Excalibur [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczNQ1a1dUR3fVXp4Vil4ssKhD5nxtTW-ww41td1ewXO20k43xjls8Mnd0rLW9uUnW7JCl4on4WiYamW5DpyOKEW6T7m_iJdx8vPszHJBipSkfVoDt2VN7JvQAL4tvDXAzndes-sjDF9RXNvLZrSrE4k8=w613-h919-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Dazien blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He felt groggy, like he had slept for far too long and didn’t actually achieve any rest. He slowly sat up to find himself in an unfamiliar room as well. The decor was slightly familiar though, having the same expensive wood paneling along the bottom half of the walls, white marble flooring, and a healthy dose of plant life.
Even more familiar, however, was the picture resting on the polished wood nightstand next to the bed he currently occupied. It was the only picture he owned of Uriel and himself that he had convinced a traveling Prism Painter to make of them.
In front of the picture was a [Sapphire Mana Bit] on top of a note. Picking up both, he hungrily slid the Bit into his mouth while reading the message.
Eat this when you wake even if you don’t feel like it. I’ll make your favorite later.
We each get our own room here, so I’m waiting to unpack everything with you.
This one is yours. My room’s on your left. The Princess is across from you.
She may have taken me hostage, so come save me.
- Your Senechal
Dazien chuckled at the note and his partner’s sense of humor. He had long ago promised the Mage that he would always be there to save him from social situations, and it had become an inside joke of sorts.
The Defender felt much better after the Bit replenished his energy reserves and mentally swapped the silvery training gear he had been wearing during his ascension with some casual clothes from his [Armory], which luckily counted as armor.
Passive Ability: Armory
Type: Utility (construct, magical, dimension)
Current Caste: Sapphire 1
Crystal Effect: Construct a doorway to a personal dimensional storage space that contains [Excalibur, Sword of the True King]. You can don or doff armor and weapons directly from this space without needing to construct the doorway.
Sapphire Effect: You can construct a magical copy of any armor and weapons in your armory which can be used by allies for a limited time. Wielding [Excalibur, Sword of the True King] periodically cleanses the wielder of Dark, Death, and Blood Banes.
* Excalibur, Sword of the True King (construct, divine, radiant): Attacks made with Excalibur can affect incorporeal targets and inflict an instance of [Ailing].
* Ailing (bane, divine, radiant, stacking): Decreased health and stamina regeneration.
“Wow, that’s a nice upgrade,” Phoenix said from the doorway, looking down at the tattling book.
He grinned and mock scolded, “It’s rude to enter without knocking, you know. Do we need to have a talk about boundaries already?”
“Pretty sure little sisters are exempt from those,” she replied cheekily, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed next to him to let him read the spelled-out explanation of what he already sensed within him. Her grin became mischievous as she asked, “Does this mean I can use your sword?”
“I’m not letting you use Excalibur,” he replied with a roll of his eyes, “It’s technically already a copy I use since it never actually leaves my [Armory].”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, is that the Excalibur?”
“What?”
“You know, the story about… actually, maybe you don’t. That’s weird. I didn’t really think about it before because I just thought, ‘of course, the man that wants to be a king named his sword Excalibur’ but does that story even exist in this world?”
He raised an eyebrow at her as he stated simply, “I didn’t name the sword and I’m not sure what story you’re talking about.”
She blinked at him, and they stared at each other as if doing so might make the other change the truth they had spoken. Finally, the Wayfarer seemed to believe him as she asked, “Then who named it?”
Dazien gave her a small smirk as he answered, “You did. When you showed it to me in your book.”
She glanced from him to the glowing book and back again as she asked, “How would my book know what your sword’s name is?”
“From what I’ve seen and some of the things you’ve explained to me,” he began, trying to put his working hypothesis into words, “I’m guessing the magic is translating names into things you know. From your world, it’s using equivalents that you might know of. You told me your [Night Blade], Nyx, was named after a goddess of the night, right?”
“Yeah. I read about a lot of world mythologies because they always fascinated me but I don’t think I remember all of them.”
“I had always known of my sword as a King’s Holy Sword until I saw the name in your [Guide Book]. I liked it and thought it fantastical in itself to have it named after something from another universe,” he replied fondly, then asked curiously, “So what’s the story about?”
“A boy who pulled the sword, Excalibur, from a stone which made him a king.”
It was Dazien’s turn to blink at the Wayfarer as he processed that before clarifying, “They made him king because he unstuck a sword?”
She laughed, “Well, it was a magic sword that no other man could pull out. Or maybe the stone was magic? Or both? I remember reading the sword had magical properties at some point. Anyways, there was a prophecy that the one who could pull the sword out was the ‘true king’ of the land.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Wait, there was a prophecy involved? And the people just believed it?”
“I guess? I mean, in the story he did turn out to be some lost prince or something, I think? Different versions and retellings have kind of muddied up the details for me. Wait, do prophecies exist here?”
“Yeah, but they’re all nonsense and usually never come to pass because somebody changes something.”
“Not much of a prophecy then. I remember you mentioning some Time Mages can see the future or something like that.”
“Right, which is why it rarely comes to pass. A lot of times, prophecies result in one of two things: either it never happens because knowing something might happen in the future changes that future, or it becomes self-fulfilling because they knew about it. It often feels pointless to hear them because it either happens or it doesn’t, and you won’t know which outcome it is until it’s already happened.”
“What if you end up fulfilling the prophecy, and it’s a good thing, though? Like saving a bunch of people?”
“If the goal is to save people, then you shouldn’t need a prophecy to do it,” he replied.
“But what if you don’t know the people need saving?”
“That’s what quests are for. If you don’t know someone is in trouble and needs saving, I’d rather have a god just grant a quest to bridge the knowledge gap. Not a vague vision or riddle that you won’t know the answer to until after it’s come to pass.”
The Wayfarer’s face fell into her palms as she groaned, “Right, you all actually have gods that talk to people and magic here.”
“And you were given a quest to go save people in need, right?” he asked with a look.
“Point taken. Good to know the prophecies here are crap,” she said, straightening and leaning back with her hands propped on the bed behind her, “Hopefully, I can progress that quest soon, but it sounds like I won’t until after this blood moon is over and traveling opens up again.”
“Paul also wanted you to get that clue from Scholar before we left, which means hitting Sapphire yourself,” he added.
She gave him a curious look as she asked with an odd tightness in her voice, “He talked with you about my quest?”
Dazien nodded, adding softly, “He wanted to help me lead us all better while we supported you in accomplishing it. I have his notes and plan to see them through with you… if you’ll still have me, of course.”
“Of course,” she said promptly which pulled a smile from him, “We never really talked about plans for it together. He just kept telling me to get stronger.”
His grin grew wider as he said, “Well, from what we both witnessed during our time with you, you seem to be more of a reactionist than a planner.”
“I plan!”
“What are we having for dinner tonight?”
“Whatever Uriel’s making?”
“What are we going to be doing next week?”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with the conversation we’re having right now,” she said grumpily, refusing to meet his eyes, and he laughed.
“So, what brought you here? I doubt you planned for me to wake up at this time… whatever time this is…” he said, glancing around for a clock.
“It’s afternoon. Still a few hours before dinner,” she answered for him, “You’ve been out for about three days now. We weren’t sure if you would need a longer recovery time than others after… all that,” the Wayfarer summarized with a shudder at the memory of his difficult ascension.
“I was just coming to check if you were awake and wondered if you wanted to join everyone for doing a couple of absorption rituals and tattoos. I forgot to reapply mine after I died again and could have really used the mana boost during those last few fights before Kara arrived.”
He nodded, “I’d love to be there but I don’t think you can do the Sapphire Caste tattoos yet, right?”
“Yeah, but I was thinking about hiring someone to do new Sapphire Caste tattoos for you and the twins. They’ve been pretty handy, I think, and now that we know our fighting styles a bit better, I think everyone has ideas on what they want this time around, don’t you?”
The Defender agreed with the point. He had gotten the minor health potion version that was nice, but with Saiya beside him most of the time, he hadn’t needed it nearly as often as he should have. That said, he died a little inside at the idea of Phoenix throwing that much money at them.
“You know getting professional magic tattoos done is fairly expensive, right?”
She shrugged, appearing completely unconcerned, “Eh, it’s fine. We can get you the ritual components to resummon Rex at the same time too. His vessel burned up like Orebela’s when you ascended, yeah?”
It felt like another punch to the gut for some reason at the idea of her buying those expensive materials for him again. This time would be even more expensive as it would require the Sapphire Caste version of those same Shards and he wasn’t even sure if they would find them in the city with international trading being disrupted for so long.
“I might need to wait until we get paid for the war efforts once they ever figure out the math on that mess. I barely finished paying you back for the first time you loaned me the funds, and the cost of magical equipment has kept me pretty drained.”
The Wayfarer rolled her eyes at him again, “Please, Daze. We’ve gone over this before. You can pay me back later if you want, but I really don’t care if you do. I’d much rather have my Defender fully geared and with his Familiar than worry about a few Bits or loan interest. It’s not like I’m hurting for money or care about turning a profit.”
He bit back his retort. Knowing the flare of anger within him wasn’t her fault. She didn’t mean to sound like some of the other rich nobles attempting to flaunt their wealth in front of the poor and unfortunate orphans trying to make do with little to nothing. Dazien knew the Wayfarer was just trying to be a pragmatic friend, but it still stung to have that familiar sense of… inadequacy thrown in his face again.
Dazien was a far cry from the poor man he had been a mere half year ago, but a lifetime of poverty had left its mark, and he had only recently felt the weight of it lessen. However, it was still hard to break the mindset that he couldn’t afford expensive things.
That wasn’t Phoenix’s fault, though. So he gave a soft smile and said, “I’m glad you won’t ever have to worry about money, but it’s something I’ve struggled with during my life, so I apologize if I seem stubborn or ungrateful for the offer.”
His Princess hooked her arm through his, much like Saiya would often do to them, and leaned against him as she smiled and said, “Why don’t you tell me about it while we shop around for your Shards and a tattoo place? You can help me understand by telling me more of your story.”
The gemite chuckled, “My story? It’s not a very long one. I thought it might have had some exciting parts, but honestly, it feels like it didn’t really start till I became an Adventurer and got involved in all of your craziness. The rumors about all Wayfarers getting sucked into world-changing events aren’t so unbelievable to me anymore.”
She joined in his laugh as she stood, pulling his arm along, though he could already sense the change in his Strength as he had to allow himself to get dragged behind her as she said, “I’d still like to hear more of what happened before I arrived. Siblings are supposed to know everything about each other, right? We have a lot of catching up to do.”
He laughed, “I don’t think I could do it justice without Uriel telling it with me. It’s half his story as well, after all.”
“Well, we’ll grab him on our way out,” the Wayfarer replied, then stopped and turned to grin up at him as she said, “I just realized you mentioned your magical equipment was keeping your funds drained, yeah? Since you’ve been replacing broken shields or needing to maintain anything that doesn’t self-repair over time or gets too badly damaged, right?”
The Defender raised a brow, not sure what she was trying to get at this time, “Yeah? Magic equipment costs a lot upfront and it can be devastating when it breaks and can only be salvaged or not even that like the case of your sword.”
“Right, but you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Your power responded to your needs and now you construct it yourself. Keeping the King’s treasures safe within his [Armory],” she pointed out happily, “And now that you live here, we can go cancel that lease or whatever kind of contract you had at your old place, and you won’t have to worry about simply surviving anymore.”
Dazien’s smile grew to reflect hers and he felt the financial weight that had been slowly whittled away over the last few months feel like it got shattered in a single moment as he realized the truth of her words. For the first time since he could remember, when it came to money, he was starting to feel free.