Princess Kristie’s question received no affirmative answers, which was disappointing. The lugians preferred their own oversized weapons to what was basically an Isparian-made hand axe to them.

“I believe I still have an old Assault Orb among my belongings. It was empty of power and so did not explode during the Fall,” another lugian clad in heavy robes instead of leathers or metal spoke up in a somber, cultured voice. “The advanced version had the power of both Slash Cleaving and Tumerok Slaying, although the basic version does not…”

Kris pointed directly at him. “Elder, I think we are going to find that your Assault Orb actually has those powers already within it, they simply were not turned on. If you would be so kind as to fetch it for us?”

His dark eyes widening in great interest, the robed lugian nodded shortly, spun about, and stomped quickly towards the door as a path was opened for him.

“Crum Vuloth, a human paramount, up by Ithaenc,” rumbled a burly warrior in mail nearly as big as Kresovus. “He is known to possess the only known remaining copy of Bloodscorch, the Firesword of Clan Mhoire, which possessed Biting Strike, Fire Cleaving, and Undead Slaying.”

“I knows that prick. He’ll be demanding a pretty price just t’ look at his precious toy, now that he’s the only one who has one left,” the Mick added to that.

-We’ll give him a consolation fee after the fact. You know where he stores it?- Princess Kristie /asked him through the Marks.

-Aye. Just a trophy he keeps locked away. Probably fall apart if ye dropped it, nobody is going t’ just steal it from him. ‘Til now,- he /amended cheerfully.

“There are at least four different Paradox Olthoi-Slaying Weapons known to survive, too, including the Mace I dare not wield,” another lugian spoke up.

“Did not the Royal Guards make Acid Cleaving Bloodstone Wands?” another lugian spoke up with great interest.

I looked over at the Mick, who just nodded shortly, and actually answered the lugian’s question. “Elder Groeun, I think that situation be just like yer own Staff o’ Clarity there. Were I t’ go to the High King an’ his Guards, I imagine they’d all be puffed up an’ proud o’ their achievement with the Bloodstone Wands, an’ then not a one o’ them will nae remember who, what, nor how they made such a thing.”

The lugians rumbled among themselves, the earlier incident plainly still unnerving them… and both continued to do so, yet mollified them when they realized they weren’t the only ones it had affected.

“My brothers and elders, it is plain that this is an… unnatural occurrence,” King Kresovus spoke up grimly, receiving many grunts and short nods of acknowledgment for the fact. “Lord Mick, why are we all aware of this right now? What has changed?”

“Eh, it’s her.” The Mick tossed a thumb at Princess Kristie, who remained unmoved. “She be what’s called a Null Forsaken, Your Highness. Has nae ability t’ Cast the slightest Cantrip. ‘Tis like a fog is clearing about her as she cuts through something that were there, an’ yet I never questioned it, nor thought about it.” His face were uncharacteristically serious. “Point o’ fact, Elders.

“There be a man in Zaikhal, the old Gharu’ndim capital, ye remember.” General grunts of agreement. “He were a Stone Collector. Rain or shine, snow or fog, day or night, ye’d find him on the upper landing above the smith’s shop in Zaikhal, where he lived an’ traded.” Thick heads bobbed again, remembering him.

“I knew that man fer well o’er a decade. I can picture his face even now. He were always happy t’ see me. He always had the coin or the goods to swap me for whatever rocks I brought t’ him, no matter how many I did dump upon him.

“Ne’er once in nigh on twenty years did I ever ask him his name, his family, his clan, or even think t’ do so.

“He were just... the Stone Collector of Zaikhal.” The Mick didn’t keep the unease out of his voice, and the lugians shuffled as they considered similar things. Their faces weren’t expressive, but the way their eyes shifted focus showed they were aware that it was a fantastic lapse in good manners and common courtesy, if nothing else.

“I dinnae where that man is, what he’s doing, what happened t’ him. Was he bound nameless in a dream, slave an’ servant t’ the same magic what dropped loot from monsters, like random blessings from the gods? Did he up an’ die on his little balcony in Zaikhal, unable to flee when the undead tore through the place? Is he still there, damned an’ doomed, unable to die, even his bones cursed to take me rocks an’ give me lucre in exchange?!”

I could hear the lugians breathing deeply. They had their own experience with damned and cursed undead of their kind.

“Think ye, elders! Back t’ all the quests an’ missions we could run! Run them over an’ over again, like the great need t’ complete them were always there! It were almost never once an’ done!

“Think o’ the people who gave ye the quests! How many o’ them still live? Aye, go deeper! How many of ye know any damn thing about them? Their names were there, an’ their faces, even their bodies! But who knows anything about them!?

“Kresovus! How many times were ye kidnapped by the virindi!?” The king’s mouth started to open. “I’ll have ye know that just among me an’ me friends an’ vassals, ye were kidnapped an’ rescued a hunnert times or more!”

The king’s mouth clamped shut in shock.

The other lugians looked at one another, stunned as they realized the same thing. Some of them had ‘rescued’ him from the fake Kresovus Prodigal Lugian and the Gotrok infiltrators suborned by the virindi, been celebrated as heroes, and simply gone on with life.

It… simply was not really possible, was it? And yet… they could all remember it happening!

“All that shite, all those people, it were done,” the Lord Mick went on, and then pointed again at Princess Kristie. “But until I be speakin’ t’ the bloody-handed lass here, none o’ it mattered, ne’er dwelt on it, it were just part o’ the crazy world.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Slowly and emphatically, he reached up to tap his skull as he looked around at the lugians. “Someone, something, had messed with me head. It had messed with yer heads, ALL our heads, Elders. I be recalling things now, people, names, faces that were just blurs o’ unimportance, events an’ deeds just repeated cycles o’ violence, done over an’ over again. But now…” he shook his head slowly as his eyes passed them.

“Summat fucked with me head. Fucked me grand an’ hard, they did. I were a fuckin’ puppet dancin’ t’ the cheers an’ clappin’ o’ things whats I don’t know, an’ the more I think about it, the more I remember, the worse it be gettin’, the clearer it be gettin’, an’ the madder I be getting’, an’, I think, so be ye.

“So, dinnae worry how it dinnae all make sense,” he said grimly. “There be a crack in a great lie. The fog be clearin’. An’ soon enough, a whole lot of shite that went on back then won’t make any damn sense at all, either, an’ ye’ll all realize that all together, it all do make sense in the very worst sort o’ way.”

There was absolute quiet among the stoic lugian elders as he finished up. Kris and I just sat there and watched him.

“We all been puppets, elders. You, me, all lugians, all Isparians. I be lookin’ at some o’ the shite these lasses are bringin’ up, an’ be like… I should know ALL this shite. Do ye ken the same?” He pointed at my Holo of the Staff of Clarity. “This be Item Magic! Aye, a bit advanced, but I SHOULD KNOW THIS.

“All o’ ye Makers… SHOULD KNOW THIS.

“An’ I just be lookin’ at this shite an’ askin’ meself like a first-spell apprentice… I gots no damn clue what be goin’ on here.”

The lugians stared at what I had displayed.

“Ye know, elders… I be wantin’ ta know what’s going on here.”

A long, quiet rumble escaped the elders.

“That be why we brought it here, to ye all. Not t’ me Isparian associates beneath the Kings. Not t’ the paramounts up in Ithaenc who’d be seizing on all o’ it for scraps o’ the power we all once had.

“Because we want t’ know what the fuck is going on here… an’ we want ta take it back, ta really make it ours, an’ not some mystery magic foisted off on brain-fogged bastiches who can’t remember hide nor hair of what they supposedly fucking made an’ gave away!

“Ours!”

There was a roar from the lugians, fists coming up, keen minds finally starting to understand how they’d all been fucked over.

“Lugians… know how ta fail. They know how ta do it over an’ over an’ over again. And then they exhaust their failures, an’ what be left!?”

“SUCCESS! LORE! THE TRUTH OF THE WORLD!” the elders, including the king, roared back at him.

“Aye, that be right!” the Mick shouted right back at them. “The Lore existing right under our noses, what we weren’t even allowed t’ realize existed afore now!” He turned to look at me. “Sage Ryin, just how much failure are we looking at?”

Wow, that was a lot of hungry eyes looking at me.

“Millions of failures.”

If anything, the eyes looking at me only got even hungrier.

“The greater the failures, the sweeter the success when it is time… and we know that success is possible. It is right in front of us, crack the diamond and call me sandstone!” King Kresovus roared out, raising his one hand to point at that Holo. “Do you see it, my peers, my mentors? That Formation does not require mana flow!”

Horn-like breaths blaated out from them as the Elders abruptly realized it, too.

The doom of the exploding magic of the Fall did not exist there!

“About that.”

Kris’ Voice cut through the rising excitement like an exquisite knife, warding it back, holding it. She snapped her fingers, and the lugians all blinked as the sound broke across their skin, they could feel it passing them by.

She laid her hand upon Quaver, and pointed at me.

Obligingly, I translated her full Tremblesense awareness of her Blade in its current configuration to Holo, blew it up, and let it shine there for them to gaze upon.

I watched all their jaws drop, too.

Out-takes blinked up around it, magnifying the internal Enhancement Slots, zeroed in around the Jewel Slots for the Blackfire Stones, the waiting Pommel Cap for the Elemental Stones, noted the underlying spells and residual crystallizing patterns typical of Full Tempering, the artistry of wavor forging techniques inside and through the unique patterns derived from Earth-worldbone, i.e., adamantine.

I even magnified the inset Blackfire Stones, and the special patterns unique to the Lost Light particles concentrated around the guard and quillons, the Wand Chamber in the hilt, and the mystifyingly complex arrangement of Runic Formations too small to see that represented an Item Familiar coming to life with magic and organic growth of its own.

The QL on it was post-40. Ranthas do NOT mess around with their Swords.

“Item Magic Enhancements, even attached Creature Magic, never needed mana flows to function, although that is a simple and cheap way to make such things,” Princess Kristie went on coolly, a subtle scorn in her voice. “It is possible to permanently imbue the basic Enhancement magicks, and many, many more, into Slots Einz, Zvei, Drei, Vier, Funf, Zeks, Zeben, Akt, Neun, and Zehn.” Each Slot lit up in series, and not all of hers were lit up yet, sitting there cold and empty, the Runic structures extending out up through Zeks not present at Zeben and later, and the four remaining Slots non-Energized.

“One of the things I will be prevailing upon the Elders for is their knowledge of all iterations of Slaying, Armor Cleaving, Biting Strike, and Crushing Blow.

“Back home on Ispar, it seems these Runes are inherently chaotic and unstable, and lack any sort of reliability. That does not seem to be the case here.

“I seek to codify and stratify the knowledge of these Runes, from least effect to greatest effect, so that we know how to craft the best of those Runes, and the least of them.

“This, Elders, is the proper forging of Magic Arms and Armor, and as you share with me and we work together, this knowledge will all be yours.

“I seek to remove the randomness, and make the forging of such things a matter of skill, not a matter of luck, elders. A thing where failure is… not even possible, if you are skilled enough.

“So, you may set aside your revulsion and fear for Weapons using Mana Flows, we need not ever employ them again. The replacement method is before you, and although it is slower, pricier, and perhaps even less powerful… it is stable, predictable, reliable, and it works.”