Orestis finished closing the door before it occurred to him that leaving was not, in fact, the first problem.

  Surviving was.

  He stood there for a moment, hand still on the latch, and took inventory.

  This body was fifteen years old again; old enough to be mistaken for capable, young enough that it still felt like a compromise. It carried memory without the strength to back it up, awareness without endurance—functional, yes, but only on the assumption that nothing would go wrong.

  He stretched. Something popped in his shoulder, mildly offended.

  That was not reassuring.

  He had not trained. Not really. Stretching kept things from locking up and nothing more. His muscles were thin, his endurance theoretical, and his bones—while healthy—were doing their best impression of a suggestion.

  Perhaps it was time to actually start training—as long as he didn’t go overboard. He only needed to ensure that he didn’t push himself far enough to wake his aura and add years to his lifespan. That, at least, was still within his control.

  For now, he was honestly not fit to be outside the safety of his home.

  Embarrassingly so.

  He had access to effectively infinite divine power. He knew spells that could erase cities, unravel enchantments, and rewrite physical laws in ways most people wisely avoided imagining. Unfortunately, none of that stopped him from dying to a falling branch. Or being stabbed by someone who did not even know who he was. Or by a stray arrow loosed badly and landing well.

  The idea of resetting his life again because a bandit sneezed at the wrong moment offended him on a philosophical level.

  No. Absolutely not.

  He exhaled and sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, already reordering priorities.

  Magic could solve almost anything—except surprise, exhaustion, and physics applied at close range. A spell he didn’t have time to cast was useless. Infinite divine power did nothing if his skull met an arrow first.

  So. Armour.

  Not because he intended to wade into combat, but because the world was careless, and he refused to lose five years of restraint to negligence.

  He stood and dragged the trunk out from under the bed, ignoring its contents. Clothes were irrelevant, and books were replaceable. But armour? That was infrastructure.

  And infrastructure had to be built for worst-case assumptions.

  He could acquire the base pieces easily enough. His father’s warehouses were full of practical mistakes—items purchased in anticipation of needs that never materialized. Somewhere among them would be serviceable armour, plain and unremarkable.

  That part was easy.

  The enchantments, however, were not.

  Orestis grimaced.

  If he trusted anyone else to do this, he would die—not dramatically or heroically; just abruptly. Most enchantments assumed the wearer could take a hit; he could not. Assumptions were how people died.

  Which meant the armour could not be allowed to fail even slightly.

  If he was going to leave, he would do so protected against stupidity, chance, and the universe’s persistent sense of humour.

  He straightened as the decision settled into place.

  First, he would not shatter on impact.

  Then he would leave.

  ***

  The armour lay arranged across the worktable in careful order.

  At a glance, it looked unremarkable: a reinforced leather travelling coat, dark and practical; the sort worn by caravan guards and merchants who preferred preparation over bravado. Beneath it lay the truth of the assembly—thin internal plates stitched between layers, narrow bands of metal following ribs and spine, flexible mail inserts protecting joints without advertising their presence.

  Layered, quiet, and sensible.

  He checked the fit once more, fingers pressing along seams and joints to confirm tolerances. The leather gave where it should, and the hidden plates aligned cleanly, distributing weight without pulling. Nothing rattled. Nothing shifted.

  Good.

  He did not begin immediately. Instead, he sat, rested his hands on his knees, and let go of them.

  The stylus lifted from the table on a thread of divine power, hovering precisely where he willed it. His fingers twitched once, betrayed by nerves and disuse. The stylus did not.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Accuracy mattered in rune work. His hands would shake; his magic would not.

  Satisfied, he turned the breastplate lining inside out and laid it flat. The leather backing had already been loosened, exposing the thin internal plates sewn between layers. Invisible from the outside. Inaccessible without intent.

  The runes would go here; not on the surface—not anywhere that invited scrutiny or tampering. External inscriptions were declarations, meant to impress and signal.

  They were also a quick way to get yourself killed.

  To any competent runesmith, visible runes were invitations for interference. Orestis had no interest in being interpreted.

  The stylus touched metal, and divine power flowed—not in a rush or a surge, but as a steady, controlled presence. The rune did not carve itself so much as settle into the plate, impressed as though it had always belonged there.

  The first layer would be ‘passive structural reinforcement’.

  Non-negotiable.

  It was the foundation everything else depended on. Not durability in the heroic sense—no grand resistance or defiant refusal to break—but integrity. The armour would hold itself together under stress. No cracking. No warping. No sudden catastrophic failure.

  Armour that broke was decorative; this was not.

  The second layer followed immediately, nested into the first. ‘Kinetic dampening’ was low-profile and unassuming. It did not negate force; instead, it redistributed it, smearing impact across the lattice of plates and leather until lethal blows became survivable ones.

  Especially important against arrows, falls, and blunt trauma.

  The third layer was smaller, subtler, and infinitely more irritating to opponents. ‘Edge redirection’ was subtle, elegant, and irritatingly effective. Blades would slide; arrows would glance; piercing strikes would arrive a fraction off-target, turned just enough to miss vitals and ruin trajectories.

  It prevented lucky hits, critical strikes, and the so-called ‘that shouldn’t have worked’.

  Orestis hated ‘that shouldn’t have worked’. He himself had lost two separate heroes to it before they could get to him.

  Which meant it was vitally important for him.

  He moved methodically, rotating each piece as he finished it, allowing the enchantments to converse without touching.

  ‘Environmental stabilization’ came next, threaded through the lattice without disturbing it. It provided temperature regulation, minor pressure compensation, and resistance to fatigue from exposure. Not immunity; just stability.

  He had no intention of freezing to death on a mountain because he misjudged the weather.

  For the fifth layer he wove in runes for weight distribution and chafe prevention. They were practical, not indulgent; weight distribution mattered. Too much dampening would sap movement, too little would transmit force directly into bone. And chafing caused unnecessary irritation and fatigue.

  Orestis was of the opinion that any armour that exhausts the wearer was a delayed failure.

  The final layer was the smallest and the most important: this rune governed failure.

  He threaded it through the previous five layers with unerring precision, compensating for curvature and material variance.

  With this, if the armour was compromised beyond acceptable limits, enchantments would degrade gracefully. No feedback loops, no explosive discharge, and absolutely no ‘heroic last stand’ nonsense.

  He had seen what happened when magic panics. If this armour fails, it would do so quietly.

  When the last line settled into place, the stylus returned itself to the table. Orestis leaned back and exhaled.

  The armour did not glow. There was no hum, no resonance, or signs that anything had changed. Which, of course, was the point.

  He reassembled the lining carefully, sealing the work away beneath leather and stitching until nothing of it could be seen or felt. To an observer, it would look like a well-made travelling coat with a sensible weight.

  He lifted it and slipped it on, testing the balance. The armour responded immediately, redistributing load, easing strain, and settling around him as though it understood its purpose.

  He nodded once.

  Perfect.

  Now that the basic enchantments were out of the way, he could move on to the advanced ones.

  These were less about surviving a single bad moment and more about surviving the accumulation of them.

  Orestis picked up the gloves first, weighing them in his hands. Reinforced leather, flexible enough to move naturally, dull enough not to draw attention. He turned them inside-out and let the stylus hover into position.

  Grip strength came first.

  Not dramatic, not exaggerated—just enough that his fingers would not slip when they absolutely could not afford to. He had no intention of hanging off cliffs, scaling ruins, or clinging to crumbling ledges.

  Experience suggested that intention was rarely consulted.

  He layered the enchantment carefully, tuning it for responsiveness rather than raw force. Strength that activated only when needed. Strength that did not crush stone—or bones—through overenthusiasm.

  The next layer followed naturally: pull strength.

  Not for combat. For hauling himself up when gravity had opinions. For dragging deadweight that stubbornly refused to stay where it belonged. For the inevitable moment when ‘almost there’ turned into ‘now or never’.

  He set the gloves aside and reached for the tunic.

  The inner lining received its own attention. Rejuvenation runes, subtle and persistent, woven into the fabric where they would rest closest to his skin. Not regeneration—nothing so crude or attention-grabbing—but steady correction. Accelerated recovery: enough to close wounds before blood loss became an inconvenience rather than a problem.

  He had learned long ago that bleeding was rarely fatal on its own.

  It was what followed.

  The helmet came next.

  Lightning resistance, specifically tuned for indirect strikes and atmospheric discharge. He did not plan to be struck by lightning.

  He had also learned that the world did not care about plans.

  While he was at it, he folded in protections against concussive shock and sound. Not silence—just dampening. Enough to preserve awareness when noise tried to take it away.

  His boots followed.

  Gravity reduction, modest but constant. Not enough to let him jump like a lunatic or float like an idiot—just enough to reduce strain, ease landings, and make long days less punishing. Paired with noise suppression that softened footfalls without erasing them entirely.

  He did not need to be silent; he needed to be forgettable.

  Anti-divination came last.

  Not as a single ward, but as a layered irritation. Interference patterns. False negatives. The magical equivalent of static and administrative error. Anyone looking for him would receive results that were technically accurate and completely useless.

  He took his time with that one.

  When he finally leaned back, the table was crowded with armour pieces that looked unchanged but felt heavier only to those who knew what to look for. Every available interior surface was saturated with runes—nested, layered, overlapping in ways that left no room for improvisation.

  Nothing on the outside.

  Nothing obvious.

  To anyone else, it would look excessive; to Orestis, it was bare minimum survival.

  He set the individual pieces aside and began cleaning the table, methodical and unhurried. The stylus returned itself to its case. The tools were wiped, aligned, and put away.

  There was no pride in the work. No thrill; just readiness.

  Now, at least, the world would have to try.