Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 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 the 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 lie there forgotten under the water. It was still watching the vermin rip their quarry 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

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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 its 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 wielder 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 its 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 admire someone that was worthy to wield him.

Dragons weren’t his only accomplishments, either. He’d led 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.

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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 thing 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 of 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.