Charlatans

This is no artifact of clothing.
Nay, it is Haute Couture, the embodiment of an aesthetic encompassing elitism, financial success, and competitive
superiority.

Tiny electronic robots emerge from the ring and burrow under the users skin. They crawl along under the dermis creating quickly moving bulges that travel into the users fingers, down their hand, past their wrist, and into the forearm before ballooning outward and spreading all over the body. The feels like their nerves are on fire as the tiny insects crawl along the internals of the body before finally arriving at the nerve receptors for the eyes and nose respectively. Once at the eye the user would see their tiny legs begin to snake into the their vision from the periphery. The nanite needs the eye to be looking forward so as the cornea moves to the side to see the legs they retract while legs on the opposite side continue to snake forward. Once the eye is stationary enough the bug legs lock it into place and another nanite crawls from the back of the eye and enlarges over the cornea. Once in place it's tiny legs inject past the cornea and into the optic nerve behind it. Afterwards the user sees a thin HUD outline of what the other nanites have already found relayed back to the user. As for the nose once the nanites are in place at the nerve ending the user would have a sudden drop where they couldn't smell anything for a few seconds followed by the smell of metal and burning plastic for a bit, then the new senses would be online. The nasal cavities become filled with tiny nanites buzzing and humming from inside.

Tiny nanomachines begin to pour out of the ring and skitter around the user in an outwardly growing sphere. They burrow into floors, walls, roofs and doors and continue to move unnoticed with the user for the duration of the ability before dissolving. While active the bots scout slightly ahead and ping back information to the ring that they emerged from, mainly focusing on electronic items but also recording interesting smells and cataloguing them for investigation.

Tiny nano machines swarm out of the ring and cover the users body in a thin sheet. The tiny bug like bots arrange themselves into a latticework over the user and once all are in place thin little cuts are made along the users skin in square patterns. Tiny rivers of blood well up at all locations of the nanites and are quickly sucked into the nanomachines, they then start cutting the small squares of the skin and prying them up the tiny bits of dermis sticking to the muscle and sinew underneath but being pulled anyways until they eventually come free. Unable to patchwork skin on the eyeball the bots flood into the occular cavity and surround the eye forming a kind of sheen over the cornea and feeding it visual info while the effect is activated. Each bug holds the square of skin over itself like a kind of card. When activated they flip the skin cards around to the underside where a hazy reflection of the surrounding area is put forward on the other side of the skin card.

Joshua understands the importance of a good maintenance routine. From oiling the calf skins of his drums to sewing tears in his coat to keeping his trusty caplock pistols clean, each of the items that the soldier carries is part of an intricate web of consistent upkeep. Like trusted friends, he knows that as long as he treats his equipment well, they'll never fail him in his moment of need.

He's more than willing to teach others his best practices. Amazing what can be done with a needle and thread, a rag, and a simple toolkit. Little bit of oil here, a shine there, he lays out the proper routine in plain English. As long as anyone follows his advice, their equipment can be as trusty as Joshua's.

What Joshua doesn't realize is the energies of the shattered Netherworld Portal has empowered this routine with his own latent resistance to entropy. Though he remains rigorous in his procedures (and insists others to do the same), the equipment that he's given close attention keeps itself in its best condition without any deliberate care.

As tales of Joshua's heroic exploits and good deeds continue to spread through the Netherworld and beyond, there are always people willing to lend him a hand. Even if lost, equipment maintained by Joshua will inevitably be picked up and brought back to him by a good samaritan, who will never request more than a song or two as repayment.

A plain looking gold ring, with a hidden inscription that glows under the light of fire. The inscription is in old Norse, but reads: One Ring to Rule them All, and in the Darkness, Bind Them. Upon slipping on the ring they will turn completely invisible.

The mad scientist can craft steel helmets that protect their wearers from mental influence and attack.

This device is a piece of chrome the size and shape of the back of a spoon. When placed against the skin, small hypodermic needles sprout from the device and attach it to the user's bloodstream. There, it filters and releases lifesaving drugs into the bloodstream, granting complete immunity from contracting new diseases and added resiliency in all other cases.

WARNING: The immunizing drugs have been shown to reduce inhibitions in test subjects.