The hard part wasn’t getting Ingvald to agree. It was convincing Red and making sure she wouldn’t try anything. Zel used the Black Contract to secure their agreement, and a lengthy negotiation was had as to the exact terms. In the end, Zel conceded certain trade concessions to Arches that she absolutely did not have the right to concede. The duchy would receive even more bleeding-edge equipment than they were already going to, as well as a tariff reduction on the ore they would sell to Willowdale. When Red tried to push for more, Zel simply reiterated that she would be neither able nor willing to fight her if she kept it up.

The good lady Zhumei Karmesin proceeded to demand a full case of Winter Peach Brandy, and with that demand acquiesced to, the deal was sealed. It wasn’t lost on her; the weight of her treason to the Empire. Nothing she had done thus far was a greater act against her own homeland than this, that much was certain. And yet… She felt no remorse, and not just because this was a matter of personal, selfish satisfaction.

Even if Zelsys Newman survived their next battle - a possibility Karmesin had come to terms with long ago - she would still act in Karmesin’s interests. Indeed, the Divine Maxims supported her action, or so she told herself. She needed Cao Hu and Von Wickten both gone, and she needed pressure on the Divine Emperor to continue his “New Era of Cultivation” so that the homeland would continue the course she wished for it.

“Kill with a borrowed knife”; to use a third party, whether friend or foe, to damage one’s enemy. Or in this case, a borrowed cleaver.

This course of events, regardless of its outcome, would in the end benefit her.

Night after night, massive flares of blue-gold flame erupted from his smithy, and it wasn’t long before the Forgemother made an appearance. A gigantic woman made of blue flame, smashing down with a spectral hammer to the rhythm of Ingvald’s own hand. Again and again, Ingvald conjured these deific manifestations, each time subtly different based on the arcane reagents and enchantments involved.

On the seventh day of continuous work, Ingvald Forgehand had given form to a seven-part blade with few equals in the land… And it was still far from finished.

The Lady in Red arrived at Ingvald's smithy as quickly as she would depart. She spoke to him little, employing her eldritch, northlight-coloured magic to facilitate the very same partial reforging he had conceived of. Both Victor Khestun and Zelsys Newman were present, the former due to the involvement of Koschei’s Key and the latter because she wanted to watch. Red did precisely what was asked of her, not an iota more or less, and she was gone with the wind the moment Ingvald confirmed that it had worked.

The smith proceeded to forge thick rune-etched bands of starmetal around the blade, forming mighty seals that would keep it stable until it was finally made whole.

He handed over the stabilized blade alongside its future segments. Even now, the Butcher shuddered in her grip and seethed with a violent magic.

“All that magic would’ve sufficed to forge an arcane armament fit for a Clan Elder… And all I did was apply the support enchantments,” the smith laughed. The manic presence still shone behind his eyes, but it had calmed somewhat now that his part in the grand ritual was complete.

“I admit, I did wonder how much power I was going to get out of those Huén. It’s still just money, after all; hell, I saw a deck of Jade Dragons for sale at an underground auction,” Zel said.

“All about how you use it, in the end. I can do ten times more with a deck of Jade Dragons than some just-good-enough army smith. You speak true, however. The power already present within your weapon, the involvement of Eldartha, Eiengeist’s own essence, the Brass Stake - all these different factors will serve to multiply the blade’s true potential. I could not have produced a blade with an iota of this one’s potential had you given me ten Jade Dragon decks and nothing else good to work with. Now…”

Ingvald turned his eyes to the mass of golden-glowing dragonsteel which still remained. Once more did the manic countenance possess him, and he turned a desirous gaze towards Zefaris - or rather, her guns.

“I still have work to do. You… You… And you, as well,” he pointed to her, then to Victor, and lastly to Jorfr.

However, Jorfr refused, shaking his head.

“There is already a weapon which calls to me; one equal to your work.”

The blacksmith knew what he meant, and he understood.

“Alright, very well. Lady Zefaris, you wear an armored corset, do you not? I will make new inserts for it.”

Ingvald was utterly set on using up the dragonsteel he still had left, and so, they acquiesced.

He did, however, keep some of the legendary metal for himself.

For a personal project, later down the line.

One morning, Zel chanced to come upon Jorfr and Fryg in an otherwise deserted hallway of the Bjorns’ great estate. From what fragments she caught at the start, it seemed that Jorfr had decided to petition his ancestor for specifics on what it was to be a draugr. In particular, he seemed concerned with the mass of glacierglass which had filled the hole in his chest. It was opaque now, a pale white rather than translucent, barely distinguishable from his already ice-white skin at a distance.

“The glacierglass will eventually be replaced by living flesh, but you will forever retain a scar of your first death. Mine…”

She turned around and lifted her hair, revealing a small, circular window of glacierglass on the back of her neck, flesh visible beneath.

“...Came from a foe’s spear through the back of my neck.”

“How long is eventually?”

“A few months, maybe years. Not long. It will not impede your cultivation, it’s… Not truly the material it appears to be. It’s more like flesh reinforced with the particular essentia.”

“Like my arm,” Zel suggested.

Fryg nodded in agreement.

“Where do you think the epithet Ice Witch came from? There was a time when I was made of more ice than living flesh!” she laughed.