Chapter 14: Dullahan, party meeting, counterfeits?
'My love? Does she have any memories? Or…?'
"Say, do you have any memories prior to this moment?"
"No master." Said the dullahan girl shaking her head, as if that was the most normal thing.
"Do you know my name, or where are we going… Do you have a name?
"Merek Ead Theano, The Creator, my creator. As far as I know we are going towards E-Rantel… I do not have a name master." Answered the girl proud when saying his name but showing a little bit of shame when saying she had no name.
"Yuri, from the Japanese kanji letters that mean reason and logic, alpha using the small first greek letter for you are the first…" he was about to say the first of my creations but then he remembered the pale paladin, and Enri's familiar. He took a pause to exchange looks with the Pale paladin.
"The first…'cough cough' of the sisters, yes emmm you are the elder sister... You will meet your younger sister Enri later… anyways emm where was I? Ah yes, bestowing your name. I Merek Ead Theano bestow you the name for which you will be know: Yuri ⍺."
When he finished the sentence a soft golden light was emitted from Yuri for a couple of seconds. She opened her eyes wide and then lowered her head "Thank you very much master, I am unworthy, but I will work hard to pay back what was granted."
'Hmmm I just gave her a name... and it wasn't even original . Is this how loyal are my summons and creations? I wonder what was that light, maybe the name was assigned to her status?" Merek thought, and to confirm he inspected her stats.
Name: Yuri ⍺
Title: Elder sister
Job: Merchant assistant
Alignment: Good +150
Total Levels: 51Lv
Racial Levels: 16Lv
Spirit Fae: LV15
Dullahan: LV1 (Dullahan are a kind of fairy from the feywild, a spirit of the dead who comes to claim the lives of those who are due to die soon.)
Job Levels: 35Lv
Cook: 1LV
Maid: 1LV
Merchant: 3LV
Striker: 10LV (A specialized warrior that fights with the fists)
Singale brawler: 5LV (In very old language singale means perpetual, or continual. A warrior that gets buffed the longer the fight takes.)
Taker of the Doomed: 10LV (Most dullahan have this job, they are not usually malevolent, but merely bring those who are destined to die soon in a more peaceful manner. Extra damage to low hp enemies.)
Ghost hunter: 5LV (Dullahans also hunt the spirits of those who have come back from the grave as undead. Some of them may see becoming undead as an accident or something out of their control, and perform the task for the sake of righteousness, while others may feel they are being wronged by undead even existing, and hunt them for vengeance. Extra damage against undead.
'Yep as I thought the name Yuri ⍺ has been assigned, her levels and everything seem as I wanted. I prefer the lore from the spirit of the dead fae rather than the zombie for my waifu… I don't have anything against zombies. It's just that, if i missed something i'd rather have a blank spirit waifu than a blank zombie waifu… now i'm thinking as if I am a waifu generator… well could be if… right she is waiting.'
"You don't need to prove your worth my dear Yuri, I know you are worthy of that and more, I look forward to your company, please take care of me."
"Hai!" Answered Yuri, energetically with a small blush and the corners of her mouth curled slightly, her emotions betrayed her. She couldn't keep a serious face when her master praised her like that.
"For now, we are going to camp here, its Enri's first time going to the city so I wanted to wait until she's awake so she can see the gates and all that… I think I will work with some of the equipment gathered so that they can sell at a better price." Told Merek to yuri
Before he started to work however he noticed the Pale paladin looking towards him as if waiting for something 'what does he want… oh wait, maybe he's waiting for me to name him?'
"Pale rider, since you don't have a name and you are the first of your kind that I make, I Merek Ead Theano will bestow you a name, henceforth you shall be named Osmond meaning the divine protector." Said Merek quickly and without interest unlike how he did with Yuri. The effect was similar, the Pale paladin shone with golden radiance.
Osmond dropped to the knee again afterwards, this caused Merek to tell him and Yuri " 'sigh' I understand you want to show your loyalty and that for you both it is probably important, but you don't need to kneel every time you receive something from me… or in almost any situation, if there is a need to kneel I will tell you, if I don't say probably there is no need."
"Hai!" Answered both of them, this time putting their right hand over their heart.
'Sigh' - Merek
____________
'So they do enchant their items differently from what I have been doing, and different from Yggdrasil. They don't use [Data crystals] and the weapon or armor they use have no special materials, it's like they just enchant whatever item they have on their hands… probably because of the lack of suitable materials they had to develop this way of working with items' was Merek conclusion after thoroughly inspecting the [Woeful poison greatsword Lv 26] he got from the war troll.
The good part about such a method of work was that it didn't require rare materials or anything specific. As long as you were able to cast a spell you could technically make an enchanted weapon or armor with such a spell.
The bad part was that they couldn't hold much mana. So warriors that didn't know how to use mana would need the help of a mage to "recharge" their weapons and armors. Unless the spell that they used was very mana efficient or weak.
With normal steel, silver or gold materials, Merek doubted he could enchant a common weapon with a higher than tier 7 spell… For now, the most he could do with those could be a tier 1, maybe tier 2 spell to work indefinitely, a tier 5 spell to work for about 1000 charges, a tier 6 with maybe 10 and a tier 7 with 1 or 2 charges… he was not the limiting factor but the material.
At least according to what he has seen. If gazef was the kingdom's strongest warrior that would be more than enough, still he felt a bit bothered by that. 'Maybe with practice I can enhance this method and create better gear. For now cheap gear is ok.'
He was about to start creating a couple of weapons and armors from what he got from the soldiers that attacked on Carne. Yuri was cooking some meat Merek out when she said she wanted to cook for him and was about to go out to hunt, in a fire pit he quickly made. Osmond was playing with a stick on a campfire Merek made, he was playing on the fire pit originally but when Yuri reprimanded him, Merek made a campfire for him since the warrior had nothing to do.
At first he was going to desummon the Pale paladin since he didn't need a warrior and he was just a test, but after seeing it was a variant, and then naming it on a whim, now he was reluctant to do so. 'I guess the store will now have a security guard?' Merek was thinking as he took out one of the swords from his [Inventory].
The swords and armors all had Baharuth Empire crests, since he didn't want any issues moving the items through the borders he was going to remove them, and maybe change a thing or two of the swords and armors so that it wasn't too obvious they were Baharuth's military supply.
He thought it would take a lot of time to do it for each item individually so he opted for using his creation skill to make a new spell and a metamagic. He developed the following:
[Un-brand]: tier 2 spell, use on a common item with a crest, or insignia to erase it, can also change minor physical aspects of the item, for example, round sharp edges, flatten carved decorations and such.
[Multicast]: Use a spell in rapid succession by using this metamagic, the cost of the spell is increased by %10 of the initial manacost plus %10 of the added manacost for the previous cast. Examples of the first four times are 5Mp, 5.5Mp, 5.55Mp, 5.605Mp...
Taking out the rest of the swords and armors in a pile he used the spell on them
"[Multicast], [Un-brand]" from his extended hands a spinning magic circle appeared, but instead of disappearing once the first spell was cast, it kept spinning and spitting spell after spell. At one point Osmond and Yuri exchanged looks and then kept their eyes on their master. The spell was simple but watching their master work was a spectacle for them.
The 55 sets of armor and swords were hit with a spell, one after the other, and in a moment no indication of them once being Baharuth Empire weaponry, or counterfeits of them, was found.
He started enchanting the swords one by one, the procedure was quick, it was basically two spells, the enchanting spell and the spel he wanted to enchant.
He made 10 fire swords with [Scalding touch], 10 ice swords with [Freezing touch], 10 lightning swords with [Shocking touch], 5 poison swords with [Poison spray] and 5 holy swords with [Turn undead]..
When casting both spells he used the [Tax Cane of Dampening] to reduce the output of his spells since failing to do so would probably break the item.
Then he saved the remaining 15 swords as blanks in case someone wanted a specific spell. It was almost sunrise and he was about to take the armors back out to start enchanting them when the door of the cart opened.
"Good morning master Merek, I'm sorry I fell asleep after you used the spell to teach me magic I just felt too…"Enri was saying as she noticed the two new people that were with Merek.
"Ohhh good morning Enri, I was about to… well, that's not important, here meet Osmond, he doesn't speak much, and Yuri, she will work with you as a store assistant."
Yuri and Osmond both greeted Enri with a hand to their chest and a nod to their heads, Yuri spoke but Osmond was silent.
Enri was looking towards them a little bit baffled, she just said hi and started to think `His armor looks impressive, and she is so beautiful… Did master find a wife while I was sleeping?'
After a couple of seconds of awkward silence Merek spoke "We can meet each other better as we go, for now, Yuri made food so why don't we eat."
Yuri, while having her head attached to her body was able to eat, however Osmond was still a skeleton with some skin attached here and there so he was unable to eat.
When Yuri served, she didn't give Osmond a plate, this was strange for Enri so she asked "Is he not going to eat?"
To which Merek answered "Ah no no, he cannot eat. Ummm he's an undead."
"Hmmmm how come, what do you mean, aren't undead monsters that hate the living?" Enri asked, confused about Osmond's nature.
"Well, not necessarily… it's just like what I told you about the jobs. Low level undead are usually driven more by some kind of instinct, however higher level ones usually develop a consciousness, some high level undead do hate the living, others learn to tolerate the living beings, some are indifferent about the living beings and others are even friendly. Osmond, why don't you take the helmet off for a moment so that Enri can see your face" Answered Merek
Osmond looked towards Enri, and then to Merek; he didn't care much about what Enri thought but since his creator gave him an order, he would obviously comply.
He took out the helmet in a second, and just as he did, his heroic aura disappeared as if it didn't exist. The stench of death and the negative aura immediately hit them.
Enri froze in fear, she had a flashback of the [Barghest] fight and that let her emotions come to rest. Yuri felt an instinctual resentment towards Osmond from that moment, she knew he was undead but being hit by his aura triggered her subconscious, she felt wronged, as if someone stepped on her shoes on purpose or slapped her without reason.
Osmond put the helmet back on quickly and the negative aura and death stench disappeared. "Mmm maybe it was a little but too early to suggest that, but I feel that was necessary for the inner working of the team…" said Merek,
When he noticed the awkward atmosphere that was left he spoke again, "...Once we finish the meal we start moving to E-Rantel, we will probably reach the gates before lunchtime." Everyone had already resumed eating before he finished the sentence and nobody spoke afterwards.
Merek changed the cart once they were ready to move. The first one was adequate for the original story he would use of a low-key magical traveling merchant without much fame, but with a party of four, one of them a knight, a maid assistant and an apprentice assistant the story would easily crumble.
So without much else to do he decided to go big or go home… well not exceptionally big, but at least big enough to accommodate the baloney he was about to spit.
The new cart had a driver's seat that could fit two people, a small room that could accommodate three small futon a smaller room for personal belongings with a space for general stuff like cookware and rations and a bigger room with what was supposed to be the merchandise.
The cart was neat on the inside while on the outside it looked like a small house on wheels with a small seat on the front. It was ridiculous to think the two horses they had could pull the thing Merek created but he carved a couple of [Weightless] runes on the "cart", making the thing weigh as little as the original cart.
With a couple of more preparations and the plan he had inside his head, Merek went towards the city with an optimistic mindset.
***A/N some of the things for this fanfic are taken from references. If something does not seem original, it's probably not mine.
Dullahan information taken from
(CC-BY-SA)
blackbandos-homebrew.fandom.com/wiki/Dullahan_(5e_Race)
(Add the https:// at the beginning of you want to visit the page)
I'll add images of Yuri and Osmond in the comments.***
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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