Never again, never again, never again… The endless chanting and laughter rings out through the monastery between the uneven strikes on his anvil. A solid string of expletives escape his mouth as a spasm shoots through his hand, throwing off his swing and ruining yet another piece of metal. Angrily, he throws his hammer and shoves the metal he was working on back into the fire. Spritz cowers back from the iron as it enters the forge, scared of the madman before him.
“The funeral is over.” A voice calls out to him. “You should have been there to see him off…” The speaker was long gone by the time Glim finally looked up, tears flowing freely. His hand spasms again, and he punches a nearby wall.
“Fine. If you won’t cooperate, I’ll force you to!” He eyes the prosthetic arm that he had once made for Ara. He examines it closely, making sure it has all the necessary parts, and thanks himself quietly for having foresight for at least one time in his life.
“Never again.” he repeats, as he grabs a nearby weapon. He screams loudly as he brings the weapon down, and barely remains conscious as he grabs the prosthetic and shoves it into his stump before blacking out in pain.
His eyes flutter open in the dark and cold. He reaches up to his face to rub his eyes, and begins to panic as his limb refuses to move. He sits up quickly, and a figure in a mask moves to his side to catch him as he nearly falls over. Glim looks at the empty space that his arm once existed in, “It didn’t work…” He quietly says to himself.
“Of course not.” The figure states calmly. “You forgot one of the most important pieces, and that operation would never have worked alone regardless. You’re lucky the forge spirit was there to cauterize the wound after you passed out. Doubly lucky that it was willing to do so, the thing seems terrified by you right now, and yet it still wants to help you.”
The figure allowed the silence to permeate for a second, before continuing “I’ve made the part you forgot, but I am not going to watch you go down this path. This will be the last time I assist you with such a stupid idea.” The figure spoke with a calm authority, the power behind the voice shaking Glim to the core. “Now sleep.”
The magic took hold, and Glim slumped backwards as he drifted off.
Glim flexed his fingers, feeling the strange new arm and hand for the first time. The tremor in that hand was gone, though it remained in his flesh hand. He sighed heavily and made his way back to the forge. He had work to do.
Three weeks had passed since the funeral. The shaking in Glim’s left hand never stopped, but was far more ignorable as long as he remembered to use his prosthetic for the important moments. Razer sat to the side of the forge, his lithe form depowered and lifeless as the spirit that normally powered his core was busy tending to the fire inside the forge. Currently, Glim was working on a new hand prosthetic. A new type of weapon that afforded him the liberty of both ranged and melee combat. Unfortunately, the blasts became wildly inaccurate after about 60 ft, but he didn’t intend to ever be that far from his friends anyway, never again. Behind him, a slew of thunder cannons littered the floor. He had once used them as his primary weapon, but decided that they were far too unwieldy to be used with his group. Marsyth made it work with her own weapon, but he did not share her abilities. He had decided that these would go to arm the guards of Beliard. They clearly lacked the proper fire power to protect the people, so he’d fix that. The twelve cannons on the ground wouldn't be nearly enough to arm all the guards, but he’d worry about that later, after he and Marsyth finished the new weapons they were working on. Marsyth was designing a quite ingenious “light” gun that channelled pure light into destructive energy. That was quite fun to make.
He paused from his crafting as the tremors shook his entire body and he broke into a fit of laughter. It took several minutes, but as the laughter began to subside, his gaze wandered over to Razerr. Perfection! He thought to himself. Razerr’s body was much thinner than his previous companion’s, and unlike the predecessor, it was covered in jagged spikes and sharp blades that protruded from odd angles. Glim had designed him with a different goal in mind. Where Dozer was the pinnacle of elegance and protection, with a side of destruction, Razer was designed purely for damage and speed, his goal to cause as much damage as possible to an enemy force.
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Razer also had a new core. One that was unpowered, but instead had a nice hollow area inside that would allow Spritz room to enter. He couldn’t find a way for Razer to have true sentience, but by using Spritz as the power source he was able to give Razer much more autonomy than before, allowing him to make complex decisions based on the last command given. The downside to this was that anytime Glim needed Spritz for crafting, Razer was left completely inert. Not that Glim cared, of course, because this creation was built solely for combat.
Glim resumed his work on the hand. He had originally spent a few days tinkering with the arrow that Ara had designed for him, trying to integrate it with his arcane longbow design. That worked, but it also gave Glim another idea. Since he had already lost his arm, he figured he could combine both concepts and condense them further. Instead of two gloves that interacted with each other, Glim and Marsyth were able to create a hand with the same function, but much cleaner. Instead, the new projectile would launch from the center of the palm and leave his off hand free for carrying a shield, torch, or any other object. With a bit of work, they were also able to get the prototype to reshape the energy into a blade as well, giving him the option of a melee attack if needed. Glim giggled to himself, thinking about how proud Ara would be to see a blade already attached to the new weapon. A silent voice in his mind asked him if Ara would even be proud to see what has happened to him, but as usual, Glim chose to ignore it.
Crafting in the last couple weeks had been going much slower than Glim liked, thanks to the outbursts and the tremors. He had been hoping to accomplish much more than he had, but even with Marsyth’s help, he’d only been able to make Razer, the twelve thunder cannons, and was about to finish the full production hand blaster, that he had dubbed ‘Totally Awesome Hand Blaster of Unimaginable Impressiveness’, or ‘Tahboui’ for short. The ideas for other creations were flowing in faster than he could make or write them down. Things like jets in his feet, or changing out his eyes for ones that could see through walls, or creating factories that could automatically create weapons that he could sell to town guards. He could recreate the turrets that he had once designed with the help of his crafting guild, and mount them to walls as anti-siege weapons. Could be quite useful since apparently Beliard had once been attacked by a dragon while he was gone… He also entertained the idea of creating some explosives based on the concept of his sabotaged thunder cannon from a long time prior, though he dismissed it for the time being because he was afraid to hurt friends with them. Maybe he’d revisit it if he could figure out how Tazrakus Marvolo Frostbender of the Isle of Draconia was able to shape his spells away from allies sometimes.
Regardless, Glim was confident that he’d be able to get quite a bit of all of it done, if given enough time. As always though, things never go to plan. About half way through the week, Marsyth had dropped the news that she'd be leaving at the end of the next week. The disappointment was palpable, and the tremors began coming more frequently again as Glim’s fear began to consume him. Fear that without Marsyth to help him craft, he’d never be ready. That’d he’d fail again, and lose another friend. Scared that his madness would drive him to take even more drastic measures. Scared that he’d lose it all...
“Don’t do anything I wouldn't do.” She told him, always concise. His last week with help had come and gone quickly, but at least they had made sure to complete the ‘Tahboui'. Until that point, he had been afraid that he’d never be able to finish it. His tremors had subsided after that initial night of panic, and with the new hand attached, he finally felt like he was ready for a battle to break out. Thankfully, no one had been attacked while they were working on it. Unfortunately, with Marysth leaving, and Ara not having been seen since the funeral, Glim was without any tinkering help again, and with his hand still trembling occasionally, he wouldn’t make the progress he wanted to. No new eyes, no jet feet, no mecha stomach to remove the need to eat… He did have one resource left at his disposal though. One that had never failed him before.
With all his tools packed into the pocket dimension of the arm, and a quick note penned to explain his absence, Glim and Razer set off from the monastery. It was time to pay dues to his guild again.