Adamant Blood

Mark pulled the webweave up past his stomach, sticking his arms into the sleeves and then pulling the slick fabric up past his shoulders. The black fabric distended at his insistence, and then collapsed back down onto him, around his neck, without issue. Each webweave was made by spiders that crawled on mannequins to lay down trails of web across the forms, and then the weaves were taken off and treated, somehow, making them incredibly durable and stretchy.

Like all webweaves, Mark's was made to order, without any openings at all, except for his head. He didn't have to use the bathroom, unlike most people, so his webweave was completely protective.

Mark looked at himself in the mirror, and felt good about what he saw.

He looked good in black, and he didn't have to wear padding like some heroes wore for the cameras. This was all him! Big shoulders and great chest and legs, and a trim waist. He could even see his abs under the webweave. The best part was how it moved, though.

Mark did some stretches, going through his full range of motion and doing some of his astral body stretches, too, just because he could, and he needed to, anyway.

With one hand on the ground, Mark lifted himself into the air, doing a handstand while not using his adamantium at all. And then he pounded out a few advanced pushups with one hand and then the other before he did a few squats on one foot and then the other, all the way till his ass hit his heels. He breathed hard under the weight of the movement, but soon he was warmed up.

Almost ready to head out for the day.

… There was the matter of wearing his real armor, though.

Webweave was great, but it wasn't as protective as Mark's ablative ceramic armor.

… Mark looked at the 'Shaper Armor Assister' hanging on the wall, and wondered if today was a good day to wear it. The assister looked like a series of belts and clips, all in brown leather and silver metal, that would go over the chest and waist and thighs like a complicated series of wraps. From there, Mark could activate it, and he could make some armor out of adamantium, using the assister's guide.

Julie had made this particular assister.

Mark hadn't been able to use it too well because he simply didn't have enough raw material to make a set of armor. Normal metal armor weighed something like 20 to 40 kilos, depending on a lot of different factors. A full suit of adamantium armor, which is what the assister would help him to make, weighed in at 45 kilos.

Mark only had 7,500 grams of the stuff.

So, he couldn't actually use the assister at all.

… Not in a normal way, though.

But maybe he could replace his helmet with adamantium? That'd be a good start.

Mark grabbed the assister and put it on like he was strapping on a vest made of enchanted belts. After Mark clipped on the final belt around his left thigh, a small holodisplay popped up in front of him. Quark, sitting on Mark's desk, flickered to life, his silver light shifting over to the words 'connecting', and then the holodisplay in front of Mark flickered silver.

Mark wasn't going to use all of his adamantium in his suit of armor at all. But a helmet and maybe a chest piece that was absolutely solid against all sorts of attacks? That would be good. Mark had wanted to wear adamantium armor ever since he imagined having enough adamantium to make into armor, but he was still nowhere near being able to do that.

Mark stood in front of the mirror and decided, "I've got 3 kilos of adamantium to use in my armor, Quark. Give me some good designs for a helmet and chestpiece."

Having 4,500 grams of adamantium left over for weaponry and movement was fine. Mark had done a lot with a lot less! He absolutely wasn't going below 4 kilos of usable adamantium, though.

Quark said, "Three kilos of adamantium is not enough material to provide any sort of real defense, for you will always leave something exposed."

And then Quark did what Mark asked, and the assister came to life, overlaying something that was not a hologram over Mark's chest and head.

Mark stood in front of his mirror, looking at himself, but with a chestplate with great big holes under the arms, allowing for way too large of an attack target, and a helmet that was basically a skullcap. And that was it. Mark frowned.

Yeah. This wasn't going to work.

"… I really should use the helmet, though. So... Quark. Give me a good helmet using 1 kilo of adamantium—" Mark changed his parameters, saying, "1,750 grams."

The 'hologram' breastplate dissolved, and the skullcap morphed into something nicer. It was still a skullcap, but it had a full face covering and a good field of view. Some sort of wing-like things were above the ears, sweeping back, and the ears were fully covered with rounded mounds. Mark could wear coms under those ear coverings just fine. It had jaw protection, too. Mark could remove the lower part of the faceplate to talk to people easily enough.

… Yeah.

This was good.

It was time to replace his store-bought helmet with something a lot better.

Mark took his adamantium like it was a stick of charcoal and he drew on top of the 'light' that made up the helmet, and the light transformed to black adamantium, as Mark fed more and more adamantium into the structure. The light was not light. It was some sort of magical 'thing' that helped Mark Shape how he needed to Shape, and then it did even more than that.

The assister actually had two different types of 'light'. The first type helped Mark to layer his adamantium exactly where it needed to go, which was not the main draw of using an assister. Armor still needed padding, after all. The second type of light is why Mark was glad he had an assister at all.

As Mark drew in his new helmet, some magic thing inside the assister 'painted' in under the black material, creating a cushion out of, like, air and plastic, or something. Mark wasn't sure. An aerogel, Eliot had called it. A semi-magical aerogel, actually. Eliot couldn't make an assister, unfortunately.

Soon enough, Mark had a helmet that was exactly what he needed it to be, and it was cushioned on the inside, too, like Mark had bought the helmet off of the shelf, from a professional armorer.

It looked pretty good.

… Kinda stuffy, though.

Mark took off the faceplate and that was much better. He still had, like, 'muttonchop' jaw protection, so this was good.

He practiced removing and replacing the faceplate a few times, melding it into the helmet and then popping it off. He tweaked the ear-wings a little, making them less wing-like, and then adding breathing tubes from his faceplate to those wings. Was that good? He wasn't sure if that was good or not.

But it was a new helmet!

Yay helmet!

Mark took off the assister and hung it onto the wall, and then he started putting on his ceramic plate ablative armor, like normal—

Isoko's vector, in the other room, turned sharp. Worried.

… She wasn't yelling, though. She was probably on her computer? Looking at things? Mark wondered what was happening. He listened. She was on the phone. She sounded worried.

Mark put his armor on faster.

Isoko felt Mark's concern just as Mark felt her worry. Her vector slipped left and right; a shake of the head. Not something he needed to be instantly concerned about, then.

Mark got into the living room and Sally was there, in her leather armor but without her sword. She was staying in the settlement today. Mark was concerned about Isoko, and Sally noticed that. She turned concerned as soon as she saw Mark looking concerned.

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"Something with Isoko," Mark said.

Sally waited with him for Isoko to come out of her room. She was talking with Barba… or maybe Julie. Mark wasn't sure.

And then Eliot came out of his room.

Eliot stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"Do you know what happened?" Sally asked Eliot.

"Something with Barba," Mark said, adding, "But I'm not sure."

Eliot frowned a little, and then looked away, his vector turning ephemeral, sinking into the world around them. And then Eliot jerked. He came back and the big screen in the living room flickered under Eliot's Power of Man-made Manipulatio—

An announcement was writ large on the screen.

The first deaths of the settlement.

Three people Mark didn't know.

And then a bunch of new regulations.

Goblins were at large. Potential Hive Mind goblins, and aberrants. The infection that had just been a normal goblin infection was now a major problem that needed to be solved, and fast.

Mark was unsure how he felt about that. Bad, yes, but also… Something else.

Eliot looked sick.

Isoko came out of her room, phone still to her face, eyes downcast as she looked at the screen, and finished saying, "Yes. We'll be there." And then she hung up. "Barba was one of the two survivors. She's not going vivant crystal hunting. She wants us to hunt goblins. She is furious."

Mark's unknown feelings transformed into surety. Into a decision.

Mark said. "So it's a goblin hunting day, then."

Isoko tentatively nodded—

Eliot strongly said, "I'm not doing that."

Sally was almost offended. "Why no—" And then she stopped herself.

She could see what everyone else saw.

Eliot didn't want anything to do with goblins, and honestly Mark didn't blame him. Those mind goblins had almost gotten him during the training mission in Rome with Inquisitor David, and then Mark and Isoko had almost been suicide'd by that demon-controlled Mind Warper at Wolf Bayou. Minders were Eliot's big weakness, too. Mind Powers were directly across from Arch Powers in the Power Hex, and even having the favor of Hearthswell only boosted Eliot's Natural Power resistance. It did nothing against Mind Powers.

Eliot's inability to handle certain specific scenarios, like Mind monsters, was a result of many things, and Mark did not blame him at all for any of that. Gods knew Mark had certain issues regarding certain things.

And yet...

Mark said, "Not a problem, but… Talk to me, Eliot."

Eliot breathed in, then said, "You were out of it when… when we had to go out and get supplies in Rome. Sure, David was there, but… but the Mind Nudge goblins took me out and Isoko had to carry me back, and all of the supplies, too."

Eliot had never mentioned that specific incident before, but Mark understood why he hadn't.

Eliot's vector and face were full of pain as he said, "Do not go along with her revenge. Do not risk yourself like that."

Mark understood what Eliot was saying.

He was still disappointed.

Moments passed, and Mark let them pass, so that Eliot would hear what he had to say next.

And then Mark said, "The problems of this world and all others won't end unless we end them ourselves. Everyone helps everyone else, but we still have to do the work ourselves. You get that, right? I know you do. Goblins need killing or else they will kill us in turn. There is no way around that."

Eliot was quiet, his vector flashing from disbelief to dislike, and then to acceptance. He stood a bit stronger, and said, "Fine. I can have some laser drones, or something… accompany you beyond the walls. Blinding goblins is easy enough. I'm not leaving the settlement when there are goblins out there, though."

Mark decided that that was good enough.

Mark looked to Sally. "You good staying here?"

Sally was not good with that at all, but she said, "I am."

Mark nodded, and then he put on a small smile, and walked out the porch door, onto the open grass and into the fog of the early morning, saying, "We'll let you know what we find out! And happy birthday, Eliot! We'll do something special tonight when we get back!"

"Happy birthday, Eliot," Isoko said, as she kept pace with Mark, into the foggy morning.

Sally stayed with Eliot, the two of them watching from the porch as the fog swirled. Soon, all Mark could see of Eliot and Sally were their vectors and the glow of the apartment in the fog.

Mark and Isoko made their way to the tram station.