Corvis Eralith
"Evascir, how is Cylrit?" I asked the Titan as I stood with him in his Forge Room, Evascir's personal quarters inside the Hearth.
The sounds of the many gears and pulleys of the Forge Room formed the background to our conversation, and as I waited for his answer, I retrieved Dawn's Ballad from my storage ring.
The teal sword, hidden in its rod-like sheath, hummed as I kept it in my hands as the effects of the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune made me hyperaware of the resonance Dawn's Ballad had for all four elements of mana.
"The lessuran is still asleep, Era—Nabyun," Evascir replied, correcting himself and using the new name of the Highprince.
"It must be difficult for you to call me a different name," I said, but the Titan shook his head.
"No, it's not," Evascir replied. "Mordain did the same as you. It seems it runs in the family. Anyway, that was the Titan sword you talked to me about?"
"That it is," I said, offering him Dawn's Ballad.
Evascir carefully accepted the weapon, his stoic eyes analyzing its length with great focus. I took out Fiorwato too, and unsheathed its emerald blade, which glinted in the bright fires of the Forge Room.
"What do you make of it?" I asked. "Also, I have another request for you. Could you reforge Fiorwato's blade?"
Evascir's gaze lifted from Dawn's Ballad, seeming to forget about it as he heard me complain about his craft.
"Is there a problem with your sword right now?" He asked. "Is it too heavy? I have accounted for the strength of your current body, but I am not very familiar with lesser children's physiology."
"Nothing like that!" I exclaimed. "It's just that I wanted to ask you if it was possible to make an alloy with the four green gems you showed me."
To better explain myself, I withdrew Leòn's dodecahedral lenses, green like the four gems they were made with, and put them on the table Evascir had conjured for us to sit around.
"You have fused Jasper, Malachite, Jade, and Emerald together?" Evascir wondered, taking the glasses with extreme care. "Yes. I can make you a new blade. May I know why, though?"
I smirked and, raising my palm in front of my face, I cast forth four different spells.
A Bubblespell on my index finger coalesced from the humidity in the air, a small whirlwind on my middle finger, a little cube of stone on the ring finger, and a tongue of fire on my twiggy—fire magic, the control over the last element granted by the Greatrune on my lower back.
"You rediscovered how to use fire magic," Evascir said, completely unimpressed. "I will get to work immediately. As for the Titan sword you gave me, I recognize it as the unmistakable craft of the Kain Clan."
"Last time I tried to unsheathe it with Berna's Acquire Phase, it started to rebel against me," I said. "As if it was possessed by something. It started to spin and shoot projectiles of earth mana at a rapid rate. I had to grapple with it, I swear!"
The images of my peculiar fight with the rogue Dawn's Ballad inside the Helstea Auction House flashed before my eyes. A sword turned into a mad bull, that was what had happened.
"You might have angered its Yahman, its Tool Spirit," Evascir replied. "Although I admit it is quite rare to have the reaction you described to me."
"Yahman...?" I asked, the umpteenth name in Oldest Asuran confusing me. "Let me guess: more complicated Brahman stuff, right?"
Evascir chuckled. "Yes, you can say that," he said, a smile breaking his limestone-like features. "A Tool Spirit is what resides in every Asuran Weapon crafted by a Titan. It is what gives them sentience."
Right, I remembered that the weapons crafted by Titans had a little bit of sentience in them from what I read in The Beginning After The End. So that sentience was called a Tool Spirit—a Yahman.
Did that make Regis the greatest of Yahmans?
"Is it related to Guardian Beasts too?" I asked.
"No. The lives of Guardian Beasts are entirely Fleshstone in Body, Soul, and Mind," Evascir explained. "Tool Spirits are just Souls, a small fraction of what makes a life."
"They are forged souls? You tell me Titans can hammer souls like a blacksmith may hammer iron?" I asked.
"That's an interesting perspective," Evascir commented, pondering my words. "And I think that's a correct similitude. Tool Spirits are the souls we forge into our weapons."
"And what about the Tool Spirit of Dawn's Ballad?" I asked, and the name made Evascir widen his eyes.
"Dawn's Ballad? That is a name that has not been spoken in the Hearth for a very long while," Evascir said, before he returned his attention to the weapon itself. "The Tool Spirit of this weapon is a very fearsome one. I wonder what was used to forge it."
"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked. "What is the origin of that name?"
"Dawn's Ballad is the most famous song in Epheotus," Evascir said. "Like the Beary Bear in Elenoir."
I frowned. "You are lucky Berna's not here," I said, pouting. "She hates that ballad."
"I apologize, Highprince," Evascir chuckled. "Anyway. Dawn's Ballad has been the greatest piece of music composed in Epheotus since it was first played to an Asuran public."
I didn't take Wren Kain IV for a fan of music, I mused in my head. Dawn's Ballad was an homage, then.
"Who composed it? A Phoenix?" I theorised, considering that Phoenixes had such a deep culture related to music they were my first guess.
"No, and neither was the composer a Leviathan or a Sylph, the other two races most proficient with the art of music," Evascir replied. "But a Basilisk. Khaernos Vritra, the Wonder of the World—Lokabotha in Oldest Asuran."
"Khaernos Vritra?!" I exclaimed, surprised by hearing the name Khaernos more than the name Vritra.
Khaernos Vritra was the Sovereign of Central Dominion in the canon timeline I knew, betrayed and used by Agrona as a puppet body.
"Yes, a great person Lord Khaernos was..." Evascir said, melancholia overtaking his stoicism. "But let's talk about something else. What do you want to do with Dawn's Ballad?"
Fine, let's change the subject, I silently agreed.
"I want to gift it to my best friend," I said. "But for that I need to... exorcise the Tool Spirit inside. Got any tips?"
"I can do it fairly easily," Evascir said, offering himself to resolve the issue. "I have tamed many rogue Tool Spirits during my service to the Asclepius Clan in the past."
"I and that Tool Spirit have undone business," I said, adamant on resolving this task by my own hands. "Furthermore, it is I who have to make a gift to Alwyn, not you. You can reforge Fiorwato's blade and continue to keep an eye on Cylrit in the meanwhile."
"If you say so, Nabyun," Evascir complied. "I will bring Fiorwato to you once I am done. Are you sure you want to fight the Tool Spirit without a weapon, though?"
"I have a whole new element to get comfortable with," I said, stretching my hands and conjuring fire around my arms—my augmented body perfectly withstanding the heat of the flames. "I think that will suffice."
—
Crossing onto the hexagonal floor of the Dance Stage, I readied myself to clash with the Yahman of Dawn's Ballad for the second time.
Channelling REmould, I reshaped my anatomy into dwarven stock, Finn Warend's outward features taking the place of Nabyun's.
Rounded ears sprouted alongside earth-tinted skin, darker than Leòn's Mediterranean olive, yet lighter than Olfred's deep subterranean complexion, matched with loam-brown eyes and coarse umber hair. My Servo-Hand turned into a Servo-Foot, and the transformation was over.
I put Evascir's jade bracelet around my wrist and wore Leòn's glasses.
Then, just as in the warehouse of the Helstea Auction House, I laid my hands against both ends of Dawn's Ballad and unlocked Berna's Acquire Phase. The ochre gear-markings of Massbinding, the ancient emblem of the Kain Clan of Titans, shone brilliantly across the backs of my hands.
I filled my lungs, exhaled, and pulled. Bending gravity to pry the sheath open, I felt the imprisoned Tool Spirit surge to life: ravenous, untamed, and roaring to bring ruin.
Dawn's Ballad shuddered in my grasp, the trapped Tool Spirit surging to life as ambient earth mana gathered in a ravenous spiral around the sheathed blade.
Guided by the green lenses of my spectacles and the refined Insight of my Quadra-Elemental Greatrune, I could see right through the physical plane.
A violent storm of earth mana and other trapped elemental particles raged across the hexagonal arena, revolving around the Asuran weapon like a miniature hurricane.
But looking closer at the intricate density of the whirling construct, the truth became undeniable: this was no simple accumulation of mana.
It was the spectral essence of the Tool Spirit itself!
Standing at the end of the Dance Stage was a yellow demon, visible only through the immense potential hidden within the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune.
Fatima, after Avicenna, you are surely my favourite pureblood Djinn!
The otherwise invisible creature looked like a giant crab-like monster, using its pincers to prop itself up like a gorilla on its forearms.
"Capture!" I exclaimed, a teal Bubblespell exploding into a myriad of just-as-teal droplets.
Still at a safe distance, I used REmould and returned to Nabyun. I would only use fire against this Yahman until I won, and for that, the Elf-Phoenix was the perfect choice.
My mana core thrummed in expectation, finally having gained access to the element I had longed for for so long.
I saw the Yahman raise one of its oversized claws and point it at me.
Then earth mana surged from Dawn's Ballad, and like in that warehouse, a barrage of crystalline projectiles yellow as gold was shot at me.
I raised my arms in front of my face, letting the jade bracelet absorb the impact, but it wasn't enough against such a concentrated amount of mana.
I augmented my body. The projectiles felt like needles shot at rocket speed, tearing my poet's shirt but failing to damage the reinforced skin beneath.
I started moving, running away from the line of fire faster than the Yahman could track. While running in circles across the large Dance Stage, I prepared to cast a fireball.
Following the same pattern as a Bubblespell, I conjured a small dot of incandescent flames above my palm and aimed.
I halted my run and, before the barrage of crystals could reach me, I fed fire mana to the small dot above my palm, arched my back leveraging on my foot, and threw the highly-concentrated ball of fire at the Tool Spirit of Dawn's Ballad.
The sphere connected with the side of the yellow demon, exploding into a burst of flames that forced me to cover my eyes from the brightness.
Is it still alive? I asked myself, looking at the hellish aftermath.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a baton hitting a large object, and from the flames, an enormous boulder of magma was hurled at my position.
It's definitely still alive! I shouted inwardly, rolling to my side as the boulder crashed into the wall of the Dance Stage with a deafening impact.
Dawn's Ballad emerged from the flames, the Yahman surrounding it now covered in red particles of fire mana. The fact that it made no noise other than the sounds of its magic made it all the more eerie.
The Yahman charged at me, and from within it, I saw Dawn's Ballad unsheathing itself, the teal blade promising only to slice me in half.
"So now you open yourself..." I cursed under my breath while conjuring a red shield of fire mana around my body.
Had I stuck to my mastered elements—earth, wind, and my dear water—the counter-strategy would have been textbook: trap Dawn's Ballad inside an earthen tomb, bombard it with a Bubblespell, cycle wind mana for burst mobility, and cloak myself in a resonant sound barrier calibrated to shatter the approaching crystal barrage into dust.
But with fire? Damn, I was completely out of ideas, armed with nothing more than basic applications of magic!
The teal blade of Dawn's Ballad pierced my barrier of fire mana, catching fire and slowing down like a meteor crashing through the atmosphere. The Yahman too was slowed, and I had time to evade the slash meant for my neck.
I shot another fireball, the flames erupting from the Yahman and swallowing Dawn's Ballad once more, the sound of crackling fire resounding across the Dance Stage.
Without wasting a second, I called back all the wildfires that were now spreading across the battlefield.
Every flame, from the littlest tongue to the inferno keeping Dawn's Ballad at bay, answered my call and reached me, concentrating on my Servo-Hand.
Then, I freed all of them in a single beam of radiant mana that pierced through the air with ease. The beam was cut in two by the teal blade, but I saw that Dawn's Ballad was wavering, unable to match my attack—I just had to keep on.
My silver mana core continued to fuel my spell with economical expenditure, using the bare minimum to maintain the strength of the spell and optimizing its mana consumption.
The Yahman refused to relent, but so did I. Even as Dawn's Ballad continued to cleave through my stream of fire, I held the spell steady, pouring blazing mana into the rogue blade's path.
Channelling REmould, I rapidly inscribed the Articles of Justice, Unity, and Solidarity inside the fire spell.
Under their conceptual power, the torrent accelerated, condensing into a searing, razor-thin beam of blinding white plasma.
Refusing to ease the pressure, I invoked and added the Articles of Freedom and Balance as well.
The central beam shifted cleanly from the core of my palm to my malachite index finger. Then, in an instant, four identical lances of plasma ignited from the tips of my remaining artificial digits—each carrying the same crushing intensity as the first.
Dawn's Ballad might have parried one ray, perhaps even two, but five proved insurmountable. The sword's momentum broke; its descent faltered, and the spectral form of the Yahman dissolved into nothing the moment the hilt clattered against the stone floor: still and silent, and thoroughly tamed.
I closed my Servo-Hand into a tight fist, snuffing out the residual embers flickering across my fingertips.
"I could have kept going for hours..." I murmured, noticing how little fuel I had used—both the mana from my core and the flames I have previously called to me.
I crouched down beside Dawn's Ballad and sheathed it back inside its black rod-like casing.
"I hope you will never cause me problems, Dawn's Ballad," I told the sword. "Because if I hear Alwyn complaining..."
I let out an exasperated sigh, catching myself in the middle of scolding an inanimate weapon. No matter how feral the Yahman felt, it was incapable of genuine sapience—definitely no Regis.
I stashed the sheathed sword away in my storage ring and watched as the automated Manatech of the Hearth began stitching the battered Dance Stage back together.
Once the battle arena the Clan had been using for centuries was smooth again, I walked out.
—
I took Fiorwato back from Evascir, the Titan having finished remaking my blade in just a few hours.
Instead of the emerald blade, there was now a strange alloy of green gems, their hues layered and interwoven like the rings of an ancient tree.
I saw the veins of jasper and jade within the malachite, all of it coated in a sheen of emerald that caught the light of the Hearth and scattered it into a hundred tiny rays.
How Evascir had managed to accomplish such a feat would remain a secret—the magician never reveals his secrets, after all. I sheathed Fiorwato back into its cane with a soft click.
"You defeated the Tool Spirit?" Evascir asked as we walked toward the Hospital Alcoves where Cylrit was hospitalised.
"Yes!" I confirmed, a note of exhilaration still lingering in my voice. "Fighting with fire is... strange. It is way more chaotic than water, more unstable than earth, and—even if it sounds crazy—more volatile than air. It has a mind of its own, a hunger that the other elements don't possess."
"That is fire magic for a Phoenix like you, Nabyun," Evascir said, his voice carrying the weight of ancient understanding. "It is the same for Titans like me, only earth is the element I feel the most attuned with."
That made sense. All Asuran races had an element they felt the most in tune with—save for Dragons and their mastery of aether. Even if that element was a strange deviant like the decay of the Basilisks or the force of the Pantheons.
I shifted my focus back to Fiorwato, which I was currently using as a walking cane, the purpose it was originally meant to have.
"Does Fiorwato have a Yahman too, then?" I asked the Titan walking by my side.
"Yes, and a very special one at that," Evascir said. "It is a Tool Spirit crafted by Mordain himself. The only Yahman ever made by a Phoenix."
I launched Fiorwato into the air and caught it as I walked, unsheathing it in one fluid motion. The blade gleamed in the dim light of the Hearth, its new alloy catching the glow of the Manatech crystals embedded in the walls.
"How do I communicate with it?" I asked, curious about the workings of the Tool Spirits.
"You already do, Nabyun," Evascir replied. "Every time you use your weapon, you two communicate, even if you don't realize it. Tool Spirits don't need words; they need the intentions of their wielders."
So that was what made Asuran weapons so strong—they had a sort of "artificial intelligence" built inside them, a consciousness that worked in tandem with the wielder.
As the Hospital Alcoves' first rooms came into view, I tried to use fire with Fiorwato. A beautiful red flame ignited alongside the green blade, rich and deep, tinged with the colours of the rainbow, ever-shifting in its patterns like liquid light.
"Why is it this strange colour?" I wondered, watching the flame dance along the edge.
"Try to shift your Narmanakaya," Evascir suggested.
Did he mean using REmould? Yes. Using the Arbiter's authority over the Edict of Vivum, I returned to Corvis Eralith, and the flame shifted from rainbow to a bright green—the colour of the Spring Lizard, symbol of Royal House Eralith and incarnation of that season following the Verticil's teachings.
I then became Finn Warend, and the flame became the colour of slate—the colour of Royal House Greysunders and their symbol: the Cave Boar, a resilient and ferocious mana beast and also one of the most delicious meats eaten in the underground Kingdom of Darv.
Finally, I became Leòn Leurenzian, and the flame became maroon; maroon like the mane of the World Lion, symbol of Royal House Glayder.
I swooshed Fiorwato in front of me, tapping my Servo-Foot or snapping the fingers of my Servo-Hand to change appearance, watching the flame change colour with each shift.
It was like conducting my own version of a high school flame test, only the elements I was testing were aspects of myself: fragments of a soul that had been scattered across identities.