Will

Almost as soon as Will Left the military quarter, he was approached by a young man in dirty worker garb who appeared to be in a hurry. His stats and clothing suggested someone near the bottom of the social ladder.

“Master One-Eye!” the youth said, trying to catch his breath. He had clearly been running.

Will stopped for him, scratching his eye in puzzlement. “Will is fine. Who are you, and what’s the matter?”

“Yes, Master Will. I’m Leland—I ‘prentice for Bogleg. We met when you came around the shop last.”

“Ah. Do you have good news for me, Leland?”

The youth nodded. “I think so, Master Will. Bogleg sent me to tell you that he’s ready to carry out that special order you put in.”

Will smiled, a buzz of equal parts anticipation and nerves shooting through him. “Fantastic.”

“He still thinks it’s a bad idea, though.”

“Noted.”

“It’s been keeping him up at night. I hear him grumbling sometimes from my pallet downstairs.”

“I’m glad to know he’s taking his work seriously.”

“Yeah. Been making him ornery, too. He beat me yesterday ‘cause I spilled some mineral oil on the floor. I would’ve cleaned it up and all, but he got so mad. He isn’t like that usually. He’s been very kind to me.”

“Mmhmm.” Will judged the lad a nervous talker. “Leland, go back to your master and tell him I’ll be there shortly. I just have an errand to run first.”

Leland nodded, and Will watched him run off down the street, weaving between pedestrians. He disappeared around a corner, and Will took a deep breath to steel his determination. Once he had convinced himself that he wasn’t making a mistake, he turned his steps to the southwest, heading for Cliffside. It seemed he needed to pay a quick visit to Watson, Watson, and Watson.

* * *

Boggy

Boggy had closed the smithy to customers for the day, had closed the shop in general after accepting a shipment of materials in the morning, and was busying himself with a bit of idle sweeping and organizing to occupy his mind. He was doing his very best to ignore the five items laid out on the center workbench.

Normally his three apprentices handled all the busywork around the smithy, and he was grateful for it with his bad back creeping up on him in his later years, but he had sent Price and Yips home for the day after realizing that he would only keep snapping at them otherwise, which wasn’t fair on them. They were good boys, putting up with an old man like him. They did what they were told—for the most part, anyway.

Boggy jumped when the back door opened, and steeled himself to meet his terrifying young client, but it was just Leland. He had come back by himself with a message from the Misfortune, saying that the man would be coming after a short errand. Boggy thanked his apprentice, then sent him home as well. Leland protested admirably, but relief was writ large on his face.

Bogleg kept sweeping, and when he was done sweeping he mopped up. He didn’t even know the last time these floors had seen a mop. Then he organized his tools up on the wall, and fixed one of the hooks when it broke by hammering a new one into shape from some scrap metal. With nothing else to busy himself with, he began sorting out his overflowing boxes of miscellaneous leftover materials, attempting to reduce their volume by throwing out things he had held onto because it felt like a waste to throw them away, even though he knew deep down he was never actually going to use any of it.

Boggy straightened up from one of the boxes, a hand to his lower back, groaning at the way his spine creaked and caught like a badly oiled hinge.

“Hello,” came a soft voice at his shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Spinning, he found the Misfortune standing only feet away, having somehow glided into the shop without making a noise. Tall and shaggy-haired, he fixed Boggy with the intensity of his one-eyed glare, the other stitched shut and drooping like something on a morbid stuffed toy.

“Your apprentice said you have something for me,” the man prodded.

“Ah, eh, yes,” Boggy stammered. Even though he was technically a higher level than the man he was facing down, fifteen to the Misfortune’s fourteen, he felt himself break out in a cold sweat. “Right over here, Master One-Eye.”

I should have refused this job, Bogleg admonished himself as he guided his client over to the workbench. It doesn’t matter how much the bastard is paying—I should have refused.

Of course, there was no way he could have. He wasn’t actually sure who he feared more—the infamous killer, or the man holding the killer’s leash.

Noticing the tall case jutting up over the Misfortune’s shoulder, Boggy licked his lips and said: “How’s the rifle been treating you? Would you like me to take a look at it, work out any kinks?” Desperate to buy himself some time before the inevitable, hated task ahead.

“No need,” the Misfortune replied curtly, unslinging the case and setting it down on the floor to lean against the workbench. Looking over the spread of items, he added: “Let’s go over what you've found, shall we?”

“Of course.” He went down the odd assortment one by one, from left to right. “The slave collar here, as you might guess, is enchanted with Cancel and Reinforce. The surgical knife has Refine and Reinforce, the shortsword has Refine and Accelerate, the sabatons have Accelerate times two, and this thing here…” He motioned to the last item, a little rectangular piece of steel with no obvious purpose at a glance. “...is a tattoo stamp, if you’ll believe it. It was quite difficult to find a Soulbound item enchanted with Absorb and Inject, you know. I had never heard of this sort of thing before I found the seller for it—essentially, the artist inks the design onto the stamp, then places it onto the client’s skin. The ink is Injected all at once, creating a fully formed tattoo in an instant without any pain.”

“Fascinating,” the Misfortune replied neutrally.

Boggy snapped his mouth shut. I’m rambling—stop rambling!

“And once I Soulbind the finished piece, you can add another instance of Absorb onto that?” the man continued.

“Yes,” Boggy said, nodding. “That is not a problem.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Good. Can you begin right away?”

Boggy blinked hard. “Yes, I suppose, but… Master One-Eye, I feel obliged to tell you that I think this is a very, very bad idea. If you would like to call it off, I’m willing to waive all payment.”

“Surely not. You’ve already gone out of pocket to acquire these items.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. I could easily find other buyers to sell them on.” That was unlikely, at least for some of the more specialized items. More likely, he would just bury them all in a deep hole somewhere and not even bother trying to recoup his losses.

“I see. Regardless, I want to proceed.”

“Master One-Eye… To my knowledge, this kind of process has never been attempted before, and for good reason.”

“Then we will be making history, won’t we?”

“Yes, but…”

“Bogleg,” the Misfortune boomed, his voice cutting like a blade, and his black eye flashed. “We made a deal, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Boggy admitted.

“Are you going back on that deal?”

“No.”

“Good. In that case, here is full payment for your services.” The Misfortune produced a bulging paper envelope and handed it over.

Reluctantly opening it, Boggy riffled through the eyecatching stack of colored bills inside. “This is more than we agreed.” He could tell even at a glance.

“Consider it a bonus,” the Misfortune replied smoothly. “For your discretion, and that of your apprentices.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

So that was the carrot. Boggy tried not to speculate on what the stick would be, if the Misfortune got the notion that Boggy hadn’t kept his mouth shut.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Yes,” Boggy said reluctantly. “Of course. Now, I will need to do the actual forging outdoors, on account of the semblance.”

“By all means. Would it be possible for me to supervise the process?”

Boggy shook his head. “You will need to remain at a safe distance, I’m afraid. I can’t guarantee your safety inside the semblance field.”

“All right—it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

Boggy sighed with relief that his client would concede that much, at least.

Using a pair of tongs, he slipped the cursed items into some large pockets on a roll-up tool belt, furled it up, and reluctantly carried it out the back in his outstretched hands, the Misfortune shadowing him closely. He walked into the yard behind the smithy, where a large patch of earth had been left free of habitation, blackened and bare from use. Price and Yips had already lugged an anvil into the center of the black circle before he’d dismissed them, so he unrolled the leather belt again and placed the cursed items on the anvil one by one with a soft clink, clink, clink of metal on metal.

Seeing that the Misfortune had remained at a safe distance near the door maybe thirty feet off, Boggy took the heavy gloves looped through his belt and pulled them on, then removed the heavy hammer from its belt loop and bounced its head against the pitted iron of the anvil to test it, allowing the warm ringing that vibrated up his arm to induce calm.

Everything was ready. There was no way to stall this any longer.

Boggy took a deep breath.

“Semblance Art: Crucible of the Sun.”

The orange SP crystal on his sheet winked out with a crackle of electricity that arced up his arm. Almost immediately, the air around him grew brighter, glowing, billowing, until he was surrounded only by light and fire. The city, the smithy, the Misfortune, even the ground was swallowed by it, leaving only him and the anvil and the items laid out across it.

Boggy’s hammer flared with energy as he raised it, a surge of power extending out from its glowing head. The cursed items, too, only took seconds before they went red-hot, then pale yellow, then seething white, impurities hissing as they sparked away from the metal surfaces.

The horn handle of the shortsword burned away, leaving only the steel tang, and the same for the wooden handle of the surgical knife. The sabatons lost their leather straps, and he was left only with pure metal to work with.

Without needing to put any muscle behind it, Boggy let his hammer fall, striking the anvil with the deep resonance of a gong. The air around him crackled and reverberated with the sound, flames dancing to its rhythm. The items should have gone flying when hit with such power, but his semblance pressed in around them, pinned them to the spot.

In this place, Boggy was greater than a king—he was a creator god, a blazing figure standing at the center of a collapsing star, wielding a hammer of power.

He struck, struck, struck, and the semblance sang with every blow. The materials resisted in a way he had never experienced. They did not want to change shape. They wanted to stay the same. They refused the heat of creation.

Boggy hammered, and his implement roared with a mouth like a dragon. Despite the raging fire all around, Boggy was cool rather than hot. A thin coating of cold, almost icy air rushed around him, a skin-tight bubble that prevented him from being burned out by his own semblance.

The cursed items proved quite a conundrum. No matter how he beat at them, no matter how high the temperature rose, they remained mute and dead on his anvil, spiting him as they swallowed the energy provided by each blow without releasing an iota in return.

Maybe there was no way to create the abomination One-Eye wanted, after all. Maybe he could call it quits now, safe in the confidence that he had tried, at least.

But then, with the rhythmic beat of his hammer, inspiration struck.

The cursed items had nothing in common. They did not want to become one thing—they wanted to remain separate. Contrasted against the pure light of his Crucible, the dark tendrils they extended toward him—normally invisible—were thrown into stark relief. The hateful remains of five souls that had known only pain and spite and indifference from the world around them in their final moments.

But… There was one thing that united them. The little pieces of metal, while disparate, all hated him equally. They wanted him to hurt, and to weep, and to die, just as they had.

Boggy could use that unification of purpose.

He did not stop to think whether it was a good idea, or morally correct. Spurred by the power of his semblance, he needed to release the energy that coursed through him, to guide his brilliance into something external lest it tear him to pieces from the inside.

His hammer fell once more.

With a hiss of dark potential, the five pieces began to melt together.

* * *

All at once, quick as a bubble bursting, the light vanished from Boggy’s eyes. In the same instant, all the strength left his limbs, and the hammer flew from suddenly inoperable fingers as he toppled forward onto his knees, only barely catching himself with his hands before his forehead tipped onto the still red-hot anvil. Without the Crucible to protect him, it would burn him the same as any other mortal.

The earth around him smoked and cracked, air billowing with heat and suffused with a stench like burnt hair. Boggy shivered, both with the unnatural cold that soaked into his bones, and exhaustion following the completion of his monumental task. Not only his SP crystals, but all his AP crystals had gone dead.

Atop the anvil, a sword beckoned, contained by a silvery, filigreed scabbard. Though they were of two separate pieces, sword and scabbard, they shared the same spirit, and neither one could exist in full without the other.

He had been forced to make the sword long due to the large amount of material going into it, only able to cut small scraps of steel without wasting the power that had clung to the original objects.

Though its shape might be considered unusual when placed against a typical blade of its kind, overlong by at least five or six inches, Boggy could not see it as anything other than perfect. It was exactly what it needed to be, should be. Though he could no longer sense it intrinsically, the memory of the power that exuded from the weapon nearly made him gasp.

It was his magnum opus. Sublime in its beauty, and flawless in its simplicity.

And yet, Boggy did not dare look upon it. For as much as it awed him, and as much as the achievement filled him with pride, he feared the thing more.

It was a beautiful aberration. A terrible transcendence.

“Did it work?”

Boggy’s head jerked up, and he found the Misfortune looming over him like a watchful crow perched atop a church steeple.

“Yes,” Boggy croaked. “No. I don’t know. We should throw it away. We should destroy it.”

But the words meant nothing. He already knew that this was not a thing that could be destroyed. He had created a permanent black stain upon the world—a boiling fury that no amount of blood could quench.

Goddess, what have I done?

“Did it keep the enchantments?” One-Eye asked. His hand hovered a hair's breadth above the weapon, but he did not quite touch it. Even he feared it.

“They integrated perfectly.”

“Good.”

“It’s a masterwork item.” Boggy had only created two enchanted items of that grade before. “I already slotted it with Absorb. If you Soulbind it, that means you will have two slots left.”

“Marvelous work. You have my compliments—and my thanks—Master Bogleg.”

“Please…” Boggy whispered, letting his gaze fall to the blackened earth powdering under his fingers. “If you have to keep it, at least promise me you will not use it.”

“Your part in this is over,” One-Eye said in a cold, cold voice. “Spend your money gladly, and forget this day ever happened. It will be better for you that way.”

Boggy wished that was possible—but he did not think it was. How could a smith forget his own masterpiece, no matter the depth of his loathing for it?