Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

The Dreamwalkers didn’t need to use a fitting room or dressing screen the old fashioned way. They were able to summon their own projection UIs like Mage did. They simply tapped their Anima bracelets twice and their respective animal crests stretched into suspended square planes. Apparently, Hordo’s shop and its immediate vicinity gave them access to such metaphysical interactions. Outside, they wouldn’t be able to do the same.

The UI contained a lot of information but it was user-friendly and, as they had agreed, they were to focus on getting Warrior outfitted first.

The task was more efficient than they feared. Way more. With simple swipes on their individual UIs, they were able to undress Warrior piece by piece, down to a pair of loose off-white linen drawers called braies. Despite his sculpted figure, Warrior was mortified and tried his best to cover his undies.

He needn’t have done so because with the same swiping ease he was undressed, he was also dressed. All the armors, helms, gauntlets and sabatons floated magically in the room and took turns posing on him. The objects violated the basic laws of physics inside the Blue Room because Warrior could try on many a full armor and only feel a breeze passing over his naked body. It was as though he and the pieces of armor were made of two-dimensional cardboard.       

For headpiece, they tried spagenhelm, casque, barbute, basinet, heaume, chapel-de-fer, salade, armet, armet-arondelle, morion, cabasset, burganet and spider helm. For armor, they tried Roman, post-Roman, Frankish, Norman, chain mail, mail and plate, Gothic, Maximilian and the three-quarter suit. For gauntlets, they tried Gothic, blade-seizing, manifer, scale, palm and falconer’s. There was even one pair called the Forbidden Gauntlets, not because they could wipe out all enemies in a single blow (like they wished) but only because they had been banned from jousting tournaments. Finally, for armor footwear, they tried bear paw, duckbill and some with outrageously pointed toes that were more for fashion than practicality.

Hordo explained that the pointy toes were called poulaines and their length was governed by strict rules. Princes and dukes could use footwear two and half times longer than their feet, nobility two times longer, and knights just the size of their feet. Hordo could no more sell an overly pointed sabaton than he could sell wolfsbane to a minor. But then the enterprising Troll mentioned that he also sold forged patents of nobility while winking furiously like someone having a seizure. He went on to recommend the male Dreamwalkers some codpieces.

They also purchased Warrior a Dreamcraft battle-axe and an equally massive shield called a scutum, which covered him from shoulders to ankles. Everything made him look all the more fearsome but only weighed like paper for him. When they were finished, Warrior had been transformed into a walking tower. He vaguely reminded Blacksmith of a comic book character named Juggernaut on the surface world. However, because the rest of the party knew he remained a softie inside, to them he resembled a character named Baymax more, who was a toughie outside but an anthropomorphic marshmallow inside.  

“His Health, Energy and DPS levels are off the charts,” Elf squealed while looking at a radar chart on a nurse’s flipchart. Unknown to her, her Anima bracelet had also leapt up to her right eye to create an optical, head-mounted display. Everyone else marveled at this. “Um, what’s DPS, Blacksmith?”

“Damage per second. I applied the golden ratio of +10% Critical Damage for every +1% Critical Chance.”

Next was Ranger’s sword. As with Warrior’s battle-axe, the weapons had impressive names that sometimes masked their true abilities. There was The Separator, The Uncanny Blade, The Legendarius, The Upheaval, The Chasm-maker, The Soul-Releaser, and then long names with a lot of alliteration that just tripped off the tongue: The Glorious Gladius, The Fearless Falchion, The Eternal Estoc, The Reaper’s Rapier and so on. 

Blacksmith ignored the epithets and studiously scanned each weapon’s stats on the UI he had drawn up. He felt he could discern a pattern. Each weapon, aside from being forged in the great Dwarven smithies, had been blessed or charmed by four different races: the Undina or water nymphs, the Sylvestris or ethereal sylphs, the Gnomus or earthen pygmies, and the Vulcanus or fire salamanders.

As a result, in addition to a sword’s potential to inflict Base Damage, there were four different kinds of Elemental Damage: water, air, earth and fire. And since they were headed into the Fiery Caverns, it was a no-brainer. He eyed a sword named The Diluvial Destroyer.

<Excellent choice,> Hordo said from over his shoulder. <That’s one of the best swords in our shop, discovered from a monster drop no less. It comes with a risk-free 30 day trial and, best of all, simply to honor your boldness in trying it out, I’m willing to throw in a pair of pointed sabatons.>

A monster drop was loot acquired after defeating a monster, a powerful big boss of a particular game stage or level. Blacksmith highly doubted that Hordo or any of his employees were capable of such a feat. It was more likely he had scavenged it from a battlefield, probably even pried it out of a dead knight’s hands.   

Blacksmith tested the actual weapon. It was supposed to be wielded with two hands but Hordo was right, their real-world selves who lacked the constitution had nothing to do with how they behaved in that world. So, Ranger would be able to swing the sword easily enough.