The Blood-Stained Blade Ch. 16-17

Hello everyone. So, a quick update on this story. I have scheduled the launch of Blood-Stained Blade for the 24th of February. I plan on dropping 8 chapters that day, then 1 a day for the first month to be followed by 2 or 3/week when that initial burst ends (Many of the chapters in this story are 1500-2000 words rather than my typical 1950-2100 word chapters, so I can post more often, especially once Tenebroum ends). That means I'll be posting 2 chapters this week on Patreon, 2 next week, 3 the week after, then 5 a week for a couple weeks.

The point is, chapters will be regular and increasing for a good while, so enjoy the flow of the story. Today I wrapped up chapter 34, so things are moving right along.

Ch. 16 - Out of The Way

The temple was an imposing ruin. The Ebon blade was not sure it had been designed that way, but the years had certainly made it so. It was important enough to have been carved from imported stone and built in a fashion that was both large and elaborate. Just the portion he could see was bigger than the inn they’d stayed at so recently. 

It was hard to see how much it dug into the rocky slope it was built against, though. Half of the columns had fallen, and what once might have been well-trimmed gardens on its slopes had been utterly consumed by brambles. 

Kell didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t seem to mind anything. Since their guide left, he’d become almost despondent, and the blade worried about the dark, turbulent emotions that rippled through its wielder’s mind. Its wielder's only concern was for the mule carrying its supplies, and it tethered the beast far enough away from the door that it would likely be safe until nightfall.

The Ebon Blade didn’t care about the sadness that was swirling through Kell. Though it could certainly sympathize with that feeling of being betrayed, and the man was worlds better than its first wielder, he would probably have to be replaced by someone stronger when the blade found someone if he didn’t learn to toughen up. 

A stronger arm and a weaker mind and I will truly be reborn, it thought guardedly as the two of them trudged up the slope to see if this had been worth the trip.

The outside of the place offered no clues to its purpose. Any that might have once existed had long been obliterated by the goblins that dwelled within. Statues had been toppled, and carvings had been obliterated. 

“Is this bringing back any memories?” its wielder asked. 

None, the blade answered. It only reminds me that we should be on our guard. 

Kell said nothing but drew it anyway, making the red ruby in its hilt glow balefully. The blade did not need light to see in the dark, but it realized that the gem would probably substitute acceptably as a torch for the time being.

It took a moment, then, to take stock of the situation. It could feel they were being watched, though it could not see the source of the gaze. After the bloody fight in Trodden, it had plenty of energy. Currently, the blade was just below 1000 Life Force, and if the shepherd boy’s stories were halfway close to true, it was certain it would drink its fill here. 

The inside of the collapsed temple wasn’t that much different than the outside. The destruction was just as complete, but instead of being choked with brambles and grasses like the outer courtyard, everything that was once beautiful here was covered with the carcasses and bones of not-so-recent kills or mounds of half-petrified goblin shit. Still, amongst all of that ruin, the sword saw a number of important details. 

The first was that the golden ornaments above the defiled altar were still in place, which meant that it was monsters not men who had done this. Additionally, most of the animal bones it could see belonged to small rodents, snakes, and birds. The monsters that lived here couldn’t even bring down the elk that were quite common on the plains. 

That disappointed it. There would be no challenges here. 

Its wielder walked to a statue behind the altar first. It was a marble frieze of a Goddess or a saint that was larger than life, and she towered over Kell by several feet. She meant nothing to the blade, but its wielder seemed to recognize her. 

Who is that? It asked. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said in a hushed voice, “But I’m pretty sure it’s Vergozza, Goddess of the Underworld. I can’t think of another reason why she’d be so beautiful with only a skull for a face. Perhaps you were a ritual artifact that belonged to a priest here. I’ve heard dark stories about how the artifacts her priests wield are powered by the souls of the dead that are in her care in the world after. They say for enough coin they can even bring the dead to the world of the living for a short time.”

That last thought made the boy’s mind linger on the dead he’d buried so recently, and he wondered if he had enough gold to raise Mika nad appologize for letting him die. The blade had barely registered what its wielder said or thought. However, at the mention of the name, it swooned for a moment. Vergozza, Guardian of the Underworld, Keeper of the Dead, and Warden of the Things that Should not Be…

Images flashed through its mind of pale priests and priestesses then. They weren’t the ones who'd betrayed it, but they were the people who had imprisoned it. The blade was sure of that much. It didn’t think that it was dead, though. It was far more confident that it fell into that third category of things that should not be. For some reason, after its last true wielder had died, someone had decided that it was for the best to lock it away forever. 

You didn’t succeed, though, did you! It roared in triumph for a moment at its freedom. It had been locked away for decades, or perhaps even centuries, but now it was free once more. 

It did not reveal any of those insights to its wielder, though. Instead, after a moment, it simply said, I believe you are right. I seem to recall that it was her followers who trapped me here. 

“Maybe we can find a way to set you free then,” the young man said hopefully. “Then you can return to the underworld and cleanse your soul to be reborn anew.”

The blade didn’t think that its soul would be cleansed very easily, but it ignored the point as they drifted deeper into the ruined place. There were several sets of doors, but Kell was drawn magnetically to the largest of the three. They were twice as large as a man, and though they were mostly shut by heavy bronze gates, there was a small gap between them that obviously led into the mountain itself. 

The blade could hear the scratching sounds of goblins beyond the door and warned its wielder with a whisper, but he merely nodded. As he approached the gap cautiously. He barely had time to squeeze through the gap before the first goblin attacked. 

Kell might not have been able to see well in the dark, but the Ebon Blade could, and its wielder did nothing to resist the weapon’s urgings as it suddenly darted and whirled as several of the small green-skinned vermin that had laid in wait were diced to pieces in a series of whirling blows. 

+19 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

+14 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

+12 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

It was over almost as quickly as it started, leaving them in a filthy, blood-stained hallway that slowly descended into the dark. There will be more of them, the blade cautioned. 

I hope so, its wielder responded silently with a smile as he picked his way carefully through the Stygian dark. He didn’t stop as he passed carvings that he couldn’t see, but the blade still reviewed them as they slowly passed by. There was no reason to pause and study them further; none of them seemed to be about it. They seemed to depict important myths and legends, and few of them even involved a blade. 

They were ambushed twice more as they descended, and only once did a goblin even manage to injure Kell before it was dispatched. When they reached the bottom, the slowly ramping corridor ended in a T-junction, and there were a few inches of standing water on the floor, but the biggest threat was the mold that had completely devoured the walls in that spot. 

They continued on, first to the left, where they found only cells for monks to sleep or meditate. This interested the blade because it recalled Ren bragging to his friends that he’d been the one to get the blade because he was the only one who could squeeze through the bars. 

Unfortunately none of these had bars, they never found a room to store a blade that matched the flimsy description it had heard. They found only cells for prisoners or penitents. It wasn’t until they backtracked and went to the right that they found what they were looking for. 

Though the corridor went further, the second room they passed by stood out to it immediately, as much for the murals and the large stone sheath-like altar that was carved into the far wall beyond a row of tightly spaced iron bars. 

For a moment, the darkness and the decay fell away. The dripping water from the ceiling and, the red eyes and the distant growls of the goblins that were down here with them vanished. All it could see was that small room, and all it could remember was what happened here the day it had been imprisoned. 

It could remember being carried here by a priest of singular resolve so long ago when it had been at full power. It raged then against its wielder, but somehow, the man endured it and made the long walk here. Anyone who wandered too close in that time was struck down by its furious drain, but it could not strike down the man who resisted it. 

At least, that was the case until he’d finally reached his destination and embedded it in the stone that was meant to be its tomb. 

You will not escape my wrath! It had raged in that moment. I will yet have my revenge!

“You will,” the priest had agreed. The man had already accepted his death, and as soon as he released the Ebon Blade’s hilt, it drank his life force greedily. His corpse still lay there on the ground. The blade could see the moldering human skeleton. No one could approach close enough to drag it away for a proper burial, so it had laid here all this time while its powers had withered to nothing. 

Nimon, his name was Nimon, it recalled slowly.

-16 Life Force.

Slowly, the Ebon Blade came out of that memory with that name in mind. I saw then that the murals behind where it had lain for so long were undefiled. There, in those faded colors, it could see the dragons being slain and the dark knight who slew them with a familiar black blade. Those were its deeds, but there was a warning, too. “Let this weapon sleep forever more lest the world be damned!”

-14 Life Force.

Before it could comment on that further, though, it felt its Life Force being drained. For several seconds, it wasn’t sure why that was the case until the pain of its wielder finally registered in the form of a scream from Kell’s lips. While it had been distracted, one of the goblins had leaped from the darkness and jabbed a rusted blade into its wielder’s eye. 

-13 Life Force.

The blow had been so vicious that it actually went past that into the skull. It was a mortal wound, but even so, its magic tried to heal it anyway for several seconds, and dozens of points of Life Force drained from its reserves, and the goblin screeched in triumph. Given enough time and power, it was confident it could heal anything, but as the other goblins charged forward, emboldened, it wasn’t sure that Kell would have that much time. 

-10 Life Force.

Ch. 17 - Butchery

The goblins pierced his wielder in half a dozen places with teeth and crude weapons even as the Ebon blade began to redirect Kell’s almost random swings into something resembling a coordinated defense. 

+19 Life Force.
-13 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

+10 Life Force.
-11 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

It appreciated the surge in Life Force since it was pouring out of its reserves at a prodigious rate. It even burned all of its lesser monster souls since it didn’t need them for anything, gaining 196 Life Force from the surge as it sought to fill the gap. 

-9 Life Force.

Kell might yet have managed to survive despite the ugly wounds he’d received if he’d managed to hold onto the blade. However, when one of the goblins bit his wrist, the severed tendon released his grip for a second, sending the ebon blade flying into the wall. 

And just like that, its second wielder was no more. He succumbed to his several mortal wounds almost instantaneously, and Ebon blade could do nothing to help the man. Would I if I could? It wondered. A strong wielder shouldn’t need its help, so it probably wouldn’t, but an especially strong wielder or perhaps one who knew something about how it had come to its strange fate… 

Before it could decide, something momentous happened to it. A goblin stepped on it. 

It hadn’t even had time to worry that it would lay there forgotten under the water. It was still watching the vermin rip their query to pieces with teeth and claws when the green skin touched it, and it seized the creatures soul in that moment on pure instinct. 

The Ebon Blade grasped its soul as soon as it did. It had never tried to force a human soul to do its bidding out of fear of the consequences, but it felt certain it could seize the goblin’s soul easily enough. Judging by the Life Force it harvested from their souls, they were much weaker than humans. 

It was right. The thing barely struggled as it forced it to pause and pick up the blade. It didn’t struggle at all against its next order. Slay your kin. Kill them all. Every last one!

The goblin made a comical sight, swinging the long sword that was longer than it was tall like it was a claymore. The fighting that followed might not have been graceful, or even effective, but it was deadly. While the other goblins busied themselves devouring the still warm human flesh, they were cleaved down in wide scything blows.

Some fought. A moment ago, they were as strong as their comrade. They should have had a chance. The dark strength of the Ebon Blade surged through its new wielder, though, and the goblin cut them down one after another as it made its way to the heart of its hive. The Ebon Blade drank deeply of their polluted souls then. 

+19 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

+11 Life Force.

+14 Life Force.
You have claimed a lesser monster soul. 

It was bombarded by so many numbers that it lost count. That was made worse by the distraction that was goblin speech. A moment ago, it was certain they had no language of their own, but hearing the sounds they made through the ears of another goblin made for an entirely different experience than listening to them screech as a human. They had some language, at least. 

Words echoed through the darkness, but they weren’t words that were worth hearing. Fuck, Death, Pain, Rage, and other similar phrases echoed through the dark tunnels that had become a killing field. Fuck was the one they used the most often, but all of them were curses, in their own way. 

It was only when its rampage had gotten the lone, crazed warrior entirely surrounded that they succeeded in taking it down. Even as they did so, though, the blade simply captured a new wielder as soon as they touched it. 

Name:None

Race: Goblin

Toughness: 2 +1

Strength: 3 +3

Agility: 4 +2

Speed: 3 +1

Intelligence: 1

Willpower: 1 -1

Morality: Psychotic

Bloodlust: High

Status: Enthralled

Martial Skill: Low

Armor Proficiency: None

Dodging: Low

Athletics: Low

Goal: To devour and kill!

That happened twice more before it was done, but in the end the goblins couldn’t stop it. Stopping it was impossible when it was the weapon not the warrior that needed to be defeated, and no one here was capable of doing that. 

It took the rest of the day and most of the night, and the Ebon Blade changed hands three more times before it was finally done. There had been hundreds of goblins here when the violence had started. Now even the pups were dead, and the sole survivor was dragging its weapon back to the place where it had all started. 

Including all of the lesser souls it had devoured, the Ebon Blade had 2864/3000 Life Force now. It was practically full, but right now, in this spot, what it wanted most was to spend that on the next level of Repair Soul and see what it could learn. Before it could do that, though, it wanted to gaze upon the decorated landmark that was its prison. 

When it’s enthralled goblin wielder brought it within feet of its previous prison, the Ebon Blade gazed at the walls for almost a minute, studying each of the murals in turn. It was only then that it spent the energy and the world froze as it felt the surge of cold that came with using up so much power. 

For a moment, the murals came to life. They were no longer paint on stone, but moments of its former life. The rust scaled dragon snarled and snapped before it was buried by its wielder into the thing’s giant eye socket. The black dragon roared a gout of deadly flame, but it was still felled when its wilder shoved it through the tiny ear hole on the side of its skull right into its brain. 

Both of those were crowning moments in its existence. It knew that. Dragon slayers were rare, and blades and warriors that survived long enough to do it twice were almost unheard of, but somehow its wielder had succeeded.

No, not it’s wielder. Baraga. His name was Baraga, and unlike the other wielders that the blade had endured, it felt very positively toward its first wielder. He was a warrior without peer that was faster and more graceful in plate mail than most men were outside of it. That was before the Ebon Blade’s magic had strengthened him, too. How could one not admiresomeone that was worthy to wield him. 

Dragons weren’t his only accomplishments, either. He’d lead a small army to defeat a horde of orcs. That battle featured armies that stretched to the horizon, and were so blood spattered that it had trouble feeling anything about them but hunger, even if it knew those were fearsome odds. 

With all his strength and all his men, he only just held back at the ruins of an old fort. Dwarf’s Fist, that was the name of it. Was it built by dwarves, or just in the shape of them? The blade didn’t know. It barely had a chance to study the crumbling walls of orange stone before the scene moved on.

If he’d accomplished such victories, though, then why did he risk his life to slay two different dragons? The blade wondered. There were flashes then. Not of the riches their lairs contained, but of a woman. 

No, she wasn’t just any woman, either. She was a princess. She’d been promised to whoever could do such an impossible feat, and though it didn’t recall the details, its wielder must have loved her very much to take such terrible chances with his life. 

It lingered on her for a time, which made the Ebon Blade think she was important, even though it had no memory of her. Her city, at least, was more interesting. She dwelled in the Altbarstein, overlooking the thriving city of Severon. It had been to that place before, it was sure of it. 

It might have even been forged there. It was hard to say. It was a prosperous place of brick and stone, not one of the savage little towns that it had seen so far in this journey. It even had the same triple walled defenses that it had recalled before. 

Was I wielded by a prince, then? It wondered as the dizzying array of castles and locations flashed before it again. 

What happened to Baraga? It wondered. The man was no longer a part of the images spiraling out in front of it. It wasn’t sure whether time was playing forward or backward in that moment, but that feeling of betrayal and treachery assaulted it again then. Before it could delve too deeply into that, though, words in the darkness interrupted it. 

“The thing is, a terrible blade like this requires a noble purpose,” an old man whispered. “It’s ironic, but you won’t appreciate it. You can’t.”

It never saw who spoke, but it saw the same forge and the same blacksmith as last time. It saw itself being tempered in sweltering fires, and it heard both screaming and hammering in that moment. It felt them, too. It could feel those blows, and as the only pain it could remember experiencing, and it felt each blow land long after the vision was over. 

So they were backwards. It decided once the moment was over. I saw the Dragons, and then after that, my own creation, it decided, almost convinced that was what had happened. So, with that in mind it tried to focus on those critical images in the forges. Other than the location of a city that was apparently important to it wielder, and a fort where he’d once fought, it was the main that it had learned. 

It ignored the pain and focused on the burning runes that had been carved upon it that day, as well as the shadowy men that had been standing on the far side of the forge. The blacksmith didn’t matter, but the garb off the other men… well, those red robes it recalled. They were mages of The Aetherarchy. 

It hated them too, almost as much as it hated dragons, but it didn’t know why. The Ebon Blade focused on that image for a long time, as well as the feelings it inspired, but the effort was in vain. No other details came to it.