Masterwork
8th of July 2006 A.D.
Electric forges sputter eerie blue and venomous green as spiked wheels whir to life biting into steel, and smoke breathes though the chamber thick and black, the breath of Mikaboshi's far off realm now given form, now given purpose by your will. You run steel though the rings , wire tighter and tighter, the temperature just right to keep it ductile, to keep it supple and yet not to snap.
Lost 1 Essence
A dissonant chime rings like nails on a chalkboard tapping and so you rush to open the oven, the heat inside precisely calibrated so that the chill of your hands would cool the grey sheets just so. From fire's leavings, from humble charcoal you made graphite and then in clouds poison smoke restrained by a bending of your will arc lighting dances and sheets of carbon one molecule thick bend into nanotubes so that your armor might be tough where it needs to and supple where it can afford to.
It's just iron and carbon, some of the most common elements of the earth you know but woven together as they had never quite been before under the power of your tools under the deftness of your hands...
The smoke clears on its own thankfully, flowing back into the shinning heart of your soul and not out the window to scare the neighbors, the oil had been scrubbed and any cuts and fire-scarring on the table and the benches had been put right, even the smell was gone like the last vestige of a bad dream gone with the dawn.
But it is evening's light that falls through the newly opened windows and it falls upon what you had wrought.
It is not, you will admit,
quite Frodo's mithral shirt. You would not want to test it against a troll, but the shirt of black chain flows almost like cloth in your hand steel and carbon both woven just as you had hoped. Since you do not mind the cold you can wear this against your skin under everyday clothes... as long as you avoid low cut blouses at least.
Bet mom will the thrilled... Still you weren't about to make
less protective armor just for the looks.
Maybe I should mail Blizzard a picture with how that Night Elf armor should really look, you smile at the thought.
Gained Chainshirt
- +1 soak Roll; no penalty to dexterity
- Can be worn under most clothing inconspicuously
"Blizzard?" Usum asks, breaking the silence he had kept while you worked.
Explaining World of Warcraft to him is a lot easier than you thought it would be, almost disturbingly so.
"I see. It's like faux-possession of an electronic shell..."
People vicariously acting like demons riding inside their characters would explain some of the worst of the trolling all too well, though you remind yourself that not everyone does that, just assholes.
You put on the armor and turn to the old mirror in the corner to see the fit. It's only when it's on you and the sun can play along the spirals you had made it of that you see the beauty in its functional pattern. Like the lines of Damascus steel spirals of more tempered rings and less run all along the armor, weaving subtle patterns that tease the eye and snare it. Are they flames and smoke reaching for the sky, is it the helix pattern common to all living things, is it some arcane code, the pattern writ in light and dark? All that perhaps, but to your eyes they seem most like the scales of a great dragon of shadow and steel.
Anomalous Quality revealed:
Scales of Ebon +1 Die to Appearance+Intimidation rolls
"Woah... maybe I did a bit too good of a job." you say. Then before Usum can ever speak up to contradict you you shake your head. "Nah, no such thing as too cool." A bit more of a personal touch would not hurt though...
Shimming out of it you grab one of the bits of scrap steel you had left behind making the chain and start to shape it into a centerpiece, like a false clasp under the chin. At first you think of the odd symbol on your brow,. but you already have that, you'll never not have that, then a cross but that feels a little presumptuous to just put on your armor.
Oh... that'll work. An eye of polished steel inside a pentagram completes the look.
***
"So... what do you think?" you ask your dad as you give an effortless twirl around the now empty kitchen. Daniel was out with his girlfriend, the jawas were all playing out back and mom was out delivering care packages for a food drive.
"You look..." he kind of t rails off.
"Menacingly villainous?" you try to make it a joke.
"
Dark certainly, but the night is as natural as the day, there is nothing wrong with seeing the beauty in it. That's as masterful as any chain shirt I have ever seen. It suits you," he answers after a moment.
"Thanks dad," you answer with a more sincere smile. "What about as armor?"
"Can't tell that by looking can I?" he replies reasonably.
One test with the kitchen knife on the sleeve and be pronounces it about as protective as a heavy leather coat or jacket, but better your opponent will not know you are wearing armor until they try to hit you.
"I'm going out with you tomorrow," you say, trying to keep your tone neutral, but coming out a little defiant anyway.
"After church," he agrees. "Hopefully it won't be anything worse than watching over a meeting and a package being handed off, but it's important enough that it might be
meddled with."
"Denarians?" you ask, your voice falling to a whisper.
"I do not know who the adversary might be on any given day, " your father shakes his head. "It's not like James Bond where I get a brief from Q or the like." You forbear from mentioning that Q is the gadget guy not the mission guy. This is some of the stuff you had wanted to find out ever since you knew what the knights were and who they fought.
"Someone will reach out for help, it can be through contacts in the Church, it can be someone I know on the phone, a few times it has even been strangers on the street and I can feel the weight of it the same way I feel the weight of Amoracchius in my hand. It's not always fighting either, sometimes it is just giving what advice I can and offering a sympathetic ear."
"But this time it's fighting?" you try not to sound
too eager.
"This time I was asked to provide some security on the hand off of sacred things from an organization here in Chicago and monks of the Shey Gompa Monastery in Nepal," he sounds a little more tentative.
"An organization?" you raise an eyebrow. "Come on dad, you are
not good at dancing around things."
He sighs. "That is the usual euphemism for organized crime, John Marcone's people. Hopefully you won't have to interact with any of them, but if you do keep in mind that they do have their own code of ethics, though I would not vouch for their morals."
You have never heard the name before in your life and from the look dad gives you he does not consider informing you about the ins and outs of the local criminal underground to be necessary for tomorrow's task. To the internet you go.
A little bit of digging into old newspaper stories put online by internet sleuths reveals that a lot of reporters liked to call him a snake a few years back, though from the way public accusations and the handful of legal charges seem to slide off him you would say he is more off an eel. At least one of those reporters had an 'unfortunate accident' a fall down stairs and another seemingly skipped town. Though honestly if you worked for the
Midwestern Arcane you might have vanished without telling your bosses too. Given the number of Elvis sightings in that rag you would think there is an entire underground race of Elvis-people ready to rise up and reclaim the surface world.
Granted the fact that he even ended up in the Arcane is kind of proof of how pervasive Marcone's influence really is. He is 'allegedly' involved in drugs prostitution, gambling and racketeering. Guess you know whose place you are going to be hitting up if you go with that vague ideal of hitting up a casino poker tables for some quick money. Even less guilt-inducing that a regular casino given where the house's money is likely to come from.
How do you prepare for tomorrow evening?
[] Just go in your Sunday best, that'll confuse them
[] Wear your armor openly, that is bound to make a statement
[] Dress for success... or intimidation as the case might be
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: Style is important especially when it comes to what will be your debut to the local supernatural world so I thought this deserved a vote as it will impact perceptions of Molly going forward. In terms of write in you guys can use anything she would reasonably own given her preffered style and history. 
