Grinning to myself, I wrapped the latest prototype of our anti-mosquito collar around my neck. Hopefully, this one would work well enough; it certainly looked promising in its utilisation of a combination of Ice and Death Magic. According to some of our previous tests, the idea with the most potential was to create a chill within the insects, as they were generally unable to withstand the winter in the open air, thus using the symmetry to their natural life cycle to start their withering upon which we could latch onto with Death Magic and drive it home. Essentially, the enchantment would chill everything with a bit of Ice Magic, the small amount of Astral Power limiting its effect against anything larger than a beetle, and anything weak and fragile enough to drift towards death due to the effect would be targeted by the lethal effect of my Death Magic. Again, only a tiny amount of Astral Power was involved, thus limiting how effective it would be against larger creatures and, in turn, how much the enchantment would drain the user of Astral Power and Health.
The moment I tied the cords of the choker, I could feel the enchantment drain a small amount of Astral Power and Health to activate, but the amount was small enough to be compensated for by my regeneration as it occurred. It might make me feel a tiny bit under the weather as if I was on the verge of getting a cold or something like that, but I was completely willing to put up with that if it meant no mosquito could try to drink my blood.
“Does it work?” Luna asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes. She, just like me, was getting sick and tired of the bloodsucking fiends and their constant attempts to drain us dry. Sure, squashing them was fun and somewhat satisfying the first ten times, but afterwards, it quickly got old.
“We shall see,” I replied, unable to sense anything beyond the small drain on my Astral Power, so I activated my magical sight and couldn’t help but have a wide grin spread across my face. “Sure looks like it; I’m now enveloped in a shell of Ice Magic, stretching about ten centimetres from my body,” I described, just as I saw yet another of the ubiquitous mosquitoes fly towards me and enter the said shell. For a moment, the drain on my Astral Power went up a little, as did the drain on my health, but immediately afterwards, the buzzing insect turned into a ballistic object, harmlessly dropping towards the ground now.
“Did you see that?” Luna asked, her eyes following the dead pest like mine. “It works.”
“Sure does,” I nodded, “Now, I’ll have to make two additional pairs of those out of some nicer material. Silva, if you like, you can have the one I’m wearing right now,” I told our canine companion, the one the insects bothered the least. Her fur, thick and coarse as it currently was, offered ample protection against them, especially if she rolled around in the mud a bit, covering herself in a thick layer of dirt.
“Remember that snake Silva killed a few days ago? Did we do anything with the carcass beyond skinning it? That skin would look quite nice as a choker, right?” Luna suggested, and I quickly checked my mental inventory to figure out which of our numerous bags that particular loot had ended up in. Not long after that, I had to dig a little; I had a nice stretch of snake hide in my hand. It was about a metre and a half in length and mostly in a soft, light-brown colour with darker markings along its length, making it look quite fashionable.
We couldn’t tan it to turn it into leather, but with a bit of magic, I could make it so decay wouldn’t touch the material easily. As so often, Death Magic served as an excellent sanitiser; no germs, bugs, or bacteria could survive anything its touch, while a careful application of Water Magic drew out moisture without turning the entire thing brittle. A bit of oil from our packs helped to make the end product nicely supple, soft and usable.
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Once I had the strips of hide, I only needed to add the various runes I used for the enchantment and tie them together so they would work. Luckily, the runes and patterns connecting them were fairly universal, so I could quickly trace them with charcoal before carefully inking them into the hide with a needle, some blood and crushed crystals, as if I were tattooing the dead skin.
I had been experimenting with this new method of creating enchantments, partially based on the things I had seen from Lia and what she had done with that crimson Ink she had made for me. The crystals remained the subject of intense testing and various experiments but I was quite satisfied with the results I had achieved thus far.
Once the enchantments were on the Chokers, I smiled to myself when I realised that these now counted as accessories by definition of the system and carried the Pest Killer Enchantment, keeping us safe from a fair variety of pests, as well as an increase of Endurance by one. Where that part of the enchantment came from, I had no idea but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, at least not invasively. I would study the items I created, but I wasn’t about to take them apart. That could wait until we were far out of mosquito country and wouldn’t need them any longer.
“So much better,” Luna sighed once she had the choker wrapped around her neck. Not perfect, but I’ve got a feeling that we could sell as many of these as you care to make. " The grin on her face made me grimace. Sure, making these wasn’t a huge chore, but I had no interest in making copies of the same item over and over again; that was just plain boring.
“That can wait until we need to buy something,” I told her, shaking my head. “Sure, we could use some added variety in our diet, especially regarding veggies and cereal, but we are fine. Plus, I don’t think all that many people would make that trade anyway; the average person is probably more interested in food than they are in anti-mosquito chokers. Mosquitoes are pests, but hunger is a far worse threat,” I reminded her, wondering how many people had starved worldwide thanks to the sudden and complete breakdown of supply lines and civilisation in general.
At the same time, I began to wonder how anyone managed to make that shift. Even farmers had almost universally modernised and used mechanised equipment to get things done, all of which was now essentially scrap, leaving them with only the bare basics, their grit and a bit of experience to rely on. For the average person who might have cared for a potted plant at some point, maybe a small flower patch in their garden, it would be even worse, and yet, the various communities we had seen all managed to put something together and grow fresh food. Maybe that was an effect of the system; maybe it was just pure survival instinct at its most basic; maybe it was a combination of the two or even something else entirely.
Once we settled down somewhere for a bit, I might test that question and see how well Luna and I did when it came to farming. There had to be something simple we could try to grow, possibly some of the wild vegetables we came across on our journey or some of the fruits we could use as seeds. If everything else failed, Luna could use her Life Magic to salvage things. She had been using her magic to refill our supplies regularly, but I wanted to see how it would work without that trick she had inherited from the Grandmother.
“What’s the next big project?” Luna asked, playing with the choker around her neck.
“Good question. Do you have any ideas?” I returned her question, not sure what we really needed to make our journey easier.
“Well…” she began before asking with a cheeky grin on her face, “You know your cloak of flying? Do you think you could make something similar for Silva and me?”
“Uff, you don’t ask for small things, do you?” I had to grin at the somewhat audacious idea, “It’s not an easy thing; you know how I made that cloak with some unique materials, things we don’t have any longer and can’t get more of?”
Still, even as I essentially rejected her idea as impossible, I began to wonder what possible options I might be able to use. The cloak itself was unique, and I doubted I would be able to replicate it, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to make something similar and, hopefully, just as useful. If we could all take to the sky, our journey would become a lot easier, smoother and, hopefully, faster, too, making this a worthwhile project to spend energy on.
