Day 55: Moonday the 12th, Neth, 4707
Not for nothing, I should have realized log before I did that the bed was occupied with more than just Savah and myself. I was a bit worried until I noticed that whatever it was, was exceptionally furry and above the blankets. I looked up and the muzzle of a very happy wolf was looking me in the face. The wolf leapt up and repositioned so that it was standing over me, on the bed. I thought for a minute that this was it, when it licked my face. It laid back down on the end of the bed and let me get up. Savah was still fast asleep. I'm hoping that this is the guard animal that she had ended up getting, and not just a random happy wolf in the bed. Or Jonathan having finally experienced his full transformation. Neither one of those.
When I got out of bed, the wolf watched me with interest, When I got dressed, it's head followed me across the room. When I opened the door, it leapt up again and rushed out the door in front of me. I shut the door behind the both of us quietly. I looked at the wolf and it looked back at me. I asked the wolf if he had a name yet, and he looked at me with a bit more intelligence that I was used to seeing with baseline animals. I asked if it was Jonathan. The wolf looked at me like it was weighing my statements. Then it looked at the other door to the main room. The one leading to the doors outside. I went over to that door and opened it.
The wolf ran out that door and went across the common room to the hallway door. I followed the doggo to that door and opened it. The wolf ran across to the door to the garage. I opened that door and the wolf ran past the bikes to the double doors. I opened the double doors and the wolf ran outside to the grass area around the side of the building. I looked around and saw that the wolf was doing its business on the grass about ten feet from the door. After a minute, the wolf appeared to be finished and sniffed, scratched and came back. I focused on my power to simultaneously clean up the area while the wolf was watching me.
We both went back inside and I, rather, we, went to the kitchen. I motioned for the wolf to stop outside the room and it did so. I had a brief thought about training it to respond only to commands given in one of the languages I knew from back on Earth, but realized that I would have to have the person who was going to train the wolf learn those words as well, so decided that it would be best to just leave it be. I started fixing up some coffee and a quick breakfast of egg, cheese, sliced ham, and biscuits. What I wouldn't give for some hollandaise sauce right now.
As I was about to go into the bedroom, Savah came out. She was dressed and ready to go about her day. She told me that she was glad that I was getting along with Bailey. I asked Savah if that was the wolf's name, and she responded that it was. I looked at the wolf and asked if Bailey was really its name. The wolf perked up when it heard the name Bailey from my lips. I told Savah that I didn't know if this wolf was really ours to begin with, but that we would keep it until the point when Bailey's real owner shows up. Savah looked a bit confused, but accepted it as my normal insanity, and grabbed a breakfast sandwich from the pile I had made to go along with her coffee.
She went to head out of the room to go to her shop and whistled for Bailey to follow. Bailey looked at me and back at her. I told Bailey that it was okay, and Bailey took off after her. Savah looked at me and I shrugged, saying that it was just that I was a dog person. I finished getting dressed after getting in a quick meal and got the book for another day of study. I went into the shop and took up position next to Veronica, who was working on more parts for the house. I thanked her for her diligence, and she told me that she could work on my armor today while I studied. She added that she knew just what I was planning on doing with it, and could start the process. I took off my armor and gave it to her.
I started reading into the book and realized that I had gotten a lot further than I had thought that I did. Apparently, the fighting style section of the book started at more than half way through, and I only had about twenty percent of the book left to go through. Then I could start copying it into a new book for the Tokage's. Not to mention making a new one for me myself to have as a reference. This information was just too good to pass up and just leave to disappear without me ripping it. I figure that I should be done with everything by the end of the day, including making two different copies of the book, one for me and one for the Tokages.
I got into the various bits of information about the preventing teleportation through striking at the right moment and disrupting the astral essence of the effect and preventing them from fleeing, and the final bits about how this book might take some time to digest before you can actually fully utilize its teachings. That right there sealed it for me. I would definitely be making a second copy to retain for my records. Apparently a lot of the information in this fighting manual was only useful if you already had a decent grounding in several different fields, including anatomical knowledge, sneaking, what spells are like enough to identify them, how to get out of the way, some baseline understanding of fighting, and even some knowledge of some of the martial arts moves similar to what I knew from back home. All in all, it will definitely help me in keeping those around me safer from the predations of spellcasters.
I finally ended up finishing with the photographing of the pages and the translations. What I wouldn't give for a scanner and a desktop PC right now. Ah well, I wouldn't be able to really keep it powered anyway. It was all I could do to keep up with the various electronics I did have with me. They were going to go away slowly as they reached the end of their useful life, but until then, I was going to do everything I could to collect all of the information from them and reproduce what I could into book form. I had a long way to go, so I knew that I needed to get done with this book today. I started using my abilities to transfer the pages from the tablet to the blank book that I had prepared for it.
I had to do each page individually, but it wasn't the hardest thing in the world. Especially since I wasn't actually physically writing the them. After almost two hours, I had a good copy of the initial book. I set this one aside for the Tokages. I immediately started on a second one. It was almost another two hours when Savah came by and asked if I had visited the job site yet today. I smacked my forehead, thanked her, and got my bike out.
I took off like a shot to get to the building property. I managed to get there before Aesrick and his crew left for the day. As I got there, I noticed that a lot more work had been done on the place. Including putting everything under a roof, with slate shingles. I made sure to drop off a significant amount of gold to ensure that the project would keep going without any mistakes from me. I toured the property again, and Aesrick noted that they should be done, at this pace, by the eighteenth of the month, or fourteen-day mark since they started construction. I thanked him again and told him to let me know if there were any issues. Aesrick noted that the jobsite had gathered some attention since the weekend, and that he hoped that it wouldn't cause any further problems. I agreed and said that I had to head back. Aesrick wished me good luck and sent me on my way.
I raced home and got there just in time to see that Savah was shutting her shop up for the day. I asked Savah how her day went, and she told me that it was miserable. She told me that she didn't sell anything, and that she had to run off a couple of Sczarni thugs that had apparently decided to try to shake her down for protection money. I told her that a good portion of the house had been built, and that we could look into moving in before too long. She nodded and noted that we would likely need to stay in and keep an eye out for the thugs, in case they decided to come back.
I agreed and said that we could have Veronica work on her armor, assuming that she was done with mine. Veronica sent a thought to me that the armor had been modified as needed. Veronica added that there were a few more modifications that had been made to increase its capabilities. Veronica included an integrated helmet that should help with any possible crashes. I thanked her mentally and told Savah that Veronica had told me that my armor was complete.
Savah noted that I was "away" for a fair amount of time just now. I told Savah that Veronica had made a fair amount of modifications that I had not initially intended, and that she wanted me to come see what her modifications were. Savah seemed a bit intrigued, so we both went into the shop to see my new set of armor. I was surprised to find out how different it looked, I mean it was still the same materials, with all of the same B4C components and the hardened sections.
That was where the similarities ended. It looked like someone had taken a cosplay Ironman Mark II suit and resprayed it completely black. The flexible areas were of the woven B4C cloth, and the hard plates were custom molded to fit me. The helmet that Veronica had mentioned was heavily padded and it looked like a modified barbuta with a shaded, mirrored lens that covered the whole face like a motorcycle helmet. The gauntlets had become a bit more reinforced on the backs and on the first sections of the fingers. Then there was the hidden blade that popped out from the back of my right forearm and the shield that would expand from my left forearm when activated. Oh yeah, the blade was regular steel but the shield was made from the B4C hard material.
I asked Veronica where she had gotten the inspiration for this modification. Veronica said that this was the best that she could do right now for making the armor that I had been thinking about when I gave her the go ahead to work on the armor. Apparently, the thoughts that I was having about my armor upgrades had been linked right to the nanotech armor that Tony had been using in Infinity War. I passed all of this along to Savah, who wasn't privy to our telepathic communications. I thanked Veronica, and all three of us worked together to get myself dressed out in it. While we were doing so, Veronica had a stream of information going through our link to inform me about different aspects of the armor that she had worked on.
As everyone helped me get dressed, we adjusted the straps to ensure that I could get all of this on fairly quickly. It seems like these modifications will increase the amount of time that I will need to get into this armor will be at least four minutes, as opposed to the previous minute. Oh well, such is life. Maybe there is an enchantment or a spell that can reduce this. I will check with Faunra about this later.
Shortly after getting all the armor on, Savah asked if she could have different modifications than mine had. I told her that of course she could, that these were just some things that Veronica had picked up from my thoughts and instituted them. Veronica saluted Savah and went back to work on crafting goods for the house again. Savah asked how much different it was than the previous armor that I was wearing. I told her that it didn't feel all that different, but that it might be good to take it all for a walk.
Savah smiled and said that I could take a walk around the building with her to make a show of force. I told her that I would love to walk with her anywhere. Savah smiled and summoned Bailey. Bailey came bounding over to us and sniffed Veronica. Veronica froze for a second before putting her hand on Bailey's snout before nodding and going back to work. Savah, Bailey, and I left out from the cliff side door to the Glassworks and a pair of louts that were "just hanging around" the back of the building ran off, down over the cliff to the beach. I looked to Savah and she just shook her head.
We headed around to the front of the building and I thought that I noticed some movement further on in an alleyway, but whatever it was had apparently decided to leave after seeing a well armored and armed Savah and myself, and our trained wolf doing our tour. Or maybe it was just deciding that the price on my head was going to have to go higher. We went back inside and Savah asked if I was comfortable in this new armor setup. I thought about it and told her that it wasn't much heavier than the set was previously weighing, even with the added helmet.
Veronica sent me a thought that said that she could incorporate my radio into the helmet if I wanted using one of my plug in headphone sets. I told her that I would think about it, but that it wasn't outside the realm of feasibility, especially since I didn't really need the ones with the microphones anymore. Veronica said that she could try to repair one of the bad sets that I had, and I told her to go ahead. Savah and I went to the kitchen and started making dinner together. It was a fun experience, and we ended up getting more food around the kitchen and in Bailey's gullet than our own, but it was a good end to a day.
We (I) got the room cleaned up and Savah asked if I was going to be spending more time with the books tomorrow. I told her that I was done with the copy that I had made for the Tokages, but that I needed to check to ensure that I was finished with our home copy. Savah asked if I was certain that I needed a copy. I told her that the information was just too useful for me, and that I doubted that I had truly absorbed everything that the book had to offer in that little span of time, but that I wouldn't be rereading it or anything any time soon. Savah smiled and we got ready for bed.