Chapter 4

Making stuff for fun and profit. And vomit.

"So, let me see if I have this straight." Alex says two days later, as they walk into the apartment so Buffy can see the new leathers that have been made. "This epic douche nozzle found out he was dying of cancer and decided it would be A-Okay to sell you to a vampire for a shot at eternal life as a humanity destroying infested corpse. Yet somehow despite all of this, you still felt bad enough for him to drag him out of there and take him back to his craptastic by-the-week apartment type place. Is this jerk really that important to you?"

Buffy looks a little disturbed by Alex's assessment, but unfortunately she can't deny any of it. "We do dumb, desperate things when we think we are going to die. Look at me, tearing off after the master and unwittingly helping to fulfill a prophecy that said I was gonna die by doing it."

Alex stops in the living room. "Yeah, not your finest moment, maybe. But you were willing to go down fighting the good fight against evil. To meet your fate head on and make sure it had a black eye and some cracked ribs when you were done. This ass clown wants to become the evil. Comparing the two of you like that is an embarrassment. Mostly to you. Look, I think the guy is basically a poster child for late term abortion being encouraged, but if he really means that much to you I can probably save him. It'll slow down your armor by a few days, but it isn't hard."

She looks at Alex a little confused. "You can cure cancer? Brain cancer?"

Alex shrugs. "Assuming that I can get all the bugs worked out of the potion, sure. 'Remove Disease' isn't a particularly expensive one to put together, and if it doesn't work then I'll lay good odds that a 'Lesser Restoration' will hold off the symptoms long enough for me to figure something out."

Buffy gives Alex an incredulous look. "You can cure cancer and you're worried about making money? How, what, why don't you just offer your potion of cancer-be-gone on the open market? Ten grand a bottle, it would still sell like hotcakes once people realized that it worked. Really tasty hotcakes." Buffy frowns slightly. "Now I'm hungry."

Alex frowns. "I actually thought about that. But I decided I liked my freedom too much to dive into the spotlight. I mean, I can only make one potion a day. So how do I decide who gets it? By who can give me the most money? Maybe a big quiz that asks a bunch of personal questions that are none of my business? What do I do when the legitimate medical community tracks me down and starts demanding answers?"

Buffy is looking a bit distraught now. "I don't know. But it feels wrong to have the power to save people and then not do it."

Alex nods. "And that is why you are my hero. But I can't be that person. I am not gonna set myself up to spend the next eighty years standing over a cauldron to save one person a day. In the long run, I can save a lot more seeing to it that the people that fight the darkness are well equipped to do it. But hey, if I or someone I care about has a personal stake in it, I am not above working out the details and cranking off a few bottles as time permits. Potions have a shelf life measured in centuries, for some silly reason. It wouldn't take much to just have Thing One and Thing Two crank one out whenever they aren't working on something else. Actually, there are a number of potions that it wouldn't be bad to have a stockpile of. I'll have to consider that. Maybe make a list." By the end, Alex is glancing about for her notebook and a pencil, so Buffy intervenes before things can get too far off topic.

"Are we going to check out my armor?"

Alex snaps her fingers. "Oh yeah, right. Follow me."

Once they enter her bedroom, Thing One and Two immediately flit over to Alex with giant smiles on their faces to give her a hug each, then they go over to the bed and after a bit of grumbling on Skite's part, move him off of the completed, though still not enchanted, suit.

The suit itself has been modeled after a set of two piece biker leathers only in this case the jacket actually snaps to the pants so it can't ride up and cause week points in the defense. All the places that a person would expect to find extra padding, such as knees, elbows, as well as chest and stomach, there are areas of thick, hardened leather that is being used as additional protection. The color of the suit on the whole is a dark, forest green, but the extra protection pads are a bright, neon purple and stand out to an almost retina scarring level. The collar on the jacket is both stiff and high, offering limited protection to her neck. The entire suit has small belts, straps, and elastic materials built into it to keep it tight and form fitting and the belt and boots intended to go with the outfit are a deep, midnight black.

"Oh my god, Alex, this is beautiful! I don't even want to wear it to slay in, it'll get all scuffed and nasty! But what is the shirt for?" She asks, pointing at a heavy silk shirt that is sitting next to it, this in an eye watering hot pink, which would be just visible peaking out from the top of the jacket.

Alex nods. "It has to do with the slots. Its kinda goofy to try to explain, but it is because of chakras or something similar. Basically, there are a specific number of items of magic that you can put on a human body before you have to start designing them to not take advantage of these contact points. Then everything gets crazy expensive. This handles your armor, waist, torso, and feet slots. Plenty left to go, so don't worry about that. But since it is gonna take probably a month to get all this done, even assuming that I can, we have some time to toss around ideas. As for the shirt, well, for starters it's made out of the nicest silk I could find, and I can set you up with a simple device to clean and do minor repairs to it down the road so you aren't relying on a dry cleaners. It should feel a lot nicer on your skin than the leather or anything else you might have been considering. But aside from that, I was planning to put some natural armor and resistance into it. Make you tougher to hurt, and harder to effect with magical spells and whatnot. Once we get the whole getup ready to go, you should be a lot safer out there, and eventually I can add more to these sets. There are a number of universally useful enchantments that can be kinda tacked on to items that normally do other things. Things like increased strength, dexterity, that kind of thing. I did want to know if you wanted some kind of dedicated head protection. A helm of some kind."

Buffy wrinkles her face with a frown. "I don't think so. I'd end up with nasty sweaty helmet hair. I think I'd rather die."

Alex blinks. Mostly because based on Buffy's tone, she really believes what she just said. "Okay there Buff. I'll see if I can come up with something that will be less... suicide by hair causing. So, go ahead and try it on. Make sure everything fits well, be advised that the boots will be stiff and you'll need to break them in but otherwise, if anything isn't comfortable let me know so we can get it right before we start the enchanting process. Then we are gonna need to hit the grocery store and the Magic Shop. Thankfully, due to the wonder that is globalization, if I can find the stuff I need for 'remove disease' it'll be pennies compared to what I would have paid back on Eberron."

Buffy looks at her oddly. "Eberron?"

A quick nod precedes the answer. "Yeah, that is the name of the world that this all comes from." She laughs. "I've got nearly thirty years of detailed memories about a place that doesn't exist while I was in a body that shouldn't exist. Hooray Hellmouth." The sarcasm fairly drips off of her tongue with that last bit.

Buffy nods absently as she starts doing up heavy duty zippers and snaps. Alex wasn't kidding, the silk shirt feels simply delicious against her skin, and the armor itself hugs it tightly in to caress every square centimeter of her skin that it covers, less the area covered by her bra. A bra that, by comparison, feels like it is made out of dead thistles and burlap. The leather is a little stiff, but then no worse than any new leather jacket. The belt and boots are both exquisitely made and obviously intended for hard use, though Alex was right that the boots will need some breaking in despite the fact that they are a perfect fit.

"Holy crap Alex. You should just set up a shop doing this. I've never owned anything that fit so well in my life!"

Alex nods with a smile. "You have probably never owned anything tailored to you specifically. My hope is that once I get some money coming in I can have one of the Things working on magical stuff and the other making mundane items, getting everybody in some tailored clothes was part of that. If we are gonna save the world, may as well look good doing it."

Buffy nods, with a huge smile on her face. "Why can't you just have both of them working on magic stuff? Wouldn't that be faster?"

Alex shakes her head. "Unfortunately, not an option. They are doing the work, sure. But they are extensions of me, and I can only make one magic item at a time. I try not to think about it too much as some of the rules in the game were obviously designed for balance, but when they are drug into reality by chaos magic they don't make a lot of sense. It just kinda is what it is."

Buffy does a few jumping jacks and some high steps, testing her flexibility and mobility. "How much did this cost, to get it where it is now? Because I could see this going big if you wanted to make a bunch of money selling stuff that isn't magic."

Alex considers for a minute. "Probably a hundred and fifty dollars. Maybe two hundred after the belt and the boots as well. Once I have my own shop I can probably do it for less. Most demons turn to oven cleaner when they die, but the ones that don't tend to have really tough skins that would make outstanding leather. Once I have the space and the tools, it wouldn't take much to make my own materials. I just hope that I can get some serious positive cash flow, because the suit you're wearing is gonna run probably twenty grand in materials by the time everything is actually done on it."

Buffy looks a bit guilty. "That much? Xan...Alex, I can't afford that. There is just no way."

A nod. "I know. I am hoping I can make enough with other stuff to keep you outfitted for free, basically. You, me, Willow. Probably Giles and Jenny as well if they're interested. So, does the suit pass inspection then?"

"Yes, absolutely. If it wasn't so expensive, I'd ask you to make a second one to do the mojo on and I'd just start wearing this one tonight. Two hundred bucks seems a bit much to just get it ripped up by a vamp though. We'll get it magicked up first." Buffy states as she starts stripping it off and getting back into her own clothes.

Alex grins. "Well, I am glad that you like it, but yeah. That would be a tad spendy. Maybe once there is money coming in for reals. Oh, that reminds me. I need someone to test the holy water jug on actual vampires before I send it out. I should have it finished in maybe a couple of days to a week, depending on how long this disease potion takes. You willing to try it out?"

Buffy nods as she adjusts her own shirt and looks longingly at the silk one that is laying on the bed. "No problem. I might ask Giles to order one for us if it works. It would be nice to be able to make it in the field if it was needed. Now lets hit the stores. See if we can sort out Ford before he does something even more abysmally stupid."

Alex grins. "Absolutely."

Two days later, Buffy, Willow, and Alex show up at the apartment of Ford at around five in the afternoon. Buffy knocks, then knocks louder when there is a call of "Sleeping, lemme alone." from the room. With a grumble, the door opens and his eyes go wide in fear at seeing Buffy standing there. "I haven't been causing any trouble, honest. I thought a lot about some of the things you said, and pretty much came to the conclusion that you were right. No one person is worth all the death I was going to cause. It's just hard to see that when your brains are liquefying."

Buffy's response is to hand him a bottle full of a brown, thick liquid. Like gravy. "Drink this."

Ford takes the bottle. Looks at Buffy and her two new friends. Raises an eyebrow, then grimaces at the headache. He pops the cork out, gives it a swirl, and chokes down the concoction.

Immediately, he knows something is happening. His headache is getting way worse, and his stomach is feeling queasy. Both conditions spiral out of control for ten seconds or so, then he leans over and vomits all over the front porch, as the three young women back up to get out of the spray with simultaneous noises of disgust. The vomit, a mix of bile, blood, and bits of white flesh, glistens in the early evening sun and as he stands back up straight he realizes that the pain is gone. He is still unbelievably tired, and is now hungry enough to eat a small horse, but the pain is gone.

Even morphine wasn't making the pain go away anymore.

Buffy steps over the vomit and grabs the front of his shirt. "You are going to go home to the mother and father that love you. You are going to get your ass back in school and make something of yourself and if I see you again before you can look me in the eye and tell me that you have made up for going out of your way to assist a known murderer with his plans for a killing spree, you'll wish you had died of cancer. Are we clear?"

As scary as she is, Ford can't help but grin. The pain is gone! "Yeah, we're clear. Thank you so much!"

Buffy shoves him, causing him to stumble over the dirty clothes and empty bottles on the floor. "One last thing? You don't tell anybody what happened. You go back, they test you, they will probably throw around words like 'miracle.' But if you tell them what happened, you'll piss off the person that put the crud together that saved your sorry ass. I don't know that they would be petty enough to reverse the effects of it, but I don't think you want to know either."

Ford nods. That's fair. More than fair.

He gets to live!

Five days later when Alex hands her a black thermos in the library, Buffy is a little confused. Then she catches on when she sees the carvings done around the base of it, some kind of runes, and the crosses that have been scratched into its surface with an incredible degree of artistry. "I take it this makes holy water?"

Alex nods. "Yeah, I kinda combined a pair of different items. Three times a day a person can give that a shake and use their will to have it fill with holy water or holy wine. One liter worth. That clunking sound you hear in it is a round piece of silver. Every time it does it's thing, it consumes a tiny bit of the silver as part of it's cost. I figured it would be cheaper here, but apparently it was a lot cheaper. That bit of silver was maybe a hundred bucks and it'll keep this thing going for decades of constant use."

Giles looks incredulous. "You are quite sure that it will work? That it will make holy liquids?"

Alex shrugs and turns to face Giles. "Theoretically. Hoping that Buffy will have a chance to test it tonight so I can get in touch with the Frog brothers about a price and a time for them to come pick it up. I've burned through like two thirds of my road trip fund at this point, I really need some positive cash flow."

Buffy looks at Alex with a grin. "I was thinking about that, actually. You seem to have a lot of skills with artsy fartsy stuff now and a pair of little minion girls that are more than happy to do what you want and use your skill to do it. Ever thought of putting some stuff in my Mom's art gallery for consignment? I mentioned to her last night that I knew a girl that was crazy skilled and local, she said she would be happy to take a look. Apparently she takes twenty percent off the top, and she reserves the right to remove anything from the gallery that is proving offensive or that has been sitting around too long without selling. But other than that, I thought it might be worth looking into."

Alex considers. Make money. Potentially help Joyce's gallery. Win-win.

"Sounds good, I'll have to go down there after school and see what kinds of things she wants to sell and decide what I can do for her. Thanks, Buff.