Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 13]

"I need material. And your sword, to base the design off."

Raven unhooked her weapon and threw it to me. I caught it under the guard, placing my other hand on the hilt. "You may draw it if you wish," she said. "Attack me if you want to but be aware that when I take it from your broken hands, I will kill her with it. If you are strong enough to kill me, however, you should. We're alone and I'm unarmed. You'll never get a better chance."

I drew the sword but did not attack her. Raven's laughter haunted me as I made my way to the forge, laying it down flat on the table beside it, ready to use as a reference for the new one I'd have to make.

[...]

The forging process was one I fell into almost too easily. Comfortable and familiar, it let me imagine a world where I wasn't a prisoner making a weapon for the most dangerous person on Remnant. Only for a moment, of course. Raven's constant presence prevented me from losing myself entirely. I worked the Starmetal into a billet, bringing the forge to temperatures no normal coal could achieve. I had to keep it there through Stoke the Forge alone, and even then, it took an unnatural amount of time to break down. I didn't dare imagine how strong the material itself would be. As I worked, I considered my options.

[...]

Another option was to make it but make it flawed. Create a weakness that would not be immediately apparent, but which would cause the blade to fracture later. The problem there was that I wasn't sure how to go about that with this material. There was a good chance that even if I left a weakness in the blade, the Starmetal would be so strong that it wouldn't matter. Alternatively, it might be so reliant on a strong base that it shattered, revealing my trick immediately and leading to Lisa's death, or worse, torture.

[...]

I made a show of holding the billet over her weapon, measuring out the dimensions. Bringing it back, I began to hammer it into shape.

As I did, I concentrated on the Starmetal itself, heating a small amount under the hand I was using to hold it in place, having eschewed tongs in favour of my Passive, Fire from the Forge. Disguised under the rain of sparks, I used my thumb to smooth out a portion of the Starmetal, pushing some of the fluid metal under my wrist.

Concentrating, I used Engraving to engrave a line under it. And then repeated it sixty or seventy times, until the `engraving` was so deep that the metal was cut. The sliver of Starmetal fell, but I caught it with one hand and began to heat it again.

As I did, I rained blow and blow on the billet that was slowly lengthening, taking the form of what would be Raven's weapon. The Knight herself watched with a smile, pleased to see her new sword taking form.

Of the sliver of metal I'd taken, it had become red hot and entered a near-liquid state. Disguising the motion in bringing my hand up to wipe some sweat from my brow, I let the piece fall down my tunic. It landed on Blake's pendant, wrapped around it, moulded to it. Fused to it.

As Raven's sword continued to form, I took three more the same size, working them into the pendant, and then, when that began to look suspiciously lumpy, the chain itself. Touching the chain on my neck during another brief pause, I Engraved it to match the design of the locket, forming a shell of Starmetal around the little thing. Now a silvery colour instead of gold, I hoped that neither Raven nor Vernal had cared to pay attention to it, or that they wouldn't see under my tunic at all.

So lost was I in handling it that I didn't notice Raven approach, not until she touched my elbow. I jumped. "W-What is it?" I asked, praying she hadn't noticed.

"It is nearly complete?"

"Nearly. It needs to be tempered and quenched. The edge will then need sharpening."

[...]

"My knowledge of them is limited. I can do some basic ones for each of the Stats. That's about it."

Raven brought a piece of parchment from her pocket and unfolded it. "I would like you to inscribe this onto the blade."

The drawing was something done in charcoal, but with precise detail. It resembled an eye stood on its edge, pointing up vertically. Surrounding it was what seemed to be the spokes of a wheel. Four points of a compass were at the cardinal points, while five diamonds dripped past the southern edge, fanning out like some kind of flower.

I'd seen it before, but for some reason, this time, it gave me a headache just looking at it. Something about the layout, the spokes digging into the eye, made me feel uncomfortable, almost nauseous. It was the pattern that had been on my amulet, and the door in Vacuo that contained the temple Watts sacrificed people within.

Never once had I thought it might be a Rune.

"What does it do…?"

"That's unimportant. You will place it onto the blade." Her words brooked no argument and I nodded, indicating that she should place it down on the table beside me as my hands were too hot to touch the parchment.

Keeping my eyes locked onto the bizarre Rune, I activated my Engraving Skill and began to etch it into the metal, cutting the curves and the spokes with my mind, infusing the Rune with power. It glowed an eldritch green on a sword slowly turning a vivid hue of blue. The sword was finished with a crash – a literal crash inside my skull – as the Exp all came in one devastating blow.

This metal was otherworldly. It was impossible for it to exist on Remnant. My eyes flashed angrily as a level came and went. Two. Three F-Four.

—Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 13]