“Ah… how nostalgic…” I reminisced while being burned by the blue fires of Hell’s Deep. “Which year was it when the World’s Depths invaded the Mid World? Better question, when will it happen again?”

I saw the most action then, valiantly slaying the attacking Demoids who surfaced from the inner recesses of the earth. Too many times did I plunge through burning flesh of earth and fire, sundering the blue flames beating in the igneous chests of the fearless creatures.

But I could not pinpoint the exact moment in history when I gallantly protected the Middle World—sending the Demoids scrambling back into the holes whence they came.

I pondered hard, recounting the uncountable number of years of my life. I particularly recalled the bloody wars between the many races, fighting over the earth and its treasures. Yet, I could not quite remember exactly when the fall of the Golden Era occurred.

“The Third Age? No, the Fourth Age?”

I must be getting old to forget such warmongering times—the best of times for a sword like me. I believed those dark and arduous moments were perfect for heroes and their sidekick weapons to prove themselves. Yet, even through many millennia, there was still not enough time to prove my father wrong. His last words echoed in my head, haunting me from beyond the grave.

I pondered too hard and dug up memories too deep that were meant to never be re-lived again. My first set of memories of early life came to mind - all of them about Father. Unfortunately, I did not have any fond impressions of my sole parent.

I distinctly recalled being paralyzed with fear as Father screamed at the tops of his lungs. His pointed words all aimed at me with a strained voice, hoarse from months of relentless screaming.

“WHY?! Father screeched while strangling my hilt in his two calloused hands. “Why won’t you talk?! Why?!!!”

“I am, Father! I am! Can’t you hear me!?” I remembered pleading, nearly in tears.

“Wretched thing! Talk! I know you can! No creation of mine cannot do that much!”

“Father! I am speaking! Please, listen to me! I am, Father! I am!”

Still, Father could not hear me.

Father then yanked me close to his face. Shouting again at the tops of his lungs with spit hurling at me, Father furiously bellowed, “Speak, damn it! SPPPEEEEAAK!!!

Yet, no matter how much I tried, Father could not hear me. No one could, and I did not have the slightest clue why.

Panting to catch his breath, Father glared manically at me. Crazed obsession warped the man who I called Father. So little time had passed since my inception, but I no longer recognized the proud man who lifted me out of his forge and into the air as his most prized possession.

Ever since I could not live up to Father’s expectations, I only witnessed Father’s wrath. After he hammered and polished my form from an infused composite of Mythril, Orichalium, and many other great ores, Father then gave me life and brought me into this world.

Formed from the rarest of mythical metals, I was to be Father’s greatest legacy—one that blasphemously rivaled the Great Spirit. My father was at the peak of the Artificer Class, revered by the world, and the greatest artifact creator of all time.

Father already created the most desirable items that all races fought for, but he wanted more—something truly beyond the realm of man. Father desired a masterpiece that no other being could create. Not even the Great Spirit. His last creation, me, was to challenge god.

Some called it ego. Others called it foolish. But maybe Father tried to prove something to himself. However, the greatest Artificer of all time failed. I did not rival the godly Great Spirit. Not by any means. Heck, I could not even rival some of my siblings. None could even hear me speak. I was deemed a failure—Father’s first and only failure. And because of that, Father manically screamed at me for months since my inception.

“Why?! WHY IS IT SO?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY MAGNUM OPUS?!”

“Please! Hear me, Father! I am trying, Father!” I begged, trying to tell my sole parent I could do better.

But like always, my words came upon deaf ears.

“Father… Maybe Youngest Brother is still sleeping?” One of my floating older siblings said. Helios, the radiant golden sword, my brother, was longer than me and hovered over me like a worried mother.

“It’s useless trash, Helios. That’s what!” Gripping my pommel, Father threw me on the stone floors of his scorching foundry. I skid away, screeching with sparks that flew into the air as the blade of my body grated against the stone. “That thing is no spawn of mine. If it-“

“No, stop!” I pleaded with my memories. I did not want to re-live the next moment—the worst moment of my early life. “Stop! STOP! No more. Please, no more…”

I forcefully ended the bad memory, pulling myself out of the nightmare.

“I am not worthless. I am not a failure. I am not worthless. I am not a failure.” I desperately chanted, making the bad dream go away. “I am great. The greatest. Damn it, I am the greatest! I’ll show everyone! I’ll prove Father wrong!”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

A deep voice, no longer anything cute like the squeaks before, bellowed beneath me and broke me from my depressing thoughts. The now fiery blue monster, Nuria, responded to my questions with a concerned voice, “Puri? Pu, pu, ri.”

“…Apologies,” I said, coming out of my nightmarish memories. “Ignore my ramblings, little one.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Do you know when the fall of the Golden Era occurred?”

“Puri! Pu, pu, pu.”

I understood not a single word. But I think the fireball/slime monster, which melted into a glob of boiling molten blue lava, surprisingly knew the answer to my question.

“Haaaa…” I sighed. “T’is unfortunate I don’t understand slime talk.”

The molten blob of blue fire shook its bubbling face back and forth.

“Not slime talk?” I questioned to confirm, and the bubbling blue blob shook its liquified head in agreement. “Spirit talk then, maybe?”

Again, the molten fire raging beneath me shook in rejection.

“What are you then?” I stupidly asked.

“Prui? Si-pu-ri-p. Pu, ri, pu.”

“Right…” I said, not at all understanding a thing, but the sizzling mass of blue fire bobbed happily up and down from my acknowledgment.

Thinking in my head, I wanted to facepalm myself if I had a hand and a face. Dummy, why are you uselessly asking the fireball/collapsed slime ball whom you can’t even understand?

But I was glad we could do some form of communication, even if one-sided from the ball of fire. Or more accurately, the deconstructed pooled mush of boiling molten blue lava. When the fiery skin of the cute Nuria slipped off, all of its molten blue innards spilled onto the ground. It looked like deformed slime—one burning with blue hellfire. Gael earlier called it the ‘heart of the forge.’ My new owner literally asked the slimeball to open its guts and expose its heart. And Gael stuck me in and roasted me in the ‘heart of the forge.’

Which is okay too, I guess. It was rather pleasant.

“Ahhhhh…” I moaned, comforted by Nuria from the nightmare I had just re-lived. “Now that’s the spot, buddy. A little to the right. Ahhh. Yeah, right there.”

I felt like melting into a puddle of pleasure. Of course, the fire of Hell’s Deep couldn’t truly melt the blade of my body, which was composed of long-lost mythical alloys. But the hellish flames did massage my stiff, metallic lengths. Years of hardened stains that my previous owners left unattended on the blade of my body started to rub off under Nuria’s godly touch.

And, oh, did I enjoy the spa treatment. I could use a few more of these special sessions to fully rid myself of the caked-on grime from all the years. Gael also helped—to his own agenda, of course. My new owner turned the hilt of my body, angling my lengthy edges in the flames to better remove the persistent, stuck-on crud.

Slowly, I roasted in the fiery blue hairs of the now-dissolved cute fireball. But even the fires of hell had trouble removing all of the accumulated stains from many millennia.

Yet, for unknown reasons, Gael frowned with annoyance at me. I seemed to be a hiccup in his master plans. Not my fault, of course. What did I do?

Impatiently rotating me faster in the blue flames of Hell, it appears the lingering marks on my body marred his performance. The potential customers in the crowd of observing adventurers began to doubt Gael’s abilities. Stubborn grime clenching on to me refused to let go. Who could blame them? I was simply irresistible. However, it implied shortcomings in Gael’s smithing skills.

Whispered mumbling began buzzing amongst the crowd, and bad word of mouth spread like wildfire.

“Eh. Somebody said that guy be an Artificer, right ? Ain’t they shit? Why we be watching this sucker when he dunno even how t’a clean a blade?” Berated a burly leather-armored man in the front of the crowd of adventurers. The scar stretching from his chin to his left eye pretzeled together as he scowled at Gael.

Observing centuries of plastered muck slowly burning off my body, his buddy standing to his right added, “Yeah, who right in da head cleans a blade by burn’n? Gonna ruin da melt’n thang. Che. Only ‘em Artificiers.”

I knew all too well the type of person those first two adventurers were. I’ve been wielded by fleshy ones with similar haughty egos before. Most were ruffians who liked to stir the pot and preferred to resolve problems through fists rather than words. Not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the situation. I liked a good sword fight. Especially if I got to showcase my greatness.

But the second guy made a point about sword upkeep. Most blacksmiths—probably all blacksmiths, actually—did not stick us weapons into a furnace monster for cleaning or maintenance.

“Yeah, I think I did hear something like that about Artificers,” someone else in the crowd muttered. “The class is rarely seen because everyone avoids it. Masters of none who can’t do anything right. Even the basics it seems.”

The last one wasn’t necessarily wrong. After the once abundant resources of the earth were used up by the different races, most craftsmen could no longer reach the pinnacle of their class. War due to limited resources did not help either. Lives were lost but also profound technologies and knowledge.

Suddenly, as if on cue, a familiar young voice, who earlier hyped up the crowd by pointing out Gael’s supposed titles, jumped into the conversation.

“He’s not cleaning the rusted sword. It’s too damaged,” said the man with similar yellow eyes as Gael but with curly brown hair. He tried to dispel the growing doubts in the crowd. “I think the Vagrant Craftsman is going to reforge that weapon.”

With a face contorting with disdain, the man with the face scar turned his head back at the guy defending Gael and cursed, “Hell, nah, stupid! ‘Em Artificiers? Shitty class can’t make anythang of quality. He's gonna turn that sword in ta unusable crap!”

“How would you know?” The yellow-eyed man snapped back, eyeing the defensive leather attire of the guy with a scar across his face. “You’re no blacksmith.”

“This bastard,” the man hissed, clenching his fist. “Cuz I said so. What? Ya try’n to fight me?”

“I did, and already won. Look.”

The guy pointing at me was wrong. The jack-of-all crafts but master of none likely attempted to melt my body to reforge me. But I was having none of that. If asked about my best features, I was confident in my durability. My years of existence proved it.

But not backing down from a fight, Gael commanded, “Let's melt this sword down to bring it back to life, Nuria! Full power!”

“Puuuuuurriiii!!!” Squeaked molten blue lava slime.

Instead of blue, Nuria suddenly burned pure white. Again, the once cute fireball shed another layer of itself.