When he opened the door and went to the living room he found Sonya and Thera playing a game of lowmage when he greeted them.
“Done your secret meeting with uncle?” Thera asked, some jealousy plain in her voice. Ben felt pretty bad about it, he knew she was bothered by the fact he refused to share what he’d been working on which led him to making a snap decision.
“Yep, I’m hoping to work in it throughout the night so if it goes well it will be done tomorrow. If it doesn’t then either I’m wrong and it’s impossible or my skills aren’t good enough yet, either way I’ll at least let you know what I was trying.”
“Really!” Her eyes lit up and she let out a bit more excitement than she probably meant to. “Then why not just tell us now though?”
He gave a little shake of his head. “I feel like that would only get my own hopes up, if this fails then I can accept it and move on.”
“Alright, fine. So when will it be done?”
“I’ll probably have to work through the night. Speaking of, I'll need to borrow your arm.”
“Okay, which one?”
“Your choice.” He replied, and she held out her left for him.
“And is this going to take long?”
“Oh absolutely.” And with that he got to work. He was going to make her an arm-brace with a technique known as wire-wrapping, which involved cutting lengths of the wire and through a process of wrapping, tying, bending, and braiding, produced an intricate piece that would hold itself together. The main thing was shaping it in a way that would both hold comfortably to her arm, as well as being something she could slide on and off with enough ease should the need arise. Of course aside from that, it was going to be something she would have to wear all of the time. It would also have to be aesthetic, so he did his best to find a good balance between form and function.
He took all the measurements he needed to as he went, used some wire cutters he brought from the shop, and let his artistic vision take over, moving every wire as he thought would be the most aesthetically pleasing, losing himself in the act of assembly. He hadn’t paid much mind to the time itself and before he knew it, it was time to add the mana crystal. He had left a spot open in the top center, where the wires would be able to wrap around the mythril inlay to anchor it in place, and finally. he was done. A part of him actually wished it had taken a bit longer, it was a more enjoyable artform than he had expected, but he could always dabble with it more in the future, and it seemed that Thera was getting tired, she’d stopped supporting her arm long ago, instead just resting it on him as he worked.
When he let go she turned to him. “Are you finally done?”
“Well at least the first part, I'll have to harden the metal later so it holds its shape but I should be able to enchant it first. So what do you think?”
She stretched her arm out in front of her to give herself and Sonya a look. “It’s beautiful.” She admitted. “Though I’d still really like to know what it’s for.”
Sonya could only gasp at first though. “Ben is that what I think it is?”
“That depends.” He said with a cheeky grin. “Are you talking about the mana crystal in the center, or the mythril wire?”
They both put on a stunned look when he said that. “Well I just meant the crystal, but you used mythril as well? There’s so much, what could you possibly be using this for?”
“Well it's a fifty percent mithril alloy, so it’s not quite as much as it looks, but if I can’t make my enchantment work on this then it’s going to be impossible.”
“Ben, what could you possibly be trying to enchant on this? I’m pretty sure fractions of the quantity you used are added to most weapons or armors to enhance their magical effects.”
“Again, I’ll tell you in the morning. Anyway now all that's left to do is enchant it.”
“Is it going to take long?” Thera asked. “I would really like to get to bed soon.”
“It… will probably be a while, but I think you can sleep while I do it.”
“You don’t need to connect to me for it? Then what were you doing on all of your previous attempts?”
“No I’ll definitely need to be connected, but I’m pretty sure you can be asleep for it, it shouldn’t cause any issue.”
“Wait now, hold on.” she spoke with surprise. “That means you’d be in my room watching me sleep for how long?”
“Honestly probably a while, but it’s not like I’ll be watching you sleep or anything. I’ll be focusing on my enchantment.”
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Thera looked back and forth between Ben and Sonya, Ben showing a serious face, and Sonya trying not to giggle too hard from the exchange.
“Ah Thera, you’re mother and I always wondered what sort of man you’d first spend the night with.”
“Please wonder something else!” She responded with a shout before turning back to Ben. “Okay, fine. Just don’t do anything weird. Or stare at me too much. Or break any of my clothing with your enchantments. Or do anything other than work on your project. Also my door’s staying open.”
“Yes ma’am, no worries. I am a picture of responsibility.” Thera gave him a doubtful look but didn’t argue, instead getting up.
“Fine, I’m going to change, I guess come in whenever you want to start.” He got up to follow her but she yelled back. “I meant after I’m done changing!”
“My bad.” So he sat back down with Sonya, who was still stifling her giggles.
“I have to say Ben, Thera’s been a lot more expressive with you around.”
“Um, is that a good thing?” He wasn’t really sure where this was going.
“It is.” She quickly affirmed. “Because of her constitution, even other succubi children often didn’t have the necessary resistances to stay around her, so it warms my heart to see her have a proper friend, even luckier that it happens to be a nice man around her own age.” Her smile seemed to be carrying certain implications behind it, which Ben elected to ignore.
“And I’m happy to have made a friend my age in this world as well. The first few months in this town my only conversation partners were Falk and Myriad, so it’s nice to have her company.”
“It’s still downright strange that you could consider a god a casual conversation partner, but I guess if you’ll put her on the same level then you’re at least valuing her properly.” She mused. “Anyway I’m sure she’s all sorted. You should go in while she’s awake, it wouldn’t be a good look to sneak in while she’s sleeping.”
“Right.” He thankfully wasn’t that dense. “Well I’ll see you in the morning then Sonya.” With goodnights exchanged he grabbed a stool and headed over to Thera’s room. The door was open so he let himself in.
Thera was laying in bed, her blanket covering most of her face, so only her eyes were peaking out, with a bit of a flush barely visible beneath them. She left her arm with the brace out over her sheets and now Ben had to admit to himself that yeah, this was definitely a weird situation to be in. Still he tried to calm his thoughts, focusing on the task at hand, trying to steady his mind so it wouldn’t disturb her rest.
He put the stool down beside her and took her hand in his own, while placing his other one on the brace.
“Alright, just try and relax Thera, I’ll try and make sure my thoughts and emotions don’t distract you while you sleep.”
“I’m perfectly relaxed. You just make sure you don't do anything weird.”
“Promise.” And with that he connected.
He could immediately tell that Thera was suffering through a range of emotions at the moment. Awkwardness, shyness, general embarrassment, and other emotional discomfort. He guessed it made sense, just because they were friends didn’t mean that she would be comfortable with a man sitting by her bedside throughout the night so he tried to be as relaxed as possible to hopefully help her calm down, then got to work.
The first thing he did was secure his enchantment to the armband, then he began to pull and stretch it out. He was trying to apply two different techniques he was aware of, braiding his enchantments, to make it sturdier and ultimately easier to make than trying to form a giant layer all at once, as well as another he’d only learned the practical use for recently, which caused the enchantment to cling to a person, much in the way Falk protected himself from Theras magic with a powerful dark resistance necklace.
Ben however wouldn’t be making it cling to her body though, he would be attaching it to her mana itself. Ideally the high level of resistance would act as a sort of filter for her mana, stripping it of the affinity that was mixed in, but he’d first need to overcome the greatest obstacle, the near-overwhelming size of Theras mana.
It was so large that he had to be careful with his own mana as he worked, making sure to work at a slow enough pace that his mana recovery could keep up. With that, a night full of patient working began. With great care he wrapped his mana around her own, making the thinnest strand of enchantment he thought he could get away with, and after who could say how long started to thread it through itself. One of the biggest hurdles to the entire endeavour was figuring out how exactly he was going to braid it. He’d thought of a couple interesting solutions, but had to dismiss them out of hand, just from the size of her mana alone. After weeks of deliberation and discussing options with Myriad, they had chosen to settle on something that would resemble a monkey's fist knot.
He’d made a couple for fun when he was younger and practiced with string to be sure he still knew the proper technique for it, it just so happened that the scale was on a whole other level.
As the hours ticked by he soldiered on, correcting any minor mistake he made along the way with a level of patience he could only muster when using his focus skill, and eventually he finished, now all that mattered was if it would work.
<ENCHANTING LEVEL INCREASED>