Chapter 41
Part 8
“We know you’ll be ready for bed soon, so we’ll present your gifts now.” Nemia said as she cleared the
low table. “Your gifts are each of a set, and we all contributed equally to making them. Each of us spent
six hours working on them, each to our own skills, whether that was crafting, spell casting, or polishing.
“Go ahead Dear.”
Yazadril cast a Summoning that brought the gifts from the home of Sana and Markhan the senior,
where thest of the work had been done.
Two baby-sized armor stands appeared with full suits of gleaming steel te-over-chain-mail armor,
eachplete from boots to helmet, and each equipped with a sword and scabbard, a round shield, a
lightnce, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a pouch of the heavy little darts that were designed to be
propelled by Movement. Each item had a few small but tasteful gold ents.
“Oh wow!” Helemia squealed and pped her hands, just as Reggie said; “Oh excellent, thank you!”
“The swords are apromise design, since we don’t know yet what style you’ll eventually prefer.”
Markhan the senior exined. “They’re light enough to be used with one hand, but have enough
handle for two. Same with the shields, they don’t have the coverage of a full line-infantry shield, but
they’ll cover well and they’re still handy enough to use for striking.
This is the property of N?-velDrama.Org.
“They’re beautiful, all of it!” Helemia marveled as she and Reggie bounced from their parent’sps and
drew their tiny swords.
“And as you might expect, they’re all rather heavily spelled.” Yazadril added with a grin. “Perhaps most
importantly, they’ll grow with your size and strength. The armor will always fit you, the weapons will
grow to match your body and hand size, and the bows will increase in pull to match your growing
strength.”
“Of course the armor has added magical protection, and the weapons have added offensive
capabilities, but it’ll take you a few days to be familiar with all the spells involved.” Alilia smiled.
“There’s rather a lot of them. When my turn came, they already had so many enhancements that I
couldn’t think of many to add, so I spent most of the time adding charge and power to the spells.”
“You’ve been hinting for a while that you’ll want to startbat training soon,” Mark added, “So we
were pretty sure you’d like these.”
“Do we ever!” Reggie marveled as he tried the pull of his bow.
“Thank you all so much!” Helemia added as she tried the weight of hernce in her hand.
“Okay, hugs for everybody, then I’m gonna put on the whole thing!” Reggie dered as he reced the
bow in it’s carry-case.
The twins each gave everyone a hug and their thanks, then Mark and Alilia helped them into their
armor.
As they posed in front of a full-length mirror, Talia had tough. “It’s amazing that you look so very
dangerous and so adorably cute at the same time!”
“Well as you showed in The Turning of Zarkog’s Commanders,” Helemia giggled, “Being very cute can
be an effective offensive quality!”
“It sure can!” Povonughed, remembering. “I wish I’d thought of this get-up then, it would have been
even easier!”
“You sure do look cute like that, all fuzzy and everything.” Mark chuckled.
“Especially Equemev, you look absolutely adorable like that!” Helemia grinned as she took off her
helmet.
“Thank you Helemia, but I think Sran looks cutest of all!” Equemev teased as she nuzzled Sran’s
pink mane.
“So you think Equemev is cuter than me?” Karzog teased as hended beside Helemia and gave her a
yful shoulder-bump, almost knocking her off bnce.
“Girls are cuter than boys, and unicorns are cuter than dragons!” Helemia dered as she tackled him
to the floor, surprising him, and held him pinned for a moment as she smiled down at him. “But you’re
always cute, Karzog, even when you’re killing something.”
“Well that’s sweet!” Karzog responded as he flipped her over, and they rolled across the floor wrestling,
apanied by the soft cks of her armor against the hardwood and the sounds of his ws sliding
as he scrambled for purchase.
“But I’ll have you know I am not cute when I am not wearing this silly form, I am a mighty and
conquering hunter! There!” he dered as he tied her up with all of his limbs; legs, arms, wings, neck
and tail. “Got you!”
“You think?” Helemia responded as she started tickling him on his ribcage.
“Ah! Ahhh hahahaha! No fair, tickling is no fair!” Karzog protested as he escaped her grasp and took to
the air.
“I didn’t hear you listing any rules before you almost knocked me over, you beast!” she yelled as she
took off in pursuit.
“That’s enough of that!” Markughed as he dexterously reached out a long arm and plucked her out of
the air on her way by. “No chasing each other around the house, you know that!”
“He started it!” Helemia used.
“That’s irrelevant and you know it!” Talia chuckled.
“I know, but he did!”
“It’ll be fun ying tomorrow.” Karzog dered with anticipation as hended on Mark’sp beside
Helemia and gave her a hug. “I’ll be able to y with you with my real body, and with your armor on, I
won’t have to worry about squashing you identally!”
“No, I’ll just have to be careful not to squash you identally!” Helemia returned with a grin. “There
really are a lot of nice spells in this stuff! I could take on a full squad of Sylvan by myself with this on,
I’m sure of it!”
“Some of the spells are safeties.” Alilia pointed out. “Until yourbat training is at least up to a
professional level, they should prevent you from doing any idental damage. Not to say that’s it’s
impossible for you to get in trouble with it, but you’d really have to try something quite foolish to do so.”
“We’ll go through everything tomorrow when you start your training.” Mark said as he set her on the
floor. “For now, take off your armor and put it back on the stands. Then there’s something I want to ask
you about before bedtime.”
“Yes Father.” Reggie said as he took his helmet off.
When all of the pieces were back on the stand in their proper ces, the twins sat on the edge of the
low table facing their parents.
“First, let me say again how immensely proud of you two we all are.” Mark began. “Your disys of skill
today were wondrous, but your disy of character was even better. Your showing of Somonik’s fight
makes me wish I had the time to watch the whole thing in real time, and maybe after the nexus I will.
“But what I want to ask about is the prophecy. That was a very important prophecy, if it turns out to be
true.”
“Yup. It means we’re gonna win.” Reggie agreed. “The demons are gonna fear us, and we’re gonna kill
lots of them, and we’re gonna find their homeworld and destroy it!”
“Let’s hope so.” Mark nodded. “Now, you obviously chose some very momentous-sounding wording for
your delivery, and it was very entertaining and dramatic. But what was the exact wording of the
prophecy?”
“Um, I don’t really get them in a sequence of words, really.” Reggie exined. “I just suddenly know
certain things, and it feels way different from when you just think of something normally, or when you
get something from someone else with psionics.
“With that one, I knew the demons would call Helemia The Fire, and they’d call me The Storm, and
we’ll kill a lot of ‘em, and we’ll destroy their homeworld. That’s it, really. I don’t even know if they’ll call
us that because we’re gonna kill a lot of ‘em, which seems the obvious reason, or for some other
reason. I don’t know if they’ll call us that and we’ll kill a lot of ‘em here on Keran, or in the void near
here, or not until we’re fighting on their homeworld. And I don’t know when any of it’s gonna happen.”
“Ah.” Mark nodded. “Well the word I wanted to ask about most is ‘vengeance’. You said; ‘I shall destroy
their hordes with the hurricane of my vengeance.’ That implies that you’ll be killing them not as a
defensive effort, but in revenge for something they did to us. I’m still hoping we can alle through
this unscathed; all of us on Keran and The Triax as well. So can you rify that? Was the word or
concept of revenge or vengeance part of the prophecy?”