“Magos, make him a suitable Sword he can empower, and not one of eshbronze,” Kris waved at me as she strolled back to us, daring to turn her back on him because she had earned the privilege to do so.

  Huh. Well, it wasn’t actually that hard…

  I pulled at the stone around, purifying and stratifying it as I did so. A heavy Sword sized exactly for the fellow, except perhaps a bit broader than the one he’d wielded, flowed slowly up out of the ground, and his burning eyes fixated on it as it did so.

  It rose higher than I was, standing there with its tip in the ground, and I cast Reed, Rune, Iron, Stone, and Adamant on it, basically turning it into something much harder and naturally sharper than his gem-strewn and overly fanciful Vier-Slotted eshbronze toy.

  QL 35 out of the gate, too, and that was being made of stone. No innate goldweight value, of course.

  “Fill it with power, or merely Cast upon it, and it should perform admirably for you, Plurinam.” I flicked my hand, and the massive Sword spun end over end across the court of hardened lava to the Sun Brother there.

  He nabbed it out of the air effortlessly. The instant he did, fires lit up about it and ran along inside it, numerous Runes waiting to be filled with magic becoming obvious.

  His smile was wide and unfeigned as he stared at his impressive toy, hefting it and testing how it felt. “A fine gift! I shall see how it performs, Magos of the Lost Light!” he said loudly.

  “I shall return on the morrow with more Knight Aspirants, and every day for several more,” Kris stated crisply. “I trust that will not be an issue.”

  The Plurinam waved it away. “Such minor draws on the flame of the mountain are inconsequential at best,” he said breezily. “We shall await your return, Grandmaster!”

  We all bowed politely following Kris’ example, were dismissed in turn, and headed out of there.

  ---------

  “One of us is going to have to accompany every group of aspirants, aren’t we?” Briggs grumbled as we headed down the slopes of the mountain towards a clear area nearby.

  “Ahem!” The Mick grumbled and pointed at the entrance to the Mines of Lethe.

  “You want to go in there?” Kris asked, only a little surprised.

  “Aye. Three, nay, four things.” He held up his fingers. “One, the Waters o’ Lethe have to be of interest to our fine alchemist here, and there are NONE in any alchemist storehouse I be knowing, despite retaining its properties if taken from here.”

  I blinked, looked at Kris, and nodded. That alone was worth going in.

  “Two, if that Mount Lethe Recall spell be in here still, that might be interestin’ as a model for spells we could Recall to other tied places. There used to be nigh a dozen o’ the damn things, an’ now there be none that we know working properly. Even the Undead seem to be using extant Portals to send an’ receive their ‘porters.”

  “Huh,” a bunch of us said at the same moment. None of the natives except him had ever used such things, so they didn’t spring to mind.

  “Three, this were a pyreal mine. It might just still be viable, for one reason or another, or it might be summat different now. A survey of the place be sounding reasonable, an’ there be no reason we can’t clear the place an’ Seal it if we be liking to.”

  Which was also true. I could plug a lot of the mines in very little time if that was appropriate.

  “Four, there were a curse or something associated with the place, the undead messing about in it, an’ it probably be time to break that or summat, I be thinkin’.”

  Everyone was nodding as the Mick brought down his fourth finger. “Good thinking all around, Lord Mick,” Commander Briggs stated firmly. “Let’s do a clear, but not before.” He pointed at Rogar. “Lieutenant, use the Infusion and let’s see the results.”

  Rogar hauled out his short-hafted Glaive and dutifully took up the Infusion of blue-white fires, then slowly poured the Fires of Lethe over the adamantine of Accent.

  The spirals of Lost Light converged on the falling viscous flames, brightening noticeably. They zipped in and out of the Infusion, diving into the Glaive in little sparkles of flame, and rapidly covered it in a short sheath of blue-white, gentle flames that sank slowly into the dark metal, turning it more darkly blued than black.

  Kris held out her hand as Rogar lifted up his Glaive, clearly transformed somehow, and he passed it over to her.

  She took it, examined it, handed it up to Briggs, who then passed it to the Mick and I to examine.

  “Interesting.”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  =========

  Accent, Named Heavy Glaive of the Lost Light, Twice-Infused

  Damage: 3-18 (Profound Weapon, 4-32)

  Bonus To Hit: +III

  Bonus to Damage: +III

  Slotted Powers: Greater Soulbound (Rogar Tagelsir), Vivic, Blooding, Enmity to Evil, Bane of Legends, Blessed

  Unslotted Powers: Morphing, Subtlety, Impervious, Defender

  Quality Level: 40 (Hardened and Full-Temp Adamantine with blueslake)

  Hardness: Base 52 + 4x Enhancement

  Hit Points: Base 160 + 40x Enhancement.

  Blackfire Gems: Minor, Major (+2 to hit/+4 to damage)

  Elemental Stones: Prismatic Stone Currently Slotted (Armor Cleaving, Elemental Slayer)

  Forger: Kristie Rantha

  Namer and Bound Wielder: Rogar Tagelsir

  ===============

  Rogar gripped it, sending Soul Essence into it as it sprouted to its full length of eight feet in his grasp, Electrum soulfire igniting around the arc of its head.

  Pointedly, the bonus to hit and damage only increased to +IV.

  “It improved a die class in damage,” he reported, the rush of his Essence through it telling him completely how it had improved and changed. “The, ugh, Jadework bonus is now +III instead of the +II it was before. And the Defender ability is new,” he reported for his fellow Roaches.

  “Och, free Defender at will?” The Mick had already drawn Bunita’s Kiss and was reaching for his Infusion. “If I’m willing to take the penalty to hit, that’s a fine cheap Slot for free, all!”

  “No one turns down more defense when needed,” I agreed, lifting my own Infusion. “Bets on Guardian when we get the next one?” I asked everyone, but there were no takers.

  The next few minutes were spent carefully treating Weapons of the Lost Light and improving them to Twice-Infused, admiring the new blued hue of the adamant before stowing them all once more.

  “Let’s go relax in the Dungeon, eh, mine, and see what’s to be seen in it,” Briggs nodded. “Lord Mick, if you’ve got a map, now’s the time to put it up in Markspace. If not, no worries.”

  “I’ve a rough one, but it’s been years, Commander,” the Mick said seriously, “an’ we don’t know what might have changed in inhabitants or layout. I be thinking both have upgrades.”

  Everyone took that with straight faces. “Well, then, let’s try out Cold for starters, and switch if we need it,” Briggs suggested, and most everyone complied, swapping in Elemental Stones.

  I didn’t, because I wasn’t going to fight anything.

  The Mines of Mount Lethe beckoned, and Lord Mick cheerfully led the way in.

  --------

  “MEATBAGS! AGAIN YOU DARE TO THWART ME!” The massive molten arm with the crude fingers was shaken at us in volcanic outrage. “THERE SHALL BE A RECKONING WHEN NEXT WE MEET!”

  Kris was charging him, but Scold didn’t give her the chance to catch him. Once again, he took the course of discretion, jumping off the bridge into the active lava below, and plunged directly out of sight in the stuff, like it was water instead of really heavy liquid stone.

  Everyone had that sort of special expression of exasperation on their faces you get when the trash-talking poser you really want to put down somehow manages to run away from you right in front of your eyes, and you really can’t do anything about it.

  Then the floor lurched under us.

  “Everybody out!” I exclaimed, whipping up the Dimension Door. There was no hesitation as everyone piled through the standing dark rectangle of vertical space. Kris was second-to-last through, and simply tugged me along after her as she raced past me and plunged through the Dim Door.

  We were outside and down the hill, right on top of one of the spawn zones we’d cleared a few hours earlier. Kris rolled once with me in her arms, sank all the inertia, and was up on her feet and setting me on mine before I could do much more than take a breath.

  There was a pulse under our feet. The white around us hissed and sank into the soil.

  “Spawn point released!” I indicated, as fwzoop, suddenly there were six drudges in black and brown skin hues around us, with colorful yellow and red war paint dabbed all over them.

  For some reason, everyone still had Weapons in hand.

  There was a moment of rather radical violence, me popping a Drudge in the face with Darts and sending it stumbling haplessly into Kris, who promptly relieved it of its head in the midst of chopping through three others in a bloody whirlwind.

  The ground lurched this time, not just a pulse in the manafield, and there was a rumble and crack and roar up on top of the flattened mesa leading up to the caldera.

  I flicked up an Eagle’s Vantage and sent it skyward as I sat down on Selena’s Disk, and without any hesitation the Senior Melees were dragging the Roaches and I directly away.

  “Hole collapsing around the mine entry, crater forming below as the rocks shatter,” I relayed, moving the view into the Markspace so everyone could watch the hole forming as the ground fell away. Violent liquid red was spurting up from below under high pressure, but it wasn’t doing so with the violence of a full eruption.

  Our extraction path now had idiot spawns atop it as the vivic Seals were broken by the energy surge, so there was some light exercise happening as we withdrew.

  “The fucker did it just so we’d have a harder time coming back for Infusions, right?” Kris snarled, disposing of a yowling Banderling Thrasher with an irritated blur of a crackling Quaver.

  “Er, ye did notice we did kill all his pet golums an’ trashed at least three more o’ his odd machines, right?” the Mick remarked, impaling his own banderling opponent, wincing extravagantly as the second of Brigg’s swings from Endure sent his opponent flying just as far as his first victim had.

  “Details, details! He’s a malicious little bastard I’m going to have fun reducing to pebbles!” she promised loudly.

  “He definitely has a great sense of self-preservation,” Briggs agreed cheerfully. “I think we’re too used to fighting Summons and other things that all think they are coming back from the dead,” he mused gravely, shouldering Endure as he turned back to look at the mesa a safe half-mile away, a geyser of leaping lava bubbling at the top of it and leading to a lavaflow going down to the north out of line of sight from here.

  “Aye, me first action on learning I’d be having to fight either o’ ye would be t’ withdraw to a very safe distance an’ hopefully leave the area,” the Mick agreed. “Scold’s a sniveling bully, aye, but he’s definitely not dumb!”

  The Roaches all agreed with that sentiment heartily. None of them had any desire to fight the Hag Princess or Warlord Commander, either.

  “How’s the tally of our haul?” Kris asked, miffed but willing to let it all slide for now.

  I pulled out the two copies of the Scroll we’d found, and started teasing one of them open carefully, then stopped. “Null up, please.”

  A bit surprised, Kris extended her Null over me, and I unrolled the Scroll fully.

  ============================

  For those who would like to support me and my daily updates, my Patreon Link is at:

   Ebook Series: The original Power of Ten: The First Day, The First Week, and finally The First Month, Vol Five and Six!