossible to unbind, but he didn’t mention either of those.” Sophia tried to squeeze Dav a little harder, but it just wasn’t the same with a layer of stone over Dav’s ribs.

“Size changing … I think I have to go for it. Both of the other enchantments are good and I think the one that will let me get rid of this stone is vital.” Dav’s words were cautious but his tone was joyful. He might be pretending to dislike the choice, but he was happy to have the excuse to try.

“Go for it,” Sophia encouraged him. Vramt’s description said there were risks, but it was quite clear that there were also benefits. As it was, the armor wasn’t really combat-functional for Dav. He simply couldn’t keep moving long enough while wearing it.

Sophia was torn as she watched Dav nod and close his eyes. She half wanted to be the person trying the new thing and was half proud Dav got to go first. At the same time, she was half annoyed that she didn’t have any way to see the magic and know what was actually happening; attunement almost had to be visible, but she had no way to know.

Her emotions were split into too many halves, mostly because they kept changing. She flipflopped back to feeling slight concern and a little more hope about Dav’s armor as she watched. No matter how this turned out, she was definitely going to pick up Mage Sight as soon as she had the wisps for it. She didn’t regret choosing Aura Armor, at least not much, but her aura sensitivity wasn’t nearly as good as a proper sight ability.

Nothing seemed to happen for a while other than Dav wincing and gripping her arm a little too hard; he was clearly in pain and trying not to show it. Sophia couldn’t do anything to help; she couldn’t see or sense what was happening beyond Dav’s clearly tight muscles.

Something pulled Sophia’s attention directly towards the armor and Dav. Something moved in Dav’s aura, in the mana he controlled, and it was strong enough that she could actually feel it, even when she wasn’t looking for it. That was strong, stronger than Dav had yet managed consciously. Sophia turned to look at him and saw the patch of purple skin on his cheek was glowing softly, brighter than usual.

His armor began to glow with the same sort of radiance and Sophia heard a cracking noise. It was fairly high pitched and thin, sort of like breaking a piece of chalk. It came again and again. Sophia felt something move under her hand and next to her leg; when she looked, each area had thin slices of stone that had fallen off the armor.

That seemed like a good sign; it had to be related to the last enchantment added to the armor, the one that let Vramt coat the armor in rock. Since it was one of the reasons Dav had trouble with the armor, that was probably the most important enchantment to attune.

As the rock broke away, it revealed a rough metal surface. It might once have been polished, but it clearly wasn’t any more. In places, it was even slightly pitted as if it had started to rust. Sophia frowned at that; was the armor still in good enough shape to be usable?

The slight glow around the armor intensified, then the metal seemed to shimmer and almost melt. The formerly rough-looking patches smoothed themselves out into irregular hexagonal shapes. It almost looked like the pattern on the back of a sea turtle, only it was clearly far thinner and spread across the armor. As the glow settled down, Sophia could see that she was actually looking at purple and black enamel that covered the patterning, which seemed to be part of the metal even though it hadn’t been there before.

Attunement had clearly replaced the overlapping stone plates with a pattern in the newly enameled metal. It had also completely removed the mail at the joints; they looked more like they were covered in black cloth than they did like mail. It would be more flexible but also more vulnerable.

The one thing Sophia could say about the armor for certain was that it must be far lighter than it had been.