After their... rather heartfelt exchange at Warren's, Reid and James had quickly fallen back into their normal joking conversations. Reid loved having his friend back - and brought the topic of weapons up to him in anticipation of the next day's work.

James had many opinions. His first thoughts were about reach. According to James, Reid should avoid anything that required infighting. While Reid was capable of overpowering almost everything, he wasn't exactly skilled at dodging blows. Something with reach would help keep him in fights longer, James reasoned. He was heavily opposed to the idea of a glaive - or anything like one. While Reid could potentially learn how to use the weapon, James argued that he didn't have the skill right now, and that Reid would want to be deadly with his choice right away. Reid had countered that a glaive was just a sword-on-a-stick... which did not help James come around to the idea.

The simple answer on what to make, in James's words, was a spear. It was the thing that would give him reach, and puncturing power, and options for slashing. Reid could grow in skill with it, but it would be deadly enough at day one to serve him well. It was, after all, one of the most popular weapons in all of history for a reason. James latched onto the spear idea, and spiraled into a long winded discussion on the various forms one could take. When Reid wasn't convinced, James got a bit absurd.

He offered up that Reid could just do spiked armor and punch things. That led to discussions on katars and comic book characters with knuckle knives. Eventually, James told Reid to just make armored boxing gloves out of bone and be done with it. Reid had to remind the increasingly inebriated man that those already existed, and were called gauntlets.

James's final recommendation, slurred and heavily accented, was that Reid should just hit things with a shovel or make a giant club, since he was awful at any strategy or fighting form. Baseball bats with nail spikes, or an actual weapon like a tetsubo were used in broken examples. As drunk as James was, the man had a point. Some of Reid's best athleticism and coordination was steeped in years of experience playing baseball and softball. He knew how to swing a bat, and a club was really just a larger version of that. But it still didn't sound right.

#

Reid still wasn't certain what he would make when he and Susan arrived at the operating room.

It was early, and a hint of light had just started to filter into the room. A few tea candles were still burning in round cylinders. They gave the room a certain mystical feel.

The 'operating table' was covered in a combination of sheets and plastic, and plastic bins were laid out on the floor below the table's edge. Apparently, no one wanted Reid's process to include the weapon bleeding on the floor.

Danny was already there, with Lowell as a guard. Sara and James were supposed to join them as well. A box full of rations and water were sitting on the floor, waiting for everyone in attendance to get fatigued enough to dive in.

Danny's part in today's process was not to heal Reid. He was here to keep Susan from feeling fatigued, and Susan was handling the actual healing. Reid hadn't had a part in that decision, and Susan was adamant that it was fine - but Reid still felt obligated to say something.

"Lowell, Danny, thanks for your help today. And Danny, I know we started out badly. There was a lot going on, and I... treated you poorly. I'm sorry about that. I'd like to believe you're a good person - and I hope you can think of me that way as well. For now, thanks for this, and for the other help you've been giving the people here."

Reid held out a hand towards the healer. He stared at it for an uncomfortably long time before his trembling hand rose to meet Reid's. Danny's hand was still shaking when it clasped his, and Reid brought his other hand around to hold the man's arm.

"This is a small room, and you don't have to stay in it. If today makes you uncomfortable, I don't care what anyone else says. You can leave."

He held Danny's gaze for a few seconds, gave his hand another squeeze, then turned around. Danny let out a long, audible breath.

Reid walked over to the camping chair set up in front of the 'operating table'. It was a bright green color, with the arms that slid up and down if you moved them just the right way. Reid took his seat, and stared down at today's project. The patient. The seed.

For all his guessing at what weapon should be made today, Reid knew one thing with absolute clarity. He wasn't going to start from scratch. Just like Sara's sword was a modification of a weapon that had already been important to him, Reid's too would be made from something impactful. Something that he already carried an emotional connection to.

The shovel was bright and unassuming. It had been washed clean, and candlelight reflected off its surface.

Reid had used this shovel to bury Louis. It felt right that he would be able to carry the thing with him. He wanted - and needed - to turn that into his strength. A weapon that would make it so he didn't need to bury another friend. He brushed his hand over the shovel head, down to the bottom of the handle. A shiver of excitement went down his spine.

Sara burst into the room, and hugged Reid over his shoulders. James waved from the doorway. His eyes were red, and he was definitely suffering from a hangover. Reid waved back, squeezed his daughter's hand, then leaned forward and put both hands on the shovel.

Everyone was here.

The medium was ready.

It was time to begin.

Reid dove into the shovel.

It had been created quickly. Almost sloppily. The handle had the beginnings of microfractures from the stress Reid put it under while he dug the grave.

His grip tightened around the handle. He healed the microfractures and took in the internal structure. It wasn't great, but he would be redesigning it later on. Right now, his focus was on experimentation. Reid needed to feel out his options, and that alone would take time and energy.

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Reid started with the simplest option. The shovel itself could be a weapon if it was sturdier and sharper. Reid thinned out the edges, then adjusted the handle slightly to make it more durable. That definitely wasn't the way to go. Reid the bone shovel wielding knight wasn't going to be coming to a battlefield anytime soon. But the work wasn't a waste.

The bladed shovel's edge lent itself to a line of tests Reid knew he wanted to try. He started with the most simple. Reid narrowed the shovel's head and elongated it. The spear tip grew in size until it was the length of his forearm. He held it for a few moments, but even though it was a good option, it didn't feel like the right one. He tried serrating the edges, and even did one design inspired by old Aztec spearheads that looked like they were lined with razor blades. The promise of utility was there - Reid could see himself successfully using a spear. But through the different permutations, it still didn't feel right.

Reid tried a halberd. Then a glaive. A guandao. A war scythe. A polearm. None of the sword-on-stick options felt right to him. A not-insignificant part of Reid had wanted that to be the right fit just to shove it in James's face. He did like how they looked, but James was right - Reid couldn't see himself using them properly. They would all just end up acting as fancy-looking stabbing spears in his hands.

He removed the blade at the tip of the shaft, and grew the thing out until it turned into a large, rounded club. It... didn't feel wrong. Reid fought with a lot of gusto and not a lot of skill. But Reid could not become some shirtless, raging... brute. Okay. He had essentially lived that life on his way through the forest, but that wasn't what he actually wanted for himself. He needed something that he could use, similar to a club - but more refined. More purposeful. More complex.

When he finally imagined it, Reid knew it was right.

Reid thinned out the club, and moved to the handle. He created two thick rings, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the grip area. He worked a spiral pattern into the entirety of the grip, then made another in the opposite direction to create a series of diamonds with curved faces. When that was complete, he made a small round bulb at the grip's base. There was enough grip area for Reid to use both hands - and to shift his grip and stance if he needed.

Reid ran up the length of the weapon to the head.

Then, he grew out a blade. It started as a large curved protrusion. Reid picked a point about two thirds up the length of the thing, and pulled the top of the blade inward, then did the same thing with the bottom. He was left with two concave blades that met in a wicked looking point. The blade was thin - and razor sharp. But it was fragile. Reid added mass behind the edge. Just beyond the blade, the structure expanded until it was as thick as his thumb. From there, it flared out and down until it became nearly two fingers thick where it met the weapon's shaft.

It was good, but far from done. Reid mirrored the blade and the thick support on the opposite side. It now looked a bit like a small, bone kite at the end of a stick. Or an axe.

But Reid didn't want an axe, and he didn't want small. He doubled the size of the blades and their supports. It was better. Closer.

He grew out another pair of the reinforced blades at an angle to make the head look like it had an "X" pattern, then made another final pair to turn the head into a six pointed star. He inspected it for a long while before realizing what needed to come next. Reid grew a horizontal supporting ring around the weapon under the six points, then sloped it up and out to meet them. With that, each face and blade of the weapon was connected to the other, and the point of each blade now looked a bit like someone draped a sheet over a coat rack.

After some thought, Reid adjusted the top and bottom ends of each blade to make their own pointed tips. When that was done, each flange like a very curved and deformed "W". He added another set of ribbed supports to the new points at the top and bottom of the head, then shifted back down into the shaft.

The space between the grip and the weapon's head was smooth - and not at all useful. Reid added a series of six-pointed rings, matched at the top and bottom to the orientation of the blades. In the middle, they were slightly offset from one another to create something of a spiral that mimicked the one on the grip. If someone tried to grab that section of the weapon, the points would catch their hand and injure them. If a bladed weapon impacted them, the points would hold it in place or slow it down considerably.

Reid shifted his focus back, and frowned. It still felt like it was missing something. Reid explored his work for a bit before returning to the head of the weapon. There, he drew out a long, solid point that extended up and out the shaft above the blades. He paused, and waited. The weapon felt right. It was slightly different from what he first envisioned - and in this case, different was definitely better. There were no more changes to make at this stage.

Reid had made an agreement with Susan to take a break after the initial reconfiguration was complete, so he pulled himself up and out of the weapon to check his work, and refuel his body.

Congratulations! Spike-tipped Flanged Mace Created!

Reid stared at his creation. It was almost as long as the table it sat on, and Reid knew it would barely fit through a doorway standing upright. He put the full length a bit over six feet tall. The top foot was the spike that came out the tip. The next two feet were the bladed flanges, and the rest was the handle and grip. It looked solid and sharp enough to smash through Mark's walls. Reid wanted to pick it up and try it out, but he forced himself to slide the chair back and relax.

Susan squeezed his shoulders, then handed him a water. Sara tossed him a protein bar from across the room. James was sitting next to her, and they shared mischievous smirks with one another. James tilted his head as he spoke.

"You made a club, after all."

Reid was suspicious of whatever James-Sara collusion was happening here - but answered anyway.

"I tried it, but didn't stick with a club, as you can plainly see. This is a a spike-tipped mace. Knights used maces. They're civilized."

"That's just a fancy club for reformed barbarians."

"It has bladed edges! And a spike!" Reid complained through bites of protein bar.

James shrugged. "You're going to swing it around like a club, so it's a club."

Sara leaned forward and interrupted. "You should name it Grond."

Reid cocked an eyebrow. "No."

She continued on anyway.

"There aren't many famous maces, and most that I can think of are really morning stars and not maces like that one. So the only real option is Grond. Not movie Grond, that was a battering ram named after the actual Grond - which was a Mace - or, maybe a hammer? Morgoth had it. So you..."

Reid shook his head and ignored his daughter's continued nerdy-naming obsession as he looked around the room. There was no clock on the walls.

"Hey, what time is it?"

Susan rubbed her neck. "About noon, so you've been at this for six hours, give or take. Half of that was the shape changing, and the past three have all been you working on the final product." She gestured to the table. "which, looks pretty complicated to me. I'm leaving it up to you, Reid. Are you stopping here for the day?"

Sara and James let out complaintive groans from the other side of the room. Susan's sharp stare shut them both up.

"I feel fine, but let's give it a few minutes just to make sure. I don't really feel any strain, honestly. Even with the detail work so far."

Susan nodded and scribbled some notes down. The notebook she was holding had been brand new, but Reid saw multiple pages worth of information had already been added to the thing. She'd been just as busy as he had doing the work. Reid was looking forward to seeing what she had to say about what happened to his body during the crafting process.

Reid waited, and took stock of himself. His internal energy was still strong. His head and his body felt fine. He ate until he was full, and drank two bottles of water even though he didn't really feel thirsty. He told Susan he was ready.

Reid cracked his neck.

The 'easy' part was done. He had his mace.

It was time to make it a growth weapon.