In Winterhome, the mood was strange; half-celebratory, half-mourning. They had fought off the invaders. That alone was monumental.

Think of it…

Imagine you’re scared, and alone, that your entire world has been tossed into chaos and you’re out in the woods struggling to survive. Unsure which food is safe to eat, and risking your life every time you go scavenging. Surrounded by beasts that could rip you from limb to limb.

Told that this is a game, a challenge for you to meet, but knowing in your heart the odds are stacked impossibly high; that you’re not meant to win this game.

You’re just waiting for the axe to fall. For life to kick you again.

But then things change.

You find other people. You build a community. You raise your weapons together, and learn to fight.

And the next time life tries to kick you in the guts…

You kick back.

The cost was terrible. Humans and monsters lay dead on the ground. Winterhome had lost nearly forty lives in a single day; but all the same, they had fought and they had won. Even if it wasn’t the victory they would have hoped for, today, they’d proved winning was even possible.

So there were drinks poured out for the dead, and lifted for the living.

So there was song. Dancing. A wake instead of a funeral.

The story of the fight passed around and around, growing more incredible with every turning. The story of Winterhome grew with it.

They weren’t alone in the woods anymore. They weren’t a random scrappy bunch of nobodies, tossed together by fate.

They were brothers in arms. They had met the fire and walked through it together.

Today the city was alight in bonfires. Today, the water shook with reflections of dancers. Today, Winterhome wasn’t just a place to live, to survive- it was a city.

---

Nic wandered through the forest below Winterhome. He’d fought till his bones ached, but there was still more to do. The body had been almost entirely destroyed…

But some remnants had fallen free of the destruction.

He found them smoldering in the undergrowth like pieces of a fallen star. Most of it was shattered, useless to him, but there was a long, curved length of wingbone still intact. Nic picked it up and began to work.

The stresses of the past few days were tightly coiled around his soul, like a restricting vise. Work was the best way to shed them. He took out his carving knives, his ink and his pens, and began to visualize what he would do.

Nothing so unwieldy as a spear.

Not a sword; a sword was too demanding in technique, it didn’t lend itself well to the simple chopping strikes Nic preferred.

The shape was wrong for an axe…

Something with traits from all three. A short, spear-style handle, and a long single-edged saber-blade meant for chopping. A glaive, but sized to his body and for close-range combat.

He shaped the base over the next hour, carving, whittling, pushing away what he didn’t need. Pins of volcanic matter were pierced through the bone; he worked around them as he drew a framework of runes into place, first with the Theoretical Quill and then for real, etching them down with his knife and then filling the grooves in with ink.

The patterns were complex; they were meant to trap and bind a fragment of soulpower. To create a living heart for the blade.

With each penstroke, Nic fell deeper into his trance, deeper into his work. His mind and spirit were as one, filling each line with intention. His willpower guided a steady flow of aura down into the designs.

What were runes?

They were the guiding light of cultivation.

For a person to cultivate, they drew the energy of life, of the earth around them, into their body. They imprinted their will upon that energy to make aura. When that will had fully permeated, and transformed the energy completely, it became Essence.

Energy and will.

Power and soul.

Runes were an expression of the soul itself, the language by which the spirit spoke. By drawing them with a clear mind and iron will you could command heaven and earth to obey you.

Now, he was weaving a trap, capturing a will within his own.

It was a knife-edged will. Strong but brittle. He wore against it with steady, reserved force, not going all out at once but weaving his power around the little shard of soul caught within the bone. He was the hunter, patient and slow.

His prey fought him every inch of the way.

Brittle, knife-edged…

That was how pain made you. Sharp, restless, cutting the world to break yourself free. Nic knew.

Nic had been that way; when he had first arrived his desperation for freedom had turned him into a wild thing, slicing its way forward without looking back.

Now he was finally beginning to accept that this was real.

That this life belonged to him, that it wouldn’t be taken away.

He could finally slow down; he could finally breathe.

His soul was stronger for it.

Eventually, he wore down the enemy, binding them deeper and deeper with every line from his pen. The designs became ever-more-complicated. They spun across the bone until it was black and white in equal measure, a maze, a labyrinth…

“Don’t worry…” Nic whispered. “I’ll take good care of you…”

The fragment wasn’t a true being. The real soul had long since departed for the afterlife; this was only a pale echo. But in time, given room to grow, he could kindle that one spark into a new flame. A new soul.

It would only take time and care.

For now, he wove three signet runes into the pattern, three keystones on which the rest of the design depended. One for flame, drawing on the volcanic stone threaded throughout the weapon.

One for strength, the strength of the soul within.

And one for life, to nourish the weapon’s spirit.

The first was shaped like a burning ember, vaguely in the shape of a heart, with squared mazes twisting away at the core. The fire of the soul.

The second was shaped like triplicate chains, banded around the grip. Strength from hardship. Strength from resilience.

Life…

The symbol Nic chose for life was shaped like a great turtle, etched onto the flat of the blade. Its shell contained a litany of runic words, bending into a spiral, a symbol of eternity. He wrote their names into the working.

The names of the dead…

And finally it was done. The final penstroke slipped into place. A gentle warmth suffused the weapon, like a heartbeat under the pale material. It wasn’t a prison for the soul-fragment.

Far from it.

It was a new body.

A new life.

What it needed was a name…

“Peacekeeper.”

It was beautiful. The volcanic stone formed ripples of red and black through the pale bone, like fine damascus steel. The blade was a heavy, curved affair, meant for chopping and breaking through all resistance; the hilt was fitted for a two-handed grip but still light, spinning easily between his hands, the weight perfectly distributed by a heavy skull-cracking pommel at the end.

It left streaks of embers drifting through the air as he chopped down with it. They fell like a dance of fireflies, dissolving as they struck the ground.

“Peacekeeper”

Greatsaber of the Red Beast (E)

Glyph of the Apex Predator

(100% Charged)

Rune of Flame-Walking

(100% Charged)

Fine Rune of Titanic Strength

(112% Charged)

Created from the remnants of a tortured being, this greatsaber grants them new life. The blade itself is powerfully attuned to flame, and can ignite, granting the wearer great strength while it burns. The soul within can be called forth for three breaths at a time; it will gain Essence from killing and fighting, gradually growing stronger. It can only be summoned once each dawn.