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Chapter 793 - Ancient Weapons
🕑 Added 2023-07-14 23:28:30 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
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“I don’t claim peoples’ lives,” Serenity protested. “And that’s not my name.” How was he supposed to deal with this?
Amani sneaked a peek at his face through her lashes. She clearly thought she was being stealthy, but she wasn’t. “You woke the Weapon of Dis,” Amani whispered.
Serenity glanced in the direction she indicated. As he’d expected, it was the direction of the annoying pitchfork. It was glowing a little, now that she mentioned it. He sighed and shook his head. “I am not Dis, whoever that is. As for the weapon, I probably can use it, but I’m not going to. It’s not my preferred type of weapon and I’d rather not make the healers’ jobs worse. Heh. I’d rather not fight people at all; there isn’t always a way to avoid it, but that doesn’t mean I want to.”
“Whoever that is?” Amani seemed to shiver. “Dis is the Lord of the Dead, the one who holds sway over the lands of the dead. He uses many names, but he is not one to dismiss lightly. If you can use his weapon and even see what it is, he has blessed you greatly.”
Serenity was fairly confident he hadn’t been blessed by the Lord of the Dead, at least not directly. Instead, he was chosen as an Incarnate by Death Himself. If he thought about it the right way, he probably outranked Lord Dis. Serenity chuckled at the thought.
“Can you tell me about the rest of the weapons?” With luck, that would relax Amani a little more. He wanted to learn more about her past and especially what she knew about A’Atla. That would be easier if she’d talk to him.
Amani looked at him, then the weapons. “A few of them. I don’t know them all.”
Serenity nodded encouragingly.
She pointed at the pitchfork again. “You know that’s the weapon of Dis. That’s the only name we have for it, but the legend says that it was a farming tool that became a tool of Death in his hands. It brings bad fortune and final death.”
Serenity nodded. That wasn’t that unusual a story, though he wasn’t certain why it was a pitchfork specifically.
Amani picked out a bow next. “The Bow of Obsession. It’s supposed to be able to influence the feelings of others, but may also influence the wielder. Anyone can use it if they can draw it, but every tale of it is a tale of someone who becomes lost to the bow, desiring only to use it. It’s supposed to be useful in a large fight since every strike can change an enemy, but outside that it’s more dangerous to its user than anyone else.”
Serenity grunted. “Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s still more dangerous to the user than the enemy in a large fight, but one person for the many they can handle, especially if they can cause fighting on the other side, is a trade many generals would take.” He didn’t like it, but there were times when sacrifices had to be made. He could easily see someone reaching the conclusion that almost any war was one of those times.
Amani nodded but didn’t say anything else about the bow. Instead, she moved on to a shield. “The Adamant Aegis is supposed to have been made from a single stone, polished to a mirror sheen. It cannot be marred or broken. Unlike the bow, it’s probably the safest weapon here; it can be used by anyone without trouble. It’s here more for safekeeping than because it really belongs.”
Serenity grinned at that. It made some sort of sense that a shield wouldn’t be innately dangerous.
The next weapon Amani pointed out was a sword. Unlike most of the other weapons, it was in a sheath. Even more unusually, it was actually tied into the sheath. “The Thirsty Sword cannot be sheathed or dropped once it has been drawn until it has taken a life. It will find its mark even for the unskilled; wounds it makes will never heal and therefore will eventually always cause death.”
Serenity was pretty sure he recognized that myth, though not by the name “thirsty sword.” A sword that couldn’t be sheathed until it took a life was not unknown in mythology.
Amani’s list grew longer and longer. There were boots of stone that couldn’t be penetrated, the Hammer called Thunderbolt that would turn into a strike of lightning when thrown, a staff that could induce slumber or wake someone just as easily, a trident that could move water, even though the earth, and a sword that could fight without a wielder. Each of them had their own downsides, but Serenity could see how most of them could be useful if they were managed properly.
Most of the items seemed to pay attention as Amani described them. That made Serenity cautious about them, even the relatively straightforward ones. Intelligent items were never as simple as “cannot be broken.” For the right user, that might well not be a problem, but for the wrong user it could be deadly or worse.
With each item she named, Amani seemed to become a little more comfortable with the situation. By the time she reached the Unbreakable Ribbon (which was apparently untied rather than cut), she seemed more relaxed in his presence than she had been the entire time he’d known her.
Admittedly, that was only a little over an hour.
She seemed to wind down after she pointed out the Scythe of Cronos, which can cut Time and was apparently used as a model for the time-locking features of the Vault. That seemed like a good time to head out; Serenity had enough of an idea of what was in the Vault to make decisions about it.
Now he had to decide what to do with Amani. As useful as controlling part of A’Atla had been, he didn’t want to do it forever. He’d need to either pass off being the Wizard or hire competent subordinates. Someone who could already build something like the Vault was the perfect candidate, as long as he could trust her.
“Amani? Tell me about yourself. You make things; is that your primary Path?” That seemed like a good place to start the job interview. He didn’t want to start with “and your family is completely gone,” even if he’d have to get to that eventually.
Amani looked puzzled for a moment as she cocked her head to the side. “I guess you could call it that. I grew up in A’Atla’s interior; I learned to move around without the aid of someone authorized. That naturally turned into learning about A’Atla’s controls as I grew older and she became less forgiving of lapses. She’ll accept a lot from a child that she won’t accept from an adult.”
Puzzlement was not the reaction Serenity expected to a question about Paths. Surely the translator was good enough for that.
Unless she didn’t have one? The Voice should have grabbed her along with everyone else on Earth, but what if being trapped in the Vault meant the Voice didn’t find her?
It was a lot to hang on a single odd look, but at least there was an easy way to check. It might make him look a bit silly if he was wrong, but that wouldn’t be the first time. “Do you have a Status?”
Amani frowned at Serenity. “A status? For what?”
Well, shoot. Serenity reached out to the Voice; trying to live on modern Earth as a Tier Zero with no help advancing was probably a very bad idea, but saddling her with a Species path she should always have completed wasn’t a good answer either.
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There were many places to hide in the universe, which made this particular patch of nowhere a good place to hide until someone called out to her. Someone who she’d accept the way she’d once accepted Lykandeon. That might not have turned out well, but it started well; she wasn’t ready to try again!
“Human?” The voice came from behind Human, where no one should have been, and startled her. “Is it truly so bad to be without an Incarnate?”
How had anyone found her? It was clearly a god, but Human didn’t think she’d left a trail that just anyone could follow.
That didn’t sound like one of the weaker gods, either. It sounded more like one of the Primordials. They weren’t usually interested in the actions of Beast Gods such as Human, which made this exceptionally odd. She uncurled herself and twisted around; her curiosity was stronger than her desire to wallow in her sadness.
That was clearly a Primordial; it took a moment longer to recognize which Primordial, but any living being would recognize Death if he did not veil himself.
Death seemed different than she remembered. There was a shadow of a face visible in the darkness of his cowl. His voice was different, too, and he used far more words than she’d ever heard him use. When she realized he’d asked about her current lack of Incarnate, it was obvious what had happened, even if it was completely unbelievable. “You’ve chosen an Incarnate yourself?”
Death reached up and pushed back his hood to reveal a surprisingly human face. He - no, she - had a smile on her face. That was at least as unbelievable as the fact that she’d finally chosen an Incarnate. Human had never expected to see any of the Primordials Incarnated other than Life, and Life preferred to vary her Incarnates. Beetles were the most common of the mobile Incarnates, though Life seemed to generally prefer plants. Human wasn’t certain if she should be flattered or worried that Death’s form was human.
“I have.” The grin on Death’s face was positively incandescent with joy. “It is strange to say that I am happy with my choice, but now that I can be happy, I can say that I am. That is why I ask; I was not unhappy before, but you seem unhappy. Is it truly so bad?”
Human sighed. The idea of explaining a bad breakup to a Primordial was difficult. At least she would be echoing her Incarnate; separation was very difficult to learn, though everyone did. Eventually. “He needed to be stopped. It’s not that I hate being without an Incarnate, it’s more that I hate the waste. We were a perfect fit when I chose him, young and strong and ambitious. His ambition warped him and turned him into someone other than the man I chose. Or perhaps I simply didn’t look deeply enough. I saw what I wanted to see.”
“Regret rather than loss? That makes sense.” Death reached out a hand to Human. “Come. I doubt you know my Incarnate’s home; few do. It would be a good place for you to look for another Incarnate or simply to see many humans who are not all the same as your past. Being among others can help with regret.”
That had to be an insight from Death’s Incarnate; Primordials did not feel emotions the same ways as other beings. It made Human wonder a bit; what human was so close to Death that she would be chosen as Death’s Incarnate and yet be so happy after clearly suffering great losses?
For that matter, how could Death know of a place with many humans that Human didn’t already know? “Where is your Incarnate from?”
“Earth,” Death informed Human with a smile. “I think you will like it there.”
The grin on Death’s face said that she was looking forward to springing a surprise on Human, but it didn’t seem like she was lying. Human had to admit that naming a place after the ground did sound like something humans would do, even if she couldn’t immediately identify the location from the name. It had to be somewhere small and obscure.
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Author's Note: Every single one of the weapons in the Vault is based on an actual item from a myth. Some of them are warped a bit, but others are straight out of the original story.
Comments
Yeah, I couldn't leave Mjolnir out ... even if I DID give it the name of Zeus's weapon...
I probably should move this bit to the epilogue, there's no reason it couldn't happen a little earlier.
Danielle Warvel
Mjolnir, I see you…👀
WindGunner
I was wondering about that plot line, since it did not come up during that arc
