Blood-sweat Hauberk

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Description

Whether constructed of mithril or tanned leather, the most important step in crafting a blood-sweat hauberk is the removal of all impurites. The metal to make the rings, or the leather from which the armour is created, are extensively treated with beggar's lye to ensure the highest possible degree of purity is achieved.

This armour comes with an obvious cost - the wearer is left physically exhausted by the experience of burning the venom out of their system. In the right circumstances, however, it can be a life-saver.

Rules

• Form: Light armour.
• Effect: Once per day you may spend 5 seconds appropriate roleplaying that includes a self-inflicted cut to remove VENOM. You are immediately subject to the WEAKNESS effect..
• Materials: Crafting a blood-sweat hauberk requires eight measures of beggar's lye and four ingots of orichalcum. It takes one month to make this item.

It was past dark in the tavern again, and the woodsmen were telling tales of death again. Narrow escapes, and the deadly breath of the monster in the trees, and how they'd once had to leave someone behind.

I remembered one night a time ago, when they'd been telling the same tales and wizened old Karys looked up from her embroidery and leant in close and whispered "Oh, they imply they know it all, but don't you listen to them my bright boy." She jerked her head to where one of the woodsmen was recounting the tale of the plaguewulf. "What do they really know about poisonous air? Next time a brand comes through, you ask one of them about the deep woods and the things that live here, and the poisonous air."

Next time a Navarri striding came though the vale, I asked one of their warrior-artisans about poisonous air, and what to do about it. In return for furs and leather, she taught me how to burn beggarwood, and what metal to use to make a mesh, and I spent every spare moment making myself what they called a blood-sweat hauberk. A good thing to wear if you're fighting Vallorn-monsters, she said, and she told me there'd be a price to to pay for using it.

On the night of the blood moon we'd gone out hunting in that bit of the forest where old Marushka had fallen, I was decked out in my new armour, ignoring the others' funny looks. The plaguewulf came down on us, and the poisonous howling took a few, and it burned me but it didn't kill me. I was barely ready for how damn exhausted using the hauberk made me, but I kept myself on my feet and put the last axe in through its face and brought it down. It tore my guts as it fell, but I didn't die.

Next time, the end of the woodsmen's tale had been about me, and how I'd been just a normal warrior, with not a spit of magic to call on, but I'd still been able to fight when I should have been dead. I caught old Karys chuckling but she smiled at me and gave me the shirt she had been embroidering all Winter, the shirt she'd meant for Marushka.

So that's why I wear a thick-furred animal-pelt round my shoulders now. Cos I earned it.

It's a good story, is that one.