Chapter 237 - Mask Of Hiding
"Alright, Grampa… We have a Dragon Prince, cousin?" Stahl asked, confused, and Eisen nodded with a smile. "Yeah, you do. I already told you about it, remember?" He said before Al slowly nodded her head and sighed before stepping up to Kiron and extending her hand.
"Well, I guess it's nice to meet you, Kiron. I'm Alnico." Al said with a smile before Kiron stood back up straight and shook Al's hand. "Thank you, dearly," Kiron responded, and Stahl immediately jumped next to him and slung his arm around the half-dragon's shoulder before looking at Eisen.
"Gramps, Al'n I are gonna go hang out with our super awesome cousin now, so we'll cya later." He exclaimed with a grin before pulling or trying to pull, Kiron toward somewhere where they could talk alone. Noticing that Stahl was currently far too weak, to even make him budge, Kiron just went along with it and stepped toward where Stahl was suggesting, with Al following behind while being nearly unable to stop her laughter at the miserable failure of her cousin.
As they heard the conversation that was just going on, Zyra looked at Eisen with a frown. "What the hell's going on?" She asked, confused, and Eisen turned to her with a smile.
"What do you mean?" He answered, quite simply, and Zyra sighed loudly. "What the hell is that? Is that a… player… too?" She asked, whispering the word 'Player' so that nobody that wasn't supposed to could hear them before Eisen shook his head.
"Nope. As he said, he's the son of the Dragon God. He was born and grew up here." He explained, and Zyra frowned in response.
"Well, that's not true. Kiron's a… you know… So why are you treating him like a grandchild? Are you a frea-" Zyra started with her natural, incredibly rude tone in her voice before Eisen walked a step closer and squatted down in front of her.
"Zyra, listen to me, alright? I'm allowing you on this ship because I'm nice enough to look past comments like these. But if you for one second think that I'm going to let you treat anyone here like they're less of a person than you, no matter who they are, then I'm going to throw you off the ship even if we're halfway on our way to the islands, got it?" Eisen explained quite calmly with a light smile on his face, and Zyra took a small step back.
"What, are you trying to threaten me here?" She asked confused, looking over to Evalia who was leaning against the wall with a grin before Zyra looked back at the 3-meter tall man in front of her, who continued smiling like nothing was going on before she noticed a small change.
Eisen's eyes slowly turned Golden, and his skin became like rock, before golden flames showed themselves underneath the cracks of that rock, while two substantial golden horns sprouted on his head and two wings spread out around her, basically enveloping not only Eisen but also Zyra herself.
"Yes," Eisen replied with a bright smile before continuing. "So, are we on the same page here?" The old man asked before Zyra slowly nodded her head.
"Alright, then we're good." The old man's wings disappeared near to instantly as if they were never there in the first place before he stepped over to the carriage and grabbed some oil out of it. Eisen began pouring some into a bowl for Aulu while holding some more oil in front of Cabarum's mouth, while Zyra was trying to keep up with the sudden change of atmosphere.
"Evalia, how far are you with the Figurehead for the front of the ship?" Eisen asked to swiftly move on before Evalia crossed her arms and scratched her cheek. "Hmm, I can get it done by tonight, I guess." She answered, and the old man nodded his head.
"No need, you can show Zyra around town a bit. I'm sure Brody and Jyuuk want to do that as well. I mentioned it before, but we're stopping once or twice before actually heading off on the open sea. We can attach it then, so make it the best piece you can." Eisen told her before Evalia nodded with a smile.
"Okay! Z, come on, we're going shopping!" She said and grinned broadly, before running up the stairs to the meeting hall. "H-Huh, wait, didn't you say we're going shopping? Where are you going?" Zyra asked, and Evalia grinned.
"I'm getting another friend of ours, she was alone all day, so I feel a bit guilty. Oh, and Eisen! Tell your grandkids that they're joining us too!" Evalia exclaimed from the platform in front of the meeting hall before opening the door, and Eisen looked at Komer for a second.
"Could you get them for me, maybe? And if you want, you can go with them as well. I have to go and meet Bol for something again." He explained as he continued feeding Cabarum and cleaned up the areas that the oil was now stuck to, before helping Caria and Melissa sit down on the mechanical horse's back.
"Alright, sure. By the way, the quest doesn't have a deadline, does it?" Komer asked as he turned away, but Eisen shook his head before the young merchant ran off with a smile.
"What're you meeting that guy for again?" Brody asked with a frown, and not even Jyuuk understood it. "Yeah, I know you're his champion, but it feels a bit off, doesn't it? I mean, he gave you an egg filled with venom that could probably kill you if you got a few drops of it on your skin. And on top of that, it even had a parasite inside of it that could have also completely killed you and taken over your body for a while if that venom hadn't killed it." The Monkey Beastperson added, confusing both Vardia and Kyla for a moment, but Eisen simply scratched the back of his head.
"Yeah, and that's actually one of the reason why I want to talk to him. He's indubitably one of Trygan's faction, and I doubt it'd be possible to trick an ancient being whose power is to see through lies, no matter how good he is at transforming his own body. But that was still incredibly dangerous. And I want to ask why he had a Red Dragon's egg anyway, and especially why or how the mother died." Eisen explained, before pulling the steel scale with the Kanji-Enchanting on it out of his pocket, showing it to Jyuuk, before both he and Kyla looked at the old man in surprise.
"Huh? 'Red Dragon'..? And that's the shape of a Dragon's scale, right? And why is it in Japanese?" Jyuuk asked, confused before Eisen swiftly explained. "Long story short, I managed to create something called a 'Red-Dragon's Alloy' using the petrified eggshell and the red dragon's crystals. I want to make scales out of them, and I tried to enchant them. But because there's no actual rune meaning 'Dragon' amongst the ones I know of, I tried Japanese kanji, and it seemed like it worked. But the enchantment didn't turn out that well, because I don't know what a Red Dragon's flames are like, so I want to ask Bol to show me all I need to know about Red Dragons." He explained before Jyuuk and Brody looked at each other in surprise.
"Well, want me to come with you just in case?" Brody asked, worried about the man in front of him, but Eisen shook his head. "No, that's fine. And I know you're the strongest out of all of us, but that doesn't mean you can fight against Ancient Dragons yet. And even if he does kill me, we can't die forever, so it's going to end up alright." Eisen explained, and the Demon-Orc halfling slowly nodded his head.
"Got it. Be careful anyway." Brody told the old man, and he nodded his head. "Of course, don't worry about it."
While the small group was talking, Stahl, Kiron, and Alnico came back together with Komer who went to grab them, before Stahl looked at his grandfather. "Yo, where are we going?" He asked while turning to Cabarum.
"I'm going to meet someone right now. But if you want, you can go with the others and take a walk through town." Eisen explained, before remembering something essential and grabbing some wood from the carriage and then his carving knife from his chest pocket, before swiftly starting to work on something.
"Alright, dope. And what is it that you're making there all of a sudden?" Stahl asked curiously, and Eisen grinned as he turned his head to look over at Evalia who was stepping back down the stairs with Xenia in tow.
"Just a small makeshift item." Eisen explained as he continued shaping the wood into a thin, blank mask with nothing but two eye-holes before attaching a thin strip of stretchy cloth to it, and then quickly grabbed his carving knife and began to carve the Japanese Kanji for 'Hidden' on top of it with a mist-like framing.
He held the group up for a few minutes, but he wanted Evalia to be able to have a bit of fun without being recognized by everyone.
[Mask of Hiding]
[Quality – Highest][Rank – 3]
[Description] A simple wooden mask created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. Enchanted with a word from a foreign world's language to allow the user to stay more easily hidden from other people.
[Effect] 20% Disadvantage to any Appraisal-Type skills used on you; Enemies will find it harder to find you;
[Requirements] 50 INT, 50 WIS, 60 AGI; Quiet and inconspicuous actions
With a smile, Eisen looked over at Evalia. "Hey, you have 60 agility, right?" He asked her, and the young artist nodded her head in surprise. "Yeah, why you asking?" She inquired, and the old man threw the mask over to her.
"Because you need it to use this mask. It's going to make appraisal used on you show less information, and is hopefully going to hide you a bit more generally. But you can't go around doing crazy things, or else it won't do anything. Use this until I can work on the other mask we talked about." Eisen explained to her, and Evalia happily took the mask and placed it onto her face before turning to Stahl, who was the one standing closest to her at the moment.
"How do I look?" She asked, obviously meant as a joke, but it seemed like Stahl took it seriously.
"Just gorgeous." He replied smoothly, before Evalia turned away, trying to suppress a quiet laugh.
"Well then, you ladies' man. Get going, or you won't get too far before every place closes down for the day." Eisen told them as he climbed onto Cabarum's back, before quickly being stopped by a certain someone.
"Erm, Eisen… That was an enchantment on that mask, wasn't it?" Xenia asked, trying to figure out what he placed onto it, and Eisen slowly nodded his head at the High-Elf. "Yeah, it was a Kanji. I figured out on our trip that we can use other things other than runes for enchantments. I figured you knew." He muttered, and Xenia sighed loudly and nodded her head.
"Yeah, I guess I knew but just didn't try yet…" She muttered out, obviously deep in thought before Eisen smiled at her.
"Let's figure that stuff out later, yeah? For now, you all go have fun, and I'm going to get some things done." The old man said and smiled at Xenia, who slowly nodded her head.
While waving his hand, Eisen rode Cabarum off the boat, while the others went on their way as well, merely talking amongst each other while Eisen was trying to prepare for his conversation with Bolremgar, the ancient Bronze Dragon.