In Reality, maybe he’s not so bad?...

“Oh, you’ve escorted some of my sisters to the Churches of Sylune to get purified?” I replied immediately.

The mouth of the Fire and the Sword opened, and then slowly closed. He stared at me for a long moment, the twitch of his shoulder fading away as if it were never there, and he blinked once, without even looking away.

Of course he hadn’t. His job was to kill corruptive magical influences, not save them.

“You do know the Silver Queen has a Ritual which can cleanse a Hagchild and prevent them from becoming a Hag, right?”

He looked at me, and suddenly looked a bit strained. “I... am aware,” he answered patiently.

I measured him for a long moment. “Keep it in mind in the future. The Land loves to see corruption cleansed and returned to purity... not just purged.”

He kept my eyes for another long moment, before murmuring, “I know where some hagchildren live even now.”

I tilted my head slightly. “And you aren’t saving them because,,,?” I drawled.

“I have more important things to do.”

I nodded slowly, taking that exactly at face value. “So, that is a minor mission you need to delegate to others.”

He was silent for another long couple of breaths, and then slowly exhaled. “That... would ensure they never become something important to do,” he agreed.

“Are they close to turning?”

“Not really.”

“I should be able to handle that, if you tell me where and who they are.”

“I will do so.” He looked down at the table thoughtfully. “I am here... to get Marked and Opened, as were my Brothers.”

I waved him down. “I’ve been putting the Mark at the base of the spine on most people, to keep it out of casual sight. Where do you want yours, and what Mark do you want?”

“I would like Dexterity, as a Void. On my shoulder is fine.”

“Sit down. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

-------

The Firesword had dealt with a lot of pain in his life, as might be expected of someone in his line of work. He had been wounded horribly many times, dealt with poisons, acids, burns, electricity, freezing, invasive parasites, and mental and spiritual trauma.

He couldn’t hold it in as his soul squeezed out the holes punched in his body and his ki, and his Helix swirled around the openings, momentarily flaming to full and visible light around him.

And then she popped Open his feet, as if she wanted to piss him off.

It was a whole special kind of squeezing, unable to stop the compression and release of something that had never known it. Despite himself, the Fire and the Sword, world-feared mage slayer, manhunter, killer, slumped back on the chair, beads of sweat thick upon his forehead as he breathed deeply.

The holes faded from visible sight, but they were still there. He could feel the cleanly cut edges of them, punched into him by a soul as hard as diamond.

“Aru, girl,” he breathed lightly, quenching his trembling as the wispy edges of his soul seemed to swirl inside his Helix. “Where did you get a soul that hard?”

“Nightmare,” she replied calmly. “Where’d you get a soul that empty?”

“Reality,” he returned, and she lifted an eyebrow in amusement.

“Take your Soulshaper Level. You probably haven’t spent Karma on a Class Level in forever. Your Soul is out, you can touch the Akasha. Reach out to your ancestors and say you want to be a Soulshaper.”

He stared at her for a moment, then closed his eyes and did as instructed.

His Helices flared with polyfires once again, this time with wisps of soulfire swirling and condensing down into another Helix around him, rotating counter to the first. The Firesword opened his eyes and stared at it in disbelief at the display, which was truly eye-catching.

“Huh. Your Brothers weren’t nowhere near as showy. You’re going to be quite the showman if you want to be.” She reached out, grabbed his shirt, and hauled him upright without effort, despite weighing half what he did. “Let’s go over to Forge and discuss your Sword.”

He quenched his Helices, feeling the new power bound into them, and a potential for new growth and power in a direction he’d never been aware of before. Silently, he followed her back over to where Briggs was sitting.

---

She didn’t ask to examine his Sword. Instead, she drew her own Sword, and showed him what it could do.

The Firesword stared at the list of effects. It was a +Zeks Sword, two Slots less than his own. But there was simply no comparing their lethality and effects.

“The Weapons of the Powered have to be fixed to withstand their Auras, the magic locked in and made safe. We Forsaken don’t have to do that,” Sama explained to him calmly. “So, what we would like to do, for now, is move the Name of your Sword, and the power invested into it, into a new Voidbound Weapon, whose Name you can grow by the simple act of using it in combat.

“In short, you kill with it, and it will slowly get stronger, exactly as fast as if you had unlimited gold... at two goldweight worth per day of combat, maximum.”

The Firesword stared at her, at the list of potential abilities her Sword had, and simply could not hide his interest. What his Brothers had explained to him was presented right in front of him, as casually as if it were routine and expected.

The thought of such power being “routine” was both amazing and rather frightening.

Forsaken didn’t have the magic to gift a score of different effects to their Weapons via spells or special abilities... but they could make the Weapons themselves that way, and by Naming them, allow them to grow without having to spend unlimited gold on them...

He looked at Weep, laying in its scabbard across the floating Disk. If he had possessed such a Weapon before... he would be at Zehn Slots, with scores of options built into his Weapon!

“I’m not going to waste adamant on a Weapon built to be moved later,” she went on in no uncertain terms. “It won’t matter. Your Weapon is going to be stronger at Zeben than it is now at Akt, now that you have your soul Opened.”

The hologram before him shifted, showing the abilities of Weep. It looked stunningly small compared to what he had just seen.

“First, we’ll use two Slots to make it Greater Soulbound. This will result in a +IV Weapon using two Slots, instead of a +III Weapon using three. Already better, for one Slot less. Also, it will mean your Weapon is non-magical to anyone you desire, since it will only empower if you infuse Soul Essence into it... and it won’t even be a magical Weapon if you don’t.”

“Clever,” he acknowledged, watching the array on the illusion change.

“Slot Drei will be Bane/Slaughter. We will make the core Bane Humanbane... because if we don’t, you can’t add it later, as Slaughter cannot be Bane to its wielder.” The Firesword nodded slowly. “We will spend the Karma to add Slaughter, but you must add the Banes to your Weapon yourself. You must kill something with the Weapon, and then you add the Bane to it with Slaughter over two days of Naming Karma.”

His eyes turned to the open field beyond the light trees where they were camped. “Interesting.”

“Today’s Warped army, for instance, could have triggered conditions for Bane to Evilborn, Chaosborn, Humans, Animals, Mages, the Warped, or allowed you to add Bane of Legends to your Arsenal. It also satisfied Enmity to Evil, Chaos, Mortals, Spellcasters, Samsaran, and possibly Phrenic, not sure.

“We’re going to remove Ruby and Allfire as primary Slot Holders, and simply make them part of your Arsenal. You’re not going to be able to deathstrike everyone you meet, so having Ruby on all the time is a complete waste. Likewise, being able to alternate among the Elemental attack forms for additional damage is a fine thing for many creatures, but taking two Slots for what ends up as one type of damage is dumb, in the end.”

The Firesword found himself agreeing despite himself. Without a deathstrike, Ruby was useless... but with a higher + bonus, its power would be even greater when he did need it...

“The default on Tremble is Soulbound, Greater Soulbound, Bane/Slaughter Human, Arsenal I- Vivic, Arsenal II/a – Enmity/Evil, and Arsenal II/b – Courageous.

“We’ll be building Weep the same way, but with one extra Slot at Zeben. I suggest as a default that you use universally applicable effects, and simply swap them out if more specialized action is needed. As I do not believe you have studied music or the Heartsong, Courageous is not something you can take advantage of at the moment.

“My recommendation on those defaults is School Weapon/Shadow, and School Weapon/Fire, since I believe you prefer to do long and short?” She nodded at the long straight poniard at his hip.

“You are correct,” he agreed, again impressed. “Will you need to redo my Dagger, as well?”

“Yes,” Briggs interjected calmly, “but it should be easy. We’ll simply make it +I Main Gauche, and it will reflect the bonuses of your Primary Weapon as a Zvei Slot Weapon.”

His jaw almost dropped. His Dagger, exactly as powerful as his Sword? For so little?

He cleared his throat carefully. “Where were the two of you twenty years ago when I began my service?” he wondered aloud.

“We get that a lot,” Sama smiled thinly. “Now, let’s talk about your Sword, and what you would like to see on it.”

---------

She measured him by eyeball and hands, and he watched the complex notation in the Smithing Cant coming up on the illusion her Sword projected there for verification. Length, width, point of balance, style, ornamentation, weight, hilt, guard; she went over it all meticulously but quickly, sometimes completely waving away his words with the authority of a master smith, other times pressing in for more details that he watched unwind on the holo as he made his desires more visible with Marktell telepathy, and found them instantly conveyed to the Sword.

It was quite surreal.

Then she took both his Weapons and banished him to the side to watch as she and the young Ancient began to work.

He wasn’t the only one. Night was coming, and as the magical fires on the Disk blazed, Hammers fell with devastating power on an Anvil in total silence. Rangers and Borderguards drifted in, keeping a respectful distance, to watch.

He had seen smiths at work before, of course, but none moving quite so quickly. The speed the steel heated at, the pace at which it was hammered, folded or twisted, heated again, hammered down again, completely blew his mind. Both she and Briggs wielded those heavy Hammers like toys, bringing them down so hard his teeth ached just watching them, for all that they made no sound at all...