Reid eyed the scabbard with the clip point radius. Sara and Susan were both giving Reid questioning looks.
"I don't mean I want it back. Here, just - take out the sword, and hold it like you're in a fight."
Her eyebrow arched, but Sara grabbed the scabbard and drew the blade. Reid looked at her for a few moments. He wasn't an expert, by any means - but his hunch was right. In Sara's hands, the sword looked... wrong. The handle was too large, and the blade itself seemed clumsy - like it was too big and off balance. It was also just... a weapon.
Reid walked over and touched the side of the sword. He told Sara to stay still, and closed his eyes.
His presence wrapped around the weapon - and bits of Reid probed around Sara's grip. He could feel her hand like it was made of its own impenetrable energy. He tried to interact with it, surround it, give it a handshake - but nothing happened there. And, since it wasn't Reid's actual goal, he put the idea of energy interactions to the side. Instead, he focused on the sword, starting with the handle.
It was far too big to fit well in Sara's grip - both too long and too wide around. Reid focused on compressing things down, and the bone slowly shrank as it molded to his daughter's hand. Reid ignored Sara's surprised gasp and continued. The grip itself had never been fancy, or - honestly - very practical. Reid started at the bottom of the grip, and grew out a round pommel. That didn't feel quite right, so Reid started experimenting. He morphed the thing into a diamond shape - but it was still too bland. Reid kept adding detail and edges until he had an icosahedron with concave faces. It looked quite a bit like a d-20 with the flats pushed in.
Reid moved to the grip itself. It was the right size, but... too smooth? Yes - that was it. Reid had never wrapped the handle in any sort of leather or cord, and he wanted Sara to be able to leave it bare as well. He morphed the grip to include a raised pattern, and matched a geometric design to the pommel as best he could. He revised the pattern more than once before moving on again.
Any good sword needed a cross guard. Reid initially thought of the kind of ornate work you'd see on a rapier - but that didn't seem right for this weapon. Instead, he grew six bits of bone out between the handle and the blade. The two at the top and bottom of the blade were thicker and longer than the others, and curved towards the point of the weapon. They both ended in their own geometric shapes. The other four bits grew out, two to a side, and connected into each other to make small half-rings that would stop anything that slid down the side of the blade - and didn't get caught by the two main cross guard pieces. It only took Reid a moment of contemplation to modify the half-circles into the same flats-and-edges look that he was using everywhere else in the weapon.
Reid moved onto the blade itself. It was good - and sharp - and it had gotten him through a number of tough enemies. But he didn't just want the thing to be strong - he wanted it to be perfect. Reid pushed, grew, and slimmed the sword along its length. The end curved just a bit more. Reid added a straight groove near the flat side of the blade to reinforce it, and reduce the weight. The internal structure of the bone itself was changed, and rechanged, and reworked again. Each time, things grew back just a bit differently - and just a bit better. Reid could tell as he worked that the changes he made would prove to ensure the sword stood up for force from almost any direction.
But even that didn't seem like enough.
Reid could repair the weapon for Sara, sure - but what if it chipped in the middle of a fight? What if she had to fight something stronger than the weapon, and it broke? Or what if she outgrew it herself?
A weapon was a tool, but that wasn't everything a weapon could be, right? What if Sara didn't have to wait for Reid to repair the blade when it was damaged - and what if she never needed to consider throwing it away?
Reid felt the possibility. A sword that could grow with his daughter. Something that could heal, and strengthen, and improve alongside its wielder. It was possible. It had to be.
Reid pushed himself back into the internals, and probed.
Everything inside was strong, dense, and rigid. That was good, right? But it was... not how bones usually grew. Bones had blood, and marrow, and they were living things. Not knowing if what he attempted was even possible, Reid worked to make the inside of the weapon feel more like a living thing.
He started with pathways. Any living thing needed ways to carry resources around and heal itself. For bones, that took the form of blood vessels that wound their way through. Reid pushed and morphed the structure he'd just spent so long perfecting to accommodate the incredibly intricate channels, and stopped himself partway through when he realized he wanted them to reach every part of the weapon. He hadn't properly planned out their coverage the first time.
His mind had started to feel the strain of the work. This was so much more than healing his dagger had been - and so much more work than it had been to just strengthen the weapon. He pushed through the pain and continued on.
Blood was produced in marrow, so he focused on that next. Reid made the weapon have caches of marrow at different points all throughout the entirety of its length, even down to the grip. Then, he pushed energy in to grow the marrow a bit more and to kickstart its production process.
Blood cells formed and rushed out into the pathways - then pressure built as the blood overfilled the narrow tunnels and strained the pathways. If he let this continue, the building pressure was going to break every tunnel in the blade. Even after Reid pulled his energy from the marrow, new blood was being created. In a panic, Reid undid much of his work by forming wells that the excess blood could collect in. The pressure on the sword lessened, and Reid took a step back to observe.
First, he needed to drain the excess material. Or - did he?
Reid spent a bit of time following the intended flow of fluids in his own body, and saw blood being broken down in multiple places. The waste seemed to be carried away in multiple ways, and Reid's intuition told him he could do something similar. He pushed himself back into the sword and started to work. First, he experimented. Reid put different, tiny mechanisms in place to try and break down the wells of blood he'd created, and failed over a dozen times before one started to function. He connected a single, tiny pore from the sword's groove to the broken down material, and watched happily as a bit of fluid was carried through and out of the weapon.
He worked to replicate his success, and soon had all the wells drained through pores in the sword. He pointedly ignored the shouts he could vaguely hear coming from Sara and Susan. There wasn't time to stop and explain things. He could feel that failing to fix things fast enough might actually damage the sword - and he didn't want to have to do this twice.
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The level of intense, detailed work he was doing had taken a toll on his mind, and his headache was growing far worse - far more quickly than Reid would've liked. He pulled himself down into the detail work anyway, and re-traced the entire circuitry of the weapon to have marrow, out-channels, returns, and waste systems all connected in balance with one another. It was agonizingly slow.
But it seemed to work. Reid pushed his energy into the marrow areas, and watched the entire process kick off beautifully. Energy and blood were carried throughout the weapon, and then out into the groove as waste. All it needed was outside energy, and Reid felt the weapon would be able to heal, and - potentially - would grow.
Reid frowned. He knew how to manipulate his own energy, and could impact the weapon because it was a part of him, but that wouldn't work for Sara.
He returned to the grip, and again explored Sara's hand. The energy he felt there was mostly rigid to his touch. He couldn't pass his own energies through Sara's, and he couldn't let her energy interact with his own in any meaningful way. But that wasn't everything that was happening.
Sara's energy wasn't completely rigid - no, it was seeping into and filling all the reliefs inside the design of the grip, like... liquid. Excitement welled in Reid. If energy moved and stuck like water... then he could control the flow.
An idea solidified in Reid's mind. He hollowed out dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of tiny structures out just beneath the surface of the sword's grip. Each was a miniature spiral vortex funnel that led to its own micro-cache of bone marrow. Reid mentally prepared himself. This design was entirely different from the system he'd already built twice, and doing it a third time was bound to cause problems. He slowly, methodically reworked every pathway in the sword so that they started at the grip's marrow instead of the caches he'd spread throughout the weapon. By the time he was done, Reid felt like his head was going to explode. But he wasn't actually done with the weapon. Not yet. The blade was almost alive, but he could sense something else was missing. And he felt like everything needed to be perfect before he opened up the funnels.
The realization hit him in a flash. It was a simple answer - the blade was missing a home, a sheath. Reid needed to make it a proper scabbard.
Reid was relieved to find the scabbard work to be far less intensive than the actual bladework had been. Spiderweb-thick protrusions grew out at different points of the weapon, then started growing out towards each other. They connected, and branched, and surrounded the blade. Reid filled in the gaps and grew intricate designs into every inch of the new surface, until it was done. A bone scabbard, light and intricate, that was matched to the weapon itself. It was the missing extra piece, and Reid felt the weapon was ready for the final step.
He put himself back into the sword's grip, and methodically worked to try and touch every bit of bone covering each of the funnels. Something told him that he needed to open every new pore to each funnel - all at once. If he didn't, Reid felt like the sword would either break, or it would fail to be as strong as it needed to be for Sara to wield it. So he pushed himself to feel and control the area over each funnel, at the same time.
The work strained Reid's abilities, and he felt his head throb with the effort. But pain was pain. If Reid could endure it for his own strength, he could damn well do it to give his daughter a good weapon. The pain went from a throbbing feeling, to a stabbing one. It grew worse, until Reid started to lose focus. The pain fought against his concentration and control. He grunted and swore as one of the funnels slipped away from him, then another. Things started to cascade as the headache overpowered his concentration and -
The familiar feeling of Susan's healing dulled the pain and sent a warmth through Reid's mind that soothed him. One of the lost funnels came back under his control - then another. Reid worked as quickly as he could to regain control over all of them. He pulled himself out of the rest of the weapon as much as he could, and wrapped all of his attention and energy specifically around the task. His entire mind was solely focused on the unsealing of the funnels - or, rather, the opening of the channels. The headache wasn't completely gone, and it grew back as Reid actively put himself over the top of each and every funnel. It was agonizingly slow work. He realized that he might never have been able to do it if Susan wasn't there to heal him while he strained himself. There was just too much to keep track of all at once, and even his level of control didn't allow him to be so split and detailed at the same time.
His mind throbbed as he brought the final bits into focus. He had everything now, he knew. And it was the moment of truth.
With a roar of effort, Reid pulled open each channel at the same time. A massive amount of energy welled up deep within Reid and shot into the newly exposed vortices. Reid saw his energy flow into the weapon and spread out beyond the channels and the marrow, into the very bone itself. Then, he saw Sara's energy crawling down, following the shallow vortices until it finally touched the marrow.
A flash of light and blast of force pushed him out of the blade, and he landed on the floor.
The sword - Sara's sword - glowed with soft orange-yellow light. A notification chimed into view.
Congratulations! Unique Growth Weapon, [Queen's Edge] Created!
NOTICE: This weapon may be renamed by its crafter or bonded owner. Crafters may reject an owner's weapon name choices.
NOTICE: This weapon possesses multiple traits.
NOTICE: Queen's Edge has successfully bonded to [Sara Calderwall]!
Congratulations! Bonus Experience awarded for producing a unique growth weapon. Bonus experience awarded for creating a weapon above your grade.
Congratulations! Osteal Smithing has upgraded to Osteal Smithing Journeyman.
"DAD THIS IS SO AMAZING!"
Sara held the scabbard in one hand and the sword in the other. A line of dried blood ran from the sword's groove down to the cross guard.
Sara was practically dancing in place. "Look, dad, look at it!".
Sara's excitement was infectious. He hadn't seen her like this in... years. It reminded him of Christmas mornings, where his tiny daughter had viciously torn open wrapping paper on her few meager gifts they could afford, then bounced around the room in overwhelming delight at what she'd received. Reid took a more concentrated look at the weapon. This was not a meager gift - not by a longshot. Reid read through the new text made available by his Osteal Smithing upgrade.
Queen's Edge [Legendary]
Rank: F
Traits: Self Repair, Growth
"I can feel it drawing on my energy - it's like a skill, but... more like the connection is going both ways. This is incredible. Seriously, dad. Thank you. Thank you so much!"
Reid felt exhausted. He noticed he and Susan were both drenched in sweat, and a number of water bottles and granola bar wrappers were littered across the table.
"You're welcome. And... ah, I haven't seen that rarity before, or the other stuff. But, umm, how long did all that just take?"
Susan let out a long breath. "Almost 20 hours. And I had to heal you nonstop for the last six. Let's not do that again for a while."
Reid uncapped a water and chugged the liquid down, then tore into one of the untouched granola bars. Sara was still staring wide-eyed at the clip point - no, at Queen's Edge. Reid couldn't help but feel pride at what he'd just done. The sword was a rarity that he'd never seen, and he had no idea how he'd made something a grade higher than himself. He'd gotten everything he wanted into the weapon, and that meant it would be able to serve Sara for what was hopefully going to be a long, long time.
His mind started to make visions of his daughter again. She was regal, and brilliant, and wore her trademark sword and scabbard as she sat on a throne, and spoke to massive crowds, and fought-
The real Sara - the one right in front of him - cut Reid's dreaming short.
Sara Calderwall has requested to rename [Queen's Edge] to [Anduril]
You have rejected this request.
Sara beamed with a mischievous smile.
Sara Calderwall has requested to rename [Queen's Edge] to [Master Sword]
You have rejected this request.
Reid shook his head.
Sara Calderwall has requested to rename [Queen's Edge] to [My Dad]
Reid gave his daughter an admonishing look.
"Absolutely not"