Grey armour 1

The battlerobes vanished, leaving behind a vague nimbus of purple light that faded away a moment after.

“What happened?” I asked, unsure if he had simply stored the robed away again, or activated some kind of aether-based ability that I couldn’t sense.

The corners of his mouth twitching, Grey did something—a kind of mental flexing that pressed against the air around us and made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck—and the robes reappeared, now draped over his frame. He held his arms out to his sides, examining the effect.

He looked ridiculous. I opened my mouth to tell him so, but froze. The robes were moving, the dry fabric rippling like muddy water, shrinking to fit his frame.

The brown-gray coloring darkened to a brilliant black, and the heavy fabric that hung down to drag on the ground separated and reformed into individual legs. The relic—no longer a robe at all—continued to tighten until it fit Grey like a second skin. The material hardened into small, liquid-black scales that clung to his body, highlighting his lithe but muscular frame. Gold glittered between the scales, running along the length of his body like shining tendons.

Scaled sabatons molded around his boots, the overlapping blades held together by a gold mesh, just barely visible when he moved, and ridged pauldrons formed to cover his shoulders. Clawed gauntlets grew over his hands and up his forearms.

The robe’s cowl transformed into the same black scales, but shrank to cover Grey’s throat, chin, and the sides of his head, leaving his bright hair to hang over the void-black armor and keeping his face visible. Just as I thought the transformation was complete, obsidian horns formed over his ears, growing out of the armor and sweeping forward and down to frame his jaw.

I gasped, sucking in a choked breath as I realized I had forgotten to breathe.

ARTHUR LEYWIN

I flexed my hands, which were entirely encompassed by the clawed gauntlets, and conjured an aetheric blade. The long dagger shivered, its form momentarily jagged, then stabilized. I could feel the pressure of it against my palm, uninhibited by the gauntlets. Dismissing the blade, I raised my arms and rotated my shoulders, then lashed out at the air with a series of kicks and punches.

The armor moved with me perfectly, leaving my motions unhindered.

A dark shape in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I raised my hand to touch the horn growing from the half-helm.