Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1383. As foreseen

Back in the workshop, they talked about how and where to attack the newly acquired materials. Seth couldnʼt treat the hair as just decorations, as the bundle was its own legendary material and would also be included in the soul-forged copy. As such, they had to be properly secured to the helmet, using the Heart Scale Material.

The question was how. Since Faenys was the chosen of an Olympian God, a plumage like that of hoplite helmets seemed natural; however, this was a bascinet and not a hoplite helmet, making a white brush on the head unfitting.

The typical plume of a bascinet, however, would have been a crest of feathers sticking up from the top or the back of the helmet. They had the horse hair for a hoplite, but the helmet of a knight. In the end, things turned out as Seth had foreseen earlier.

After talking for a while, they decided to attach it to the back of the head, so it would really look like a long ponytail sticking out from the armor. A really long one, considering the hippogriffʼs tail was almost two meters long. The hair would end up falling all the way down to the lower back and past the butt.

“You know, if you want it to look good, you should do it like this...” Sivri suddenly joined their conversation as they got to the question of how exactly to attach the plume to the helmet itself.

The golden dwarf asked for the thick bundle of hair, spreading it flat on one of the workbenches. With the other two watching, she sorted the tail hair into several strands and started shifting them up and down in relation to each other.

Next, she collected them all back into a thick bundle and took a rubber band from a drawer. They sometimes used these to temporarily fix things in place. Then she folded the thick bundle of hair roughly at the upper third and wound the rubber band around the loop she made like this.

“Now you just have to make a fitting socket and secure this inside with a pin and some glue,” she said proudly and held up the plume she had just crafted. It was a very easy process, but the result was convincing.

At the front, the hair was a little shorter and stood up straight, before falling to the back in a smooth cascade. It definitely resembled a plumage made with bushy feathers, as one would expect from a knightʼs helmet, but used the Hippogriff tail to create the effect.

“Great work, this looks really good!” Seth praised, surprised. Faenys, too, was beaming at the result of Sivriʼs quick crafting. With the business of the plume pretty much decided, there was one more thing she wanted to mention.

In addition to the plume, Faenys also asked for a few more silver decorations for the back and sides of the helmet, to give it more character and tie it in with the decoration already present on the cuisses.

With all the decisions made, Seth was left to rework the helmet slightly. He started by moving material from all over the helmet to the back of the head, so he had enough for a proper socket. In this thickened part, he proceeded to make a small hole.

Starting from here, he could work the gathered material into a socket to fit the plume through. For this, he used a piece of -wire, the kind Tored used to make the chain armor. Putting it through the hair loop, he then threaded it through the hole, pulling the bundle of hair into the socket and through the hole.

From the inside, he welded the wire to a small plate of , which became the plug for the hole from inside, where he fused it to the scale material. This way, the plume was already attached quite securely, with the hair squeezed relatively tight into the socket. But Seth went a step further.

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He added some of the epic-rated glue he knew from his bowyer training into the shaft before he started working the socket, making it even tighter, wedging the plume really in there. Some of the glue came back out in the process, but he simply wiped it off.

Once the glue hardened, the plume would be attacked in three ways. An loop held it on the inside, the socket squeezed it like the hair of a brush, and the glue would not only make sure it stayed in the socket, but also that no individual hair managed to get loose.

Looking at the result of this technique, Seth had to admit that it looked quite good. Minding the time, Seth took a break and went to get lunch before he continued with the next step. The blacksmith didnʼt want to go too crazy with the enchantments on the physical helmet and only added two advanced circuits of Willpower.

They were easily hidden by the decorations Faenys chose, leaving the helmet looking immaculate after polishing it one more time. Since the helmet was done, it was time for the soul. He already had one prepared.

This was one of the souls Seth had distilled from the souls of the dragonnewts he had collected on his way to get Pithra. It was the culmination of all the skills and traits that improved mental resistance and mental power.

As one would expect from a race that descended from dragons, they prided themselves in a powerful mind. No matter their class, they all had a good resistance and willpower. Since Faenys had mentioned that she needed a little boost in this area, this had become one of the souls designated for her armor.

Like with his own armor, these kinds of effects had to go into the helmet or accessories, according to Seth. For eons, people wore funny helmets and special crowns to protect their minds from outside influence, such as Magnatoʼs Helmet, or the famous tin foil hat, and the bard didnʼt intend to break with that tradition.

The blacksmith forged the soul into an almost perfect replica of the helmet. The hardest parts were the plume, as he had to approximate the hair strand. He just couldnʼt forge each hair individually, not even with .

Despite taking some shortcuts, it still took him over three hours to finish the soul armament, and he still wasnʼt 100% happy. He already expected the soul infusion to become a nightmare, even when he had already accomplished worse.

He let out a big sigh and took a small break, when he finally finished soul forging. He had to mentally prepare himself for the enchantment of the helmet. Originally, the infernal scald intended to enchant the Soul with Flaurosʼ Firewall, the effect he had created with one of his few original songs.

However, the nature of the helmet had changed slightly, with the addition of the special material. Seth wanted to bank on the addition of the blessing of Phobos and further improve on it. He saw a chance for synergies, considering the dragon nature of the material; maybe he could get a Dragon Fear or Dragon Might effect.

Although he had a soul remaining that could directly grant the effect, he didnʼt intend to use it on this Set. After all, he was also going to make one for Monique; he couldnʼt splurge all the good stuff for Faenys, not if there were better options for her.

As such, the poem he chose to etch into the soul helmet was called Trumpets of Purson, written by a demon called Carnyx, describing the descent of a lion-like demon. Dipping his brush into the acid, Seth recounted the first paragraph of the piece.

“Hear, so that you may see! I am the prince of the Army of the Lord! Pick up your weapons for the battlefield you stand on is holy....”

The brush moves along the curves of the incorporeal helmet, leaving demonic runes written in acid in its wake. Pictures of a grand battlefield were conjured in his mind as he recited the poem.

“Trumpets sound and the people scream. Tubas sound and tremor the battlefield. Trumpets sound and the people scream. Tubas sound and terrorize the world,” he wrote as the noise of battle filled his mind.

Seth could tell that worked, as he could feel the influence of the proprietor of the piece strengthen and pressure him, as he kept etching the poem into the helmet. Each rune started to ooze a dark crimson aura as power started flowing inside.

“And then, when I step on the battlefield, great armies will fall and everything will become ashes. For I will burn it all. Hear the trumpets of wrath. Hear the Trumpets of Purson! Hear, so that you may see!”