Ren sighed as he set the sword aside and reached back to get a few more of the sticks they’d gathered for the failing fire. “The temple? There hasn’t been anything holy about that pce sihe time of randparents, grandparents, Mardem. You were there, man. You know how ugly it was,” Ren told his friend as it fed the fire slowly. “Vara doesn’t o hear that shit. No one does.”
Life Force: 19/300
The sword had used up almost half its reserves, and uhere was a battle during the night, it would likely lose pain sometime after su could do nothing ge that, though, so it did not fear it. It would wake once more when the fighting started, and in a pce this desote, bloodshed was iable. Instead, it merely listened while the small group finally cajoled its wielder into sharing what little he knew about its ins.
“You have to uand. There were a lot of goblins,” Ren started. “Like… Even more thahought there would be. My parents always told me the pce was ied, but… there had to be hundreds. We fehem off with torches mostly at first, because they’re afraid of fire.”
The boy told the story about how he and Mardem had decided that after Vara had been chosen by the lottery, the two of them had decided that only the Ebon bde would give them enough strength to fight off the beastmen that would be drawo save her.
“It was my idea,” Mardem bragged. “I’m the ohat remembered the cursed bde was even still there in the sanctum.”
-1 Life Force
“Yeah, well, I’m the ohat cut us free of the goblin ambush,” Ren bragged, leaning forward. “I slew them by the dozens!”
“The sword slew them,” Mardem said with a shake of his head. “You were just holding it. If I’d been the oo squeeze between those bars, then I’d be the one wielding it right now, and—”
“It’s mine,” Ren said with a feral note before he remembered himself and rexed.
Several things became clear to the sword at once during that exge. The first was where the initial burst of Life Force had e from and why it stopped, the sed was that these two boys seemed to be friends used to a bit of healthy petition, and the third was that they both seemed to be vying for the pretty young woman that was seated across the fire from them.
-1 Life Force-1 Life Force
Only the fourth member of their group seemed to have no i in the girl, which obviously made him the brother that she had mentioned earlier in the evening. He sat there quietly, trying to cope with the pain of a not-so-minor wound. Sino one else appeared worried, the boy’s efforts to hide it were paying off.
Still, the sword could see right through the thin, gauzy clothes that the boy’s outline wore. There, it could see the boy’s energy leaking out obeat at a time, and it was obviously too serious a thing to hide for long.
He won’t make it more than another day or two at this rate, the sword thought as it studied the problem, wishing it could soak up the boy’s dwindling life energy instead of letting it leak into the hasty bandages.
-1 Life Force
The two boys both clearly wahe same girl, and the lohey told the story about the battle with the goblins and, ter, the beast men, the clearer it all became to the sword. It was almost as pin, at least to the on, that she liked the boy who had fought with bravery instead of the oh the cursed bde. It wondered just how long it would be until its wielder figured that out, and decided there was only one way to solve that issue.
It wished that it could have whispered the secret to him. Unfortunately, his mind was somewhere beyond the on’s reabsp;
None of them seemed to know why the Ebon Bde was cursed or why it had been secured in su unimportant shrine, so far from the rest of the world, but it had been. Its only real clue was that apparently it had been there sihe time of their grandparents, grandparents, which would have been nearly a tury.
The boys both mentioned murals that might have given it some answers. Unfortunately, her of them had bothered to study them, much to its frustration.
To them, it had been there so long that it had almost been fotten about. It had bee a sort of local myth fotten by the wider world long before the temple had been abandoned and recimed by filthy greenskins.
-1 Life Force
In fact, if the annual sacrifice had chosen literally anyone else in the vilge besides the pretty young woman that both Ren and Mardem were smitten with, then it would likely had stayed there for decades or turies more. It was only that sacrifice that made them act rashly, and forced them int to retrieve the fotten on.
After that, they’d ridden to the site of the altar, where they found Vara’s brother already there, ready to protect her as long as he could with their father’s stolen sword while the beastmen began to gather.
It was a toug story. Three friends had defied impossible odds to save one girl that they all loved in their own way. They’d defeated dozens of goblins amen, but there was nothing in any of those words that could tou the etal sword.
There was merely a throbbing ruby that dimmed more and more, the lo stayed in its sheath. It didn’t belong a sheath, though. The only sheath it would ever belong in was being impaled in the body of a dying oppo. It did not yet know what it wanted beyond the death of its enemies.
Succh things would take time to uand. O had drunk an o of blood aored itself then it would know, and it would be strong enough to do whatever o be done.
-1 Life Force
The lohe four of them talked, the more it was certain that it didn’t care whether any of them survived. It just hoped that if they did die, it would be the oo strike the blow.
-1 Life Force-1 Life Force-1 Life Force
The sword’s vision was much too blurred to see the stars in the darkness, even after everyone fell asleep huddled together. By the time the sun rose, it was down to just 3 Life Force, and so it barely paid attention to the shifting colors of the horizon.
It had spent the night hoping that riders from the children’s vilge would find them and cause a bloody frontation, oblins might boil up from some hole for a midnight raid. Instead, everyone slept peacefully, and shortly after its wielder stirred, the darkook it once more.
. . .
+9 Life Force-9 Life Force
The sword had no idea how long it slumbered, but when it returo sciousness with the powerful sensation of Life Force flooding through it. That energy was almost immediately sucked away by its wielder, who was also injured immediately afterward, but it was enough to revitalize it just the same.
The man had been hit by an arrow. No, the sword realized, its wielder had been hit by several arrows. Between him and his mount, it would have been fair to use the word riddled. Without the sudden jolt of energy it had taken from the sword, he would almost certainly have been dying.
+6 Life Force
As soon as it looked past its injured wielder, the situation immediately became clear. The four of them had ridden far enough that the mountains were more distant now, but little else had ged. The wounded boy was still ging to life, even as he, his sister, and Mardem rode away from the se of a bloody ambush.
It immediately became apparent who had dohis, as gnolls howled and growled as they cast down their short bows and charged the injured, unhorsed boy that they expected to make quick work of. They’d unleashed their ambush to great affect, and now they would feast.
The sword was not impressed. The beasts were using a mixed assortment of stolen humahat had been half rusted through along with some stone knives and axes.
+7 Life Force-2 Life Force
That wasn’t the most iing part, though. The most iing part was that the wielder had figured out that he could regee by stealing the life of others. Instead of panig and running with his friends, he left his bde embedded in the chest of the dying horse, putting the beast out of its misery and draining as much of its failing strength as he could while he pulled the obsidian-tipped arrows out of his flesh one by one.
-4 Life Force-3 Life Force
By the time the gnolls reached him, he was all but healed and waiting for them in a zy stah the tip of his bde resting on the ground. The sword was annoyed by this disrespectful behavior, but could do nothing to ge it. It wasn’t even close to powered up enough to pte its ability, and nothing it could purchase would let it take trol of its desti.
The first gnoll to leap at the wielder was sliced in half midair and was dead before it hit the ground. The bde felt the swing dey for only a moment at the spine before that shattered before its might. It was a bloody spectacle that the sword appreciated as a slow-motion curtain of blood even as it happeoo fast for the nolls to take in before the bat was joined.
+10 Life Force
It was four-on-one for a moment, but shortly after that, it was six-ohe sword was not ed. Its wielder was still less than ideal, but he was rested now and moved with a savagery that even these animalistic creatures couldn’t match. The first one was beheaded, and then disarmed, literally, just below the elbows in the first swing. Both arms and its stone axe all fell away in different dires as the hound crumpled.
+8 Life Force+6 Life Force+11 Life Force
Less than a minute before, its wielder had been halfway to a corpse himself, but now, he was full of life, and the tables had turirely. These mongrel men were signifitly fiercer than the goatmen that its wielder had faced retly, but they were still nothing pared to the Ebon Bde.
+9 Life Force+6 Life Force
Its wielder didn’t even try to avoid every stab or every desperate rake of his oppo’s dirty cws. He didn’t have to. Every move was desigo murder his oppos, and if he had to get stabbed sometimes for the perfect blow, then that’s exactly what he did. The bde, thought he was still sloppy, and tried to help where it could, even its ability to influenything was limited. Still, there was no denying that he was learning and more than that, he was enthusiastibsp;
Eaemy wasn’t just killed. They were brutalized.
+9 Life Force+9 Life Force+11 Life Force
The bde wished that a fight like this could have sted forever, but only two mier, it was plete when its wielder tossed it end over end through the back of a fleeing enemy. As a tactic, it was effective, but the sword instantly realized its wielder’s mistake. The bde was no longer in his hand and, therefore, no longer us trol.
+5 Life Force
If the gnoll had somehow mao dodge the attack or pull the on free and take hold of it, then the monster would have made minced meat of Ren. As the Ebon Bde pohe possibility, it decided that it would not have been sorry to see the young love-struck shepherd go.
+7 Life Force
Fortunately for the young man, though, it died as the bde impaled the running dog man through the spine, and it absorbed the st of beast's life. That gave it another iing insight. It needs someoo wield it, but not to drain Life Force. It only o be impaled in someone for that.
Despite the short fight and the retively few victims, it soaked up vast amounts of the for less than two minutes. Sadly, it was just shy of the hat it o cim Enhanced e.
Life Force: 143/300
For a moment, it almost gave up and dumped the energy into Increase Reserves 4 instead. That would have been a mistake, though.
It took the on half a mio figure out why its wielder hadn’t resheathed the bde and run away or even begun digging through his meager possessions in the horse’s saddlebags. Instead of doiher, he started up the hill to where the ambush had occurred.
There might well be a gnoll den up there. If there was, that den would be full of bitches and pups, along with a few more warriors. Each of those lives, no matter how big or small, would be thrumming with life that it could drain and put to better use.
Suddenly, it gained a tiny amount of respect for its wielder. He might not be strong, but he was hungry, and perhaps, in time, the man could be taught to bee the servant it needed him to be. At least, until it found a better vessel.
