Chapter 33 – One for the Road

  “From a knowledge perspective, he is cking. From a creativity standpoint, he can really get the job done.” – Jay talking to Penny about Kurt and his enchanting.

  The next morning found Kurt down in his workshop trying to make a decision. He had gotten up early, having called it a night before either of the girls and knew he had to make some progress before it was time for breakfast.

  His main problem was what material to use and what form it would take. He debated on the various transition metals, eventually settling on silver with a gold iny. His next issue was should he make it a neckce or a ring or something else.

  Naturally Kurt had woken up way too early partly from Val rolling over in her sleep and bumping him despite their now massive bed. While trying to fall back asleep he had gotten an idea for the enchantment that Kristi would be able to use to hide her scales. So, at the unholy hour of four in the morning, he had made coffee and was now staring at an open box of various bits of metal.

  Once more hesitating and getting frustrated, Kurt decided to finish his coffee before making any decisions. He opened his phone and saw an email had arrived te st night. He opened it to see it was the appraisal of the strange crystals they had found. Once more, he clicked the attached file, expecting a little light reading while he downed his cup.

  “Summary 1: The gem in question presents with a typical structure to a variety of other gems and precious stones. It has strong amplification properties when exposed to mana of any nature but does not act as a battery for the storage of mana in its current state. (See Note #1). The hardness of the structure rates at around a 7.25 on the Moh’s hardness scale, being slightly harder than quartz….”

  Kurt skimmed through the initial summary then noticed there was a second one as he scrolled through the PDF. It was right after the first note in the document.

  “Note 1: When heat was applied to the sample, its structure changed drastically and resulted in a significant variance of properties. See second summary for more information.

  Summary 2: After heating to a temperature of above 1100 degrees Celsius, the sample liquified to a state simir to molten copper with an estimated viscosity of 1000 – 1300 CPS (Sample side not rge enough to provide accurate measurement.) Upon cooling, the sample had a characteristic simir to gold at room temperature. In this ‘metallic’ state, the material had reduced amplification properties but gained the ability to store mana with little (Possibly zero) loss. Further testing is required…”

  Kurt stared at the screen. He quickly re read the email, double checking the findings. This could solve a lot of his current problems with making sure his enchantments had the power he needed. He was just about to begin experimenting when he heard feet on the floor above. It seems that at least one of the girls had woken, judging by the sound of running water, it was Kristi.

  He sighed, closed his box and put it away. Then he collected his now empty cup and gnced at his watch before nearly dropping the cup. Nearly two hours had passed since he first came down and he only just noticed the light coming through the slit windows at the top of the wall.

  “Shit, gotta start setting an arm or something.” He mumbled as he went up the stairs.

  He was greeted by the sight of Val strolling into the kitchen, looking around for where he ended up. She was in one of his sweatshirts which left the question of if there was anything else on underneath. The way her tail was poking out suggested that there might not be much, if anything.

  “Mmmm Coffee.” She groaned after noticing him coming up the stair. She poured a cup and took a sip before looking at him. “Where did you disappear to?”

  Kurt hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Working downstairs. I got caught up in an email from the order.”

  Val suddenly perked up. “What email?” she began fishing for her own phone, trying and failing to find the central pocket of the sweatshirt. She chased it around for a moment with one hand but every time she attempted to move, the pocket also shifted because it was so baggy.

  “Early findings on that crystal we found. Seems it might be quite the haul. For me at least.” Kurt said while grabbing the cup from her hand to prevent it spilling.

  “Oh, well that’s good.” She finally got her phone but just set it on the counter after finding out it wasn’t actually needed. “What were you working on so early? And why did you even get up so early?”

  “Well for starters, for having furred feet, your toes are surprisingly cold when they touch my skin.” He said while grabbing pans out of cupboards. “And I was working on something for Kristi’s little problem.”

  “What problem?” Kristi said as she strolled into the room. She was also wearing one of his sweatshirts but had also put on a pair of his basketball shorts. Kurt noticed that she had scales running down her legs to the tops of her human looking feet. They were covering every part of her lower leg but only the outside of the upper part.

  “Hey! How was the shower? Amazing Right?” Val rattled off several questions before their guest even had a chance to respond.

  “Yeah, it was. Not sure how that works but I would kill to have one like that.” She answered while running a hand through her silvery hair.

  Kurt, meanwhile, looked from her to Val. “Did you just raid my closet this morning?” he asked his girlfriend.

  She shrugged. “Well for starters, this one” She tugged at the sweatshirt she was wearing. “Was on the hamper so it doesn’t count as raiding your closet. Those are because she didn’t have any pajamas.” She pointed to Kristi who blushed slightly. “I couldn’t have her walking around naked, could I? that would be hard to ignore for a big bad alpha wolf.” She was teasing now.

  He saw Kristi perk up and mouth the word alpha, but he pressed on, moving away from the clothing situation. “Ahem, I was working on her disguise. Or rather I was trying to figure out what to put it on. So, Kristi, two questions.”

  She was looking nervous as he stared at her intently, pointing with a spatu. “Number one, neckce, bracelet, or ring?”

  “Umm, I think… I think a neckce would be nice.” She was looking a little timid from the direct attention. “What was the second question?”

  “What do you want for breakfast?” He said with a very stupid smile as he slid a cup of coffee to her.

  After a rather heavy breakfast with eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and some fruit, Kurt led them downstairs. Val was doing her best impression of a realtor and showcasing their rather spartan living room. Kristi was slightly interested in the movie situation, apparently being a bit of a film buff, but she was much more interested in the workshop than anything else in the house.

  “So, this is where the magic happens.” Kristi commented after stepping into the room and doing a quick 360 to look around.

  “Nah, the magic happens in the bedroom… and once in the shower.” Val said with a chuckle. “Or would it be twice since wEEE! Yowch!” Her bawdy joke turned into a squeal as Kurt smacked her on a mostly exposed butt cheek. Turns out she was wearing some rather short shorts.

  “That’s enough.” Kurt said, turning his sp into a gentle rub. “Kristi, come over here and pick out some stuff.” Kurt said and opened the locker with the raw materials in it. “Pick a chain and I’ll get started on the pendant.”

  He opened the box with parts, mostly bnk bits of metal, scrap and a few individually bagged chains. Nothing was particurly expensive or high grade, lots of gold alloys or pted chain. The other box he pulled out had some rough-cut shapes of silver and gold, rolled ft and to a consistent thickness.

  “I don’t know, these all seem pretty nice. Can’t I just find something ter and bring it by when you finish it in a few weeks?”

  Kurt raised an eyebrow and gnced to Val who just smiled and shrugged. “Humor me please.” He said after returning his focus to Kristi.

  With her tail flicking back and forth a little she poked and sorted through the bags of chain before finally picking one. “How about this?” The small bag had a silver chain with a moderately rge link. The design was open enough that Kurt would be able to slip a loop through the links of the chain for the pendant, allowing it to y mostly ft.

  “Works for me.” He said and took the baggie from her and set it on the counter before pulling out an oval of stamped silver. “If you want to look at some stuff, Val can show you the lockers. Otherwise feel free to do whatever.”

  Without further dey, Kurt began work on his disguise enchantment. The first thing he did was pull out some scraps of silver that had come from his previous failed experiments. There were plenty of those to go around after his years of trial and error. He briefly heard them talking in the background before the sound of the TV was muffled by the door closing.

  Once he had a suitable link for the pendant, he fetched his crucible and torch from the drawers in the bench. He really wanted to try using their new crystals and converting some to the metal that he read about. He set the bowl on a metal sheet on the bench then summoned a few of the smaller stones into the ceramic cup.

  Torch on and putting heat to the crystals, he began to melt them. It was an interesting process to watch since nothing happened for a while, just the ceramic and crystal heating up. Then they began to glow with the small stones turning an almost white color.

  Kurt watched closely as those small white stones morphed and melted. In an instant they went from a handful of gems to a small dollop of liquid metal. He took the heat off and watched it cool for a moment, noticing that it didn’t form any soot yer or scale from the process.

  After pouring the cooling button of metal on the protective pte, he spshed it with a bit of water, getting it to cool faster but also noting how quickly it had shed heat. The material was surprisingly conductive and seemed to have little thermal mass, at least in this quantity.

  With the shining bck metal button now cool to the touch, Kurt inspected it. He could feel it pull a bit of mana off him and hold it, being extremely receptive without any ‘g’. It was a surprising amount for such a small amount metal but then again, the report said it was both mana dense and concentrated when in a metallic form.

  He brought it over to his small vice, using the back and a hammer to draw the disk out into a bar before passing it through a roller a few times to turn it into a sort of thick wire for inying. He liked the way it worked so far, having a malleability like gold but being a little lighter to work.

  Next step was getting out his book and picking a concealment enchant to put on the pendant. He had a couple examples and brought out a spare paper to sketch a new one that would fit his needs. He needed to go from the typical ‘don’t bother looking’ or ‘everything is normal’ to something that would make Kristi human.

  He debated the two methods but decided to go with one that was more concealing in nature. Choosing to actually change her scales to skin rather than obfuscate the fact that she wasn’t human. It was a simple process to change runes and reconnect the pathways for the more specific and intense spell. Changing specific features would also help with the mana cost, making it something she could run constantly for a pittance of magical energy each day. That cost would also be constant rather than variable based on how much attention she was getting and from who.

  After finishing up working out the shapeshifting enchantment, Kurt slotted his scribing stand on the bench, using the inlet on the work surface to hold the base steady. Using a little super glue, he adhered the ft surface to the stand. The ball joint would allow him to rotate the pendant as needed and at any angle. Only downside was it only really worked for ft surfaces that could take a little heat afterward.

  Next Kurt grabbed the stylus and dividers he used and began lightly etching the outlines for the pendant. Once the lines were made and adjusted for the size, he began to engrave the surface. It was a little more difficult than the focus he made for Val but far easier than the storage rings.

  Around and around, he went, slowly tapping his way along the scribed lines and making the ft bottom grooves to take the wire. He did have one hiccup and needed to make another pass to get a consistent depth on the rune that handled ‘color’ but other than that, had no problems.

  With everything set, Kurt broke the scribed pendant free with a little heat from the torch to loosen the glue. After a quick bath in acetone, he was on to the next step and putting the engraved pendant in a wood backed cmp to begin the iny.

  “Hey, just wanted to check in.” Came Val’s voice with a hand suddenly on his back. “It’s been a couple hours.”

  “Hmm? Oh, thanks.” Kurt stepped back and stretched. He hadn’t realized how long he had been hunched over the bench. “What have you two been doing?”

  Val looked back into the living room at Kristi who was peering over the back of the couch. “Just watching a movie and chatting.”

  Kurt gave her a quick kiss. “I will try to hurry up and be done before lunch.”

  After a brief assurance about not needing to rush, Val left and Kurt got back to work, taking out his iny tools and beginning to form the soft wire into the silver pendant. This part went quick as all he needed to do was fill in the lines.

  Once the mystery metal was covering everything, Kurt got out his sandpaper and backing boards to level everything off and make sure there weren’t any gaps and voids. He was also mindful enough to put a slight chamfer on the edges so it would be more comfortable to wear.

  After sanding was attaching the chain. Kurt used a pair of tiny pliers to bend a piece of scrap silver into a wide, ft link that ran from between the links of the chain to the hole in the pendant. With how it was set up, it would always y ft, never twisting or being edge on to the skin. A dab of solder held the two together and everything was finally assembled.

  Kurt gave everything a final once over before buffing with some polish on a cotton wheel, bringing the surface to a brilliant shine and really highlighting the contrast between the two metals. Then it was time for the part he was concerned about. He pulled out his enchanting pte and put away his other tools.

  He knew silver and gold were already pretty mana conductive and had plenty of density to store it but this new metal he inyed was a mystery. He was going to need to pull a bit of the ambient mana if he wanted to be safe about activating the enchantments and not kill himself from mana loss. Not that it would kill him as a werewolf, but he would feel like he had a cold for a couple days.

  Once more, base rune was instant, but he did have to manually cast his second activation circle that would slowly draw mana form the surroundings rather than him. He hadn’t used this spell before so his nanobots once more learned it and made the formation in his body.

  The formations sandwiched the neckce between them and began to transfer energy into the engraving. Interestingly, while the sliver lit up in a normal amount of time, the new metal was a little slower but ended up glowing far brighter. The entire process took a few minutes and Kurt was gd that he had taken the extra steps to cast the longer spell.

  Finally, after the entire neckce had begun to glow a bright white, the light faded, and the enchanting circles winked out. ying on the steel pte was a shining, and slightly warm, silver neckce. Kurt picked it up and moved it over to where his inspection tools were. He looked through his magnifying gss, confirming that everything was stable and that this enchant was both intuitive to use as well as powerful in its effects.

  With a smirk, Kurt put everything away and picked up the neckce. He noticed that it hadn’t cooled off, staying a warm and comfortable temperature as he held it. A mild curiosity and possibly a side effect of the enchantment.

  Walking out into the lower living room, he noticed that the girls had vanished. He then heard talking from upstairs and figured they had gotten hungry, since he just noticed that it was lunch time.

  “Hey, I’m all done.” He said after reaching the top of the stairs and seeing Val with her head in the pantry. “Hungry already?”

  “Yeah, I am not used to breakfast so early, sorry.” Kristi answered.

  Kurt waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it.” He noticed Val had abandoned her search of the pantry and was looking at Kristi with a sly grin. “How about we go out for lunch? I want to visit a friend of mine.” He said, getting an idea of what Val was waiting for.

  “Oh, I guess I can wait here or head back…” Kristi began but Kurt cut her off.

  “I think you misunderstand.” He said and held out the neckce he had wrapped in a cotton cloth. “We all go out for lunch.” He pced it on the counter right in front of her.

  Kristi looked from him to the neckce, to Val, then back to Kurt. Her face was a mix of surprise and wariness. “What is this? I recognize the chain…”

  Val apparently couldn’t take it anymore and just blurted out what she had been trying to hold in. “Kurt finished the enchantment! Go on put it on. Do it!” She came around the counter like she was about to force it on the dragon girl.

  “How?” She looked to Kurt with wide eyes. She still hadn’t dared to touch the neckce.

  “Tell you ter, just put it on and you will intuit what you need to know.” He said and nudged the pendant with his finger.

  With shaking hands, Kristi picked up the neckce, staring at it for a few moments before fumbling with the csp, barely being able to open it due to her nerves. She brought the two ends around her neck and paused, unable to see the csp anymore.

  Val came to the rescue and moved her braid out of the way before taking the ends and clipping them together. She leaned forward and whispered something that Kurt didn’t quite catch but by the sudden, shaky nod from Kristi, he wasn’t meant to hear it.

  Kristi’s eyes flickered back and forth for a second, like she was reading something before they went wide. A moment ter, the neckce snugged up, shrinking slightly to be tighter which caused the pendant to sit right at the top of her sternum.

  A moment ter and the scales on the sides of her neck and face disappeared, fading away and leaving only the smooth, tan skin that one would expect of a human. Her hair also changed color, darkening to a light brown. Suddenly Kristi lurched to her feet and ran for the bathroom. Kurt and Val followed out of concern but stopped when they saw her staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she ran her hands over the smooth skin of her face and neck. She then pulled back the sleeves of the sweatshirt and saw they had vanished from her arms. She then noticed them gone from her legs and feet once she looked down.

  After a few moments of staring and touching, she noticed Kurt standing there with Val peeking over his shoulder. Kristi lunged forward and wrapped him in a hug, pulling him into her with a startling amount of strength. He could feel some dampness on his shoulder as she pressed her face against it. Val just patted him on the back and let them hug it out.

  “Thank you.” She choked out. Kristi then let go of him and stood up, sniffing hard and dabbing at the corner of her eyes with his sweatshirt. “I swear I will pay f…”

  “Nope. Don’t even try.” Kurt said, plopping a hand on her shoulder with a soft cp. “It’s a gift, for a friend, for you.” He smiled; gd he had gotten it so right the first time.

  “But this would cost…” she tried again.

  “Will you ever sell it?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Then it has no monetary value. I don’t expect you to cover the cost of some bits of silver or a cheap silver neckce. The magic cost me nothing and doing something nice for a friend is payment enough.”

  ‘You are going to be hard to shop for at Christmas time.” Val commented wryly as she shuffled away. “Now come on. Lets break up this little love fest and go get lunch.”