Style Quest: Air Needles

“I need a favor,” Varick told his kobold roommate and lover, Tay. Whether it was because of forced proximity or natural attraction, the two had become incredibly close. Usually, the mahogany Clydesdale wouldn’t bother the red and green kobold with this kind of thing, but Varick couldn’t leave the spaceship. Tay was the ship’s cargo and mail hauler, so he could get anything Varick needed. “I have a list of materials needed for a special project.”

 

“What’s in it for me if I make this supply run for you,” Tay seductively teased as he fuelled up his freighter ship. Varick knew his boyfriend would make the run no matter what, but he decided to play along. Seeing other people walking around the cargo hold, the Clydesdale leaned close to the shorter kobold’s ears and whispered something as quietly as possible. The already red kobold turned redder as a smile spread across his face. “Tha- that’ll work.”

 

Within the hour, Tay brought a box full of all the requested supplies back to Varick. Inside mainly were asters, elemental pearls, and a couple of leather bundles. Those bundles were what Varick pulled out of the box first. While the tielfing Gard told the Clydesdale to get some armor, Varick decided to fix his attack abilities first. Needing to fling all of his needles all at once and only being able to make fire projectiles was to limiting. Varick knew how to fix this, but it would take some practice.

 

Working the leather carefully, Varick crafted small thin bands that matched his fur color. Small loops are sewn in the bands, just large enough to hold a needle in place. Each of the bands could fit fifty needles without being a hindrance. Through a bit of sleight of hand, the Clydesdale could make the needles appear and disappear in his hands. With his latent elemental powers, Varick could easily make flaming projectiles out of the needles. If he tied an elementally charged spell thread through the eye of the needle, they would radiate with earth or water powers. Both of those were different from the Clydesdale’s focus for that day. He was finally trying to crack the arcane process of making air spell threads. 

 

Varick knew from previous experiments that crushing an air pearl produced a slight gust of wind that was difficult to entrap. The horse decided to try a different approach this time. Varick wrapped a sky pearl using blank uncharge spell threads and hung it from a small stand. The idea was that if the sky pearl were in the air, it would allow the spell thread to absorb wind power easier. After several days this theory proved not to be the case. In frustration, Varick threw the wrapped sky pearl at the wall. As the wrapped orb hit the wall and broke, releasing a burst of air energy. Varick took a deep breath and cleaned up the mess, only to find that the spell thread had become fully charged with air energy.

 

Now that he had sky-powered spell thread, Varick could make a new weapon for his arsenal. By wrapping a needle’s head in this new magically charged thread, the Clydesdale could make a projectile that course-corrected when thrown and even chase a target. Even with Varick’s highly inaccurate throwing technique, he hit targets using a missile that could manipulate the air around itself. As long as the tailor held an image of the horse’s intended target in mind, it was difficult for him to miss. Varick now had a fourth elemental weapon to use at his disposal. Hopefully, this would help him turn the tides on Gard in their next fight.