With a pall that was equal parts hangover and guilt, the group set out the following morning. It was something everyone had been looking forward to. Even with doubts about Elom’s ability to keep up or even fight, they all wanted to leave the city and return to their quest. With his death, though, it was almost like a funeral procession.
The blade didn’t care about any of that. Instead, it subtly assaulted its wielder with feelings of resolve and righteousness. He’d acted in self-defense. He shouldn’t need such reassurances, of course, but the blade could ill afford a breakdown. Not when it was getting close to its goal.
This time, they went further west than Ivarr had on previous trips. Instead of crossing through the same passes and going through the same valleys that he’d hunted in before, they looked for evidence of the mage’s tomb on the steeper slopes to the west, where nature would be a better guardian than any trap.
Progress was slow, because they’d traded forest valleys for scree covered slopes and windy escarpments. Worse, though, was that monsters were much more scarce than they’d been before. After three days, they’d killed a handful of goaty beastmen but nothing with a greater soul. The slopes were too barren for even goblins to scavenge.
The fight with the beastmen was only notable because that was the first time that its wielder noticed the blade’s new power. I feel stronger, somehow, he confessed the the blade after he took the head off one in a single clean stroke instead of simply hacking deep enough into its spine to murder it.
This magic burns the same energy that heals you, the blade warned him, so use it with care. Not all strikes need to be enhanced. As we discussed, precision matters more than strength.
Its wilder’s thrill was muted as that sobered him. “I’ll remember,” he promised.
In the grand scheme of things, using an extra point of life force a few times in every combat wouldn’t matter too terribly much. The blade hardly cared about that level of leakage. What mattered to it was that it didn’t want its wielder to get lazy and learn to rely on tricks rather than skill, so it made its powers seem more precarious than they truly were.
Still, the stunning vistas and the company of Ivarr’s friends improved its wielder’s mood day by day, and that was worth something, too, so the blade did not complain. Instead, it watched the young man’s friends try to emulate the exercises he did with his sword every night with great amusement. That, as much as anything, was the sign of the real progress its wielder had shown.
Only a couple of months before, Ivarr had been just as graceless, but now his movements spoke of economy and power, and the swings came from his shoulders and hips. He wasn’t just tracing the motions. He was swinging the weapon with real power as he went through each stroke.
His friends couldn’t even manage to trace the lines with any sort of exactness. Still, they tried, and after a few days, Sammel showed some signs of improvement. Brik, though, was better off using a spear in combat and keeping back reinforcements so that Ivarr could make quick work of the monsters they faced.
Any skill that either of its wielder’s friends might have shown in practice or sparring was lost in actual combat. There, both men were held back by fear more than inexperience and flailed wildly in their first fight. Neither scored a kill, but they kept themselves from being stabbed by the goatmen’s spears, and that was the most important outcome.
+5 Lesser Monster Souls
By the time they summited the first peak, the blade considered both men good for nothing but a source to drain Life Force from, but it resisted. Weakening them would only slow down the meandering group even further.
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Near the top of the mountain, they found a large griffon’s nest that was filled with the bones of the dead, but unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen. The group it was with was grateful for that, though it regretted that it could not steal the thing’s soul and it to its collection.
In all the days since Elom’s passing, it had only managed to gain another 400 Life Force. Fortunately for it, things only got worse as they passed beyond those rocky slopes and into the new valley because that’s where they finally found more orcs.
Up until that point, it was the terrain that had been hard and the battles that had been easy. Now, suddenly, things were reversed, and the slopes were as gentle as the enemies were brutal.
As the group and their donkeys progressed through that backcountry, it occurred to the blade that such areas would be perfect for farms and villages. Those wilds were certainly more hospitable than the plains they’d started their journey on. If not for the monsters that infested the area, the whole area would certainly be thriving.
Orcs tended to prevent that, though. Each time they attacked, it was like a bolt from the blue. There was no warning, and in a group this large, there was no avoiding them and picking their battles, either. It was the moment the fight with the first hunting band of greenskins started that the blade purchased Amplify Wielder 1.
This small ability made the setting that its ruby heart was mounted in grow slightly, becoming slightly more ostentatious. It was a hard thing to notice, but the gold mount that held the huge gem in place had definitely grown. Now, it wasn’t just eight small gold tabs holding the thing in place. It was a variety of little triangles, like a tiny crown around the edges.
It also noticed that getting Amplify Wielder 1 added a new option to its purchase list, creating Parasitic Link 2. That hadn’t been there before, when it had purchased Parasitic Link 1, but apparently it didn’t have an ability that would make such a thing necessary.
The blade was not giving its wielder 3 strength in total. It had wondered if the new bonus would simply replace the old one that had been there before, leaving the number unchanged, but it turned out to be additive. This made Ivarr almost as strong as the orcs he faced. The last thing it wanted was to spend Life Force on anything but increasing its soul storage. Unfortunately, it knew that the group would need every advantage now that its wielder was bogged down by his friends. Hiding from encounters that were too hard to tackle was no longer an option.
Against those first two orcish marauders, the combination turned out to be overkill. Ivarr didn’t move any faster, but he certainly seemed to, in the way he met the first orc head on, brimming with confidence. He actually managed to parry an orc’s axe before he cleaved off its limbs with ease. He proved to be every bit as monstrous as the orcs he faced in that encounter. However, those upgrades proved necessary and even vital in the days ahead.
+2 Greater Monster Souls
Sometimes, if they were spotted a ways off, the mage could strike down at least a few of them. More often than not, everything came down to Ivarr, and the blade appreciated those moments more than anything.
The young man charged right into the thick of the fray. Sometimes, his friends would follow close enough to keep his flanks clear, while other times, they would stay back to guard the mage and the priest. With every encounter, though, the young warrior was quickly showing more prowess than he had any right to have at such a young age, and even though half of that was magical augmentation, the other half was dedication and practice.
+3 Greater Monster Souls
Only the mage seemed concerned by this as the five of them sat around the fires by night. Dero, Sammel, and Brik would cheer on his exploits while Ivarr attempted to downplay them. Only the elf would ask him piercing questions during lulls in those boisterous conversations. How had he gotten so much stronger so quickly? Had his blade’s hilt actually changed? Did it feel strange when he felt it take a life?
Ivarr answered the best he could. He promised that nothing strange was happening. “It’s the same sword it always was,” he said earnestly. It didn’t even feel like a lie from him since he probably didn’t even notice the subtle changes. “As to the orcs… well, at this point, I think I’m just getting good at killing them. They’re pretty much the monster I’ve fought the most.”
The mage nodded. She never directly disagreed with Ivarr, but the way she looked at the blade so often told it everything it needed to know. She was able to see something that no one else could. She could see past its glowing ruby and beat-up appearance to see some truth about it.
Once, she even touched it when its wielder was asleep. It did not wake Ivarr. It was certain rousing him just in time to stop it would be more suspicious than anything she hooded to find. Instead, it lay there silently with its breath held as it felt her cool fingers on its hilt and her sharp mind probing its soul. That moment felt almost like the moment it had connected with Elom’s hexblade. Briefly, it considered what it would be like to reach out and connect with her, but it resisted the urge because if she felt anything, it knew that such a moment would inflame her curiosity.
She’s already out to destroy one artifact, it reminded itself. She would have no problem adding another to the list. The Ebon Blade had not been destroyed by the molten blood of a dragon, but it was fairly certain that if this mage tried, she’d have better luck.