"Here’s how this works." Thomas picked up Cassian’s original sword. "We’re going to reforge this one, and before it’s cooled merge it with the other. If everything goes right the weapon created afterwards will retain all the powers of the artifact."
"We’ll be left with an excellent, albeit completely mundane weapon."
"Well that would be a shame, especially since we don’t even know what else the artifact can do."
"That depends solely on you." Thomas stated. "Now that the weapons have the same shape I’m not actually needed for the merging."
With that, they began to work.
First they heated up the original sword and the materials provided by the Fool - normally replacing materials in the sword would be extremely challenging, but with an enchanted anvil it was a piece of cake.
When the enchantment on it was activated, Thomas could change the composition of the alloy making up the sword by just striking it with a hammer, replacing impurities and worse metal with the new materials.
Granted, it only looked easy - in reality the proces was extremely difficult and required a lot of knowledge about forging and metals. The blacksmith might have not been a mage, but he was still controlling the spell created by the anvil.
After the replacement was done, it was time for tempering.
Calen expected Thomas to use water or oil for the process - and he did use oil, just not the kind he thought.
"Holy oil?" Calen frowned. "Why use it?"
"You’re a Flamebearer - a weapon tempered in holy oil will be more compatible with divine power. In short it will make your enhancements on his weapon more effective."
"Why aren’t we also using my flames for forging then?"
"The materials are too weak - don’t get me wrong, they’re of excellent quality, but to forge in sacred flame you’d need something like mithril." The blacksmith explained. "From what I see your own weapon isn’t particularly impressive - keep it that way until you find a material cable of withstanding the heat without melting instantly."
"Will you help me forge my own a sword then?"
"If you don’t find a better blacksmith by then, sure. Now pay attention, merging is done right before the last tempering."
"Alright, tell me when to do it."
Thomas heated up the sword one last time, and placed it on the anvil.
"Quickly, before the blade goes cold."
Calen nodded and used a spell to bring the artifact just above the reforged sword - then the blacksmith struck the anvil with his hammer, and every single rune on its surface hummed to life.
Calen began the merging spell - the words rolled automatically from his tongue, as his will and magic began pushing the two swords together.
It wasn’t an easy task - the reforged sword fought with him only a little, but the artifact was pushing back as if it had a will of its own.
He was fairly accustomed to something working against his spell, and his use of divine power made the situation all the more familiar, but he couldn’t deny that the will of the artifact was strong - almost on par with a living being.
If it had been truly sentient he might have actually struggled, but without a real soul behind its will, it was ultimately doomed to failed against his.
Slowly but surely, the swords aligned and the weapons began to merge - the further along the process went, the easier it became, as the will of the two became one.
Ten minutes later there was a single sword left on the anvil, still burning red-hot.
Retaining the temperature for this long shouldn’t be possible, so Calen suspected it had something to do with the enchantment on the anvil.
Thomas struck against the anvil again, disabling the magic circles - then he retrieved the sword, and cooled it for the final time.
"Did it work?" Cassian questioned.
"I think so, nothing went wrong with the spell at least." Calen nodded.
Thomas was inspecting the sword on silence - weighing it, swinging it a few times, even looking at the metal from up-close.
"In terms of physical aspects the reforging went perfectly - it retained its balance and shape while becoming exponentially more durable and deadly."
"And its magical qualities?"
"It’s a champion weapon, only your friend can check that." Thomas handed the weapon to Cassian.
The handle, guard and pommel didn’t change that much - the only difference was a better leathe on the handle. Where the changes really showed was the blade - instead of the pristine silver that he was used to, the metal became darker and matte, but still perfectly smooth.
Cassian tried to change its shape - and the sword instantly obeyed.
"Well, at least this works, shame we don’t know what else it can do to check." Calen commented.
"It can do whatever it was able to do before." The blacksmith assured them. "This is a all or nothing kind of deal, either the powers of the artifact remain or they don’t - no in-between."
"I think you should name your sword, its mythical weapon now after all." Calen
"You’re a son of a knight and didn’t name your weapon?" Thomas sounded surprised.
"I wanted to do it once I became a full-fleged knight." Cassian explained. "Although I suppose that won’t happen now that the world order fell apart."
"Plenty of people get knighted in the Order."
"He means a knight with a brand." Calen clarified. "As far as I know you can’t appoint those, right?"
"Unfortunately not, Nickolas is the only one who knows how they’re created, but the round table never allowed him to brand people - they couldn’t risk the oaths getting in the way of survival, or something like that."
"As far as I know the brand stops you only from breaking your oath with premeditation - not when something out of your control happens."
"They weren’t particularly bothered by facts - they just didn’t want to limit their own freedom."
The heavy silence was broken by Cassian.
"I will name the sword after my father."
"Of course you will." Calen chuckled.
"From this day forward, this blade shall be known as Oathbound."