I tried to make sense of the result of my experiment, while Lenore and I were flying back to the others, going over what Lenore’s sight had shown me. Normally, I would have thought that trying to absorb power from anything but Blood using my Blood Magic would be impossible but, as evidenced by the event earlier, that didn’t seem to be the case. Another possibility was that by using my Athame as a template, or rather the enchantment placed upon it, I had inadvertently created something new, some sort of general absorption effect. It would explain a few things, namely the resulting explosion, if that were to be the case.

Thinking back, I brought the original enchantment back to the forefront of my mind, just going over the different runes and the parts I had copied from my Athame. As I was looking, I realised that there was a subtle pattern in the angles, one that I had seen before, within the parts I had copied.

“You feel excited.” Lenore remarked, my emotions bleeding through my connection, enhanced due to being in my Hallow.

“I am, I think I know what happened with the experiment just now.” I explained. “You see, if you look at the symbols here, the angles and arcs?” I asked, transmitting the mental image of the blade, highlighting the parts I had taken from the Athame. If I had tried to explain what I meant, it would have taken me hours and a blackboard, but our mental connection allowed me to transmit my discovery within seconds. I could feel Lenore processing what I had shown her, followed by understanding.

“Now, keep those patterns in mind and look at this.” I continued, now transmitting the Darkness-Rune I understood as Devouring, highlighting a pattern of angles and arcs that was eerily similar to the other one.

“Mhm, I see what you mean. You think that the absorption-part is at least partially a universal enchantment, designed to absorb everything and only the use of Blood Magic as a skill directs it in the right way. But when you made the magic item you only started the process, directing it for the first orc. When it stuck the second orc, the original control was gone and the resulting boost in power allowed it to try to absorb everything.” Lenore put my thoughts into words, making it sound quite scary. What would have happened if the material had been stronger, if the spell had been able to draw power longer, from more victims, before it started to try draining the wrong thing? What if there was a way to adapt the spellwork that was currently based on Blood Magic and thus limited to handle power drawn from blood? If I could manage that part, to work with power from every source, would the enchantment be able to draw power from its surroundings, until…

At that point, my thoughts paused for a second, trying to imagine what would happen. If I used the current version, it would ramp up incredibly fast until the materials limits were reached, upon which it would break and most likely explode in some way, possibly similar to what we had seen just before. But if I used the version I had considered before, the one which ramped up slower but channelled more power into an enchantment strengthening the material holding the spellwork?

It would draw power, either until there was nothing left to draw or until some sort of diminishing returns from the enchantment keeping the physical matter together kicked in and the material was destroyed. At least that was what I thought and it seemed that Lenore’s thoughts were following a similar path, at least judging by the sheer horror filling her mind.

“Let’s not try that.” she suggested and I could only agree. We had done some risky experiments, some bordering on the insane, but this was at least an order of magnitude worse than anything we had thought up so far. Considering that I wasn’t even sure that the diminishing returns I thought would kick in were something real, it might just be an end-of-the-world spell. Not something one wanted to use by accident. If I ever broke the world, I wanted it to be deliberate.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Too bad that the female orc died.” Lenore said, after a few minutes of silence.

“Why?” I asked in response, thinking back to the encounter, now not focusing on the magic but the two orc we had disturbed. Neither had been anything special, level wise, barely in their mid-twenties, and obviously not very perceptive. But the situation might have been to blame for that.

“There was a village nearby, maybe an hour or two of walking, near the road. If we had saved her, we might have been able to rest in comfort for the night.” Lenore explained, showing me the distant smoke I hadn’t noticed, alongside her notion of directions and distances, to give me a good idea of the locations involved.

“I’m not so sure we interpreted what we saw correctly.” I admitted, remembering the first scream the female had let out, a scream that hadn’t been one of pain but reasonably similar to the sounds coming from Sigmir, when she got really excited. I had heard the term coitus interruptus, but never thought I would be the cause, especially not in such a final fashion.

“You think she wanted to be pinned to a tree and…” Lenore asked, her mental voice fascinated.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand humanoids. Why would you want that?” she asked, her confusion causing me to laugh, despite the circumstances.

“Excitement, the idea of losing control while knowing that you are safe while the partner gets the feeling of conquest, of domination. I don’t know about Mundus, but in my world, some of the biggest industries are all about spicing up people’s sex-lives.” I explained, chuckling to myself. It wasn’t something I had ever any interest in, not until coming to Mundus and meeting Sigmir. Before some of the other thoughts I had on that matter could leak out, along some very private memories, I clamped down on the train of thought, forcibly thinking of something different. I was reasonably sure that Lenore had only caught fragments but some things were just too private, too sensitive to share, even with someone literally living within my head.

To distract her, I inundated her with all the varied things human had thought up, starting with the simple, images of nice, lacy underwear to the extreme, a strange porno I had been sent as a prank, once. Lenore almost fell from the sky, reeling with revulsion. Sometimes, it was good to share suffering but I made a mental note not to, when Lenore was flying.

“What is wrong with humanoids?!” was Lenore’s only question, quite similar to my own reaction.

“I wonder. Part of it might be boredom.” I admitted, not sure what else to say. I was one and understood other humanoids, especially humans, less than half the time, quite often wondering what was going through someone's head to do the things they did.

This time, it was Lenore who forcibly changed the topic, most likely to get rid of the mental images I had shared. I was thankful for it and together, we discussed possible ways to change the enchantment on my new weapon, mostly to control the way it acted. The biggest problem seemed to be that the power of the enchantment had ramped up exponentially, to which the easiest solution would be adding a secondary effect, something that took away some, maybe even all, of the power the current version used on strengthening its own effect. If we took away all, I would have to find a way to keep it powered from my own reserves, maybe by using some of my fresh blood, right before striking, to create a link between myself and the weapon.

One of the possible effects we discussed was rather nasty and wholly Lenore’s idea, a remix of what we had done against Tzar Bolotnik. Only here, the idea was to drain away the vital energy with Blood Magic and replace it with Death Magic, turning the enemies blood into a weapon that spread their demise throughout their body. The idea was intriguing, especially with the way I thought magic resistance worked. If my hypothesis was correct, it prevented magic effects from the outside from affecting you but if it came from the inside, it circumvented some of it. That was part of what made Blood Magic so nasty, its ability to strike past resistances.

“The others seemed to have met someone.” Lenore muttered, causing me to focus on her senses, seeing the others, walking down the road, similar to the way they had when we left. Only that instead of our four companions, there were seven figures. Two of the newcomers seemed to be orcs, the final one was some sort of canine, either a wolf or a very large dog, I wasn’t sure which.

“Interesting. Let’s see what is going on here.” I replied, mentally urging her to land on Sigmir’s shoulder.