Day 659

Today was not good. It was very not good.

Stopped by Weland’s this morning. Gherti is still annoyed. I’d like to think that it’s just from lack of sleep, but I’m pretty sure she blames me for that too. I added in a bottle of wine to my “forgive me I’m sorry” gift of tea. I think it helped. Or at least it didn’t hurt. Most likely Gherti was just too tired to yell at me. Weland is still in the zone. I don’t know if he’s slept. Somehow he still looks fine.

He’s given me free run in his shop to work on whatever I want. Telekinetically hammering out my new ammo was fairly easy, but I almost inspired a new level of crazy in the elf when he saw what I was doing. I think that was his plan. Luckily I was able to prevent that by explaining what I was doing. He’s not a mage, and even a mage would probably have a little bit of trouble working metal with nothing more than their mind and a bit of mana. Hopefully he’ll finish my sword before he thinks too deeply on that and starts trying to learn magic.

Sorry Gherti. I’m a bad influence.

(I’d like to meet an elven mage. They’d probably be a lot of fun to talk to. Or not. I could see them being even worse than Verdis in some ways.)

Later, Haylen took me over to Mayra’s. Her house is big enough that I think even the Ancestor’s would be jealous. It’s also really cool. I wish I knew more about architecture so I could properly describe it. It fits the “blocky and bricky” theme that Orlis seems to favor, but the large amounts of wood an extra level of refinement to it.

She Mayra has her own workshop and everything. I’ve been keeping my third eye open (Is that what I’m calling it now? It’s versatile, but I’m still not sure what it is that I’m actually seeing with it.) almost nonstop these past few days, and her room was practically glowing with magic. I think most of it was stuff that she picked up in Peninsula, but still. Damn that’s a lot.

Also, fuck Mayra! How did she get that golem to work so well? I could have sworn that I pulled that thing out of a toy box when I first found it. And the maid outfit? It’s too frikkin cute! I’d have given her my little puppy one as well, but at this point I’m afraid she’ll find some sort of hidden function that transforms it into a giant wolf robot or something.

How come I don’t have a mini-maid?! It’s my own fault though, and it would be a dick move to ask for it back at this point. Congratulations Mayra.

Note to self: Build a maid golem.

Extra note: Learn how to build a golem.

Extra extra note: See if there’s anything from the crazy witch’s notebook that could be used for a golem.

Super note: MAKE SURE YOU DON'T ACCIDENTALLY SUMMON A SOUL FROM ANOTHER REALITY!

We had tea. It was alright. We had cake/pastry things. They were great. What do you even call a jelly-filled crissaunt croissant? Would that be a kind of doughnut, or would it be a strudel?

Still not sure if she’ll be coming on the pilgrimage. She wants to, but I guess nobles have more obligations than other people. I keep forgetting that she’s technically upper-class. She doesn’t act like it.

Then Verdis had to ruin the day. And by that I mean I did something stupid that ruined both our days.

I really underestimated the spell I made. Or maybe I overestimated Verdis. Or the wards and protections on the guild. Either way, I went overboard. In hindsight, charging that scroll with an entire car battery’s worth of mana was a lot more than it needed. It takes me the better part of a day to fill a single one of those things so, realistically, that was a lot more mana than was strictly necessary.

(Is MP a thing here? It would be weird if it wasn’t. I know I’ve asked myself this before. Surely the ancestors had a unit of measurement for mana, right? They had batteries! The must have one. Meh. I’ll look into it later. It probably wouldn’t help outside of spell circles anyway.)

So yeah, I kinda set off a bomb in the mages guild. I didn’t mean to! Kinda. Kinda kinda.

When we were about a block away from the guild, we could see gaping hole in the side of one of the larger towers and there was smoke coming out of it.

Yah. I fucked up.

I was expecting most of the mana being used to brute force the rest of the spell through Verdis’ defenses or something, but I guess his direct scrying let my spell bypass them maybe? Fuck. I dunno! I was aiming for “glass shrapnel that might put someone’s eye out” but ended up with “terrorist attack” levels of destruction.

It’s a good thing I’m still writing these entries in my old language, ‘cause this is definitely sounds like a confession of guilt right here.

Mayra thought it best that I not get to close to the guild. I agreed, and ran back to the monastery with Haylen. It took us a while. The entire city probably heard that boom, and everyone had gone outside to see what it was.

I’m currently hiding in my room, trying to forget that I’m about to become the most wanted woman in the kingdom.

Note to self: Start making (uncharged) copies when you make scrolls. That way you can go back and figure out where the actual mistake was.

Day 660

I think I got lucky. I think I got very lucky.

Haylen still essentially has me under house arrest, but things could be worse. They could be a lot worse.

I didn’t kill anyone. (Yay!) Verdis regained consciousness this morning. (Boo!)

Overall, the damages weren’t as bad as they looked. It was still a lot of damage, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Probably.

Mayra came by to deliver the news, and in between her ranting at me about responsible magic use (Seriously, she went on for two hours.), was able to explain what had happened.

While my spell was definitely overkill, it had mostly just been loud. Air pressure or something like that would be my guess. Apparently the mages guild buildings have very thin walls, and are mostly kept standing by magic. The big hole I created was actually a safety feature. Turns out I’m not the first person to accidentally make a bigger boom than intended, and they’ve learned to not try and contain the explosions.

Verdis’ workshop/lab/thing still got an unwilling renovation though. I kinda fucked the place up. The smoke, Mayra said, came from collateral damage. Probably potions bottles breaking and other stuff mixing in ways they shouldn’t.

There were injuries, of course. I even managed to put out someone’s eye! At least I got that guess right. It was one of Verdis’ apprentices though, so I only feel a little bad about it. Lacerations, popped ear drums, and a bit of internal bleeding. Nothing the priests can’t fix. Probably. They’ve got healing potions too, right?

They probably do.

Shit.

No, wait… if anyone was going to die, Mayra probably would have told me.

I should probably treat this as a learning experience and not make the same mistake in the future.

Because it looks like I am going to have a future.

Verdis ain’t talking! It’s perfect! It’s just too perfect! Of all the possible outcomes, I hadn’t expected it to turn out like this. He knows it was me that blew him up. But he can’t tell anyone because he’d get in trouble too! Mayra says that he has a reputation for skirting the law, but if he admitted that he was scrying me, they’d know that he had ignored the orders to leave me alone.

And if he tried to lie and tell them that I attacked him unprovoked, he’d have to explain how a fucking archmage was bested by someone with less than two years of magical experience and no formal training. Nobody in the guild would let him get away with that claim. It would undermine their entire establishment! Nobody would join the guild if they thought they could learn better magic on their own.

The mages probably know exactly what happened. Haylen knows, and therefore the priests and paladins also probably know exactly what happened. But nobody wants to admit that they know what happened. They all want to pretend that “nothing” happened. Nobody stands to gain by making this into a large debacle, and so they’re happy to keep it as small as possible.

The official story is, “A spell was cast incorrectly.” Ha! Whose? Mine, for being too strong, or Verdis’ for being cast in the first place? I’m sure he was in a full on nerd rage when he woke up, but that’s not my problem anymore. The mages guild will probably have him on a very tight leash for the foreseeable future.

I can hardly believe it! Looking back, my “gently explode Verdis” plan was shit. It was awful. It was hasty. It was full of holes. What did I think was gonna happen? That he’d get angry enough to come out and face me in a one on one showdown? Like hell he would! I’m surprised Haylen didn’t try to stop me when I first showed her the scroll.

Note to self: THINK OF BETTER PLANS IN THE FUTURE! THEN SCRAP THEM AND THINK OF SOMETHING BETTER!

But it worked! It actually fucking worked!

I’m free!

Well, I’m free from Verdis at least. Haylen’s gone full mother hen and won’t let me leave the monastery. I’m on a short leash of my own right now. And that damn thing known as the social contract means that I need to acknowledge her concern and stay put.

That’s fine. I can just read some books and stuff until she calms down.

Day 661

Things are going pretty well. Pretty well indeed.

In fact, I’d even say that I needed this. It’s almost like a vacation. It’s been a while since I was able to sit back, relax, and read a good book.

I picked up the Wakebound series along with a few others just before leaving Peninsula, and I’ve been meaning to start on them. I’ve never read a nautical fantasy before, so I’m interested in seeing how it turns out. It has the usual pride and pretentiousness that I see a lot of in Ancestral works, but at least the main character isn’t egotistical enough to make me want to slap him.

So yeah, today’s been pretty good.

Day 662

Fuck I’m bored.

I finished the third Wakebound book today (They’re not very big.), and now I only have two left before it ends. Even I can only read for so long before I need a distraction from my distraction.

Haylen’s still nervous about letting me go outside. Since my retaliation against Verdis, I haven’t been scried once, and if any more problems were going to happen, I think they would have by now. Mayra even stopped by again today and said the exact same thing. All’s quiet.

Too quiet… *bum bum BUM*

Nah. It’s just regular quiet.

Update:

Okay. Nevermind. I swear that previous foreshadowing was completely unintentional.

I was just about to go to sleep for the night (or maybe morning at this point) when bells and whistles started chiming and… whistling throughout the city.

Haylen rushed into my room and told me that the mist was coming. It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about the miasma. I was psyched and ready to kill some zombies, but she said we’d be fine. Somehow, the walls keep most of the mist out. Nobody was likely to get spirited away, and one or two cursed, at most, were even remotely likely to be spotted.

I wanted to go to the city walls and take a look, but Haylen wouldn’t let me past the monastery gates.

There were a lot of city guards running around, blowing on whistles, and making sure people were out of the streets. They looked serious rather than scared, so I guess they’re used to this. Haylen says the miasma passes by every couple months, and everyone knows how to handle it.

I stayed up for another hour or so while I watched the mist roll through. It wasn’t that dense. Kind of a letdown, but that’s probably for the best.

Day 663

I can’t do it anymore. Sitting around doing nothing because you can is nice. Sitting around doing nothing because you can’t leave really sucks. Even last night’s miasma cloud was, in hindsight, kinda boring.

Wakebound was good. When the crew of Wakebound had their final epic battle with The Moray, I was on the edge of my seat. And when Captain Bothem set NOPE!

Nope nope nope.

No spoilers.

I may have one of the last few copies of this book on the face of… Grammon. (I had to go ask Haylen what this world was called. Bloody hell the little holes in my memory and translation magic can be really weird sometimes.)

But yes. I may have one of the last surviving copies of this book on Grammon, but I’m not gonna be giving spoilers.

This is how bored I am! I’m using my journal to debate the merits of spoilers that no one but me will ever read! What? Am I gonna use magic to wipe my memory of a specific book or something? Actually… I’m gonna have to look into that, ‘cause that sounds awesome.

I finished reading in the morning!

Then I finished engraving my ammo. Haylen banished me to a far corner of the monastery for that part because she said the noise was causing a disturbance.

I spent the rest of the day practicing music because… I dunno. I guess I want to keep feeling like I’m a renaissance woman of many skills and stuff. I still suck at playing chords, but I think I’m improving. A lot of the finger positions just feel natural to me. How does muscle memory transcend lifetimes? Fucked if I know.

I finally got around to retuning it in a way that’s familiar to me, so I guess I can properly call it a guitar now. The string setup that it originally had was just pointlessly complex. Why is tuning a guitar one of the things I can remember? Fucked if I know! But at least it’s slightly more useful than pop culture references that nobody else will be able to understand.

If I could trade in all of those advertisement jingles/melodies for memories that were actually useful, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Normally this is where I’d blame my past life for paying attention to stupid crap, but I have to admit that some of those tunes are annoyingly catchy.

Goddamn I’m bored.

I can’t stay here another day. I need out. Thank you for trying to protect me and/or the city, Haylen. But I’m a busy girl and I’ve got stuff to do.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

* * * * *

I had spent the better part of the morning, or at least fifteen minutes of it, agonizing over how to approach Haylen about letting me leave the monastery.

I had bathed, put on my favorite vest, shorts, and tights combo, and done up my hair in that little two to one braid that I was starting to grow fond of.

Looking good, and full of confidence, I left my room to try and find the paladin-to-be before she could get too immersed in her morning practice. When I located her, she was just entering the meal hall for breakfast. I sidled up, sat down on the bench next to her, and waited patiently for the prayer to end before eating.

The meal prayers here were… different than the ones I had heard in my old life. They were similar, yes, but the connotation was different. The ones I knew usually gave thanks for the food in front of us, and the time and effort taken to prepare it. The one being spoken now gave thanks that there was food at all, and for the lives of the farmers who lived outside the city’s walls.

It was humbling, in a way. I rarely wasted food, but that was usually because I either made small servings, or was too busy enjoying it to leave any left over. For the first time, I actually thought about where my food came from, and wondered about the people that had grown it. The porridge was rather bland, but I ate it all. How could I not?

Gauging that now was the best time to ask, I leaned over to ask Haylen for permission to leave the monastery.

“No,” she said before I could even open my mouth.

“Oh, come on!”

“No,” Haylen said again. “This is your punishment. And I’m still not confident that it’s safe for you outside.”

“Punishment? Safe? For how long?”

“Until I say so.”

Haylen was only a little bit taller than I was, but she used her height to her advantage, and stared down at me like a resolute monolith.

“Now that’s hardly fair. He was the one that tried to have me kidnapped!” I hissed with a pointed finger. I would not be cowed so easily. “Yes. My spell was stronger than it needed to be. I hadn’t intended it to be so big. But I’m not sorry for what I did. He deserved it. And not safe? I grew up in a necropolis! How is Orlis supposed to be less safe than that?”

Her glare intensified when I claimed that felt no guilt for my actions, but the safety part set her back a bit. I had found the chink in her armor.

“Keeping me here for a while was a good idea. But it’s been four days. If something was going to happen, it would have happened by now. I’m going out. If you want to come with me, your company would be more than welcome.”

Her stern glare had been reduced to a dubious frown.

“Where did you want to go?” she asked, and I knew I had won.

“I need to stop in at the smithy and check on my sword. The way Weland was going at it the last time I saw him, it’s probably ready by now. Then... I don’t know. Just wander around? I’ve still hardly seen much of the city. I think we should go to an inn or tavern or something in the evening though. The festival kind of interrupted our plans for a night out.”

Haylen tapped her fingers on the long table. She kept tapping them. She wanted to see who would flinch first.

It wouldn’t be me.

“Fine. We’ll go and get your sword once my morning practice is over. We. I need to buy some new equipment anyway. Maybe Weland will actually have a helmet that doesn’t chafe my ears.”

She still didn’t look too happy about it all.

“And after?”

She rolled her eyes and I saw a hint of a smile start to form.

“Alright, alright. We’ll have some fun afterwards.”

I didn’t try to hide my smile. I didn’t want to rub it in her face that I had so easily changed her mind, but I did want her to see that my happiness was genuine. It was fine that Haylen wasn’t letting me go anywhere without her. If anything, that was just a bonus.

I followed her out to the practice grounds, and joined her in her exercises. There wasn’t much to the place. It was just a large yard within the monastery walls. Not at all fancy, and most of the different sections were only divided by the dirt paths that got too much foot use for any grass to grow.

The first time I had come to watch her training, I had been disappointed. I had expected Haylen to spend all morning dueling or practicing with a bunch of weapons, but that was not the case. Of the multiple hours that she spent out here each morning, a large portion was made up of jogging, stretching, or working out. Less than an hour was actually used on sparring matches or weapon drills.

As a shapeshifter, I didn’t really need the exercise to help me stay in shape. I was built for calisthenics and aerobics. Muscle mass wasn’t all that necessary back in the necropolis. In my opinion, agility and endurance were the most important attributes for fighting zombies.

Haylen seemed to appreciate the company though. There were a few other women in the yard, but they didn’t seem too interested in joining us. At first I thought we were being avoided, but it turned out that they were just busy with their own things.

“There are plenty of other women here when the militia is training, but only sergeants and above are full time members like I am. The rest sign up for individual expeditions.”

For the most part, the militia wasn’t a permanent organization, and was only formed up as needed. Orlis had its own separate milita that trained reserve guards for the city, but Haylen was part of the Temple Militia, which was connected to the church, and worked more at the imperial level. The difference went a bit over my head, but it sort of made sense. Haylen understood it well enough for the both of us, so that was fine.

She went on to explain that while women in the militia were driven, women in the imperial armies were downright terrifying. They could match a man at skill with a sword, but knew that they had the disadvantage in terms of strength, and made up for it by being as fierce as possible. Even Haylen said that it took a special kind of crazy to be a woman in the army.

“In foreign wars, the enemy learns pretty quickly what they can and cannot do with female prisoners.”

I got the idea.

While we ran laps, I would glance around at the few women that I saw. The paladins often trained with the local knights, and I tried to tell the two apart. They looked normal enough. Not the scarred berserkers that Haylen had led me to believe. Then I saw one of the younger female squires kick a teenaged boy between the legs. When he fell, she grabbed his head and started bashing it against the ground until the knight guy teaching them managed to pull her off.

“Are threats of marriage a viable tactic for the army, or would that be considered a war crime?”

Haylen chuckled, but only a little. Apparently, I was far from being the first person to make that joke.

I did get to see Haylen fight a little. Corlo showed up a bit before noon, and the two of them spent the next thirty minutes trying to bash each other’s skulls in with wooden swords. For this, I wasn’t the only person eager to watch. Several groups came to stand around the packed dirt ring that was the stage for the fight.

I didn’t know what I was looking for, but everyone else was watching their sparring match very carefully. A few of the paladins and knights were giving commentary to their pupils, and I did my best to listen in. Most of it was beyond me, but I got the impression that both Haylen and Corlo were considered to be quite skilled.

It wasn’t a full half hour of straight combat. They would call a halt from time to time to catch their breath or get a drink of water, but as soon as they had, they immediately went back to, as far as I could tell, trying to murder each other.

Their fights were faster that I could describe. Instead of words like “strike,” or “parry,” my mind was using sound effects like “bam,” “pow,” “shwing,” and, “Oh that’s gotta fucking hurt.” I felt a cold sweat starting to form.

“Haylen’s gonna wanna train me. She won’t let me carry my sword around if I don’t know how to use it. The next few months are likely to be very painful.”

I was suddenly very thankful for my regenerative abilities, because I could tell that that woman was going to leave me with a lot of bruises.

When the morning was over and the two of us went to take a bath, I had a hard time not staring at her. When Haylen noticed, she gave me a playful scowl and covered her chest, but that hadn’t been what I was looking at. She wasn’t noticeably muscular. As expected of someone of elven descent, she was thin and willowy, but from time to time she would move in a way that revealed a well-defined six-pack hiding beneath her skin.

“Yah. She’s gonna kick my ass.”

By the time lunch came, Haylen seemed to have forgotten about her previous desires to keep me inside, and the two of us raced through our meal so we could head out as soon as possible.

Our trip to Weland’s smithy was happily uneventful. Haylen had switched over to wearing a simple brown and white dress and bodice, while I had changed into another set of my usual outfit. We both received a lot of looks, and for once I couldn’t tell who they were directed at. Me for looking strange, or her for looking beautiful. It was nice, actually having someone to share the attention with.

Another good thing was that I had made this trip enough times that I didn’t get us lost. I also wasn’t so distracted that I almost got run over by a carriage. After two years of empty necropolis streets, I was finally falling back into the habit of looking both ways before crossing a street. I had done that back in Peninsula, but there I had been looking for zombies and monsters. Not carriages.

Gherti was not at her usual spot behind the counter when we entered the shop section of Weland’s smithy. Instead it was one of his other apprentices that I vaguely remembered seeing, but hadn’t technically met. He recognized me immediately, and gave a friendly wave.

“Do you want to look around first, or should we check on the sword?” I asked.

“I’ll look around. You can go on ahead.”

“What? No. We’re sticking together today, right? Girls gotta help each other out with their clothing selection, right?”

“I would hardly compare buying weapons and armor to shopping for a dress.”

“What’s the difference? By the way, how are those bras working out for you?”

Haylen gave a slight shimmy of her upper torso. She must have been wearing one of them now.

“Comfortable,” She responded blandly.

“Right? You see? I have good taste. Now let’s find you something nice. What are you looking for?”

Haylen sighed and looked around and the high quality but haphazardly organized selection of the shop.

“Everything. Breastplate, helmet, sword.”

“Are you really planning on making the entire trip in your armor?”

“Yes. I’m going to be a paladin, so it seems fitting to do so. I can get the first and last here, but I may need to order the helmet, and I doubt that they have time to make one here. Not before we leave, at least.”

“Excuse me miss,” the apprentice, a human teenager, called out. “I couldn’t help but overhear. I think we may have a helmet that suits you. The ears, right?”

He rose from behind the counter and began to look through the assorted weapons and armor.

“If I remember correctly, the master made a test piece a while back. Something that would fit himself, you see. Ah, here it is.”

From one of the shelves, he pulled out a conical helmet that greatly resembled the ones I had seen the expedition members wearing. This one however had two slight bulges on the middle of each side. Most of it was made of steel, but the brass colored trim hinted that Weland may have added a bit of enchantment to it. I could see the dim glow the covered it, and didn’t have to guess.

“It’s not as fancy looking as our other stuff,” the apprentice went on, “but it’s not lacking in quality. This is a Velun piece after all.”

Haylen hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take the helmet from his hands. Slowly, she placed it on her head and did up the straps. She stood in silence for a moment, but beneath the metal, I could see her eyes twinkling.

“It’s… It’s so comfortable. I can hardly even tell that I’m wearing it.”

I snorted, in a failed attempt to hold back a laugh. She had said the same thing, in the same tone, when she tried on one of the bras that I had found for her.

“What’s the enchantment on it?” I asked curiously.

“Hmm. I can’t say for sure. I’d have to ask, but knowing the master, it’s probably either for durability, or for minor size adjustments. Since it was a test piece, it could be either or both. Would you like me to check?”

Haylen waved him off.

“I’ve managed without magical armor for a couple years now, so I don’t care which it is. It fits. It protects my head. That’s all that matters.”

I figured out what they were talking about through context. My own ears were a bit pointy, but they weren’t anywhere as long as Haylens. Even someone with rounded ears had probably, many times through their life, woken up after having slept in a position that put too much pressure on their ears. Without a specialized helmet, it was easy for me to believe that Haylen went through that discomfort every time she wore one made for a human.

I tried not to laugh at the image of a woman in a dress wearing a helmet while I gave it a closer inspection. Test piece? Bah. Weland probably spent more time on that helmet than he had on my sword. Getting it to properly wrap around elven ears without reducing the structural integrity must have been difficult.

The apprentice may have been a blacksmith, but he was still a merchant in the making. He followed us throughout the shop, always at a polite distance, and while he never quite interrupted us, he was always there to add a comment or recommendation.

“He’s probably been learning the business from Gherti.”

In the end, Haylen picked out a sword that I would have called a falchion, but that both she and the apprentice insisted was a called messer. After a longwinded explanation, the only difference seemed to be that a falchion had an encompassing hilt like most swords, while a messer had a layered hilt like a knife. Why they needed two different words for such similar swords, I couldn’t tell, but the fact that my translation magic kicked in told me that my old world had had similar such stupidity.

“Really. One handed or two handed. Curved blade or straight. Double or single edge. There are already too many classifications of swords. Do we really need handle construction to start defining things as well?”

It was a nice looking sword though. One handed, single bladed, and with a slight curve at the tip. Personally, I would have called the thing a machete, but saying that out loud was likely to get me stabbed, so I kept quiet. The crossguard was brass, and in Weland’s apparent dislike of flashy enchantments, was made for durability and practicality.

“Not buying a spear?” I asked, curious about her choice. Back in Peninsula, I had only seen her use a spear.

“No. I prefer the sword. I only used the spear because… well, that’s what we use on expeditions. The gambeson was mine, but the spear, breastplate, helmet and horse all belong to the militia. Now that I have some money, I can actually afford to buy my own gear. Now that I think about it, we should probably remind Kearse to buy some as well.”

The breastplate Haylen selected was as unadorned as her helmet and, if I had to guess, was part of a set. It was way too much to the militia style to be anything else. Why leave a helmet by itself when you can make a breastplate to go with it? My growing understanding of the elven mindset hinted as much. Like the helmet, it was trimmed in orichalcum, and fit the half-elf perfectly. It probably would have fit Corlo perfectly as well.

In the end, Haylen hadn’t brought all that much actual money with her, but the apprentice was both able and willing to appraise the value of the gem enstudded electrum jewelry that she had. Even if they ended up dismantling the ancient pieces, Weland’s smithy was more than able to make use of all the materials. Like my mythril, purchase by barter wasn’t an issue for them if the payment came in the form of something that they could use.

Transaction finalized, we tossed her purchases into my storage, and made our way to the forge out back to see how things were going on that end.

Like the first time I had been here, apprentices and journeymen were scurrying about on whatever current project they were working on. Gherti was somehow, despite the noise, asleep in a chair by the wall with her large hourglass sitting at her feet. How she could sleep with all the ruckus around her was impressive. That she somehow looked more well rested than the last time I had seen her was astounding.

“Truly that girl has found her calling. In this life or the last, there’s no way I’d be able to keep up with Weland.”

I wished her luck. As a half, she’d probably never bear Weland’s child. He was a full blooded elf, while she was half human and half hobgoblin, which meant her chances were even lower. Still, I hoped her happiness in the future. A half-elf, quarter hob, quarter human child running around with a smithing hammer made me smile on the inside. True, it would be a freak of nature, but any god who didn’t want to see such an adorable little abomination wasn’t worth worshiping.

Weland himself was working on something that wasn’t my sword, which gave me hope that mine was actually finished. Haylen looked like she felt a little uncomfortable being near him, but I approached the elf casually.

“Weland! How are you today?” I asked loudly so that he could hear me over the clamor, and more importantly, his intense focus.

He gave his current piece two more solid strikes before he deemed me worthy of acknowledgement.

“Indigo! It is good to see you. You’ve been absent of late. I was beginning to wonder when you would show up again.”

He set aside his current work and guided us over to a table built into the workshop’s wall.

There was my sword, unassembled, but still in all its glory. The double edged blade was a bit over a meter in length, with a quick taper at the point. It was thin, nimble even, and looked very much like the fencing sword that I had envisioned.

That crossguard was small and in a thick wedge shape. It was meant to protect the fingers, without sticking out more than it needed to. The handle, still unattached, was layered like Haylen’s messer, and was made from two pieces of ivory wood. The pommel was solid mithril and was directly connected to the tang going through the hilt to the blade itself.

“White” was the only way I could describe its color. The flat of the blade looked rough, but had a pleasant texture when I ran my fingers along it. The thin edges had a silvery iridescent coloration that only enhanced the solid matte of the rest.

Without taking my eyes off the sword, I groped randomly for one of the nearby stools before I was able to thunk my ass down and really take in the beauty before me.

It was perfect. It was even better than I could have imagined. Haylen was going to kick my ass until I learned how to use this thing properly, but anything less would be a crime. This was a blade of finesse and skill, and it deserved to be treated as such. How could I wield it otherwise?

The scabbard, like the sword, was simple in its elegance, and elegant in its simplicity. It was made of a lacquered ivory wood and largely unadorned. Together, they were unlikely to stand out, but wouldn’t be shamed by anything that they were compared to. If a holy sword ever existed, I was now staring at one. This was a sword of legend. This was a blade meant for heroes.

And it was mine.

“Gherti said that Weland couldn’t out-forge the gods, but I think he may have just proven her wrong.”

Weland and Haylen didn’t speak, aware that I needed a moment to give the weapon the appreciation it needed. Finally, several minutes later, Weland opened his mouth, but I practically tackled him in a hug before he could say anything.

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” I told him. I was practically crying. “The Ancestors themselves would place this in a museum so that everyone could bask in its glory. You told me this was your masterpiece of the century, but you were wrong. This is the masterpiece of an era.”

“Ahem,” Weland coughed, “While I appreciate your appreciation of my work, it is still not finished.”

“Really? It looks finished to me.”

When I said as much, Weland coughed again, and went on in a lecturing tone.

“It isn’t,” he said. “It still needs an emblem, a mark, and a name.”

He turned the blade over, revealing a WV inscribed in the imperial script on the backside of the tang.

“A sword such as this should not be blemished by a visible maker’s mark. As its maker though, I cannot not mark it as being made by myself. I must be allowed some measure of pride after all. Still, it needs an emblem to highlight its identity, a name to show its uniqueness, and a mark to show your influence on its creation. You must choose them now.”

I blinked rapidly while I looked between the sword and the smith.

“Do I really need to give it a name? Isn’t that kind of silly?” I asked, aware of how thin the line was between happy Weland and angry Weland.

Haylen and Weland both sighed in mild annoyance at my question. The smith himself was clearly trying to be patient with me when he answered.

“Yes. Many swords that are unworthy of names are given names. That is silly. A derogation against all deserving weapons. This,” he said, pointing to mine, “is not one of those swords. It deserves a name. It needs a name. It cannot be called complete without one.”

I was pretty sure that the elf was just being an elf, exaggerating due to his passion, but I wasn’t about to try and irritate him more than I had when I first gave him the idea for the sword’s coloration.

I looked at the sword. I touched the sword. I inspected it with ever sense I had, even going so far as to give it a small lick.

“Snowflake,” I finally said. If he wanted a name, he would get a name. It wasn’t my fault if it was stupid because I didn’t care.

“Snowflake?” Haylen and Weland both asked, sounding skeptical.

“Snowflake,” I confirmed. “Because it’s special.”

This far south, neither of them were likely to get the weather-based joke, but that didn’t matter. It was my special Snowflake. It was white as a holiday snowfall, and there was no other sword like it in the world. Snowflake it would be.

Weland went on as if Snowflake wasn’t a stupid name for a sword. Personally, I think he was just glad that I didn’t try to give it some over the top title like White Death, Ivory Fang Destroyer, or Darkness Consuming Epiphany. Joke or no joke, this sword had the potential to be a goldmine of bad names, and I was glad that I had come up with a decent one on such short notice.

“For the emblem,” Welend continued, somehow able to maintain his enthusiasm, “I was hoping that you would be able to assist in that part.”

After seeing me work with my ball ammo, he thought it possible that I would be able to add a bas-relief for the marking without disrupting the enchantments already laid into the blade.

It was worth a try, and after a good deal of concentration and noise that was capable of waking up even Gherti, my sword soon had a six sided snowflake symbol growing on each side just above the crossguard. I used regular mythril for this in order to make it shinier. Shaping the snowflakes was easy. Getting them hot enough to be molded though, had taken up a large chunk of my internal mana.

It was difficult to add to the blade without interfering with the already established work or disrupting the enchantments, but it was worth it. As the only ornamentation the blade had, the silvery iridescence of the mythril snowflakes stood out even more, and I found myself agreeing with Weland that the emblems had been needed.

The mark itself was easy enough. After drawing it out, within the hour, Weland had a stylized I N D I G O vertically carved into the tang opposite his makers mark. I had purposefully gone with the lettering of my own language to make it more unique.

As soon as the master smith had attached the handle, Gherti was firmly but gently pushing me towards the door. I handed over the contracted amount of mythril, and left with a pouch full of money and a sword at my hip. Despite my offerings of tea, she clearly wanted me gone as soon as possible. My invitation for her and Weland to join Haylen and I on our night out was met with a silent middle finger, and I left it at that.

“Sorry for the extra work, Gherti. I really am.”

Before I knew it, I was standing in the street again.

Partying with them would likely have been a lot of fun, but I doubted that either would have joined with anything other than reluctance.

Haylen also seemed glad that they had refused. I should have asked her before I asked them. She had seemed a bit apprehensive around Weland for the first few minutes, but had relaxed soon enough. I wasn’t quite sure where she drew the line when it came to elves. Aside from the occasional comment, she had been pretty quiet when we were in the forge area.

I couldn’t understand it. Not really. I knew that her upbringing and her mother had left a bad impression on the half-elf, but I couldn’t really wrap my head around the whole thing. Haylen didn’t seem to want to talk about it either, and I wasn’t going to press the issue.

Whether or not Haylen knew that I was about to apologize, she cut me off before I could open my mouth.

“How does it feel?”

I didn’t have to guess what she was talking about. I looked down at Snowflake, buckled to my waist. Given its length and my height, the scabbard would probably have scraped the ground if it wasn’t hanging at an angle.

“Weland really thought of everything.”

“Comfortable.”

It was very comfortable. I had expected to feel a little lopsided with a sword hanging on my belt, but I had been wrong. Mythril was light, and the blade itself probably weighed less than the scabbard did.

“Have you used a sword before?”

I grimaced, predicting the direction that this conversation was going, but aware that I was already stuck in its flow.

“No. I’m better with a spear, but even that was just for killing zombies.”

“I’ll start teaching you how to use it tomorrow morning.”

“Please be gentle. It’s my first time.”

There was no mercy in Haylen’s eyes when she announced my impending doom.

“I’m going to be rough. I’m going to be very rough. And you’re going to thank me for it.”

“Yes mistress.”

Haylen blinked, blushed, and went through a multitude of expressions as she finally became aware of the innuendo.

“Fuck you,” she said, half laughing and half sighing into a facepalm.

“I’m ready when you are Mistress.”

“Not acting like that you’re not. Seriously though, tomorrow morning. Sword drills. Immediately after breakfast.”

“We’re still gonna have fun tonight though, right?” I asked, cocking a hopeful eyebrow.

“We will. But hangover or no hangover, I’m going to start teaching you how to use a sword.”

“Alright. I’m in.”

“You say that like you have a choice.”

“Yes mistress,” I joked, and received a groan in response.

“Are you done?”

“I think I’ve got it out of my system. Yes.”

Haylen nodded, checked the sun, and looked around the street.

“Good. Now let’s get some alcohol into our system. Come on. It’s still early, but I know a nice inn that should be open.”

She started walking, and I followed. The day was turning out well. I didn’t have to worry about Verdis, I got my sword, I was hanging out with a sexy half-elf, and we were about to go get wasted.

What more could a homunculus ask for?