In 1024 AD, Wayland Smith had been chosen to forge a sword for the King of England. And since that age, his son, his son’s son, and all generations that followed had produced blacksmiths capable of miracles. A blacksmith—only one, as if it were some hereditary lottery-drawn obsession.
Of which Alex had been the next afflicted.
He’d used to watch the sparks as a child. They’d fly off molten metal as a hammer struck it. And the hammer would be back with a vengeance, a muscled arm behind it as if trying to turn swords to dollars the way Jesus had turned water to wine.
His father had rarely acknowledged him, for the few years that he’d been around, but Alex would still watch for hours, his eyes never leaving the backyard forge as it bellowed with fire. And as he stepped into a forge for the first time since he was a small child, it was that fire that he remembered.
Suppressed for far too long, it rose up to consume him.
You’ve awakened a dormant Bloodline!
[Forged in Fire]
Countless sparks fly from molten metal, but only one catches flame. You are the sole inheritor of 1000 year’s lineage of blacksmiths.
Effects: ???
An indescribable emotion hit Alex, a mix of intense elation as well as a sense of loss that was too strong to process in his exhausted state. He shoved it all down, refusing to look inward.
He knew what the surface level effects of his bloodline were. Enhanced learning, a concentrated state, a few abilities, the feeling of rightness when he tasted metal in the air. It was that sense of rightness he tried to focus on now, as he dusted off an old, slightly chipped hammer. His clawed arm still throbbed, but it at least felt a little better with a hammer in hand. His heart, which had begun to overclock, started to slow as he took stock of his surroundings.
The smithy was barebones: the anvil was missing its horn, the grind wheel had a pedal ripped off, a lone bellow sat where there was supposed to be a pair to fan the fires, and rusted tools lay about that didn’t look up to the task. The place was run down, and had been for a while too, at that.
He cleared dust from the workstation, compiling all his tools. A dull chisel, a bent fire poker, tongs but no gloves to grip them… he shoved a bag of old charcoal into the clay furnace and an unexpected plume of soot rose up to swallow him, sending him into a coughing fit.
It got in his lungs, tasting tangy sweet to his already tar-scorched breath and by the time he recovered, yet another inconvenience had grabbed his attention. He picked a decaying pouch containing a bright icy-blue colored powder and held it far from his face, inspecting it dubiously.
[Black-Scale Powder]
A powdered mixture ground from a Black-frost Salamander’s scales. Appearing dark black when at its freshest, it will evaporate into flammable vapor upon contact with fire, increasing its potency and duration.
Considered safe for use up to 3 years after death.
…Examine.
Expiration Date: 111 years ago.
Perhaps ‘run down’ was an understatement, he brooded. They really don’t want to make this easy for me, do they?
He grimaced as he thought further on it. No, they really didn’t.
The first time Alex had forged had also been in Nightmare. He’d had a party with him back then and had unlocked his bloodline much further down the line but even then, getting to his class unlock had been a miracle. What he’d perceived as a ‘difficult path’ was reading more clearly to him now as intentional sabotage, on behalf of Nightmare’s designers. He wondered, not for the first time, how he’d ever made it as far as he did.
Stubbornness, he shrugged. Luck.
But even with that on his side, there’d been just too much against him. He'd stumbled around blindly, making mistake after mistake, and eventually, he’d broken his foundation to the point that he could never truly utilize the gift he’d been born with. Foul play or not, he had lost.
In recent years it’d been harder to remember what things could’ve driven him to become a blacksmith in Nightmare of all places. What it had been that could’ve steered him onto this path of hardship and sorrow.
But that had a simple answer, didn’t it? He just hadn’t wanted to fight anymore.
He sat with the thought for a second. His shoulders fell and he took a lethargic breath before setting them into place. All paths led to conflict in the apocalypse. It was unavoidable. And it was something he had long since stopped mourning.
It had been at least.
Now, he had a different view on the matter.
He felt his grimy nails dig into flesh as he hardened his resolve. Unavoidable or not, this time he would wage his battles armed to the fucking teeth.
Was there risk to the idea? Yes, but there was nothing they could do to him that hadn’t already been done. They’d shown him hell and he’d lived through it. They’d given him scars but all he saw there was a decade and a half of experience burned into his soul. Knowledge they didn’t want him to have—weapons they didn’t want him to carry—time had provided him with far more than any man should have. And while the culmination of all that he’d gone through may no longer show on his body, it still stoked a cold certainty in his gut.
He would play their game, but not by their rules.
And none of it will go to waste.
Alex sprinkled some Black-Scale Powder onto the coals then, stepping a far distance back, chucked a lighter into the furnace.
There was a loud thwoom and an explosion of fire grasped for his face. He closed his eyes just in time and while its flame’s reach fell just short of him, the echo of soot from the charcoal sent him into another coughing fit. He desperately fanned in front of him, waiting a minute before he dared open his eyes—only to find that his clay furnace slightly cracked now.
But his fury subsided when he saw what was left behind; a beautiful fire that hardly even needed fanning. It lashed in the belly of the furnace with fervor and he read the color of its licks like a surfer read the waves.
His soul stirred as his system popped.
You have gained a new bloodline ability!
[Thermostat]
A smile turned his lips as he suddenly knew that the fire was 834°.
It seemed the System was treating his Bloodline abilities the same way it treated his skills. As long as he had the base stat requirements for them and the know-how, he would receive them freely.
He pumped the bellow to get it a little hotter. He prepared the room with everything he would need for the forging, pouring the Canola oil he’d bought from 7/11 into the large, elongated clothes basin for later. Then, Alex opened his inventory again and both the core and the animated knight from earlier collapsed in a pile at his feet.
[Abandoned Armor]
Trait: Malleability
With the heightened senses provided by his bloodline, he felt a tinge of regret as he saw them through new eyes.
Before him he had both a creation forged with enough love to almost develop its own soul, and the core belonging to the very same necromancer who’d chained it in never-ending death. The study of Essence and Aura was a behavioral science more than anything and ideally Alex should be able to use the powerful synergy between the two materials to create something amazing.
In… theory at least.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, a slight anger boiling up. Then he knelt by the armor’s side.
When he had found it in the heart of all that bloodshed, it’d felt like he had found himself for a moment—a damaged thing that had potential because of all it had experienced.
But even for Alex, someone with the right skillset, he just didn’t have enough to do the material justice. He didn’t have the stats he needed, he didn’t have the time, and he didn't have enough skill slots either. He only had two free skill slots remaining, and even with all the Essence Crystals he had in store, he wouldn’t have his full arsenal of skills at hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered sweetly.
He brushed the armor's curves with sorrow, trailing the blunted wedges gently with his fingertips.
Then he tossed pieces of the armor into the fire. He captured the very moment the piece’s trait glitched and fizzled out, burning the memory into his eyes.
I’m sorry, I can’t give you the love you deserve.
***
Necessity is the mother of invention, or so the saying goes, but what’s left unsaid is that not all inventions are born pretty.
Some years into the apocalypse, Alex had once been forcefully ‘apprenticed’ to a Master Blacksmith, a crotchety old man who’d achieved Immortality too late to retain his youth, and who’d hated his style of blacksmithing so much that he refused to teach him anything.
Well, not anything. There’d been one lesson he’d parted—perhaps the most important in Alex’s life—and it’d been recited less than a minute after he’d started when the man had ripped his hammer away and thrown it across the room.
Alex only remembered his words out of spite.
“Here’s what you don’t understand, shithead. When you create something—anything; A sword, a horseshoe, an iron rod to shove up your ass for all I care—you’re not creating a thing, you’re birthing a soul. Any Smith who refuses to invest their own soul into the process hasn’t earned a place in my forge.”
At the time Alex had been so pissed off he’d annoyed the man for another three months before his leave, and his ‘Master’ seemed to have kept him around just to have someone to hate. But despite all that wasted time, Alex had only just now started to realize what he’d meant. Only now, after regaining all that he had lost.
The fire manifest in his soul flared up, flickering to a beat so familiar and yet so hazy in his recollection. For such a long time, he’d felt there was something missing in him that he couldn’t put a finger on, but he understood now what those words had meant. He watched the armor soften and subtly lose shape. The system only said ‘Oslumnen Metal’ now.
No.
Something primal objected from deep within. He picked up his hammer and his bloodline stirred.
No.
The fires could have the armor’s trait, but that wasn’t all it was. He had felt it there, when he’d been crouched in that field. Its soul was mutilated and shattered, its potential twisted out of shape. But the remembrance was still there—clinging helplessly to its lattice—the dying embers of a purple flame.
It’s Aura.
Alex could imagine every ancestor he’d ever had looking upon him at that moment and his shoulders dipped from the hammer’s weight before settling in a relaxed position. Once, blacksmithing had been an escape for him. After crafting Lys it had only been a prison. The style of blacksmithing he’d developed wasn’t one he could easily break free from.
But right now, he could do anything.
Worries of survival, of his sister, of Jun and Gloomy, of all else, he purged them from his mind. He forgot his senses, his survival instincts even, and his fatigue melted away until it was just him and flames. There could be no room for contamination in this forging.
Afterall, Alex was going to birth a soul.
He began immediately, heat licking his face as he leaned in to poke the fire. His eyes watered as he judged the glowing armor by its color.
Thankfully, all signs pointed to the armor being a decorative piece, which was good since it wouldn't previously have been heat-treated. That meant that heating it out of shape wouldn’t ruin its molecular lattice.
That said, Oslumnen wasn’t used in combat for a reason. It was more brittle when hardened, and would break sooner against well-made weapons than other materials since it was a soft metal. Traditionally, it was alloyed with iron and a few other compatible ores for this exact reason. But unfortunately, he didn’t have any on hand. The iron supplied to most of the low level mobs was worse than rusted wrought for his purposes and the dagger he carried didn’t carry enough steel for a full sword.
But that also meant it melted at a much lower temperature than iron. And as it was naturally black by color, he would know it was ready when it reached a deeper molten yellow.
He looked into those fires. He still felt a tinge of sadness at the trait’s loss, but he shoved it down. It wasn’t the important part, he knew that now. Besides, the ore alone was still better than anything else he could get his hands on at the moment and that was for one simple reason.
Despite all its flaws, Oslumnen held one vital strength that most earthen metals didn’t; it could conduct mana. Without running mana through a weapon, there could be no traits, perks, or enchantments, and many skills were entirely unusable.
And without mana, you can’t do this.
Alex reached for his bound Essence and twisted it, forming a pattern he knew better than any other—one he’d used more than any in his life—and connected it to his soul.
Skill [Metalwork] has been affixed!
Cost: 2 Slots. Remaining skill slots: 0
[Metalwork]
Allows one to embed mana into metals and manipulate it through the act of hammering.
He grabbed the metal from the fire with his tongs, torn cloth insulating his grip, and held it over the anvil. He extended his senses, feeding mana into the molten metal, embedding it into its very grain. Then he centered even more mana on his hammer’s blunt edge as he swung it.
As the hammer met metal, he manipulated the mana’s molten shape ever so slightly with his blows, both from inside and out.
And subtly, the impact began to make a difference.
Sparks flew from the anvil and he soon fell into a familiar rhythm, clanging sounds serenading his ears like a melodic metronome. Two high pitched clangs then a lower one as he bounced the hammer off the anvil. A shrill sizzle as he quenched it in water and a deep crackle as fire claimed it once more. It both lulled him to sleep and kept him wide awake at the same time.
Forge Welding was one of the fundamentals of blacksmithing, and it required a precise monitoring of temperature. The heat from the forge served to soften the metal so its shape could be changed, and quenching it in water cooled it and kept it solidified. He was doing a lot more of the former than the latter since he just wanted to control its temperature rather than harden it into form right now.
Since he was repurposing armor scraps into a new ingot rather than starting fresh with one, his strikes had to be more gentle because the metal was thinner and more brittle. He could easily break it apart by going too fast or hard.
And so he kept his rhythm.
He swung his hammer with the cadence of a man ringing a gong. He drew the metal out, then folded it in over itself, sprinkling borax from his inventory to keep it from oxidizing. He reached into the bag that had held the charcoal until he found the bottom where there was a crushed powder of the stuff. Then he coated his anvil with it in deliberate, precise amounts to integrate Carbon into the compound.
Thankfully, Oslumnen was anti-corrosive and thus had little slag or rust to beat out, but mana manipulation made all the difference timewise. Even still, it was a long process that required constant concentration and effort. And by the time he had formed his Oslumnen billet, Alex had reached far past his limits.
His control over his mana had lost grip. His reserves had been run ragged from so much [Metalwork]. His muscles tinged and twitched in odd ways, his legs wouldn’t move. He dipped forward, seeing dark. And as his body was about to fall apart for good, a crazed smile drifted across his face.
He reached for that power, tingling within him…
…and dragged all of it into the depths of his soul—refining it.
4,340 Essence Crystals have been consumed!
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
+10 skill slots
Progress towards Level 11: [40/1,500]
ALERT: You have entered a Supercharged State. If Essence is not bound to stats within a limited time frame you risk imminite–
Alex didn’t need to hear the rest of the warning, he could already feel it on all planes of reality; his mind, his body, his spirit, his soul.
A rush of power flooded him, greater than the sum of his current existence and it threatened to tear him apart on all levels. His skin fissured with luminescence, his astral body burst at its seams. There were reasons you didn’t mess with the System’s safety guards—an Awakened at the fifth level had no hope of integrating this influx of Essence all at once. Not at this magnitude.
At least, not unless their Essense reserves had been wholly and utterly exhausted that is.
A smile cracked Alex’s lips.
Essence has integrated with the Fortitude stat!
Fortitude +2
Essence has integrated with the Arcane stat!
Arcane +3
Essence has integrated with the Perception stat!
Perception +1
Essence has integrated with the Dexterity stat!
Dexterity +1
Essence has integrated with the Strength stat!
Strength +7
The power-high was intense and immediate: Like the feeling of new muscle you felt after a day of bench pressing. Except the three days of rest between soreness and gains were removed and the feeling was instant.
At first it was a struggle to lift his arm. Then the struggle was with swinging it hard enough to shape an ingot. Finally, as the power flowed like thick lava through his veins, the struggle was to restrain himself.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
He’d been waiting for this moment, withheld the use of his Essence specifically for this. When that unbound power was fed into your stats, you had to train them immediately for the greatest benefit.
But what if the facets of that stat were already pushed to their brink? What then?!
Alex began to cackle maniacally as sparks spit at his face. He lost sense of rhythm on his strikes, hitting as hard as he could while still maintaining technique. Strength coursed through his body and he felt the investment of two years of sleepless, corporate pain pay itself off.
Nearly 3,500 Essence!
All that power now graced the body of an overworked man pushing past his limits. He was unstoppable! His entire body was slick with sweat now—he hardly noticed as the wound on his arm started to bleed.
He fed the fire hotter and stuck the ingot in again, a bar welded to one end for grip. He struck it some more. Harder and harder. His mind thought clearly for the first time in ages, his manipulation of the mana was regaining its hold. The black bar turned a deeper orange-ish red and its shape grew bolder. A drop of crimson finally dripped from his arm and sizzled against its metal.
It was time.
He summoned the core from his inventory.
[Chimik Core - (Unranked, Common)]
The core of a Chimik with Death Aura. Can be used as crafting material.
If Essence was the intersection where life met power, then Aura was pretty much the lingering impact that that power had on reality. When you ran your mana through distinct essence-patterns like the ones skills had—or better yet, the Essence Signature of your very soul—it eventually began to emulate those patterns on its own, becoming Aura. And even upon death, when the system reaped that essence from the soul, if the pattern was deeply ingrained enough, that Aura remained.
The kicker was that you needed a Core to cultivate Aura. It was the only place where you could refilter your mana pool instead of replenishing it from the outer world. And if that Core suddenly disappeared…
Alex looked down to the core in his hand, a brief moment’s hesitation washing over him. It was a murky black, darker even than the ore, yet had a shaded sort of luminescence to it.
If the Core disappears then that Aura disperses.
And Alex knew first hand that some aspects of aura—when loosed from its cage—could cause deadlier effects than others.
A small inkling of his Danger-sense stirred languidly from its slumber at the thought.
There was nothing living about this core—even with the trace remaining Essence it still had—but Aura emulated that which it powered in life. And sometimes that meant it could hold a sort of ‘lingering will’. If this Aura somehow remembered what had killed it…
No. Statistically unlikely.
But if it did happen, Alex had no Aura of his own to defend himself with.
For the moment, he put that out of mind. He wasn’t the puny existence he had been a few hours ago. He was something different now, more whole. And as he held his hammer over the molten ingot, newfound strength tingling along his arm, he reached for a familiar skill.
[Meld]
Instantly, the orb melded into the ingot like molten glass with his impact. It darkened the black ore like a shadow in the night. Its intense hot red became a molten purple-black as he stuck it back in the flames.
The Core still held distinct form for the meantime, its compounds not fully ruptured.
He pumped the bellow with his foot to make the heat more intense, and once it was purple as the cosmic sky, his hammer rose once more.
[Metalwork]
The Core exploded.
Death Aura flared.
For the first time this forging, Alex thought that he might’ve made a mistake. That in his overconfidence, he’d reached too far beyond his bounds. He could feel the slow crawl of death all across his body. It raised the hairs along his skin, singing the ends a charred black. His instincts screamed as it went searching for his soul.
It found it.
And then it just moved past him. Rampant still—but now aimless in its rage.
He had no breath for relief. He just brought his hammer down again, not letting the aura escape.
[Metalwork] has Leveled up!
His hammering became unceasing as it bounced off the anvil, recapturing its rhythm. Two high pitched clangs. A lower one.
Mana: [21%]
Metalwork was a skill with such a low mana-cost that the drain was almost unnoticeable at first use. But after hours and hours of repetition it added up quickly. And now, with so much more mana and aura to work with, that drain was only increasing.
Aptitude with [Metalwork] has been recognized. Proficiency gains have been accelerated.
Authority of Bloodline has been recognized. Proficiency gains have been accelerated.
And yet, even with the skill leveling up before his eyes, it was still over-reaching.
His astral senses worked overtime to grasp that aura and hammer it into the metal’s lattice, but his Perception and Arcane stats were just too low. He reckoned it was only thanks to the mana-conductivity of the pure Oslumnen compound that he was managing at all.
Mana: [20%]
Mana: [19%]
As Alex worked furiously to integrate the Core’s aura, he began to notice a new problem. That purple flame—the spark he’d been trying to preserve—it began to flicker out and die. The cold aura of death smothered it, snuffing it out at its embers.
It was far weaker than Alex had thought. And yet, he could hear pleas in its voice—the desperation in its withering heat.
He knew what he had to do.
Refine. Bind. Affix.
The process used for Leveling and learning skills was universal for all formations of power. And right now he was in the binding phase, attempting to tether the aura to the ore.
But the aura was only an echo of power. It retained form only due to the memory of Essence, due to the confines of the core where it had formed, its habitat. To bind it to a new host it needed new stimulation, and that required more Essence.
Alex frowned. Hesitation seeped its way into his hammer’s rhythm. His grip tightened to combat the slick of sweat.
He’d planned to repurpose a few of his skill slots to the cause, but he could already tell. It wouldn’t be enough.
Sure, he could still bind the core’s aura, affix it with an Essence pattern similar to the one it remembered—but if he did, that purple flame would die. The two auras' strengths and natures contrasted too greatly to meld cohesively.
Still, It was the logical decision, and he was sure he could get a useful trait.
But there was a different course he could take, wasn’t there? Didn’t he have one more source of Essence that had gone untapped? He could feel it there—not nestled in his—but blazing like a sun, large as the whole damn thing… it was his Vital Essence.
He remembered his Master’s words.
“Any Smith who refuses to invest their own soul into the process hasn’t earned a place in my forge.”
Alex chuckled—a deranged thing. He knew his Master hadn’t meant it literally. If the man had thrown his hammer for not forging with passion, he damn well would’ve bludgeoned him with the thing for even thinking of this.
Christ, he’d never even heard of someone attempting something like what he was thinking of. And gods only knew why. It was a stupid idea. It would require convoluted execution and only had downsides.
Hells, there wasn’t even a reason to if you had formed your core. And what experienced Blacksmith didn’t have their god-damned core?!
Alex laughed.
The circumstances that had brought him before this decision were extraneously stupid. But that didn’t matter. He was here, and this was real. And when the purple flame gave its last flare, he knew something else with certainty. It would fucking work.
And that was what led him to feed the flame his soul.
[Soul Bond Established]
ERROR: only one Soul has been detected.
Soul Bond has been limited to only partial integration for your safety.
WARNING: Soul Bond is unstable. The Binding is currently open-ended. Please close the Binding before Vital Essence leakage occurs.
Alex doubled over, seeing triple in his vision.
He was experiencing himself from outside his body. It took effort—effort and pain—to plant his feet in the ground. To stop himself from keeling into the fire.
It took all the more to swing his hammer, much less with any discernible technique.
His soul had already started leaking and if the Death Aura hadn’t noticed it earlier, it sure did now. The aura bristled, practically salivating, like a pack of hyenas observing its prey for the mere second before it rushed in. It bit into him, trying to consume his soul.
He let it.
And watched as a purple fire rose up to consume it instead. He watched as that fire grew a darker shade of purple, as it began to grow in power. The Death aura tried to fight it, but all was feast for the flames, and all was consumed.
A black-purple flame now danced within the metal. A flame made of Death and something else, something he couldn’t quite make out. It twisted and writhed in its own form, the binding complete but—
WARNING: Soul Bond unstable. Please close the Bindi–
The fire twisted in its conforms, purple-black aura flowing in harrowing patterns, dragging the essence in the binding along with it, attempting to affix it in a new formation. It didn’t didn’t have the Essence for what it was trying to attempt, but it knew where it could find more.
No.
Alex began hammering.
Not just hammering, shaping. Not just the weapon, but his new life.
Not just a vague idea. He needed something concrete! An actionable plan, a clear goal. He’d stalled long enough, if he couldn’t find it now he never would.
He’d always been like this. Vague notions of the future for a man who didn’t expect to live the day through. He’d used to dream of switching out his class, of being anything but a Blacksmith, but even when the opportunity came had he given a single thought to what else he might be? For fucks sake, he’d imagined this moment a million times—not like this, but here it was!
You don’t have to walk the same path, an old, broken voice told him, you can do anything you want now.
But then he felt his bloodline there, within reach, his again and his trait buzzed in his skull, it reverberated, and something about it all just felt so right.
He laughed.
He hammered.
His mana pool dipped further down as he crammed more behind the strikes.
The aura tried to tug at his soul, it tried to fight him for control over the binding’s pattern. And as it realized it was losing that battle, some of it tried to escape. Dark spots at the edges of the flame flickered and tapered off. He couldn’t stop it.
But if he could retain just 30% of the aura...
Then I’ll have a solid common-grade weapon on my hands.
No, fuck that.
That was the old Alex speaking. The one who’d lost everything he’d treasured. The one who got thrown onto his ass out of his Master’s forge.
Swallow your emotions, don’t contaminate the piece.
But hadn’t his greatest creation come from an overpour of emotions? A passion so powerful even his shitty class optimization couldn’t stop it? Had he ever truly understood what it meant to put himself in his creations?
He laughed again, reaching for his bloodline to steady his arm.
Strength +8!
The heat of the forge tinged his skin and electricity coursed through sore muscles as he realized he was still Charged. His hair stuck to his forehead and he sweltered underneath his clothes. He ripped his shirt off and flames licked his body. His hammer struck down. Over and over.
Again.
Strength +9!
And again.
Strength +10!
And again.
Strength +11!
Alex’s mana pool dipped to 9% as he crammed more behind the strikes. The aura tried to tug at him, tried to leach all it could from his soul, but he trapped it all back into the ingot.
Then the unintegrated Necromantic aura on the fringe of the fire began to disperse and he couldn’t have that either so he fed just a sliver more essence through to the flame as bait.
[Mana - 7%]
The Purple-black aura was taking all that he had given it and throwing it back at him. It latched itself greedily to his soul and he kept beating it back. It was a race to finalize the blade’s shape before he ran out of mana, to affix its essence pattern before it tried to form its own—to close the Soul Bond before he died.
He was done with compromises, done with pacing himself.
He’d been given another chance at life, what was the point if he didn’t live how he wanted? Hadn’t he told himself no regrets? Hadn’t he wished so desperately for that freedom?!
Then what did he want?
I want to save my sister–
What else?
I want to surpass those who left me behind. I want to save everyone I failed. I’ll kill my enemies before they even have the chance–
No. Deeper than that. What was it at the core of his being? What was it he needed more than anything else?
Sparks flew.
Like the ones Alex would watch as a kid. The shadowy ingot whistling as—no, it was no longer an ingot. It was taking shape, Alex could tell what it wanted from the aura’s anticipation of his hammer, the shrill vibration of its remnant essence. Their wants were almost aligned now.
So what is it I want–
His hammer struck, one last time. And the answer appeared in front of him.
***
There was a low-pitched hum.
A sound like a rough scrape.
No, not just a sound, a feeling, a familiar rhythm. Monotone, yet strangely melodic. In a way that reverberated in your skin, grainy, grounding…calming, like a lonesome night under a roof of rain.
He’d been… tempering his sword… no, he’d been fitting it? It was all a blur, but he remembered holding it against the grindstone, that rough-hedged vibration on his fingertips. It always calmed him after an intense forging.
He could still hear it now, if he closed his eyes. The wheel spinning, the shaving and sharpening of cold metal. Then the noise suddenly stopped.
Alex opened his eyes feeling like he’d taken his first full night’s rest in years. The auburn color of sky leaking through the shed door told a different story though. He rubbed his head where a bump protruded.
Shit… I must’ve conked at some point.
His notifications were pinging annoyingly for his attention, but he waved them away. He didn’t need it to tell him he’d managed to close soul bond, he could well enough from the fact he was still alive, and still had a soul. Instead he opened his system to get a full rundown of what had changed.
Alex Smith
Race: Human
Bloodline: [Forged in Fire]
Class: N/A
Level: 10
Titles: N/A
Attributes: [Half-Dead Persistence]
HP: 90%
Mana: 11%
Stamina: 31%
Skills:
[Stealth] Lvl 10 (novice)
[Metalwork] Lvl 9 (novice)
[Meld] Lvl 6 (novice)
[Examine] Lvl 3 (novice)
Free Skill Slots: 7
Stats:
Vitality - 3
Strength - 12
Dexterity - 4
Fortitude - 7
Perception - 5
Arcane - 5
He grunted, then nodded once. Truthfully, he was more relieved than anything really.
Alex’s sleep, though it was hardly a full night’s rest, had done wonders for Stamina recovery. It was now back to an almost functioning level—though his perspective on the matter may have been a skewed one. And as he stood from where he’d napped on the floor, he noticed that there was a lot more that had changed as well.
His body was different—tall and lean still, but also slightly wider now. There was a subtle build to it and he could tell from the ease of movement, the confidence in his step, just how large that boost to his Strength must have been. It wasn’t enough yet, but he’d gone from sub-human to something almost greater-than. He could let himself celebrate that at least.
He moved lethargically, large hands trailing the dust of the workspace. The lighting was darker now that the fire had gone out, but his soul was fixed and whole and he wasn’t dead. That was enough to know he must have completed her. On his work table he saw a fragment of shadow that seemed to blur darker than all the others and reached for it—only to halt as he sensed a presence.
Someone had entered the forge.
He could hear their soft, shallow steps on the packed dirt as they approached. Not all that surprising of course, the chimney had been smoking for hours. Him being there was in no way a secret. And also…
He glanced at the scant sunlight feeding through the shed’s cracks. It was growing dimmer, fast. His respite was over it seemed.
“We were worried about you, Alex,” the voice said as it came closer, “You didn’t show up to the Adventurer’s registration like the others.”
Ah, Alex realized. Not just anyone. It was him.
The Mayor stepped up to him, putting his hand on his shoulder, “I don’t intend to bother you, of course, I know you—”
That was the last thing he’d said before his head fell from his neck.
It rolled away from his body, trailing blood until it came to a stop close to the doorway. His eyes were glassy as they stared up in shock.
Then they started to melt, along with all his flesh until he was nothing but empty sockets in an old skull. His decapitated body turned to bones as well where it collapsed. Alex noticed how those spindly fingers were positioned towards a rusted knife beneath his clothes. His own fingers instinctively went to his eye where his oldest scar had once run.
The skull’s teeth chattered with humor, “Ruthless bastard, how did you even kno–”
He ran his new blade through the skull’s crown and this time it was silenced for good.
You have slain an Undead Mayor!
+50 Essence Crystals
Alex supposed he’d just enacted his first act of revenge, but even that didn’t matter to him right now. He paid the notifications no attention as he trailed his fingers along his blade’s edge.
It was a light blade—lighter than it had any right being at thirty-five inches of length, thanks to the material. He’d grown used to wielding relatively lengthy swords and he wasn’t ready to give that up, nor his one handed wielding style. But if there was one area he’d gone outside his comfort zone with this night—aside from risking his soul—it was the shape.
He knew that Oslumnen’s inherent brittleness was the sword’s greatest weakness so he’d modeled it after the Persian Shamshir with a steep, backward curve—tapering off to a thin and sharp tip, shaped like the crescent end of Death’s sickle. It would allow for a non-confrontative style of attack, with sweeping slashes and glancing blows.
It was a sword made for striking from shadows rather than to wage a war on the battlefield, but he’d forged it with a passion he’d been unable to replicate since Lys. Even if it wasn’t a rare grade weapon, even if this blade wouldn’t last him all his years… it was perfect.
He brushed his finger further up the spine. There was a dark glint along the crescent’s edge where the undead’s blood disintegrated—a presence that made him feel as if that armor’s spirit wasn’t entirely gone.
He’d thought about it, in those final moments of shaping. That set of armor had been resurrected against its will, and yet it had been abandoned for so long, forgotten and never worn, had that Necromancer really come along at such perfect timing to reap the rewards in the final stage?
No, he’d surmised, It’d lost hope long before that. But that’s not the same as wishing for death, now is it.
He held the blade’s flat gently across his fingers and it shimmered, resonating in his bones.
Bloodline activated.
[Undeath’s Bane (Uncommon, F Grade)]
A fragile blade of death and newfound purpose.
Trait: Cleanse - purges the undead.
Title obtained! [The First Spark]
You’re the first person to craft a weapon in Nightmare!
You’ll find it easier to obtain higher grade modifiers when forging.
Alex walked out into the crimson dusk, striding past two burly adventurers—the ones he’d sensed trailing him since he’d left the guild hall. Their eyes were drawn to the sword, the ash of the mayor’s blood dissipating off the tip. Their hands went immediately to their own weapons and yet they didn’t draw. Their limitation’s must’ve been lifted the moment Alex struck the mayor, they no longer had reason to hesitate, but they did so anyway.
Across the way, a whole legion of villagers had gathered. The woman who’d been selling flowers waved at him, a child’s ball dropped and rolled to his feet and he looked up expectantly. Dusk fell, and their flesh all fell away with it, making way for chattering bone and stubborn sinew.
A witless villager stepped within range of his blade, and immediately the night erupted into violence.
My deepest desire, Alex mused, carving another limb.
He still hadn’t the slightest idea. While he’d been forging, for a moment he’d felt like he’d found the answer, but the words had faded from him like sand, flowing into the blade itself.
Still, there’d been one other revelation of late. One that’d been bothering him since he’d first come back to this world, perhaps even long before then. It seemed the freedom he yearned for—true freedom, was only achievable by one method.
The blade’s Oslumnen edge sheared through air, singing at a higher pitch than steel as it sliced bone.
By becoming so powerful no one can take it away.
Alex twirled, decapitating two undead Adventures and whipping the blood off his blade in the same motion. The nearest wave of undead gave pause and he lifted the blade to his lips, giving its face a soft smooch under the new moon.
Alex was firm on his resolve. There were things he wanted now, and that was good enough. When the sun rose and he left this accursed town it would be as a [Blacksmith-Warrior].
His lip curled in a smile.
“Seems we’ll be seeing some action tonight,” he whispered.
***
Mandatory Scenario has been triggered
SCENARIO 2 — Night of the Undead
This wicked Town has sold their souls for unfathomable power, and now they will feast upon yours! The High Council enlists your help in putting this great evil to rest once and for all!
Lobby count: 25
Rewards:
3,000 Essence Crystals
1 Skill Trial-Token
Intermediate Skills Catalog
Items and Potions will be unlocked for Purchase in the Shop.
Bonus rewards will be unlocked based on point tally:
Undead Villagers — 1 point
Town Mayor — 2 points
Undead Adventurers — 3 points
Undead Captains — 10 points
Guild Master Lionheart — X
Bonus Rewards:
15 Points — Receive one Status-Recovery Potion.
30 Points — Receive a Common-Grade Weapon from the shop up to 5,000 EC in value.
50 Points — Receive one High-Grade Potion Box-set.
100 Points — Receive one Skill from the Shop up to 20,000 EC in value.
X — ???
Warning: Points can only be earned before Midnight.
Additional Bonus rewards will be awarded at Scenario Completion based on a graded assessment of your performance.
Clear Conditions:
Survive until sunrise.
Good luck!