Chapter 84. Trial and Error

Making clothing was surprisingly similar to the delicate art of potion making. Where a single mistake in the stitching ruined the entire product. It required precision throughout the entire procedure. Many hours were spent on the dress shirt, mostly for the material I was trying to refine. “I’ll have to give Gaynor a treat next time I visit…” I mumbled while testing the superior strength of the fabric I managed to weave with her webs. Trying to rip apart the sleeve with my bare hands, yet failing to even pull apart individual fibers. After a few failed attempts, (luckily near the beginning so not much was wasted) I finished the dress shirt, and focused on the dragon hide vest. I had to admit that the woman was right, dragon hide was a much more difficult material to delicately work in the way I desired. Her spells had helped, but it was still not easy.

After I was done, I let out a sigh while leaning back into my chair. A knock on the door a few moments later was one I instantly recognized. “Lucas?” Pansy asked with a knock, and I quickly opened the door for her. “You have good timing, I was just finishing up on your shirt and vest.” She instantly lit up, and hurried inside, grabbing at the shirt I had made for her, before feeling the leather of her new vest between her fingertips. The shirt had long sleeves that went down a bit past her wrists, while the vest that would sit around her body was a deep forest green, also a bit bigger than her size. “I made them with a bit of room to grow.”

“Turn around!” She ordered, about to take off her own shirt to place this one on in its place. A few moments later, I heard her chuckling a bit telling me to look. When I did, I could see her feeling the craftsmanship I took to make it with a large smile adorning her face. “I love it!” She cheered, going over to Val, and letting him slither up her sleeve, giggling at the ticklish feeling. I smiled seeing her so happy, and began to explain. “I talked to Merlin about enchantments, unfortunately I wasn’t good enough to use them without the aid of blood, so until then, you’ll have to-”

To my shock, she suddenly hugged me, and I soon wrapped my arms back around her as well. After we finally broke apart, I sighed while glancing back over at my trunk. “Now it's time for a more difficult material.” I moved over to my belongings, and slowly pulled out a small pouch, jingling as I rattled it in my hand. “What’s that? The Lethifold can’t be that small.” Pansy asked, still petting Val through her new shirt. I frowned as I placed my hand in the pouch, pulling out a dark green scale. “Scales from the Basilisk… Not even Gaynor’s venom could damage them.” I stared at the large scale in my hand, a few inches in diameter, remembering the creature I had a hand in ending.

“What are you going to make with that?” Pansy asked, her gaze turning serious. I placed the scale back in the pouch with the rest, as I looked at the rest of my dragonhide. She already knew what it was for, but neither of us spoke the words. Just like the name itself was taboo, we didn’t dare speak the reason why I was making something that could stop most spells, as it would make the threat over my life that more real. “I don’t entirely know…” I muttered, wondering if I should make a vest with it for myself. I settled on the negative, both materials together would be too heavy for me to wear without weight enchantments I wasn’t proficient in.

I continued to work on my own shirt and vest, making sure that the vest looked good enough to be worn at school just like Pansy’s. It took less time for both now that I had some experience, but it was still slow and painstaking work. Making sure the thread was prepared correctly, and trying to sew through the thick hide. However I finally managed to create another pair of clothes. I placed the shirt over my bare chest, feeling the surprising comfort that normal silk paled in comparison to. Placing the vest over my shirt, I felt the security of the weight it had. It felt heavy comparatively to the cotton I was used to, making me feel as if it really could stop minor jinxes and charms.

Pleased with all the hard work I had done in my spare time over the weeks, I glanced down at my trunk. “Alright… Now for the most challenging one.” I had received the Lethifold hide (or skin) a week ago, but never touched it as I was too busy working on this instead. I unfastened my top button, and loosened my green and silver tie, letting me breathe easier. I then took out the Lethifold hide. The entire being was its skin, a truly strange and fascinating creature. Before I began making it into something, it was such a rarity, I had to investigate how it lived and worked.

I quickly found out that it had no brain, or that is to say, it had no accumulation of nerves somewhere as its main center of thought. No, this creature, its entire body, its entire nervous system was its brain. “Is this how Ekrizdis came up with the nerve growing spell?” I pondered aloud, feeling as the nerve endings grew into tendrils that brought prey into a mouth and stomach for digestion, as well as expelling after it was done. The closest creature I could think of to this one, was a starfish. A man eating, flying, starfish. I traced my hand through the strange texture of hair-like nerves that stuck to my fingers, thinking of how Nyx gave me the Lethifold while I continued to feel its strange body between my fingertips.

After I woke up from changing in the Chamber, I immediately felt myself constrained under Gaynor’s sleeping grip, all of her legs curled around me in her sleep. By this time, I accepted this, even given her much larger size I never feared her for even a moment. I managed to wrangle out an arm to pet her head, her pedipalps twitching in response as I chuckled. “I have collected a Lethifold, as requested.” A sudden voice startled me, and I raised my head to look behind me, Nyx hovering just inches above the silk covered ground with what looked to be a cloak in her milk white arms.

I frowned in confusion while trying to lean up, wondering if she entered inside by some long pipeline where the sewage left. “Did you wait all night for me to change back?” Nyx tilted her head, the veil covering her eyes slowly fluttering with a small breeze as she spoke through her blackened lips. “It was what you asked of me.” I blinked a few times, knowing I said no such thing. “What exactly happened last night?” I muttered each word very carefully, making sure to use the dark language to make sure no mistakes were made in translation. “I came to deliver the Lethifold I collected, and you ordered me to stay, to watch over you as you rested.”

Over the past week, I had been wondering how much intelligence my strange beast truly had. Another oddity for me to add to the pile when it came to myself, but I held back those thoughts, focusing on the projects before me. After writing down my initial findings on the Lethifold, I slowly began studying its strange stomach. Finding it odd how it wasn’t rotting at all over the past week. Shaking off the confusion, I looked over the rest of its body. It was already in the shape of a hood, so there was no need to make many more alterations, all that remained were enchantments. Copying Ekrizdis' Blood runic language to create something that should become invisible. I took a long while trying on different parchments to create a concealment charm in my own blood, but nothing granted me anything close to what an invisibility cloak should be. With the added problem of me having to heal after each attempt, and drinking blood potions to stop anemia.

After more investigation, I had come to understand that invisibility cloaks were made from the fur of a Demiguise. A rare creature that never was found unless it wanted to. ‘So that befuddles my plans for an invisibility cloak…’ I thought with a groan, only being able to turn something invisible while it was at a stand still, much like normal concealing charms, only much simpler with the aid of Ekrizdis' work to copy. While sucking at my finger to quell my own exsanguination I glanced over at Ekrizdis’ journal yet again, the page I left open was for the nerve growing spell.

I squinted my eyes, a sudden idea much more insane than invisibility struck me. I grasped at my wand on my desk, and slowly chanted the blood curdling words for the spell.