“So you agree?” Ori asked.

  “We are in agreement.”

  Ori exhaled a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. His mind ran over the deal, searching for any deleterious clauses or loopholes. “Right, so this conduit, it’ll last only for the duration of this… divination, yeah?”

  “Yes,” the construct agreed.

  “And whatever we make, I get to take with me?”

  The voice laughed. “Oh yes. Whatever we discover will be burnt onto the very skein of your soul. Even should you die a thousand mortal deaths, this imprint shall be everlasting.”

  Ori suppressed the urge to grimace. “Oh. Okay, then.”

  “So, have we come to an agreement?”

  After the briefest hesitation, Ori nodded.

  The light of the dreamscape faded until there was only darkness, and Ori found himself floating in a sea of stars.

  He could keenly sense the construct’s attention, a presence as weighty as it was cold and dispassionate. Its focus seemed fixed on a spot behind him. Yet, while weightless and untethered, Ori couldn’t see what it was looking at. After several breaths, the stars shifted as if he were rapidly reoriented, and the construct’s attention moved, noting objects in orbit over a bright blue world with keen interest: satellites, spacecraft, aircraft, and every craft that could slip the world’s gravitational bonds, the world Ori called home.

  “Excellent,” the cold, ancient voice said, with growing fervour.

  Flashes of conflict rippled across the world: soldiers fighting in the European cold, dusty conflicts in East Africa and the Middle East. These weren’t dreams or memories of the past. This was his world, its conflict and violence in real time.

  High-fidelity, full-sensory scenes skipped by inhumanly fast. The dream construct’s attention switched between objects of interest; its desire to learn and be inspired was paramount. His heart rattled with the shattering crack of gunshots and shrapnel, explosions that shook his chest as much as the ground beneath his feet. Cries of pain from wounded men, which he was grateful to skip past before they truly sank in, and the cries of command, fury, and alarm. He felt cold steel, the heft of a modern rifle in his grip, the smell of cordite and gun oil, different types of blood, and the stench of released bowels and unwashed bodies, each moment racing faster until it lasted no longer than a blink.

  Had he been in his real body, Ori would have retched. As it was, a growing nausea threatened to shut down rational thought from disorientation and sensory overload alone. Just before his mind tapped out, Ori gasped, and his perception snapped back to the chapel, his vision spinning from the ordeal. He blinked rapidly until the gleaming racks of weapons stopped tilting, and then the display began to shift.

  Twisted, half-remembered facsimiles of handguns, rifles, magazines, and assorted ammunition formed from liquid steel, as if melting in reverse. With them, earthly knowledge of the weapons’ models, manufacture, and uses burned into his mind.

  First came melee weapons such as the KA-BAR fighting knife and the Gerber Mk II, their black oxide-coated surfaces a stark contrast to the glittering pieces of medieval steel beside them.

  Anti-personnel hand grenades, Claymore mines, shaped charges, and sticks of C4 with their detonators manifested, while soft, unfinished apparitions resolved into increasingly detailed weapons: .22-calibre pistols such as the Ruger Mark IV or Walther P22. Larger weapons followed. Kalashnikov AK-74s and Colt M4 carbines formed new racks of rifles, with enough variants to supply a platoon of modern infantry.

  A pain like searing heartburn bloomed deep within his skull as information poured into his soul. Ori could feel the construct’s exacting expectations, the way it channelled its divination through him with the assumption that if Ori were from Earth, he would have an affinity for Earthly weapons, and so it found his ignorance anathema.

  Correcting for this oversight, the construct force-fed him the knowledge a conduit of such knowledge should have: technical specifications, metallurgy and manufacturing processes, ballistic physics and pyrotechnic chemistry, and the magically divined realities of usage, handling, and lethality.

  Ori screamed.

  Meanwhile, the largest handheld archetypes and their magazines appeared: from the Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifle, to Barrett’s M82 anti-materiel rifle, light and heavy machine guns, to rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Stingers and Javelin missile systems now flanking newly formed racks of munitions.

  As the weapons from Earth materialised, the dreamscape flexed in acceptance of Ori’s otherworldly offering.

  He stood on jellied legs, breathing heavily, knowing that if he’d been real, he’d be drenched in sweat after being implanted with so much knowledge so quickly. Knowledge that now flowed out of his skull like sand through splayed fingers. Compared to all the weapons ever invented by man, at least on Earth, what the construct had divined was only a glimpse of the true engines of war from his world. Either it had no interest in heavier weapons, or what it had scryed was enough payment for what would come next.

  Despite that, as the overflow of knowledge poured through his head, Ori could name every weapon that had appeared, along with its associated munitions and maintenance procedures, including one-handed and blindfolded dismantling and reassembly. Random concepts like the Munroe effect, or enfilade versus defilade fire, invaded his thoughts between blinks.

  “It’s like I know kung fu, but with guns. So… gun fu?” Ori shook his head at the thought, then looked up as if searching for the construct’s will. “That was… massively nasty, man.” He whined, failing to keep the hint of accusation from his voice.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Oh? If just a minor affinity was too much, then perhaps we should end things here?” the amused voice challenged.

  “Fuck’sake.” Ori sighed to himself, then addressed the construct. “No. Give us what we agreed.”

  “Then prepare yourself,” the voice replied, suddenly solemn, the remnants of its words echoing through the dreamscape.

  Ori felt the construct’s presence again as the dream faded to black.

  Its attention seemed focused inside him, as if it were burrowing beneath his skin, a ceaseless, restless curiosity that cared nothing for its invasiveness.

  As its presence sank deeper, personal memories surfaced. A half-forgotten strip of flash paper exploding from a plastic tube as a skinny Black kid chanted “hocus pocus” and “abracadabra” on Christmas Day. Years later, an adolescent making swooshing sounds as he and a friend who was really into Star Wars battled with toy lightsabers in a bedroom.

  Ori had never held a sword before, but he was intimately familiar with knives, from the kid who thought he was clever by flashing one in the playground, to being threatened by them on the street, on the bus, or in the tower block lift.

  He forced himself to recall an unfortunate, but predictable, encounter in his teens, and the doctor explaining how his ‘major laceration to the fatty tissue of the omentum’ had, in fact, been very lucky. During the six-month recovery that followed, Ori came to understand the human body better. Since then, he’d always wanted to carry a weapon. The comforting heft of something that satisfied that instinctive need to grip something when alone and threatened. But he’d known that in his world, knives tended to attract more trouble than they were worth, and most alternatives were either as incriminating or impractical.

  So he’d carried a torch. An old, large Maglite, one that could dazzle an assailant in the dark, one that could parry a knife, and be used to crack someone’s skull if he was quick and lucky.

  It wasn’t until A-level Physics that Ori gained a better appreciation for weapons of all kinds, when forces and energies could be defined with numbers and manipulated with equations. The visible and invisible forces of the world: light, gravity, magnetism. The simplicity of how an edge magnifies force, and the surprising complexity of lasers.

  His torch collection grew through early adulthood, as did his interest in light, circuits, and electronics. Memories of the true complexity of electrical engineering stirred a wonder and desire to learn that broke through his world-weary shell.

  Ori felt the construct’s attention drift, as if it were seeing recent experiences: Freya’s and Sera’s lessons, his propensity for soul bonds, his interest and talent in magic. Then it travelled towards something Ori’s perception could no longer follow. Before long, he felt an increasingly uncomfortable sensation, as if something had become taut, stretched far beyond its natural limit. Ori wanted to shout, to stop whatever the construct was doing, instinct telling him it was dangerous. But he also knew this was what he’d asked for.

  So he endured.

  Darkness gave way to brief glimpses of blurry reflections, flashes from a kaleidoscope of impossible-to-decipher images. His soul blinked, his will sought clarity, and the dream flexed.

  “Mortals are such predictable creatures, predictable in their habits, in their wants and needs. Even their contradictions are predictable,” the construct said as Ori found solid ground beneath his feet again.

  Blurry light resolved into a dusty carpenter’s workshop, workbenches and wood-turning machines filling the space, tools lined against every inch of wall. In front of him stood a white-haired, barrel-chested man no taller than five and a half feet. His skin was bronze in the way only a freshly polished sculpture could be, with a foot-long, wispy beard and hair that revealed an obvious bald spot, polished to a mirror sheen.

  Yet even though Ori was taller by a hand, the craftsman’s presence was that of a mountain, something that forced you to stop and look up, while sensing the distance that separated you from it. “And you are no less. You seek freedom, independence, and space, yet you yearn for affection, validation, and companionship.

  “You care little about what others think, but still wish to leave a lasting impact on the world you leave behind. You like to create and improve as much as you seek the power to destroy. You value life, but would see it ended to protect your own. You want power, but cringe at the thought of holding such power over others. Contradictions, yes, but predictable ones nonetheless. No, what makes you unique is the strength of your Will.” The crafter spoke as it shuffled around the workshop, wearing an apron and thick, hardy gloves.

  “Your irregular will empowers your soul, your dreaming, your bonds, your comprehension, your affinities, your magic. It is the nexus of all that you are and ever can be. If we are to settle accounts today, we must forge something that scales off this power.” White fire lit beyond a small porthole, the construct’s steely gaze fixed on Ori.

  “Lad, how do you turn iron into steel?”

  “You… er, add carbon?” Ori said.

  “Is that an answer or a question? Yes, you can add coke and limestone to iron in the blast furnace. A simple crucible won’t do,” the man replied, its gaze knowing. “You asked me to create something beyond the limits of your fate. So instead of a tool or weapon, what I offer is a way of turning iron into steel, a medium stronger, tougher, more malleable and ductile, resistant to wear and corrosion, and easier to reshape and spring back after duress.

  “Except that this isn’t mere iron we’ll be steelworking, lad. No. This time, it’ll be your soul.”

  Ori groaned. “I… don’t understand. I mean, isn’t messing with souls dangerous?”

  “It is a gamble, and it will hurt. Hurt like you won’t believe.” The crafter smirked, cold amusement back in full force as the construct’s presence ambled towards him. “You have a greedy soul. With a familiar bond, a soul-bound focus, and the Lich bonded to both it and you, you’re stretched, ripe for bursting, and yet you seek more. With soulcrafting, your soul will be able to evolve and grow. Along with this, your comprehension of soulcrafting will improve, which I must add is no minor thing.”

  Ori’s thoughts spun. In some ways, it was far more than he’d expected, as he began to see his accomplishments and bonds in a new light.

  So his soul was full? Would this mean he could form more bonds afterwards? That would be useful in the context of these trials if whatever he found could come with him. But it was also much less than he immediately needed: something practical, tangible, specific. To him, all this talk of the soul sounded wishy-washy, nebulous, and frustrating.

  Still, if Ori was honest, something about the idea of him having a greedy soul, despite the negative connotations, resonated.

  “Okay. Let’s soulcraft my soul, I guess.”

  “I’d ask you to prepare yourself, but to be frank, nothing will prepare you for the pain of a soul furnace,” the construct said, before it jammed its grasping hand into Ori’s solar plexus and pulled.

  Ori doubled over. He felt grey, hollow, and cold. The sights and sounds of the workshop dimmed and desaturated as he had the terrifying sense he’d been tricked and just had his kidney stolen. He saw the crafter turn away towards a bright… something, clasped between gloved hands.

  “While I do this, I suggest you focus on something practical. Perhaps fate might bestow you with another gift, as it does so often for those on the Path. This next bit will sting.”

  His last thoughts were of Seraphine and Freya as the world went white with pain.