Player Content
Dancing to a Song Only Flame can Sing - by T.A.Saunders » November 2016
The fierce winds of Farwind’s winter snapped and buffeted a strange circular building that stood upon a hillside that overlooked the lands of Illuminous, the ancestral home of the uth Braegon family and once the seat of power for all of Farwind. This great dome was fashioned from bleached marble and reinforced with blessed Divinium, giving the whole structure the illusion of being fashioned from the very snow that clung to its rune-etched surface. A defiant gout of flame spiraled from the forked vent atop this dome, and blew angry black smoke upon the air that soon carried it away in the swirling swarm of white that struck the hillside. This was the Elemental Forge, a sorcerous forge empowered by the elements to a single end; to create weapons of unmatched quality and purity that no mortal hammer could smith.
Within the Elemental Forge’s chamber stood a single figure swathed in a simple black robe of ceremony and bathed in the angry white, yellow and orange light of the forge’s churning inferno created by Elemental Wind and Fire. Within the smith’s hand was an ornate-looking Kaalcite blade, with a cross-guard of platinum and ruby, the weapon’s hilt had angels fighting demons upon it, in what looked to be impeccable craftsmanship. This was Nevi’s blade, taken from her body and handed to the man that now dropped it blade first into the fiery oven, where even its fine, sorcerous craft would slowly distort, melt and burble before intently watching viridian eyes, until it was nothing more than a teeming, hissing mass of molten metal, waiting for the smith to reinvent it in the shape of his vision.
There was no mold for the blade, or hammer to shape the metal as it cooled. Hands of sorcery crafted elemental weapons; with force of will and magic as the tools to turn shifting, churning metal into something far more significant. The smith’s hands rose high above his head and with the raise of his hands, the sizzling molten Kaalcite separated from the platinum that had melted with it and rose into the air. His eyes closed and when they did his lips began intoning ancient verses that called to the Elemental Lords; primal beings that ruled over Stone, Wind, Fire and Air with the same majesty kings of Mortals ruled their own. While the Quar`Vessian smith did not need such chants to evoke the power of the Elemental Lords, it was a sign of respect and honor that often earned their blessings, when the tradition was observed.
Magic infused the shapeless metal and began to transform it in the image of the blade that was roughly sketched upon simple, crumpled vellum not a few feet from the smith. Before long, the heated metal was a glowing, orange and black-flecked resemblance to the drawing that smoldered with all the rage in the smith’s heart for the death of one loved so dearly.
Hands that never touched the molten surface of the blade directed it to turn horizontal, while the smith’s lips continued the mantra to the Elemental Lords. The combination of the heat from the fiercely hot metal and the intense concentration this manner of sorcerous smithing required began to produce beads of sweat upon the Quar`Vessian smith’s furrowed brow, that likewise turned golden hair damp with the exertion. This intensity of focus was the smith’s own force of will imagining runes etched into the cooling metal; as they were envisioned in his mind and as lips spoke them in woven verse to the mantra to the Elemental Lords, the runes became reality upon the blade. The runes told the story of the blade in the language of the ancient Asyndi as to ensure the memory of the beloved woman that inspired its creation would never be forgotten.
She dances to a song only flame can sing. Lost too soon was the light only she could bring. Only in the rapture of loving memory does she remain. Never to be forgotten, her bright eternal flame.
The complex Asyndi runes gave the weapon power as well as remembrance, infusing it with the blessing of Fire, from the Elemental Lord of Fire himself. The creation of this sword was hardly finished however. The cooling air of elemental wind washed over the newly forged Kaalcite blade as the smith’s hands motioned it into a vertical position, with the wicked curved tip pointing downwards. With one swift motion he plunged the blade into a waiting pool of pure elemental water, where it was tempered and the blackening the metal suffered from the heating process was washed away in a cloud of hissing steam.
The smith studied the blade for a long moment and found a curious red fleck to the Kaalcite metal used to create it. He gathered then that the abundance of crushed ruby in the old weapon’s hilt fused itself with the metal to give it an all-together unique look, with a soft red scintillation when light struck the metal. He was pleased by this unexpected result and decided to continue with the creation of the sword.
Only the completion of the hilt remained. The pooled molten platinum that remained in sorcerous stasis within the Elemental Forge was focused upon now. The precious metal was shaped, curved and shifted into a pommel and guard that looked as if it were living flame itself by way of this continued mantra to the Elemental Lords. No tool touched the metal, save the tool of the Mind and the touch of sorcery so nary a flaw existed when these parts of the hilt were finished. The more mundane parts of the hilt: the Kassoa wood shaft and the Lasher leather wrapping that would be used to wrap around the wood were the only parts crafted by hand and would be assembled and fitted into the blade now by the smith.
After two days of ritual preparation and work that did not know either reprieve or suffer the smith’s need for food and drink, the sword that would be named Flamesong, The Light of Remembrance was completed. Exhausted, Kithanis uth Braegon pulled a thick woolen cloak around his shoulders then took the newborn sword in hand and left the Elemental Forge, to begin the long walk in the cold back to Chateau Illuminous. While spent from his labor, the Quar`Vessian lord left the forge with a sense of peace that through this art, he had finally said goodbye to the woman who would forever be known as his Enticing Flame.