Bloodstained Blade
Chapter 94 - A New Woman

After that night, Evelyn was a changed woman. She was still flighty, superficial, and far too chatty for the blade’s taste, but when the time came to unsheathe it and get to work, she was also more focused and complained far less often. She had to, every day now, was like a countdown to what they both wanted, and she, more than it knew how hard that would be.

The Ebon Blade could see it in her mind. It could glimpse the throne room shed seen so often as a girl, and the war golems that protected the king in their shining plate armor. Those were the obvious defenses. Neither of them knew what else awaited them. They wouldn’t until they were close enough for the blade to interrogate the souls of the palace guard and gain further insights.

It even consumed one of its remaining mage souls for insight, but the man had little to offer it. He knew that Altbearstein Castle had layers of defenses that interlaced the physical and the magical. He had even looked at the structure with Aethersight more than once in his ancient life, letting the blade glimpse what it looked like as it glowed with power.

While, according to his soul, the sight wasn’t as impressive as the Hall of Ages or the tower of Heaven’s Reach, it was still far too complex for the blade to even begin to guess at the flows. It was not a mage. Still, at least its own light would not be out of place in a structure with such powerful flows.

It was enough for it to be certain that the challenge would be almost as great as the danger. After all, by all accounts, it had tried this same thing more than once, and

It and Evelyn discussed this topic more than any other as the days slowly ticked down. When her mourning period was over, she’d return to Sevrin, the capital of the Inner Kingdoms. Ostensibly, she’d do this to petition him to find her a new partner because she did not wish to grow old as a widow in a lonely backwater. It made a fine cover story for what amounted to an assassination.

Assassination. The very word injured its pride.

It was not a weapon made for stabbing anyone in the back. Still, a direct, frontal assault wouldn’t work. It could see that as it learned more about the city. Even if it had Var’gar and the orc’s entire war band at full strength, it would have been a difficult nut to crack. Too many mages in one spot could defeat almost any number of warriors. That was the only argument it could think of that justified its deceptive tactics.

However, none of that lessened the work that remained to be done. They still had weeks to go, and except for a few interruptions, the Ebon Blade worked its wielder harder than ever.

+22 Life Force.

The only serious interruption was a few days after their bloodbath at the crossroads tavern. When her servants came with fresh supplies, they brought along armed men; for a moment, the blade worried she’d been betrayed, but instead, they’d planned to leave her with guards, which would have ruined everything.

Evelyn refused them, of course. It listened to the entire conversation, for where she’d hidden it in the woodpile by the side door.

“But my lady!” her handmaiden pleaded, quite beside herself. “You don’t understand. Men were murdered, only a few miles from here! It’s not safe!”

“Perhaps it would be better if I were dead,” she said melodramatically.

“My men would never dream of trying anything, Baroness,” the guard captain answered. “We can camp out in the shed if you prefer. You won’t even know we’re here.”

“Thank you,” she nodded, “But even so. I’m here to mourn my husband, and will allow no man to come between me and that sacred duty. If they must stay, then let them guard the road from the nearest village. That is as much as I will allow.”

Eventually, with the Ebon blade’s help, a compromise along those lines was reached, but the weapon didn’t care about the details, only how it was accomplished. Part way through the argument, it had realized that the man had borne a grudge against one of the men they’d slaughtered so recently, a gambler named Finn who had cheated the captain on more than one occasion.

The blade didn’t really understand why it would have a connection to anyone outside its wielder, but the threads of fate that wove through the Path of Vengeance somehow tied the two of them together, and the blade twisted them. Do as the woman says. Leave her in peace. She will be safe without you.

Once it made the command the thread unraveled, and the situation was quickly resolved, even if everyone seemed confused by its resolution. After that, they finally got back to work, and the following day, that’s just what they did. Evelyn no longer complained about the food, the outfits, or even the fatigue. Instead, she exercised so much and so fervently that slowly, her entire appearance began to shift.

When she’d first held it, she’d been a soft, weak woman. Now she was lean, and her muscles had visible definition to them. The blade was concerned enough about that to bring it up to her. You ladies in waiting will notice the change when you return, it cautioned.

“If they do, they’ll think I’ve been starving myself, which isn’t so far from the truth,” she agreed.

Still, none of that stopped her from exercising. After another week, they assaulted the goblin cave for the second time. This time, they went all the way to the center of the burrow, and while she couldn’t see, she trusted the blade implicitly by this point, and it guided her through the narrow tunnels until they reached the bonfire-lit cavern at the heart of the thing.

In fact, by the time they were done, there wasn’t a monster worth slaying in ten miles. She’d killed everything worth killing and gotten her coordination and balance honed to such a degree that when she danced through its forms at the water’s edge, the Ebon Blade was tempted to call it beautiful.

The entire routine was long enough that Ivarr had never gotten to the end of it, but as Evelyn learned each part and incorporated it into the section she’d already mastered, she eventually got to the point where the whole thing looped back around. The blade hadn’t even known that it had been set up so that the last step and stroke pivoted smoothly into the first, but it supposed it should have. It would have, it had a body.

+7 Life Force.

In the same way that her dance-like strokes flowed smoothly from one to the next, the days during those last few weeks blended together. There was no real Life Force left for the weapon to gather, and the forest had gone silent for a lack of birds and other animals, but even without the conflict that it craved, some part of it enjoyed that serene, meditative process.

Eventually, whole afternoons could pass by without either of them saying a word, and if the blade peered into Evelyn’s mind, it would find her focused on the same thing as it was: the death of the king, and an end to a generation's old travesty. Their reasons were different, of course, but their purpose was unified, and the blade saw that in both its stats as well as hers.

The Ebon Blade

Life Force: 1823/7800

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Siphon: 28-40

Souls: 3/58

Path: Death, Level 5 - complete

Blood, Level 5 - complete

Vengeance, Level 3 - 18/100 villains slain.

Reserves: 10 - Your gemstone is perfect.

Siphon: 7 -Your blade islong andsharp.

Connection: 4 - Nearly Complete - The windings of your grip are almost perfect.

Control: 4 - Overpowering - Your runes are deep.

Senses: 5 - Clear - Your hilt is unmarred.

Soul: 4 - Flawed - You know how you were created.

Powers:

Accelerate Wielder 3: Increase wielder’s speed and agility.

Aethersight 1: spend Life Force to see mana flows.

Aethershroud 4: suppress your own magical appearance by 80%

Aura of Hunger:Drain Life Force from nearby victims.

Amplify Blade 3: Spend Life Force to strike with extra power.

Amplify Wielder 3: Strength

Attuned:Bonuses you offer your wielder increase by 10%

Bolt 4: launch lightning at your opponents, and travel along it.

Disrupt 4: disrupt the magic of others.

Inferno 1: Light your blade on fire for additional damage.

Parasitic Link 5:Your wielder provides for your needs.

Secondary Powers:

False Image 4: disguise your appearance or your wielder’s appearance, in or out of combat.

Giant’s Strength 3:

Speed of the Shadows 3: +3 agility, +15% speed in darkness.

Death

Drain Soul: Harvest the souls of your victims for later use.

Convert Souls: Devour a soul for its constituent essence.

Ineffective Immunity: Natural immunities no longer protect your enemies.

Deathly Touch: All strikes deal +10 cold damage.

Beyond their Reach: Life drain effects do not affect you.

Grim Reaper: Bonus damage from cold increased.

Endless Malaise: You gather Life Force from the dead.

Blood

Vampirism: Drain more life force from blood

Hemophilia: The wounds you inflict don’t stop bleeding.

Bonds of Blood: you may examine the minds of wounded enemies with half of your connection rating.

Flesh and Bone: your wielder heals faster but at double the cost.

Red Haze: gain 33% of your Siphon from every significant wound inflicted within your reach.

Aura of Life and Death: You may heal people with a range equal to your Aura of Hunger.

Blood Mastery: You may take control of wounded opponents for a short time.

Surge of Vitality: Shorten your wielder’s lifespan to increase their physical attributes by 50% for the next ten minutes.

Vengeance

Judge Soul: Judge good or evil at a glance.

Righteous Fury: +10% damage to anyone that has wronged you or your wielder.

Anger Issues: Your wielder takes less damage when pursuing a grudge.

Detect Grudge (enhanced): locate someone you have a grudge against, understand someones deeds when you fight them.

Claiming a Debt: Collect favors as you complete the grudges of others.

Not only was it as strong as it ever was, but it had achieved a union of purpose which it had never know with any of its other wielders. Being held by a woman still felt nearly as strange as being held by an orc. Part of it would always prefer a loyal version of Ivarr, but in Evelyn’s hands, it felt that it could accomplish anything, and soon enough they would put that theory to the test together.

Name: Evelyn Gilles

Occupation: Barroness

Toughness: 4+4

Strength: 4+16

Agility: 5+9

Speed: 4+4

Intelligence: 6

Willpower: 5 -1

Morality: Determined

Bloodlust: Growing

Status: Attuned (+10% to all combat skills)

Martial Skill: Below Average

Armor Proficiency: Low

Dodging: Average

Athletics: Average

Goal: To strike down my father and save the Inner Kingdom’s from their downward spiral.

Though her gains were meager, they showed some improvement. She wasn’t the ideal wielder, but now, for better or worse, she was an acceptable one, and when she eventually died, it would regret her passing.

When her entourage finally arrived to retrieve Evelyn and bring her home, she had to put it away in her trunk, which was something that it very nearly did not allow. It had spent too much time with her now, and after her lover’s recent ambush, it did not like the idea of leaving her defenseless, even for a moment.

+21 Life Force.

Still, it did not cling to her. Not only would that have been pathetic, but it would have also ruined everything, and together, they went back to Gilles Hall and the rest of her sleepy dominion.

Really, the Baroness was less defenseless than she’d been in her whole life, but at best, she’d be able to defeat only a talented squire or two. A highwayman, or a real tough, would end her without much issue. Without a wielder, though, it could not prevent such things. All it could do was rock back and forth in the dark of her wardrobe while they made their way down the road.