Back in his room, Jacob spread the new gear across the bed like trophies. The brigandine coat lay in the center, dark fabric hiding narrow plates that rubbed together softly when he moved it.
The greaves and bracers flanked it, and the two blank blades leaned against the wall, waiting their turn.
The helm would come later. For now, he would make what he had as close to unbreakable as his current skill allowed.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, etching tool resting across his knees, and let his eyes linger on the coat.
He started by pulling the strengthening rune from his memory. It was the same dependable design he used for heavy ploughs, iron hammers, and smithing tongs.
Instead of tracing it onto the surface, he stretched the pattern into a shell that fitted over the leather plates and the heavy seams. He ensured the magic bolstered the collar, the underarms, the thick lining, and every stitch along the chest.
The resulting structure was built for one purpose. It was a refusal to yield whenever a blade or a claw tried to force its way through the hide.
Durability came next, but he avoided just stacking it on top.
He peeled out the parts that worked toward bending without breaking, parts of runes that encouraged metal to flex and fabric to relax instead of tearing.
Those lines slid between the ribs of the strengthening pattern, filling gaps and rounding edges, so that when a force landed, it would not pass straight through. Instead, it would disperse, turning a clean cut into a glancing scrape and a hammer blow into something the body could survive.
He shaped a third aspect from his field experiments, an alteration to the self-mending rune on the sword.
Not enough to repair a shattered plate, but enough to help the coat recover from strain, to keep tiny fractures from growing and leather from cracking in the cold. That layer curled deeper, close to the fabric and the padding, where damage usually started.
Only when those three worked together in his thoughts as one twisted shape did he let the lightness rune approach.
He wove it around the outside evenly, instructing the armor to ignore a portion of its own weight without becoming fragile. It made the coat feel like it was just a fabric without reducing the protection offered by the heavy coat.
He placed the tool against the inside collar and began the work in stages, anchoring different aspects on different faces. Plates first, then seams, then the cloth itself. Magic flowed in slow currents, threading through the layers until the merged pattern finally settled into place.
Jacob lifted the garment and was momentarily confused by the lack of heft. It was far lighter than the layers of leather and metal should have been.
Despite the weightlessness, the magic gave the material a strange density that he could feel through his palms and his fingertips.
"If anything in that dungeon hits me," he thought, turning it in his hands, "it is going to have to earn the bruise."
He set the coat aside and drew one greave into his lap.
The merged pattern did not fit here, not exactly. Legs needed different help than ribs and spine.
Jacob visualized the specific dangers he might face. He pictured a heavy boot striking his shin, a sudden slip on wet stone, a falling rock pinning his leg, and a jagged edge catching his knee from the side.
To counter these, he pulled the strengthening rune into a narrow vertical beam that followed the bone. This lattice was built to absorb direct, head-on force.
He then wove a secondary layer of flexibility around his joints to manage torque, pivots, lateral stress, and the sudden snaps that could happen during a stumble.
He left small gaps at the bends, deliberate places where the magic thinned so that knees and ankles could still move. Too much protection, and he would be safe and useless at the same time.
The bracers took the pattern even better. Arms were simpler. He built them to take a sword edge or a monster's claws on the outer forearm, letting the impact slide instead of finding purchase.
The self-recovery portion sat there too, to keep hairline cracks from sticking and becoming more than just a blemish.
Lightness went on all of it in the end, not enough to make him float, just enough that his limbs would still feel like his own when he had been swinging a blade for an hour.
Only the absent helm bothered him.
He stared at the folded hood that hung from the coat. Cloth against stone was not a fair trade, but cloth with a little help was better than bare skin.
He etched a smaller, tighter version of the pattern into the lining at the back of the neck and around the sides, favoring deflection over simple hardness. If something searched for his throat, it would at least not find it easily.
Once the full set was laid out on the floorboards, the small room felt even more cramped. The heavy leather and metal occupied most of the space, leaving Jacob only a narrow path to reach his bed.
He glanced at the blades propped against the wall but quickly turned his attention back to the protection in front of him.
His focus tonight was on ensuring he could survive an impact rather than worrying about how he would deliver a strike.
He sat back down and crossed his legs, surrounded by the dark shapes of the greaves, the chest piece, the arm guards, and the reinforced boots.
Gerald's voice came to him in pieces. Not the exact words, but the feeling behind them. Stop trying to force things. Sit and breathe. Relax.
Fine. He could at least try.
He closed his eyes and let his hands fall, palms up on his knees. For a while, all he found was the usual clutter. Lists of things to do before Thornhold. Worries about the dungeon. Little flashes of excitement whenever he thought of the brigandine coat.
He pushed those aside, out of the way, as he smoothed dirt before drawing a rune, one stray stone at a time.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He listened to the rhythm of his lungs, the soft thump of his heart, the itch in his left shoulder where the strap of the coat always wanted to sit.
Runes crowded Jacob's mind as he began to think about magic. He could see the familiar arcs and angles of the healing and strengthening patterns waiting to be used. He shook those images loose and waited for the darkness to return.
He was not looking for a way to shape the energy today. He was searching for the weight of the magic itself, the hidden pulse that he had always bypassed in his hurry to finish a task.
Slowly, the room took on a different sort of shape in his mind.
The coat seemed to glow within his conscience, like a low note held in the background. The bracers and greaves made themselves known, trying to harmonize with the coat as if they knew they belonged together. The knife in the corner was a bright edge, easy to find and ready to be used.
Even the broom downstairs tugged at him faintly, a memory of swept straw and guided motion to enhance cleaning.
All the things he had touched with his power hummed in some mystical way, as if part of him had been left behind in each of them.
Beneath that, under skin and bone, there was something else. A pressure that did not match his heartbeat. Not moving out, but in, as if the world itself were leaning toward him, just a little.
He focused on that, frowning, and the pressure thickened, like air before a storm.