Now leaving the boundaries of Metronomeic Plains and still manned by the Morilore trio, Mal-Co continued on towards Aunoville. Other than the rogue mana vent the group encountered, nothing of dramatic note had transpired, unless Inkaro almost dropping one of his wrenches counted as an incident. His little display of having butterfingers did little in deterring or hindering the grimoire reaper from turning his in-progress project into a completed one. So with one last twist to fully secure its pommel in place, Inkaro put the finishing touches on his current personal project: a polearm of some sort. After quickly putting the leftover material back into his golden storage agate, followed by tapping it against his new polearm's storage pommel to transfer a few items, signified by the two gems quickly blinking, Inkaro hopped to his feet in Mal-Co's cargobed in a single forward swing of his body.

  Tossing his polearm-like creation overhead, momentum maintained through inertia given to it by Mal-Co and the vehicle's hard-to-see barrier blocking any hindering winds, Inkaro caught it over his head with his left hand, only having check when the thing was in relation to his through its reflection in the cargobed's base. Inkaro proceeded to twirl the artefact on the tips of his right index and middle fingers. He followed that display by grasping the polearm slightly more practically with two hands before giving it a twirl like a majorette in a marching band in front of him.

  :Inkaro's Artefact:

  [Omens Befallen][Type: Conduit][Rank: Forbidden]

  -A nine-foot-long, pale platinum polearm. Its shaft has a two-centimetre radius. For its pommel, it has a diamond-cut storage pale cyan agate curio. On the head of the polearm is a slightly large, kite-shaped dark silver spearhead with small, pale cyan cubes positioned at its side edges. And, within the headpiece is a teardrop-shaped hole that goes completely through it.

  "Fancy being a part of a festival march with those moves?" Lizu whispered teasingly from within Mal-Co's cabin, having returned to lying on her bed and functionally put herself in a half-asleep state of mind. She snickered at the thought of Inkaro being in such a peculiar situation. But her amusement mainly stemmed from how lazy she was being by using memoria to see what Inkaro was doing instead of using her eyes.

  "I don't believe his weapon would be permissible by any festival committee," Enetha stated flatly, whilst having her middle and lower cloth-like appendages wrapped together over her legs to make a pseudo fold-up table, from which she used to have all her standard Mould Breaker chess pieces neatly lined up in front of her.

  :Enetha's Standard Mould Breaker Tapesty Chess Pieces:

  [Golden King]

  -A standard king chess piece made of pale gold with a floating golden crown-looking ring that hovers around the part of the chess piece below its crown part. The piece is covered in glowing lapis lazuli lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Golden Queen]

  -A standard queen chess piece made of pale gold with a floating golden tiara over the top of it. The tiara also is adorned with a see-through ruby-coloured veil that covers the piece down to about seventy percent of it. The piece is covered in glowing lapis lazuli lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Golden Knight]

  -Two standard knight chess pieces made of pale gold. One has a dark golden lance with dark golden ring-shaped grooves along its blade to resemble segmented plating. The other one has a dark golden spear with a dark golden kite-shaped spearhead. Both the pieces are covered in glowing lapis lazuli lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Golden Rook]

  -Two standard rook chess pieces made of pale gold. One has two dark golden great shields on its sides, with its left shield having a sapphire crystal filling and its right shield having a ruby crystal filling. The other one has a long, dark golden sword on its back. Both the pieces are covered in glowing lapis lazuli lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Golden Pawn]

  -Eight standard pawn chess pieces made of pale gold with dark golden longbows on their backs. All the pieces are covered in glowing lapis lazuli lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Silver King]

  -A standard king chess piece made of silver with an opaque white glass-like bowtie on its middle. The piece is covered in glowing emerald lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Silver Queen]

  -A standard queen chess piece made of silver with an opaque white glass-like ring around its middle that is connected by four triangular grooves in the ring. The piece is covered in glowing emerald lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Silver Knight]

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  -Two standard knight chess pieces made of silver. One has an opaque white glass-like warbow. The other one has two opaque white glass-like, square-shaped chakrams that are covered in spikes. Both the pieces are covered in glowing emerald lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Silver Rook]

  -Two standard rook chess pieces made of silver. One has an opaque white, glass-like warhammer. The other one has an opaque white, glass-like book filled with glowing emerald pages. Both the pieces are covered in glowing emerald lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  [Silver Pawn]

  -Eight standard pawn chess pieces made of silver with an opaque white glass-like shortsword attack to the back of its head. All the piece is covered in glowing emerald lines that resembled connected jigsaw pieces.

  "It's hard to arbitrate on which of you I should call upon, when I have no clue what adversaries my future holds," Enetha murmured aloud, getting one of the Morilore's attention from the odd vocabulary selection on the little princess's verbal palette.

  "Wha?" the Morilore manning Mal-Co's gearshifting device murmured, somewhat unfocused at that. Half-heartedly seeing to her task of changing from gear to gear, the gearbox Morilore was much more interested in something else: SKG's chess piece.

  Slumping her head sharply while remaining visibly unaffected, Enetha softly spoke to the mana-made being: "I'm being indecisive on which pieces to use at this upcoming dungeon escapade."

  Enetha's response rang loud and clear to all the Morilores and the lazing Lizu; a little too well in Lizu's call, who couldn't help but make a comment on she'd the only one left who hadn't been decisive that morning, to which Inkaro jolted slightly at the call out. Inkaro planted Omens Befallen's pommel against the cargobed, steadying himself and halting himself from falling over. Once he recovered his balance and briefly considered counterattacking against Lizu's verbal jab, Inkaro simply placed his hand on the groove of the sliding rear window and calmly closed it, causing Lizu to genuinely gasp. Sinking into the throes of her embedded bed's embrace, Lizu mentally screamed in utter anguish as she covered her face with her tail to hide her blushing, fearing she'd struck at Inkaro's nerves in the wrong way. All of this dolour and desolation plaguing the dragolyte's mind was, unbeknownst to her, being transmitted into Inkaro's mind, thanks to her memoria leaking out of her.

  Inkaro could only scratch the back of his head in response.

  Perplexed, the guy lightly tapped his free hand against the rear window, employing a certain pattern of knocks that caused the frantic mess Lizu's headspace had become to stumble to a stop, signified by the tip of Lizu's tail gradually stopping its swiping. Once he saw her relax a little, but mostly from no longer hearing her unintentionally crying in his mind, Inkaro hopped away to the middle of Mal-Co's cargobed.

  Brushing off his shoulder, Inkaro placed two of his fingers against the spearhead of his weapon as he applied a physical-type Permansor-Style Glyph: Terra Etching etching across Omens Befallen's surface. Spreading out from where Inkaro held onto and made contact with it, a net of bronze, snowflake-shaped engravings ensnared the outer layer of the artefact, but mostly around the polearm's spearhead.

  A brief smirk appeared upon his face, one he just as quickly shook away. Clearly, he was trying to keep a more reserved visage when in a public place, but the little boy on the farm couldn't help appearing. After all, Inkaro was nowhere near Enetha or her mother when it came to social masks.

  "Hmm."

  Inkaro followed up his test by moving swiftly onto the next one, guessing he only had a single hand's worth of minutes until arriving at Aunoville. So he swung Omens Befallen to one side and, whilst striking a defensive combat stance, moved in such a way as to allow the floating Sky-Style Syntax: Air Writing syntax to gather around the spearhead more naturally. Snapping into place around the spearhead's four pale cyan cubes, four SSS:AW rings of different elemental affinities constructed themselves around the spearhead. Inkaro felt a faint rattle slither through Omens Befallen's frame, shuddering like a kid attempting to hide the pain they felt after scuffing a knee.

  With that, Inkaro concluded his initial tests.

  Lightly tapping the artefact's pommel against the cargobed with a faint clang, all the magic applied to Omens Befallen dissipated, leaving it in its natural state. Said natural state didn't last long as Inkaro conducted the magical polearm to morph and shrink around the metal chain connected to his hooded trench coat's collar. Omens Befallen snaked around the end of the colour-alternating pale purple and white metal chain, transforming into a bracelet variation of its polearm form. It rested on top of the golden agate curio at the end of the chain, showing no signs of falling off, even after Inkaro intentionally rattled the chain.

  "Okay, it can use two of my unique magic with only mild resistance and strain. I'll have to hold off on all three at once and fine-tune Omens Befallen when I get home."

  Just in the nick of time, Inkaro raised his gaze and noticed the small outline of Aunoville beginning to appear far in the distance. Although saying his attention was brought to the town of his own volition would be a stretch. In truth, the only reason he altered his aim of attention so timely to the town was from feeling a faint tingle on the back of his neck, making the hairs around that area stand at attention. A feeling Inkaro knew was Lizu's doing, mainly because he saw the tippy tips of her horns poking up from behind the rear window, and guiltily crackling weak mana-aligned electricity.

  Clearly, he had gotten too magic-brained, or so Inkaro assumed from Lizu's actions.