I do my best to use the meager quantities of Energy I have left to start the healing process, but it’s behaving very strangely. There are dead zones in my Energy view, where I can’t seem to move Energy at all. Fortunately, very few are located in my arms, so I can still work on healing them, but the other factor is that my E Recovery is much lower than it should be. I lost almost half my Health blocking that one strike, but that shouldn’t have been enough to reduce my recovery to 0.5 / minute. My total Energy pool seems to be damaged as well, with the new max being a red highlighted 23. Fuck everything. At least I have the heightened efficiency for healing Energy.

My chest feels like it’s cracking open, but there’s nothing on my Energy view there except a few larger dead zones… so those must be the cause. My Health drops precipitously during these ‘attacks’, and it takes every bit of effort I have to maintain my focus on healing. Something touches my face, and I take just enough of my spare attention to identify it as a potion vial. “Drink.” I grab it in my teeth and toss it back, scalding my throat on the still hot potion, but the perks of a healing potion include removing such nuisances very quickly. The extra Health helps stave off whatever’s fucking up my insides for now, and I manage a nod of thanks before returning to my work.

My bones were almost reduced to powder in some places. If I didn’t have a template for how things were supposed to look in places like my wrists… it would be impossible to repair. The work is meticulous, and not very rewarding, but I need the use of my hands back before I can start addressing the ‘soul damage’ problem.

More potions appear at my lips, solving all manner of issues. Lauren’s a fucking life saver. She’s churning out pretty strong Energy and Health potions pretty fast, and giving me the resources to keep going long past what I could do naturally. I don’t think my life is in danger from the effects, as the Health draining slows rapidly as I approach about a quarter Health, but the higher my Health, the faster I regenerate Energy… so it serves a dual purpose. Plus, it’s really hard to concentrate when you’re mostly dead, and the Health potions stave that feeling off.

One arm snaps together with a pop. Bone is surprisingly easy to heal. It likes to stay put when I move it, so I don’t need to bind it as firmly in place before the Energy seals it together. The trouble is, where creating flesh is fairly easy, if high in Energy consumption, but I honestly think I’d have to use Power to rebuild the bone if any of it was lost.

The next arm goes faster, and when I finally emerge from my fugue healing state, the sight of Lauren frantically mixing potions fills me with a profound happiness. She doesn’t notice I’ve come back to my senses, but Lynn, who seems to be dropping off a small pile of healing and Energy reagents, does. “Hey-” I manage to croak out one word before a coughing fit wracks my body, and I see my Health start to drain again. I need to fix this. Now.

“Welcome back, how are-” Lynn begins, but Lauren immediately whips around and interrupts. “Fuck, dude! What the hell happened?! I’ve never seen you get that fucked up. Fuck! Here, drink this, it’s not done, but it should help.” Lynn frowns slightly, but says nothing as Lauren shoves what looks to be another healing potion at me. I consider refusing the still steaming liquid, especially because she’s offering it to me in the thing she prepared it in, which is hot as fuck, but I take it anyway and down it. The unpleasant sensations fade rapidly in the face of the forced healing, and I embrace the momentary comfort while I can still get it. “Thanks. Seriously, both of you, thank you.”

Lynn returns a small smile, but Lauren just looks expectantly. “Right, right. I think the way Dean broke my sword also broke something in my Energy… cause I was bonded with it. I think I need Tom’s help to repair it-” Another coughing fit wracks me, and my reprieve is over. For the love of fuck, if this is just ‘moderate’ soul damage, I never want to experience the more severe versions.

I stagger to my feet, but immediately lose my balance. Lauren barely manages to grab me and keep me from falling back down. I… can’t fight like this. There’s no putting it off. “You two should sleep, I need to get this fixed before I can do anything else.”

“The team sticks together.” Lynn’s tone allows no argument, and I don’t have the energy to do so anyway. Lauren half carries, half drags me to Tom’s workshop, while Lynn carries the fractured remains of my sword.

Tom starts to smile as he sees me approach, but his face immediately turns grave. I wipe my mouth… more blood. “Tom, I need your help.”

“Boy, I’m no surgeon-”

“No, the sword. I need you to fix it.”

“The sword!? Anthony, give a care for your own health. Forget about the sword! Have Lauren keep mixing the potions for you and fix yourself up first.”

I shake my head, shuddering as I resist coughing more. “Tom, fucking listen to me.” Stop it, you’re being rude. I start again, trying to keep the agony induced snarl out of my words. “The sword is the damage. It needs to be fixed, I know it, or I won’t heal… not quickly enough.”

Tom fixes me with a steady look: a mix of worry and anger. “Fine, bring it here.”

Lynn complies as Lauren dumps me into a chair nearby. I say a silent thanks to Marie for creating it.

“Ah, yes. The magic sword. I thought it had an ‘unbreakable’ enchantment on it… but seeing what Dean was able to do, I’m surprised it didn’t shatter into dust. Hmm… mostly big pieces, mhmm, this should be doable. I don’t know if the enchantment will survive. If any of the cracks run through it, I’ll be wiping it away when I join them back together. Is that alright?”

“I’ll live. Just do it.” Stop being short with him.

Tom doesn’t seem to notice, however, as he’s too deeply focussed on the sword. He arranges the pieces on a table, nodding to himself as he puzzles them together into a complete sword. Starting from the relatively intact hilt and base, he heats the next few big pieces in the forge. When they’re glowing on the border of white, he pulls them out and starts hammering at them.

The first sign that something’s wrong is the way Tom’s face slowly moves from intensity, to confusion, and ultimately to a deep scowl. After several minutes of increasingly reckless hammering, he throws his tools away in a huff. “The pieces won’t join.”

“What?!” It’s more a growl than a question, and it comes out harsher than I want.

“The sword can’t be repaired! There’s something broken beyond the metal!”

You’ve got to be kidding me. I push myself to my feet, and the sudden action elicits a coughing fit, and more blood in my mouth, which I spit callously into the forge. “I can’t accept that.”

“Boy,” Tom growls in a low voice, “you’re hurt, and you need rest. Go lie down and leave the rest to-”

“You- know better- than to ask that of me. I cannot, will not, do that.” I put my hand on the sword hilt. “Careful boy!” He tries to push me away, but the burning of the handle doesn’t matter to me, because the contact feels so much… better. Suddenly, I can see it; the sword as it was… no, greater. What it wants to be. Tom was trying to repair it, but it doesn’t want to be repaired… “Tom, try again. Just one more time.”

Tom lets the resulting silence hang for several moments, seeming to confer silently with my team, but ultimately sighs and nods his head. “One more time, Anthony. Then you rest, aye? Now give me some room-... what do ya mean, ‘no’?” I had started shaking my head before he finished. “I need to hold it. Do what you need to.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh. “You’re really the strangest lad I’ve ever had the pleasure of acquainting with.” The work begins, and it puts my prior experiences of agony to utter shame.

Every strike of the hammer resonates with the very fabric of my being, and it takes absolute concentration just to remain conscious. On several occasions, the next piece of the sword isn’t right, and I have to bring raw Power into the sword and build the next section. Tom’s reactions ranged from blatant annoyance at the start, to sheer awe once he realized that I wasn’t messing around. With each success, he falls deeper into focus, starting to understand where he’s needed and where I am instead. The template I see in my mind’s eye slowly fills out, and sometime around morning, he fuses the whole sword together with a final heating cycle in the forge. A process during which I remain in contact with the sword. I can’t tear my hand away, no matter how much I want to, and, on several occasions, try to. The heat had fused my palm with the metal at some point in the night. The minutes of holding in screams pass in a tormented eternity before I’m finally allowed to quench.

In a torrent of steam and boiling water, I raise the sword, and place it gently on the table. Lynn, Lauren, and Tom crowd around to take in the results of our monolithic efforts. The base of the sword is mostly the same as it was before, but as my eyes move up it, I see threads of gold running throughout the length. They look almost like a vascular system, and coalesce into thick bands of gold in sections where I had to build out the sword with Power. The way the gold highlights the silver metal is, aesthetically, one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It reminds me a little of the mana stones, but… much more vibrant.

“Tom you mad bastard.”

“Don’t even start with me, boy. We did this together, and you’re the mad one who held molten metal.”

“Fine, but you already knew I was mad. Now, I’ve got one more request.”

“This better be good.”

“Hold it still.”

He clamps it to the table, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Lauren, please tell me you have a healing potion.”

“Y...eah?”

“Good.” I nod to her, and tear all the skin off my hand.