A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Chapter 288: Chapter 288 - A new home [1/2]

"What the…" Eira mumbled in shock when she realized that previously powerful looking armor had now compressed itself into a single arm guard.

Meanwhile, Erik looked smugly at her shock. Even Elora fought her exhaustion to chuckle at Eira's expression.

"Wait a second," Eira frowned as confusion filled her gaze. "Didn't you say that making the armor fluid like that would weaken it? And that's why you went with the two-forms reshaping runes or whatever it was?"

"This and that are two different things," Erik shrugged, before looking thoughtful as he considered how best to explain this. "Currently, the armor is being compressed by a sigil, which isn't so much affecting the armor it self, as it is affecting the space around it, thus leaving the armor unchanged.

This method is energy costly and not very versatile, as it can only compress something into a smaller form."

"Fluidity runes, on the other hand," he continued, "would allow the armor to flow like a fluid when activated. This is far more versatile and energy efficient, but also passively reduces the metal's strength."

Eira nodded along with his explanation, but it was clear from her expression that she barely understood and, frankly, barely cared. 'Why did I even ask…' she rolled her eyes inwardly.

However, suddenly, something else occurred to her. "Wait a second!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Does that mean you never even need to separate from your armor? Or from me?!"

If there was one thing she felt the most apprehension about regarding this whole thing, it was that Erik had barely touched his armor since he came to this place. She had wondered if she would be abandoned for long stretches of time as well.

Sure, she knew he would still wear the armor when traveling, and even it was simply sitting in a corner, Eira could still move around in her construct form, but it wouldn't be the same.

"That's right," Erik chuckled and nodded while walking over the iron puppet. Once there, he casually crushed the puppet's arm wearing the arm guard. Naturally, regular iron was no match for his second-rank Runebound strength.

He quickly fished the arm guard out of the remains and fit it snugly around his own wrist, before turning towards Eira with a sly grin. "There, as soon as Eira's fake core is replaced with your real one, you and I will likely never separate again. It'll be just like we're married!"

During the first half of his sentence, Eira's smile was becoming brighter by the word, as she was ecstatic to find out that the future looked even better than she had previously hoped. Unfortunately, his last words made her smile crumble, and turn into a pout while a blush appeared on her cheeks. "You just had to make it weird…"

"If you think its weird now," Erik chuckled, "you should know there's a good chance I won't even take this thing off when I have sex with someone. You'll have a front row seat to it every time!"

"Ack!" Eira recoiled with a strange expression on her face while pointing at him accusingly. "P— Pervert!"

Naturally, her words only caused Erik to laugh harder, while he activated the compression sigil again. Before their very eyes, the compression from before was happening in reverse and, within seconds, Erik was finally wearing his new armor for the first time.

He did leave the helmet off, however. He never liked helmets. He just recognized that having one might come in handy occasionally.

He smiled proudly as he felt himself encased in the fruits of his own work. The cool, water attribute leather felt soft and pleasant on his skin while the metal's weight filled him with confidence.

He bend and stretched his fingers, punched and kicked the air a few times, and rotated his shoulders as far as he could. Finally, the armor's reach satisfied him, so he smiled and nodded. "I'll still need to do a few battles to be sure, bu—"

"Uuuuuugh," a heavy groan suddenly interrupted him, before Elora's voice echoed through the room. "Can we get to the next part already?! I need sleep!"

"Sorry, love," Erik chuckled, before turning to Eira. "Come on then, let's transfer your core to your new home so my grumpy little Ember can get some real sleep."

Elora glared at him for the way he referred to her and decided to sit on his head, rather than his shoulder, as punishment.

Naturally, Erik simply chuckled. Elora could get a little immature when she was grumpy. He thought it was cute, but woe be to him if he dared mention that to her.

They walked into the main hallway, and soon stood in front of the only door that hadn't been opened yet: the door to Eira's core.

Eira gulped a little, but than opened the door with seemingly no hesitation.

The time for considerations and hesitation was passed. She had chosen her path, and with that, a chapter in her life would soon be closed.

Only time would tell what the next chapter would hold.

As she opened the door, several sigils flashed, before dimming. Likely, they all had been designed to keep others out, but with Eira allowing them in, the sigils could do nothing.

"Welcome to, well, me, I guess?" Eira chuckled, a little nervously. She never imagined she would be willingly letting people in her. No one except her mistress, of course.

On the other side of the door, they found a surprisingly small, circular room. Or, perhaps not so surprising, as it really only needed to house one thing: Eira's core.

In the middle of the room was an altar, on top of which sat a fitting that held a beautiful, lustrous, light brown orb. From this orb, led many similarly colored lines to the surroundings, giving energy to the sigils in the structure, while giving control over them to the sigil core's owner.

Eira looked around the room for a moment and sighed. In the last few weeks she had thought about this extensively, and spoken about it with Erik. Now, all that was left was simply… going through with it.

She turned around to look at the pair behind her, before awkwardly scratching her head. "Well…" she mumbled, a little anxiously. "I guess everything's already been said, huh…? See you on the other side I suppose…"

With the moment of truth approaching Eira had clearly lost much of her determination.

Not all of it, however. After saying her last words, she disappeared, leaving her fate up to Erik and Elora to decide.

She could only hope they would keep their word.