Bloodstained Blade
Chapter 96 - Severin by Night

The blade was blinded for the duration of their three-day carriage ride to the city of Severin. It knew the way, roughly, thanks to all of the souls it had interrogated about the area, but even with half a dozen mounted guards escorting its wielder the whole way, it felt intensely vulnerable.

Each night, Evelyn stayed in a tavern while it stayed in one of her trunks tied to the roof of her carriage. That situation had the unfortunate side effect of denying the blade any sustenance by nibbling at guests or even horses, and instead it was forced to watch as it lost five or six Life Force an hour for the duration of the trip.

-240 Life Force.

While it had more than 8,300 Life Force thanks to Evelyn’s rampage over the last week, it was painful to watch it slip away. It was even more painful to watch it slip away, knowing that right now it could afford the upgrade it wanted. The weapon dare not take it, though. Not only because it would need all the reserves it could get in such a dangerous place. It also couldn’t afford to lapse into slumber.

Even if I stay locked in here for a month, I’ll be fine, the blade reassured itself, but it was not happy about it.

Even blind, it could still listen to the rumors, and those weren’t good. The people were afraid and on edge. They worried that another army of orcs would be raised up, but they also worried that the Black Blade had returned.

While the rumors of orcs and armies were obvious lies, the rumors about it were mixed, and ran a spectrum all the way from, “The servants of the Aetherarchy have captured it and are making plans even now to banish it to the outermost hell,” to “The ghost of Baraga reborn stalks the world even now, and marches on the capital with an army of the undead.”

As much as the blade would love to have an army of undead, that was well beyond it. It only had slain 41 of the required 100 villains for the next level of Path of Vengeance, but the Path of Undeath was well beyond it.

The rumors didn’t need to be true, though, to be concerning, and every city they passed through, the guards seemed to stop them to investigate their business. When they reached the walls of the capital itself, they were stuck in a line for hours, and despite Evelyn’s black dress, dark veil, and documents that proved her identity, she was still interviewed by the captain of the watch before they were let in.

-120 Life Force.

Once there, they didn’t have to stay at another Inn, at least. Instead, Evelyn stayed in the guest room of one of her sisters. Even after their arrival at the mansion, which lay in a good part of the Royal quarter, the Ebon Blade still had to wait in the darkness of its wielder’s luggage for three days before it was removed for a moment at a time.

-360 Life Force.

Then, finally, Evelyn removed it and placed it in her wardrobe amongst her blankets. Then, she lay with it while she updated it on the situation. “My father has denied all visits after everything that has happened,” she explained. “Even to his own family. No one but his heir and his closest advisors are allowed to enter the grand hall. It’s—”

It’s because of your little rampage, isn’t it? The blade asked.

“It’s not, I swear,” she insisted. “This was announced months ago, right after the orcs were defeated. The rumors are everywhere that the Black Blade has finally come to end the Kingdom, and my father with it…”

That bitch… the blade whispered to itself, sure that the Elf’s escape was what caused this. If only I’d killed her, word would never have gotten out.

Before the blade could spiral too far into self-recrimination, its wielder added, “That won’t be a problem, though, because next week there’s to be a ball in the palace to celebrate the birth of his newest son.”

The man is paranoid enough to lock down his entire castle, yet vain enough to throw a party? The blade asked, confused.

“That’s my father,” she sighed. “He won’t risk his life, but he also won’t miss a chance to glorify himself. Not many men can claim to have fathered a hundred and fifty sons.”

None should be able to. The blade reflected. That’s vile. Why live for centuries just to cavort like that? Surely he has enough of a legacy.

Evelyn ignored that and continued. “My point is that the grand ballroom is only three floors down and a few hundred yards away. I could attend the party for an hour or two, and then, when everyone is occupied, drunk, and deadly dull, I could sneak back out to the carriage, retrieve you, and then we could…”

Force our way into the throne room and catch everyone off guard,

Though it wasn’t as violent and showy as it would have preferred, there was no denying that it was a good option. There was only one problem.

As things stand right now, they will certainly see me. The blade said. I have no doubt that when we cross the threshold into the castle, they will be able to detect magic, and even with all my shrouds, I will still glow like a lantern.

“Can we fix that?” she asked quietly.

By killing about a dozen people, the blade answered. Really, it only needed three or four, but it wanted at least some kind of margin before it began its assault on the castle.

“Well, that’s easy,” its wielder said with a smile. “We can just sneak down into the slums, clean up some garbage and…”

And get ourselves discovered, the blade continued. Your father may be a fool, but he’s not foolish enough to do this if he thinks his doom has made it this far.

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+28 Life Force.

They argued about it, but two nights later, she had a single trunk packed and loaded into her carriage. She told everyone she was meeting with one of her husband's business associates to square up accounts, and her sister that it was just a tryst with an old flame. The truth was that she’d picked an inn right on the edge of a bad part of town, and just after midnight, she slipped out of the window like an avenging angel, spoiling for a fight.

Evelyn didn’t really care who she fought. She left that to the blade, who scanned the streets with both its sight and its Aethersight as it looked for the right target while she leapt from rooftop to rooftop and vaulted over low walls topped with cement and broken glass.

+17 Life Force.

What it decided on, eventually, was a drug den. That was both because it could see dozens of people in it, some of whom were wielding hexblades, but because there was only one heavily guarded way in or out, which made their odds of discovery minimal and gave their victims nowhere to run.

The battle that followed was more of a slaughter than any real fight. That disappointed the blade. It would have preferred to take its time and test its mettle against real warriors, but at that moment, they could not afford to cause a panic in Severin, so they went through the place like a bloody scythe, extinguishing the lights as they went with blasts of electricity. It didn’t matter if it was forty on one when only one of them could see in the dark.

+641 Life Force.

+22 Human Souls.

+1 Halfling Soul.

That had been the plan, anyway. As it turned out, three of them could see. There were two dwarves among the rest of the criminals, and they were the only members of the whole crew that put up a real fight when the last of the exploded oil lamps had guttered to nothing.

“It’s just a bloody wench!” one of them yelled, just before he lost his head.

Life Force Drain Resisted.

+1 Dwarf Soul.

It was an ugly slaughter, but ugliest of all was Evelyn’s glee. In the dark, she was merely a puppet on its strings, but still, she had a look of glee on her face, and the blade was quite certain it had created a monster with her. Something important had broken inside that woman.

+591 Life Force.

+21 Human Souls.

+1 Dwarf Soul.

Still, it was hard to care as the red mist swirled around it and corpses lay spread out in all directions. By that point, it had reached nearly 13,000 Life Force, and it could have probably spent the rest of the night just standing there soaking in the deaths for hundreds more, but it was time to go.

As soon as the fighting was done, they set fire to the place and fled to cover up all evidence of the half-drained bodies. The blade spent 8,000 Life Force on Aethershroud 5, reducing its presence 100%, which showed as only the barest outlines when it looked at its own mana flows. That part of the night, at least, was a success. Now it just had to see if they’d get away with it.

When they returned to the inn, Evelyn bathed and changed while the blade listened to the sounds of the night, but never heard the sounds of an alarm being raised. The following day, their trip back to the mansion they were staying at went every bit as smoothly. Only

Everything was going well until the footman found it. The man was poking around Evelyn’s things, obviously looking for something to steal. He didn’t find gold, though, or even jewels. What he found was an ancient artifact of unfathomable power. He had no way of knowing that when he set his hand upon the handle.

Then, the blade sprang upon him, seizing the young man’s body, and freezing him in place as the two grappled for control. I… what’s happening? The boy screamed silently, unable to make a sound or do more than tremble.

The Ebon Blade did not respond. Instead, it peered into his psyche to make sure that he wasn’t any more than he seemed. Truthfully, though, he was even less, and though the weapon couldn’t hurt anyone that held it, it wanted to strike him down itself when it saw the word coward used to describe his temperament.

Name: Nedden

Occupation: Footman

Toughness: 5+4

Strength:

Agility: 56+9

Speed: 5+4

Intelligence: 4

Willpower: 3 -1

Morality: Greedy

Bloodlust: Cowardly

Status: Normal

Martial Skill: Average

Armor Proficiency: None

Dodging: Average

Athletics: Above Average

Goal: To get rich anyway I can.

For the blade, the hardest part wasn’t holding the boy in place; it was tolerating his touch. Even if he hadn’t been a coward, it was his true wielder’s touch, and it despised it.

Still, it could not let go. It had to hold him until its wielder returned, however long that took. The real problem would be if some other maid came in when the boy was like this. It would have been an impossible situation to explain.

Still, the blade did not dignify the footman’s silent cries with any responses. It just left him alone in the darkness of his mind.

Evelyn didn’t return for almost two hours, and when she did, she nearly screamed until she realized that the servant was frozen in place. Then she walked up behind him and hammered him in the head with a wash basin hard enough to brain him and send him tumbling to the floor.

“What happened!” she hissed as she seized the blade.

He was trying to steal from you and found more than he bargained for, the blade said. I cannot harm my wielder, but I could prevent him from doing anything until you returned.

“Well, what are we supposed to do with him now?” she asked, holding the blade near enough to him that the blood that was leaking from his skull drained into the weapon instead of pooling on the floorboard of her room and leaving a stain.

+1 Human Soul.

We can make sure he’s dead and then toss him down the stairs after everyone is asleep, the blade suggested. Everyone will think it’s an accident.

“But they would still talk,” she insisted. “Rumors would spread, and that’s more dangerous than anything right now.”

They talked about it for a while, but eventually decided it was better to hide the body for a few days than let it be discovered in a plausible way. Of course, people might wonder where a footman had gone, but there was nothing they could do about that at this point.

In the end, she embedded the blade in the heart of the unlucky young man and left it there for several minutes, even after he died and turned cold. The goal wasn’t just to kill him at this point. It was to drain every last drop of blood from his body, so that it was so desiccated that it would take a long time to rot.

That much was accomplished easily. Folding him and breaking bones to fold his mummified corpse into a large hatbox so that it wouldn’t be found for weeks or months was somewhat harder, but Evelyn managed. She was no longer squeamish about such things.