A story snippit, one of two. (Patreon)

This was originally a question of 'how to enchant a weapon'.  Planning on putting out a little more homelands this afternoon.  Been working on game stuff and birthday stuff last two weeks.  I an officially the answer to everything old.

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“I’m getting too old for this,” Zardos muttered as the dwarf considered the commission. It was important, but did it matter? Was he going to put his all into it? He sat, sipping fermented mushroom ale he carefully weighed the pros and cons. The man didn’t matter. This would stay in the family. It could outlive the family. He could make it unravel in a century or two. Long enough the humans wouldn’t even notice. He’d be dead too.

The man had a daughter though. And the granddaughter was a combative little nugget. Interesting and amusing, rare traits for a human. Okay. It mattered. He rose to his feet with a grunt, shot the rest of the ale, and stomped into his workshop. Forge and anvil in one corner. Shelves lining the wall were filled with every strange powder, fiber, and metal he could get his knobby hands on. It might look messy, but it was all arranged precisely according to its thaumaturgical resonance.

In the opposite corner from the forge, he sat at a drafting table. The commission had been for a sword and he couldn’t change that. He’d been wanting to try a spear for the last decade. Ah well. He had at least five more of those ahead of him. So a sword. The commission was vague on that part. Form informed function. A short blade? Rapier? Saber? Arming sword? Long? Great sword? The man had probably an arming sword in mind but the girl? He knew it should be light… but the memory of the granddaughter interrupting their meeting to tell her father to do something about bandits… Could be make a great sword work? Ordinarily, no… but magic did allow some flexibility…

He drew out a page and started to scribble out the design. He kept it clean. Smooth. Elegant. A little effeminate. The blade tapered to a tip, curving ever so slightly. An estoc, but with sharpened edges. If he couldn’t have his mead and drink it too, he’d eat his helmet. Rhomboid cross section. Forward curved hilt. Too sharp for half handing, but there were ways around that too. Metal had to be mithril alloy. There just wasn’t any way to get around it. The father would no doubt be happy with steel. Steel was fine and respectable. But if the granddaughter had granddaughters, he wanted this weapon to last.

He liked her. Most humans didn’t like dwarves. Valued, absolutely, but never liked. She liked his beard. Made him laugh. That didn’t happen often.

He tested a few mixes before he got the right ratios of iron, mithril, silver, and titanite right. Lighter than his usual fare by half. Infusement was tricky. He wanted light. The grandfather undoubtedly wanted something from a dragon, but that made for heavy, blunt enchantment. His dark eyes scanned the organized shelves. For some reason, they kept drawing his eye up. Well, he didn’t know what else he was saving them for…

Once it was done, he went downstairs to be big forge worked by the boys. When Zardos came for a custom pour, they made a gap in the schedule for him. They got the blast furnace howling and he carefully melted the powdered metals in the crucible. Only then did he add the magic. The feathers didn’t blacken as they disappeared inside so much as melt like mercury. The tiny vial of blood refused to steam as he poured it in. And the drop of liquid sunshine, a tear from a god Zardos had picked up a lifetime ago. They disappeared into the bowl. Zardos himself handled the pour, chanting the base incantations so they’d imbed in the metal as it cooled.

The boys watched silently. That was the deal. He got ahead on the schedule, they got to watch him work. It was a steal for him. Maybe someday they’d take up the art too.

The billet felt as light as wood, the steel an opaline white. It felt a shame to hammer it, but that was part of the deal too. He returned upstairs and got to work, using words of power and his forge to heat it till it glowed, and then began hammering. Every strike was a word in a chant that chained together in a spell that wove it’s way into the metal. Layer after layer. He had twenty different hammers of varying weight and metals to give the metal the arcane resonance he wanted. He normally favored low tones, but inspiration was drawing him into the high tones. Elves liked these registers. He pushed higher still, using the tiniest of hammers as he molded the edge. He didn’t know what used enchantment that high, but by stone he was going to push it!

When the time came for the final hardening and quench, his head ached. He’d spent a year on it so far. A human would have taken a month, an elf a decade. He applied his clay, heated it as carefully as he could, and plunged it into the oil. Rendered dragon lard hissed and bubbled, but it was used to far worse temperatures. Did make Zardos hungry though.

After that came the sharpening and finishing. Nothing complex. It was refreshingly straightforward using a world stone to hone the edge. Diamond tools carefully let him decorate the blade along the spine. For the grip he used silver dragon hide; there just wasn’t anything like it. Besides, he thought the dragon wouldn’t mind being part of this sword. It’d been a girl dragon too. Zardos thought she’d like the joke.

But it still wasn’t magic. It vibrated with potential. Throbbed. But if he died right now, it could come to as much ill as good. This was the dangerous part; the part most people screwed up. Zardos got good and buzzed and sat before the sword and considered, drinking his fermented fungus juice as he stared at the beautiful weapon.

Your typical weapon was just enchanted and off it went, to do whatever it did. But the special ones needed something… more. A blessing and a curse and a power. You couldn’t have one without the other. Zardos’ head went around and around. Valor in battle? Persistence? Loyalty? Courage? Wrath? Zardos’ brain slithered around one to the next. What was the most important thing for a person to have? The man was easy: prowess in battle, next! But the grand daughter… what was the most valuable thing for a woman to have? Beauty, a human would say, and a man besides. No.

“Loyalty,” he murmured softly. “Something that will never betray you. Never leave you.” The alcohol helped the idea roll around in his head till it was good and polished.

That left the curse. Curses were tricky things. Make a weapon without one, and a curse would wiggle in unnoticed. Put one there yourself and it kept wild ones out. And being a curse, you couldn’t just game it. No one was really cursed with endless wealth, good looks, and ale. No, it would have to be a ‘problem’.

Well, if the girl turned out to be more like her grandfather, why not make it interesting? Trouble. Whomever carried this sword would be a magnet for trouble. If it was too much, they could lock it in a trunk somewhere, and so much for both of them.

That just left the power. All magic came from the great maelstrom beyond and percolated like ground water through the universe. Some had already been imbued into the metal. He could wake it up and run the enchantment on that… but it’d be a feeble thing. He could use his own life or soul, but he planned on being around another century at least, thank you very much! Great power came from potent magic. A lifetime of rule from a powerful king. The heart’s blood of an elder wyrm. The soul of a lich. Things that mattered. But as Zardos examined his shelves, he found them wanting.

Damn it. It had all been going so smoothly too.

Roadblocks required lubrication. Lubrication came from alcohol, and he had plenty of that. He also had a time limit. Humans tended to demand rush jobs on account of flimsy lifespans. He couldn’t spend years thinking of it. If it’d been for a dwarf, he could have just appealed to dwarven gods. Easy peasy. But this was for humans, and he didn’t know anything about their pantheon.

Oh well. How hard could it be? “Oy!” he shouted at the ceiling, since humans seemed to think their gods were in the sky rather than under their feet. “If any of you got a minute, I could really use something to power this sword!”

The sun appeared in his office.

Being a dwarf with a brain soaked in something like kerosene, his wailing, flailing and falling on his ass was the appropriate response.

The figures looked humanish, but wrong. A larger one with golden skin held a small one with skin like porcelain. Aura of light seemed to become wings and crowns of illumination danced atop their brows. They were beautiful in a way that even a goblin might find beautiful.

“Zardos, son of Twilgna, daughter of Abris, lineage of Kaljoz the Crafter. I come to you at your plea of aid to beseech you for succor.” The voice didn’t speak so much as just project itself into his head. Given his head was full of pain and inebriation, it wasn’t the best place to put it.

Zardos picked himself up. Celestials. “You’re here about the sword?”

“I am here for this one,” the large golden one stated, holding the limp form of the other. It fell to a knee.“I ask… I beg with all the supplication in my being… please permit me to place this spirit within the implement you have forged, that it might be a sanctuary from further harm.”

Zardos’ eye looked down at the tiny form. No bigger than a child, and a dwarven child at that. It’s eyes were wide, staring… broken. There were bad things in the world. Worse things beyond it. He didn’t know if it was a child, but he’d seen that look before. No good could make that look.

He knew he shouldn’t. He didn’t even know if he could. You didn’t use an unknown power. Never. When he’d made his appeal, he’d been hoping to get a name and reference, not have one charge into his forge and beg him for… for this! Zardos rubbed his beard. He honestly didn’t know what it would DO to the small thing nor who or what the large one was. Zardos looked at the sword on his workbench…

It mattered…

“Aye,” he finally agreed, relief blooming on the large one’s golden features. Zardos glowered at it. “But I don’t like it. Set them on the stone.”

The stone dominated his work station; a slab large enough for four dwarves to lie shoulder to shoulder. The polished knob of rock went all the way into the heart of the world. A good grounding for activating magic.

The golden celestial placed the small form on it on her side. Zardos was glad it’s long ivory hair covered most of it; the wings fanned out. As the golden one stepped back, Zardos couldn’t help but see the commissioner's granddaughter. He brushed back her long hair from her face.

“Please don’t let him hurt me…” she whispered in his mind, tiny and terrified.

“Don’t worry. I’m giving you a fortress of steel to be safe in. No one will ever harm you again,” he said as he picked up the sword and set it next to her.

Normally, empowering a sword was pretty standard. The God did all the work and you stayed back. But this transfer, Zardos cooled his brain with alcohol and focused. The alcohol tempered the question burning in his mind ‘what happened to her’ and let him focus. Celestials were basically magic made substance, and he knew the theory well enough. He placed her hand on the cross guard and then focused. As his hands and incantations worked, threads of light joined her body with the sword. She shook, and he prayed it wasn’t his magic responsible for it. His heart hammered in his chest at the stress. Connecting her essence with the channels carved in the sword was painstaking work. There were thousands, and each one needed to be filled.

But soon a spiderweb joined one with the other, like a cocoon of light. The sword was already predisposed towards the light; it was ideal to put her spirit inside. Her face was still visible. One eye focused enough to look at him. She smiled like the granddaughter smiled. One last word of power spoken, and the tipping point was crossed. The essence flowed from her into the metal, filling the arcane channels. Her body melted away into light, flowing into the sword as it laid on the stone.

As the glow faded, a blue oval gemstone glowed in the cross guard.

“She is in there?” the golden one asked behind him.

“In some form or another,” Zardos panted, exhausted. He took a diamond tipped pen and carefully scratched a final word on the channels under the stone. “Strike” in dwarven. It had many uses. Action. Attack. Fortune. “She’ll be in there for a damned long time, you understand?” Zardos said as he gave the sword one last stroke with sheepskin.

His heart stopped. Dwarven hearts didn’t just stop though. They were known to keep beating for an hour after there was no more blood to pump. However, three feet of golden steel through his back and erupting out his front did the trick just fine. Zardos didn’t even have time to utter a passing curse as he fell out of himself and into the world, wailing as he tumbled to the afterlife.

The golden protrusion disappeared into golden light, leaving not a mark nor drop of spilled blood. “Excellent,” the golden form purred. “Now you’ll be with me,” it said as its hand closed on the grip, “forever.” It pulled.

The sword did not move.

The being was the sort to whom such resistance was unfamiliar. It could have, with some difficulty, lifted the mass of the mountain above it, not not even that strength could budge the sword a millimeter. “Need you be so difficult? It wasn’t that ba–” Skin hard enough not to be pierced by anything less than a pit fiend’s spear parted easily, and golden ichor spattered the length as fingers were yanked back. The sword practically hummed on the sheepskin. If there was a hand other than his, it would have cut him far worse than that!

There were voices below. It would not do to be discovered. “I look forward to seeing you again,” he purred as he released the grip. The golden fluid had created streaks and stains in the metal. Disappearing in a pillar of light, he left the room silent and still save for a whisper of weeping.

Two months later, Zardos’ nephew presented the sword to the commissioner. He was more than pleased with it.

Two years later, it was in the hand of his granddaughter.

Two hundred years later, it would be in the hand of one Seleina Holyblade.