Chương 107: 174 - Blade

Despite Vivi and Rafael's mutual attempts at jinxing the celebration, the night wrapped up without a Vanguard-worthy disaster. She couldn't decide if she was suspicious or relieved. After ferrying everyone home, she checked on Saffra, then teleported them both to her manor to get some sleep. Vivi was tempted to rely on her stat-boosted constitution and continue her research, but she reluctantly admitted that it would be smarter to attack the problem refreshed and clear-minded.

She started anew first thing the next morning. Now that she'd gotten a preliminary handle on void energy, so many possibilities had opened up that she barely knew where to begin. After a short deliberation, she decided that forging a blade would be her first goal. Not because that implementation of void energy interested her the most, but because she had a promise to fulfill.

She had told Damon Caldimore that she would recreate his artifact, and though forcing void energy to allow System-based interactions remained temporarily out of reach, she could at least discover how to create the blade itself. And it was the blade that represented the bulk of the voidglass dagger's threat, as convenient as being able to make the weapon interact with one's skills would be.

Seeing how getting the material to emit a persistent aura was far from the most complicated application imaginable, she succeeded at putting together a working model before the noon bell rang. Adapting the spell into an enchantment took another hour past that. From there, all she had left was crafting the physical part of the weapon. Toward that end, she would need to select a tier of material. Voidling or voidbeast.

It was far too soon to use up her limited supply of voidgod carapace, and while greater voidbeasts were in higher abundance—especially considering the size of those monsters—she wondered whether using the highest-quality resources was smart. Or even whether it served her purpose. She might want the weapon to be weak. Then again, that would be less useful for testing. Perhaps I'll make blades of every level and see how they compare. It's not like I'm lacking time or resources.

Shortly after making that decision, she discovered something both interesting and disappointing: the giant ball of condensed voidglass—courtesy of Prismarche's invasion—was nonfunctional for the task. It had broken somehow. No matter what she tried, she couldn't get the voidglass to activate like she could all of the other material she had in storage. Which did make sense in retrospect. Who would've thought? Crushing a thousand batteries down into a tiny ball breaks them all.

That did raise the question of what had happened to all that stored power—why hadn't it exploded? —but though she kept referring to it as energy, it didn't behave as such in any classical sense. The High King had ordered all void corpses to be collected and guarded as property of the crown, and the Sorceress obviously had access to those reserves since she had been personally responsible for the bulk of the kills. So a short visit to that graveyard later, she'd gathered a variety of crafting material.

Then she tracked down Eshara.

"A blade?" the elvish blacksmith asked, having been, as expected, at her forge.

"While I would of course be happy to aid you, my lady, I'm not sure I can. This voidglass is not a metal. I have tried to work it, but cannot. More recently, I've been trying to use it as an adornment, as I might gemstones. But my progress there is also… lackluster. Trying to form a blade from it wholesale?" She shook her head.

"I believe Ulden is who you'll wish to speak with, if that's your goal."

"Ah, sorry," Vivi said, "I'm not actually asking for you to forge a blade for me." Feeling sheepish, she explained, "I can use magic to carve the material myself. But being able to shape something with a spell doesn't necessarily mean I can make it look right." She had discovered that through experience. Her cheeks wanted to color when she remembered the result. Like a first-time artist's attempt at drawing something from memory. You would think a sword would be easy enough to get right, but nope.

She'd never had much of an artistic inclination. Other people probably would've done better.

"I see now," Eshara said.

"A template to copy. That, I can provide." The elf walked over and cleared a workbench, then leaned her hip against it and crossed her arms.

"Is there a style you prefer? A blade whose cutting strength relies on otherworldly energy hardly needs to pay much heed to mundane matters like mass and sharpness. But design would still matter to an extent. Something lightweight? Swift and maneuverable. Reach, perhaps, but that comes with tradeoffs, and I would recommend a spear anyway. Though maybe I shouldn't assume you care for functionality. Aesthetics drive your decision?" Vivi nodded, and Eshara smiled.

"They do most people's, more than they care to admit," the elf said, "and while I tend to discourage such frivolity when it comes to implements meant for killing and saving lives, I think these are not normal circumstances."

"They aren't," Vivi agreed.

"I was going to go with a dagger first, but as I thought about it, I decided a sword would be better." Swords were hardly improved versions of daggers, but for some reason it felt like one-upping Damon Caldimore.

"And yes, appearance is all that matters in this case." She wasn't quite shameless enough to say that all she wanted was for the end result to 'look cool,' but Eshara probably picked up on the subtext.

"They'll be prototypes anyway. Might take a few iterations to get right." Eshara nodded, pushed off the workbench, and began plucking weapons out of her collection. The Roving Justicar was not only an armsmaster who had attained incredible skill with close to every forged weapon under the sun, but also a blacksmith with centuries of experience. Thus, she had a lot of swords to show off. Some of Eshara's ever-enduring seriousness melted away as she happily presented masterpiece after masterpiece.

Everybody had passions, and it made sense that one of Eshara's would be the art that blended functionality and form in the weapons she created. It was an unexpected benefit of coming to Vanguard's blacksmith, getting to see a different side of the woman. Especially since she was one of the people who treated Vivi most like the legendary Sorceress. Vivi's rescuing of her and Corvan at the last moment had had some unfortunate consequences in that regard.

Eshara seemed to take care not to specify which pieces had been designed by her and which she had acquired through other means, but Vivi could easily tell them apart. Eshara only actually gushed over some of the blades, while with others she showed far more restraint—if not outright criticized. The latter, of course, were the ones she herself had forged. Vivi didn't have to know the elf well to see that she was someone who placed unrealistic expectations on herself.

It was unfortunate too, because all of Eshara's weapons were easily as impressive as the rest. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The gallery went on for some time before Eshara seemed to realize that she'd been speaking for so long.

"But, ah, that covers a wide enough range," she said, cheeks turning pink.

"Did any in particular draw your eye, my lady?"

"All of them. They're incredible. But if I had to choose…" She was quiet for a moment as she finalized the rankings in her head, then reached out to place a hand on the hilt of one. She hesitated before her fingers touched.

"May I?" The blacksmith looked surprised that Vivi had asked.

"Of course, Guildmaster." She hadn't wanted to assume. She lifted the weapon. Eshara's earlier recommendation of 'something lightweight, swift and maneuverable' had lodged in her head. Even if functionality didn't matter much, an elegant sword appealed more to her than a bulky one. If I'm the one to be using it, at least. Big swords are definitely cool in their own right.

"Nocturne," Eshara said approvingly.

"A storied blade. How I came to own it is a tale and a half… but not one I wish to share at the moment." Vivi glanced at her, hesitating, but the elf sighed; she seemed to mean what she'd said. The melancholy was gone when she continued, "More Sword Saints have wielded a katana than any other make. Somehow, I'm not surprised you find yourself drawn to it as well." Her gaze traced the katana's edge with open admiration.

"Nocturne is especially striking." It was. As much as for the shape, she'd gravitated toward the sword because of its darker color scheme—it let her visualize what the blade might look like if carved from an unbroken block of voidglass. Where that material was a marbled mixture of violet and black, however, the weapon she held now seemed like it'd been extracted wholesale from the night sky. Only its handle wasn't so pitch-black that it seemed to drink light.

Fine red stitches on the hilt served as an arresting accent to the otherwise simple construction. She turned it side to side, appraising the weapon, although she obviously had no idea what made a good sword versus a bad sword. It definitely looks awesome, though. Five stars. After a moment, she placed the sword back onto the workshop table. The next one she held up was a yellow-and-white rapier.

The silhouette impressed her more than the comparatively simple katana's, though something about the first one had a stronger visual impact regardless. Or maybe she just liked how katanas looked. No accounting for taste, is there? Her inspection of the various weapons continued for a few minutes, with Vivi setting aside the ones she wanted to copy designs of.

"Do you mind if I borrow them?" she asked when finished.

"To use them as molds, as we discussed. It shouldn't take long." Belatedly, she realized that the items could have great sentimental value to Eshara, such that she might not want to part with them. But while that might be true, the blacksmith didn't hesitate to respond.

"Of course, Guildmaster. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with."

"I will." The process of magically extracting templates of the blades took very little time, with the longer delay coming from making multiple copies of each and trying to decide which patterns of black and violet were most visually pleasing. Some versions looked far better than the rest depending on where the marbled patches of color landed. The finalists came out stunning in her opinion, though not as gorgeous as the originals.

There was a certain intimidating aesthetic to an entire weapon—hilt, guard, blade and all—being pulled from a single block of voidglass, but such low-effort construction couldn't match master-rank and higher blacksmiths pouring their hearts into their craft. Afterward, she returned the collection to Eshara then teleported away to apply the enchantments. Once that was done, she had officially completed her first prototype voidglass weapon.

She made more of varying potency, admired her hard work, and then went to find Rafael. He was thankfully in his office.

"So," Vivi said, walking through the open door.

"About those alternate identities you mentioned." The steward opened a drawer and withdrew a folder without so much as looking up from the document in front of him.

"Right here, my lady."

"I can't tell if it says more about you or me," she said dryly, "that you've put together a dossier of false identities without me ever having asked for them."

"It would be a poor servant who did not predict his master's needs," Rafael said, lips quirking up with amusement.

"I'm afraid only one will be as seamless as Nysari, though, and I wouldn't recommend using it."

"Seamless? And why not?"

"Tiny, demonic masters of magic are not in surplus, my lady, and a disguise should not actively invite the comparison, given how… in the spotlight you are at the moment. Lest you wish for the ruse to last a very short time indeed."

"Tiny?" He paused, then cleared his throat.

"It is a pertinent detail to the matter of recognizability."

"Mm." She let it slide.

"So by seamless, you mean they're very different from me." Unlike Nysari, who she hadn't even bothered transmogrifying herself for.

"They have varying backgrounds, but generally, yes. Most are not demons."

"That's fine." She'd known she would have to transmogrify herself, and being a human or elf wouldn't be any more uncomfortable than another demon. She had been human, once.

"Which one do you recommend, then?"

"That depends on how you intend to participate." She gave him a blank look—which he could somehow interpret despite that being her default expression.

"Not all are lifelong mages with an exclusive specialty in magic," he explained.

"Ah." She considered for a moment.

"I'm still working on developing void spells—not that they're actually spells," she clarified, the mage in her feeling the need to make the distinction, "so it'd be a good thing if they're not a pure spellcaster." Her previous project of the past few hours, though meant primarily to fulfill a promise to Damon Caldimore, had her suddenly tilting her head.

"Do you have any swordswomen?" she asked. I do have a nifty new weapon to play with, after all. Even Rafael raised an eyebrow at that request.

"Specifically a master of swords? No, but several with martial backgrounds alongside their magical ones." A sword master would have been too much, anyway.

"The goal is just to see how void energy interacts with as many skills, spells, and items as I can, and voidglass blades can do that as easily as more creative applications. Plus I really don't know how long it'll take to build up an arsenal. So yeah. No need for the identity to be a mage exclusively." Having limitations sounded like it would make the experience more interesting, in fact. Void spells and a sword only, she mused. Now there's an idea. I could still win the whole thing, but it'd be trickier, for sure.

Rafael pulled out a thin file from within the larger folder.

"Then I believe this is your woman." He slid it toward her.

"Three centuries old, not of noble birth, and missing for the past six decades. Talented in both martial and magical ability." Vivi studied the sharp elven features on the portrait in front of her.

"Actually missing? Is this a real person?"

"Of sorts, and yes, respectively. She exists, and is missing to most who once knew her. But by her own choice. It is not the sturdiest of the options I have arranged, yet that is also ideal for such a—" He paused." Casual purpose." Frivolous, you mean, she thought dryly.

"Depending on how far you progress through the bracket, I am sure some people might investigate, but given that she is from one of the more remote elven forests, they will find their task difficult. If those individuals are curious enough to dig that deep, they will encounter elves who corroborate her existence, appearance, and deeds."

"Sounds more than good enough." She wasn't going undercover. Truth told, she barely needed any substance at all. Still studying the portrait, Vivi noted, She's really pretty. All elves were. The woman had golden hair and eyes, with striking, angled features. She couldn't be more different from Vivi… besides the slight frown that radiated a serious demeanor. That last part would be easy to imitate, since transmogrification didn't rid her of her inexpressiveness. She paused as her gaze caught on a detail in the file.

"She's tall," Vivi pointed out.

"She is of average height for an elf."

"She's tall."

"She is quite tall," he corrected himself. Vivi huffed.

"Can I make her shorter, or will that be a problem?"

"I'm sure a few inches would not harm the image," Rafael hedged. He didn't finish the second half of the statement,'though I would advise against doing much more than that.' He probably didn't expect the identity to last forever, but he surely didn't want her going out of her way to set his hard work on fire. Vivi suppressed a sigh. She was likely being ridiculous. But as much as she found the idea emotionally annoying, height was also simply one of the more uncomfortable parts of a transmogrification.

Longer limbs influenced how a person experienced the world on a sensory level more than one might think. At least it wouldn't be as bad as her halfdragon form.

"I'll start working on her transformation," Vivi said, already finding herself growing absorbed by the prospect.

"Oh, and do you want to see the swords I made?"