"Pfft, the dangerous dungeon of marriage," Mina chuckled.
"Right! I still don't have an engagement ring!" Fin realized.
"Exactly, these are for you," Seth exclaimed when he finally got a chance and brought out a small jewel case and a bigger chest. The first holding the Beashaz-Set and the second holding the Legendary Shadow Stalker-Set.
Seeing the accessory set and the armor, the girls calmed down a little. Thankfully, Fin stopped trying to disrobe him.
"Whoa, this looks even better than the armor we found at the shop in Spring City!" Mina exclaimed, pulling the pieces of soft leather armor out of the chest.
"Wow, these look really unique. I really like the pendant," Fin commented, picking up the little jewel box.
"Try them on. Yours is called the Beashaz-Set. I made it from the Last Prayer Bead of Beashaz, a great monk of the past. Sivri helped me with the design and material choice," he explained to Fin before turning to Mina.
"And yours is the Legendary Shadow Stalker-Set. Nädel made it based on the armor we bought in Spring City, while Rún was the one to enchant it. They used the leather from the shadow beast that Natina used. It still has no soul, so if you find it lacking in any way, we can further improve it in the future," the blacksmith gave an introduction to the leather armor.
With the two captivated by the new items, Seth had the chance to explain the items and their abilities further. He didn't elaborate on the lengths he went to, to make them, but explaining their effects in depth took long enough. Not that it bothered the girls.
Things went as expected. The more he explained about the items, the more the girls got hyped up over the power of the new gear. They wanted to immediately put them on and test them. This was exactly why Seth didn't just have a nice little romantic dinner with them.
His two fiances were warriors, and when given a new weapon, they thirsted for a chance to test it and draw blood. He had made sure they were not just in a romantic place, but the perfect place to go off and test their new items.
"Just pick a direction and we can immediately go try them in a dungeon," Seth said, happy that he had foreseen their reaction correctly. Things would have really flopped if one of them said no, or they were too tired from eating.
With lv.100+ dungeons in every direction, nothing stood in their way to test their new equipment to their heart's content. Except maybe one thing.
"Errm, what about me?" Link, the fourth wheel on the tricycle, asked, embarrassed. He had almost been forced to watch the scene of the Tower Master being eaten up in the middle of a dungeon. Now, they were about to jump in a dungeon that was most likely too dangerous for him.
"Here, get back inside Legion. It's safe in there. We will return to Minas Mar once we are done," Seth instructed him and opened the portal to legion's space.
There was nothing much to write home about the dungeon the three entered. The blacksmith didn't even join the fight and ended up simply collecting materials. The fights ended as one-sided slaughter as the two women started testing their new gear, flinging around skills and spells with reckless abandon to get a feel for their new powers..
At one point, Seth even started feeling sorry for the poor mob averaging at lv.120, as the girls wiped the floor with these usually terrifying dungeon minions. Fin testing the shako skills left a trail of mangled corpses behind. Especially the
Mina, on the other hand, had become a shadow of death. Rows of enemies simply fell over, dead, after a simple shadow passed over them. Because of the armor, Mina didn't even have to use any fancy spells or skills to reap dozens of lives.
Similar to Seth's situation, the power of her main skills were so drastically raised that even the simplest attack dealt enough damage to be devastating.
The whole dungeon dive turned into a power fantasy for the two, as they let loose. The most miserable was probably the dungeon boss, whom they teamed up on. Dude was too tough for his own good, allowing the girls to get slightly more serious.
After collecting their loot from the dungeon core, he collected his two future wives, and they left the abyss together before returning to Woeburn riding Vegr and Drejtim. Soon, the three lovebirds returned to Minas Mar for a hot night of strengthening their bond.
...
"I will call Leana later, so we can make an official announcement for the whole guild," Seth mentioned the next morning, as the three half-clothed people scoured the kitchen for breakfast.
"I think we should wait with the announcement until everyone is back," Fin suggested, putting a carton of milk on the counter.
"Why do you want to wait?" the blacksmith asked, a little surprised. He would have thought Fin, out of all of them, would have wanted to spread the info as quickly as possible.
"I want to give everyone the chance to congratulate me right away, and we could have a proper party with everyone then. I think that is what we deserve," she said with a grin, giving Mina a look that made clear that the "we" in this case meant the two girls.
"Yes, we should open the banquet hall once everyone is back and celebrate our engagement," Mina agreed, even increasing the stakes.
"If that is what you two want, fine. Then we keep it a secret for now?" the bard asked. it wasn't like he was against making it a big thing. Although he felt the urge to shout it from the rooftops, letting it ferment a little and make a big party was also good.
"Yes, for now it's our secrets and ours alone," the fairy said happily.
So they decided to keep their happiness to themselves for a little while longer. However, Seth still decided to let work rest for a day and spent it with just the girls. They savored their moment in time, before returning back to their daily routine.
While the girls returned to the abyss to practice with their new equipment and pets, Seth was left behind at Minas Mar to work on the preparations for the strike against the Voracious Cloud Continent. But before he could return to the workshop, he went to look for Mary and Leana.
He had taken off that day on short notice, and they would probably give him an ear about it, but what could he do? Unexpectedly, he found Mary's office unattended when he arrived. Where could the secretary have gone this early in the morning?
His eyes drifted through the office, seeing a small stack of papers on the desk. Was this the usual report she left him to read? Curious, he picked it up. It was a summary of the activities of the two teams currently on off-world missions.
The first was just a short report about Luf's success in testing demonic food products. It seemed like the trade treaty with the nightelves was a promising source for food. The second was about Jane's and Monique's accomplishments in Perrerian.
Apart from Jane's trade agreement with the empire, there was also an in-depth assessment of their magical technology. It seemed like they were much further advanced than expected, only held back by the lack of proper materials.
Considering that the difficulty of working with magical materials was way higher if one lacked the support of the system, it was no wonder that a human empire was unable to advance their metallurgy past the refinement of mostly uncommon materials.
Tored had once told him the tales of his ancestors about how difficult it was to refine magical metals before the system was introduced. Even dwarves struggled to work with a rare metal like
How bad was it for humans then? This was why their magical and technological knowledge rose way faster than the quality of materials they were able to refine. It seemed like the empire was ready to trade this knowledge for higher-quality ores and resources.
Overall, it seemed like they would not have to worry about the food supply of the district. Maybe they could even gain useful magical engineering knowledge. Maybe Joannia was willing to take a trip to that school of magic to asses the worth further...
"Seth!" The sudden shout of his name made the blacksmith jump. Mary and Leana, both breathing heavily, had suddenly appeared at the door, staring at him with a mix of worry and anger.
"Luf's in trouble!" "We have to act quickly!" the two said in unison.
"Luf actually managed to run into trouble?" he asked, disbelieving. What could possibly trouble an existence like Luf?