“Heeey Val.” Gavin said sliding casually into his seat at the table.

  Val looked up from her work scraping dried blood and ash from the hilt of one of her non soulbound swords with a dental pick and fixed him with a suspicious stare.

  “No.”

  “You don't even know what it was.”

  “It's obviously something to do with your work, you've been obsessing over it for the past four days, and now you want to try out some prototype that you think is dangerous enough you don't want to try it on yourself. Is that about right?”

  “Ahh, nevermind then.” Gavin said, slapping the table and standing to leave.

  “Wait, is this because I can regrow limbs?”

  “Look, I'm not going to lie.” Gavin said, vanishing from sight as he teleported away.

  “Real mature.” Val said to the empty air.

  She looked down to her work again, sighed, resheathed the collection she had arrayed out before her and followed him to his workshop.

  She pushed her way in as Gavin was affixing a device tentatively around his left wrist. He stopped as Val smirked at him, unable to stop herself letting out a satisfied “ha.”

  “Changed your mind?”

  “I want priority on gear when you rank up. You're close right? When you can make level four gear I want swords, lots of them.”

  “Yeah, no worries.” Gavin said, unslinging his prototype and tossing it to Val.

  “No, when I say lots of swords I don't think you understand what I mean. I don't just want four or five swords. I want swords that do every sort of elemental damage, I want ones with unique effects, ones that bypass armour and shields and other resistances, and I want at least six of each.”

  “So like, a hundred swords?”

  “No, like four hundred swords. And I want the good stuff, not just what you can knock out in an hour or two.” Val said shaking his device at him.

  “I would argue that Sam won't be happy about that deal, but she already agreed I get to choose loot priority and she should have known I'm amenable to bribery, so screw it, deal.”

  “So, how does this work?”

  “Well, theoretically you load it up with a soul crystal and it imprints it in the same way Wren's tattoo ritual worked.”

  “What one did you pick?” She said, noting the crystal contained in a receptacle on the side.

  “That one's just flesh to stone, but it's not super important while we're testing, a healing potion should scrub it off before it sets.”

  “One of these years you need to go on more than just theoretically and should.” Val said.

  “I mean, this is all stuff I'm teaching myself as I go, it's not like there's a textbook explaining how all this works.”

  “There might be, did you check?”

  “We’ve been a little busy if you hadn't noticed, and pretty far away from anyone who knows about this sort of stuff.”

  “We weren't when we were in Edomont for half a year.”

  “Yeah, well, are you gonna try out the thing?”

  “Yeah, it's not like browbeating you is ever going to work.” Val said checking the device over before activating it.

  They watched it for several uneventful seconds where it sat there doing absolutely nothing.

  “Huh, should have worked by now.”

  “Maybe I should-”

  “No, don't try anything take it off and I’ll-”

  WHAM

  He didn't even see the explosion that punched him clean across the workshop, slamming him into the far wall and driving the air from his lungs. Val was thrown up and over his workbench, crashing through the half open door and across the hallway trailing a spray of blood from the ruined stump of her elbow.

  Sam was first out of her room, sprinting into action, her armour forming around her as she slid across the cobbled floor. Healing energy flowed out of her as a half delirious Val tried to push past her.

  “What happened.” Sam said, forcing her back down.

  “Gavin.” Val croaked as Judy appeared beside her thrusting one of their high ranked healing potions down her throat.

  “Shit.” Sam swore, scrambling into the ruined workshop.

  Gavin was alive but dazed, peppered with a hundred cuts that bled profusely over the workshop floor. Groaning he clicked on a healing potion in his inventory, sealing his wounds and healing a minor concussion.

  “Oh, hey.” Gavin said as casually as he could while laying in a pool of his own blood.

  “Oh hey nothing, you scared the life out of me.”

  “Me? It was Val that blew us up.”

  “What a load of bollocks Gavin. Val might be good at a lot of things but accidentally exploding herself up isn't one of them, that's your area of expertise.”

  “Okay, maybe it was me, but we can skip the lecture and go back to what we were doing.” Gavin said, pulling himself to his feet with an effort of will.

  “You're not getting a lecture from me this time, I'm reserving those for when you do something truly moronic, this is just run of the mill stupidity. You can learn your own lessons from things you can recover from.”

  “That's fair.” Gavin said, dusting himself off.

  “You okay?” Judy asked from the doorway.

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  “Yeah, how's Val?” Gavin asked.

  “Better than you.” Judy said as she looked him over.

  “Sorry about that Val, I do have a fairly good idea of what went wrong though.” Gavin said, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

  “Why did you say that in your you're not going to like this tone of voice?”

  “Well, the thing is, I might have undercooked the enchantment. I only put enough mana into it so that if something went wrong it wouldn't have enough energy to kill us.”

  “It exploded because it didn't have enough power?”

  “Oh, nah, I have no idea why it blew up, I'm just saying it didn't work because it needed more power.”

  “I'm going to regret agreeing to this aren't I?”

  “No Val, you're going to earn it. Two hundred swords for a bit of pain? Easy money.”

  Gavin took care to fabricate a heavy blast chamber for Val to put her arm in while they continued working and wrapped her in a bubble shield as an additional precaution for every test. Over the rest of the day they refined the process, finally managing to get the device to work momentarily before it melted Vals arm off. As the sun set they broke for dinner, then he reviewed all the data they'd collected over the day and came up with a series of designs he was confident would work.

  They didn't skip training or helping out with patrols, though when they weren't occupied with killing monsters he worked tirelessly to figure out what he was doing wrong. Each time he thought he understood an aspect of his enchantment design he was proven wrong, Val had long grown wary of losing limbs but had come to accept it, internalising the pain and dismemberment as training her skills.

  After nearly a week of experimenting Gavin could sense the team ready to move on, and not wanting to be a dick about it suggested they get back on task and he could continue his research in his own time.

  With mixed feelings the team said their farewells and decamped, promising to check back in when they could. They portalled back to the ruined city of Verantiir and made their way into the tower they'd arrived in. They didn't have a good idea of what destination they wanted to explore next, so they picked Sarras at random.

  Gavin activated the portal and a second later they were in an almost identical tower, except for one key difference. The room they'd found themselves in was dimly lit by glow gloves and had storage crates and boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling. Spiderwebs and the smell of age clung to the room, as if no one had stepped foot inside in many years. Where the other towers felt sterile and empty this one felt neglected.

  Cautiously they crept down the stairwell out into the entrance chamber. The cavernous room was cluttered with piles of books and other assorted paraphernalia in stacks that created tight alleyways. It felt half between a hoarders nest and a hedge maze made of ancient tomes and misplaced glasses.

  “Hey, you can't be in here. Who are you?” Said a startled voice from in amongst the detritus.

  “Sorry mate, didn't know anyone was here, we’ll leave, no drama.” Gavin said, backing up to the stairs.

  “Wait, how did you get inside? This building is- that sword. How do you have that sword? Give it to me, you absolutely can’t-”

  Gavin didn't wait to hear what he was going to say, opening a portal back upstairs and jumping through it an instant before the others followed.

  They dashed to the inscribed ritual circle but pulled up short as a knurled little man, younger than his bent posture suggested appeared before them hands outstretched and glowing with blue light. Power washed over them, battering them backwards and stunning them with its overwhelming magnitude.

  “Give. Me. The. Sword.” The man bellowed, pulling himself upright as if through sheer force of will.

  Gavin felt a magical compulsion to hand it over, and felt through the connection to his team that they too were under the effects of the spell. Mind reeling with the sudden panic of failing his quest he shunted himself away, crashing head over heels down the stairs, his sword cutting deep gouges from the stone where it trailed along in his vice-like grip.

  He managed to gain his feet as he sprawled into the mess down stairs, pushing over several stacks of books and crates while he looked around wild eyed for the exit. Judy, Val and Sam appeared a moment later through his portal as he launched himself across the room, shooting straight for the door.

  “THE SWORD.” Bellowed the wizard, holding out a hand and commanding it to come to him.

  Gavin felt the sword tug itself free from his grip as he collided with the heavy stone door. He turned in horror to see it sailing directly towards the wizard. Not thinking Gavin extended a hand, summoning his fortress in between them the colossal edifice crushing the contents of the room as the sword sailed in through the front entrance.

  He watched in slow motion as the sword shot like an arrow into the foyer, down the main hall and into the far wall beside his workshop. The weapon, a construction of near divine levels of power annihilated his fortress like it was made of flash paper. The fortress collapsed, it's contents violently shoving themselves inside his inventory. Including World Claimer.