Rex leaned back in his chair at last, smudged with ink and surrounded by his own creative carnage.
The new blueprint lay before him — crisp lines, runic channels, crystal slot, metal layering, the whole thing looking halfway competent instead of a guaranteed medical emergency.
Sage's voice hummed in his head.
Sage:
Huh. Not bad. Actually looks decent. Unlike your previous masterpieces, which promised your arm a one-way express ticket to the afterlife.
Rex rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Roast me later. Now I need to actually make this thing."
He stood, stretched, and walked over to Lira and Velkohr.
"Hey, do either of you know a forge I can use?"
Velkohr pointed lazily at a side door.
"That one. Has everything. Just don't burn down the library or summon something."
Rex nodded gratefully and strode off. The moment he disappeared, Lira and Velkohr exchanged the same expression:
Curiosity.
Followed immediately by:
We are absolutely going to snoop.
They walked over to Rex's table, picked up one of the many crumpled papers, and carefully unrolled it.
It showed a very questionable, very cursed-looking gauntlet sketch with six different failure points and two places where it might've exploded sideways.
Lira squinted.
"…Do you know what this is supposed to be?"
Velkohr frowned.
"No clue. Maybe armor? Or a medieval torture device?"
Then his eyes drifted to Rex's new, clean, finished blueprint — the one Rex had just taken with him but left a rough draft copy under the earlier papers.
He paused.
Then paused harder.
"…Wait. This looks familiar."
Lira looked over his shoulder.
"You've seen this design before?"
Velkohr nodded slowly.
"Yeah. A long time ago. I don't remember much… but I swear this looks almost identical to an old Twilight blueprint I saw once. Same layout, same runic map… everything."
"So just similar?" she asked.
Velkohr shook his head.
"Not similar. Almost exactly the same. Just a few scribbles here and there and some extra scripture. But the structure? It's practically the blueprint's twin."
Lira raised a brow.
"Maybe it was in one of the books you gave him."
Velkohr's eyes widened.
"Hold on—"
He suddenly turned and began rifling through shelves, books, scrolls, the couch cushions, everything, mumbling:
"It should be here… I swear I saw it… where is it—"
He was still digging when Rex burst back into the room like a pack mule.
His arms were stacked comically high with:
– chunks of pure crystal,
– a bucket of coal,
– bars of blue-cyan metal,
– coils of copper,
and enough enthusiasm to power a small nation.
He looked like he was carrying the ingredients for either a magic gauntlet or a catastrophic explosion.
Without a word, Rex marched to his table, grabbed the new blueprint, and marched into the forge room like a man on a mission.
Lira and Velkohr just stared.
"…So he's really doing this," Lira whispered.
The moment the door closed behind Rex, the hiss of flames and the clanging of metal filled the library.
Inside the Forge
Rex tossed coal into the forge and lit it, humming with absolute confidence, which was dangerous.
The flames roared to life.
He placed the copper and the blue-cyan metal into the crucible. While they melted, he pulled out the pure crystals, grabbed a grinder, and began shaving them down.
Sparks flew.
He kept grinding.
And grinding.
Soon, he had a pile of smooth oval crystals.
"Perfect," he said proudly, wiping dust from his inverted silver eyes.
Next, he grabbed a leather glove and fitted metal molds over it, creating a frame.
The molten metals were finally ready.
He lifted the crucible, took a deep breath, and poured the shimmering mix over the glove mold.
Steam exploded upward.
Sage muttered in his mind:
If you drop that on your feet, I am not helping.
Rex ignored him.
While the metal was still glowing hot — dangerously hot — Rex snatched a carving tool and began inscribing channels and runic lines all around the gauntlet. His hands flew, tracing the paths Sage described: from the crystal slot, down the back of the hand, splitting into branches that wrapped around the fingers.
The inscriptions glowed faintly as he worked.
Then he froze.
"Wait. Need the rune book."
He sprinted out of the forge, nearly smacking into Lira, who let out a confused yelp.
Rex grabbed a thick runic tome from the floor, spun around, and bolted back into the forge without explaining a thing.
Velkohr paused his frantic book search to stare at the door.
"…What is he doing?"
Lira shrugged helplessly.
"At this point? Either becoming a genius or blowing something up."
Inscribing the Runes
Inside, Rex flipped through the rune book like a man flipping through a menu at a restaurant.
"There! Protection. Reinforcement. Stability."
He carved each one into the gauntlet, his cuts precise and fast — the runes glowing gently as they settled into the cooling metal.
Then came the final piece:
The directional discharge rune.
Right under the crystal slot.
"That should stop my hand from exploding… hopefully."
As the runes settled, the metal cooled into a smooth bronze color — a leather glove wrapped in graceful armor plates, with a crystal slot at the top and runic veins trailing all the way to the fingertips.
It looked… good.
Shockingly good.
Rex grinned proudly.
Then something caught his eye in the rune book.
A fire rune.
"Huh," he muttered. "This lets you imbue anything with fire."
Rex, inspired, carved the fire rune into one of the oval crystals. The crystal flared bright orange for a moment before settling into a warm glow.
He held it up triumphantly.
Sage hummed.
You know, instead of calling it an 'oval crystal,' why not call it what it actually is? A focus.
Rex nodded.
"Yeah. That sounds way cooler."
He gathered the freshly created prototype gauntlet, the fire focus crystal, and the rune book under one arm.
Then he flung open the forge door and sprinted out of the room like a giddy inventor showing off his first creation.
Lira, Velkohr, and Nyxar just stared as he passed.
"HE MADE A THING," Lira shouted after him.
Velkohr answered, deadpan, "I think he made an ancient Twilight weapon, actually—"
But Rex was already gone.