Chapter 95: Chapter 94 – Leather Harness

The ork guides Jason into his shop. Behind them the thick leather sheet lowers again as the worktable disappears into the floor. The ork now in the center of the room turns back to Jason. His eyes sparkle and the lights focus on him. Off to the side a pair of drums start to play themselves and the ork pulls a leather box out from behind his back. With a flourish the box unfolds and inside it a strange harness.

Jason takes a closer look at it but can not see how it will protect Lily. As he points this out the ork laughs. The ork motions for Jason to put it on while he explains, “It took some work to do but the magic is solid. I used leather from a descendent of Fenrir by way of either Skoll or Hati. The bloodline might have lost their ancestor’s ability to eat suns and moons but the hides still contain some of those mysteries. Luckily for us instead of the destructive part of those myths the weakened bloodline kept mysteries related to space and containment. Useful for the mutts running around this world as it lets them eat many times their body weight and store up for hard times. Useful for us because unlike a lot of devouring based monsters the magic is spread throughout their whole body instead of just their stomachs. Chefs love the meat’s ability to pack in more flavor and I love it because the leather allows for so many nifty tricks. Plus it is cheaper as you can’t make storage treasures as the magic is to diffuse. Anyway, now that you have it on let me show you what I mean. Now I noticed you keep her on your right shoulder so to activate the magic tap it.”

Jason follows the instructions and once he taps his shoulder extra leather pop out of the harness. To start the device was a loose arrangement of straps. Only enough to keep it securely attached to him and at the same time not get in his way. Now though the area around his shoulder is covered with overlapping leather plates reminiscent of a pauldron. However instead of the classic shape the leather has formed a dent lined with fur on top.

The ork beams at this, “excellent! It worked just like I wanted and didn’t slice your arm off. Now put her into that little bed up there. Yep, just like that. She seems to like the bedding, which is a relief. Took some work to get it like that and I had to call on some help to get the fur to mimic a rabbit. For normal everyday stuff this should be fine but we both know an open bed would not work in combat.  Another tap on the shoulder will fix that though she needs to stay still while you do so.”

With the second tap hardened strips of leather pop out of the sides of the depression. They curve up around the bedding and overlap each other to form a cage. As Jason marvels at this, the ork reaches over to the wall and grabs a stick. With a swift swing and a solid thwack he hits the cage over and over. Lily goes still in fright as this happens but even Jason’s move to dodge do not seem to affect her. The ork tosses the stick to the side and explains that, “the cage is slightly off from this dimension. Once engaged the bedding and anything else in there will be as if ghosts, intangible to the rest of us. Though do note it is in a different direction than ghosts. Otherwise she would be in danger if you ever met any and weapons meant to harm them without the use of a god’s power would work on the space. Of course nothing is foolproof. Weapons meant to damage intangible things in general would still work though they are rarer here. That and it is still harnessed to this dimension so enough damage or force applied to the right place can still get through. Heh, harnessed. Anyway another feature is the cage will activate if you move around too quickly. This does not mean if something attacks your should it will deploy. Only if you yourself are moving violently will it work. Any dodging you do should set it off but keep it in mind. Now the last bit about it and what took me so long to figure out is activated with another tap.”

Jason once again taps his shoulder and the cage sinks down into the harness. He can’t feel any movement but it has sunk far enough only the very top is still visible. It is to the point that if a coat was worn over the harness, you could not tell something was there. The ork whoops while he jumps up and down, “It worked! I thought it would but it actually worked! The protective cage subsumed into the rest of the leather without any shearing this time. Excellent, amazing, spectacular! Congratulations young man, you now have quite the advanced spacial device. I wasn’t sure if it could work with multiple unconnected straps but here we are. Now don’t give me that look. She wasn’t in danger at any point. I put in so many safety measures over two-thirds the magic involved was for it. If you try to take if off right now the rabbit would be ejected automatically. There is a slight danger that if an attack did enough damage, it would put her into danger but honestly at that point she was already in danger. Magic on such a low class material can only go so far. For a beast that had not even reached level 150 it is a miracle this works at all. Just goes to show why Skoll and Hati ruled the wolven monster population for so long after their father ascended out of the next realm. Without him around they soon got in trouble with one of the pantheons. Eating moons without finding out if a greater power owned it is not the smartest thing to do. They ran for a while but are under what I would call house arrest until they can ascend themselves. A bit of a laugh when they can’t even eat asteroids right now. Then again the pantheon can’t kill them because Fenrir would call a hunt on them from even beyond the beyond. Scholars claim they will be let out after a millennium but we are only halfway through their sentence if that is true.”