the bone dagger Thief of Life

There is a knife.

This is not an ordinary blade, unlike the other oricks it has a weird effect on the people who look at it too closely. People would feel sickly, week and tired but also like a loving mother was caring for them offering vile tasting medication. Medication they knew would make them stronger if only it could be choked down.

The blade sits atop a flattened pale driftwood log. The log is sticking out from the deep sand of the floor. Seagulls can be heard from the open sun drenched sky and little broken shells glint brilliant white in the yellow tan sand. The sun is always shinning in this repository chamber and the smell of the sea is in the air, it's never any other way in the repository of this particular orick.

Thick sandstone blocks make up round walls of a pit a hundred feet across and twenty deep.

Kenda looked down from the balcony into the repository chamber of the knife. This one was her favorite of all the items held at the Sacred Armory. The knife was unguarded, nobody would willingly take it. A proven curse was a powerful detriment to an oricks value. Nobody would willingly suffer through such a horrible transformation as this orick caused...

So for the past ten years prisoners would be forced. The grand Magus would test it this way to see if it was still cursed. So far nobody ever wanted it. Well, nobody except Kenda. Kenda didn't have any looks to lose. Abandoned to the gutter when she was a baby do to an oddly shaped head, life as a slave to Mj Falco had finished off any potential for beauty.

Cosmetic healing was too good for someone Mj Falco referred to as Freebie. Burns, infections, beatings, and cuts had all left marks on her. Knotted scars, blotches and calluses constitute most of her more memorable features. The single beautiful feature Kenda possessed were her eyes, an intense emerald green. Kenda was not weak though, not even after all the ugly brutality.

There was nobody in the chamber other than her. Maybe today was the day. The knife was not beautiful like some of the other oricks. It had a pale blade that looked like bone or tooth and it was supposed to be very light weight. The handle was lumpy flesh colored leather. The knife reminded Kenda of part of an animal as if it wasn't a made thing at all. If it wasn't an orick Kenda would think it a fang. That made it not a popular attraction, though technically anyone could take it if they where willing to deal with the problems that the curse caused.

Practically though only the rich and influential are given the option.

Kenda she had a plan she would be sixteen sometimes soon this would allow her to take the blade. Nobody under sixteen years could touch an orick. It was insubstantial until then.

Like trying to grab an image from a puddle. Kenda would be free of Mj Falco if she voluntarily took up a cursed orick.

Kenda dropped down into the pit, a short rope tied to a sandstone pillar aiding her descent. The rope stopped just low enough so that she could pile some sand into a mound underneath it to jump back up. Kenda made little noise when she landed in the soft sun warmed sand. The warm sun felt so good on a cold night like this. Sometimes Kenda would sneak down in times like tonight's especially cold weather, just because it was such a warm place to sleep. The snow on Kendas cheap jute tunic, what hadn't been knocked off from her short jump began to melt immediately. The drips of water that fell to the sand and were absorbed as if they were never there at all. Kenda soon reached the drift wood log and stood before the pale little orick in thought.

It would permanently bond with the hand of who ever took it fusing together the fingers into a big lump. The arm of the person would slowly shift into an armored, segmented, flexible, limb with the blade of the cursed orick at the end of it like a giant stinger. The new limb was only somewhat useful in day to day life but amazingly versatile in combat. The orick limb could quickly heal itself from damage after dealing damage to any living thing. It would also make incremental but permanent improvement to the rest of the person's body with any successful kill. Kenda didn't understand how it worked it seemed random to her. The condemned prisoners where pitted against a variety of different dangerous animals, any changes grand or subtle where quickly studied and recorded and then the next beast was brought to battle until the prisoner was exhausted and killed. Kenda looked down at her dominant hand, well what was left of it.

About a year ago Kenda was scrubbing out a cauldron when something reacted with the rag she was scrubbing with.

The result was a milky substance that caused Kendas hand to clamp down and not let go no matter what. Mj Falco took one look at her hand and the another at glowing milky substance at the bottom of the cauldron. With a wave of his hands Mj Falco used his magic to force Kendas hand to crackle open breaking most of the bones in the process. Another hand wave had the rag floating out of her hand and into the cauldron.

Mj Falco was gone to his lab after that with not a thought or word spent towards helping Kenda after all she was so clumsy as to improperly rinse some random reagents out of a cleaning rag. As far as Mj Falco was concerned Freebie the slave was lucky she wasn't a frog flavored smear on the floor. The cauldron, with what looked like a potential strength potion was far more worthwhile of his time than Freebie.

Some crude healing when it became obvious Mj Falco could expect less work from th Freebie with a severely damaged hand, had resulted in the crude though strong gripping appendage Kenda was looking down at now. With slightly blurry vision Kenda reaches out for the orick but it is still intangible she can feel nothing but the sensation of cool water.

Kenda stops trying to grab the orick, she turns around and slides down the smooth surface of the pail driftwood log against her back.

Kenda sighs and says maybe tomorrow is my birthday.

Kenda looked up at the rich blue sky with little white clouds floating in the warm sunny sky and falls asleep leaning against the log.