The bde did not try to talk with its wielder again that day or in the day that followed. Though it had enjoyed feasting on the death in the battle they’d only just survived, it understood that the man was grieving for his friends and saw no need to aggravate him. Instead, it waited, sipping on the lives around him, which were fewer than it would have liked, given how wide a berth everyone gave Kell now.

  Still, while he drank the day away and sobbed half the night like an unmanly child, the Ebon Bde had other things to do. The level of its Death Enhancements had increased not once but twice during that bloody battle, and it had a lot of new abilities and goals to understand.

  The path of Death is a long one, but you have made your first step along it. As your connection grows, benefits both rge and small will accrue in your favor.

  The Path of Death: Level 2 -> 10 souls of men -> to reach Level 3.

  Level 2 Powers:

  Increased Storage: Rather than hold the base amount of souls (14) allowed thanks to Increase Reserves. You may now hold twice that (28).

  Improved Soul Conversion: Consume a soul for 110% its previous value.

  Though neither of the abilities was bad, they were entirely underwhelming, and the bde did not think they were worth the 500 Life force worth of souls it had paid to unlock them. Still, there was nothing it could do. It was locked into this path now.

  At least if I manage to fill up my soul storage again, I’ll have enough extra power to y dormant for an extra season at least, it told itself, trying to look on the bright side as it spent ten more souls to see what was next.

  For a sword, Death is inescapable. However, that is more true for you than from any bde ever forged. As such, no one may survive your attacks, not even those creatures who might normally be immune to steel or other mundane metals can resist you.

  The Path of Death: Level 3 -> 50 greater monster souls -> to reach Level 4.

  Level 3 Powers:

  Ineffective Immunity: Natural immunities do not apply to your strikes.

  Deathly Touch: All strikes deal +2 siphon damage in the form of deadly hoarfrost and frostbite.

  Neither of those was half as powerful as its aura of hunger was proving to be, but there were many enemies where the former power would be invaluable; it just hadn’t faced them yet. The weapon was actually gd that it hadn’t had the second power while embedded in the dragon, though. That much cold would have killed the thing much faster.

  It contempted what it should do with these new powers, and its nearly two thousand saved Life Force for some time before its wielder finally spoke to it again. “What should we do now?”

  He asked when his friends were buried, and he stood alone at their graves. That was a good sign. Despite the man’s inebriation and sorrow, he’d waited until he was alone to speak out loud to the bde. It could work with that.

  That is for you to decide, it answered bndly. I know very little of the world, or even of myself, for that matter.

  It did so not because that was what it believed but because it didn’t want to spook the guy. It wanted fire and blood. It wanted to raze this town, but Kell would react poorly to that.

  “Without Pa and Mika, I don’t know what to do,” he sighed. “I can’t stay here, but where do I go? Back to harvest more gold from the dragon’s cave? I don’t need more gold. I have more than I ever would have wanted already.”

  The world is a wide pce, the bde said finally. You could go anywhere and do anything. What would your friends want you to do?

  “Family,” the wielder corrected it in a way that put its teeth on edge. “They were my family, and they’d want me to be happy. I don’t know. They’d want me to get rich, discover something amazing, and then retire to a farm somewhere and have a whole flock of kids.”

  That sounds like a very achievable pn, the bde answered, desperately hoping that wasn’t the way things would end up for it.

  The only fate it could imagine that was worse than ending up rusting in a cave somewhere forgotten would be to end its days mounted on the wall of someone who used to fight like some sort of trophy. The idea hurt its very soul, but while it pondered how unnerving it found the idea, its wielder continued speaking.

  “Who am I to find some forbidden tomb or dragon hoard?” Kell asked as he turned his self-pity back on. “I’m not Pa, I don’t know anything about that stuff.”

  Neither did he, the bde thought, but it didn’t think it so loud that its wielder could hear it. It would do no good to disparage the dead.

  Instead, it told him, You already know where one dragon hoard is. If that is not enough for you, I know where there’s a lost temple not so far from here. Perhaps it would have something that would grant you the prestige and easy life you seek.

  “You do?” the young man asked. “How? You said you didn’t know anything about the world.”

  It was where the shepherd boy found me now, so long ago, the bde answered.

  It then proceeded to give Kell a very short, edited history of its existence until now. It told him how its original owner had been lost to time but that a few months ago, a shepherd boy used it to save the girl he loved and fight their way free to Tollin’s Cross. It left out everything else that had happened, and all the infighting, and expined that the two of them were there when the dragon had come and that the boy had died defending her.

  That was all true, of course, mostly, andits wielder seemed to believe it. That was all that really mattered.

  “So you were in a temple, and that’s it?” the man asked, suddenly distracted from his own problems by the question the bde's existence posed. “You have no idea how you go there or why?”

  I have no clues to my own existence, the bde lied. It had a few clues, but it felt no need to share them. I don’t know where I came from, and I can’t even read the runes on my bde.

  “Well, don’t feel too bad about that. I can’t read either,” Kell responded, cracking a half smile for the first time since the death of his adoptive family.

  That comment struck something in the bde it hadn’t fully appreciated before now. Unloike its wielder, it could read. It didn’t know why or where a weapon would learn to read, but it could. Those powers weren’t limited to the pop-ups it read, either. It could always read the writing on the signs. It knew that the inn that Kell and his now-dead friends had been staying at was called The Fiddler’s Wench because of the faded white letters on its sign and not because it had overheard anyone say it.

  It is a mystery, it thought. Why would I need to read at all?

  It didn’t tell that to its wielder. Instead, it asked, Would you like to explore it? Perhaps clues might expin more than my origins. We might yet find an even greater treasure.

  Kell considered it silently for a few seconds before he said, “Why not? It beats drinking myself to death. Which way are we going?”

  The bde told the man what it remembered of its earliest days, and after a look around at the mountains, they quickly decided on a direction and started walking.

  Neither of them had any idea how long these things would take. All that mattered to the bde was that they were getting closer to revealing some hidden truth about the nature of its existence, and all that mattered to its wielder was that they were getting further away from the corpses of the men he hadn’t been able to save.

  Thanks to their increased connection, it was nearly impossible to block Kell out. Even on the occasions that he wasn’t reminiscing aloud about some of the adventures he’d had with his adopted family, his thoughts were rgely visible to the weapon. It could see right through him in a very literal sense. So, while the bde did not castigate the man for his moment of indecision, he very much bmed himself for not striking the first blow in those opening moments after he’d been warned.

  The Ebon Bde had not meant for the event to happen. Still, the way it pyed out seemed to make Kell very loyal to it, and the weapon was warming to the idea that he would make it a fine wielder for a long time to come. He wasn’t as vicious as it might have liked, but he was malleable.

  At least until I get my control level higher, it decided. After that, we can go somewhere crowded, where no one has ever heard of us, and I can raise an army and… It always wanted to attack the whole world. It wanted to y waste to everything. However, for a moment, there was a fsh of a specific city it wanted to y siege to and crush. It had rge, multi-tiered walls and an imposing skyline.

  Something about it was familiar to it, and with that familiarity, a tide of anger washed over it. It tried to dig further into that memory, but it was gone before the weapon could pce it on a map or understand what it was angry about exactly.

  The bde said nothing to its wielder about any of this. Instead, it simply endured the man’s insipid regrets and rambling stories as they traveled together.

  It took them two days to reach the Kadian foothills and two more to reach the vilge that it was fairly sure Ren and the other boys had come from. The pce had seen better days, and though it obviously suffered from poverty, there were no signs of the beastmen attack that Mardem and Ren had feared.

  As Kell walked into the center of town and asked for directions, the bde saw Vara walk past them, carrying a basket heavy with undry. Her eyes noted the stranger, but the way he was standing, she entirely missed the weapon on his hip. That’s when it knew they were in the right spot.

  The vilge’s name turned out to be Olden-va, and for a few silver coins, they found a young man who was happy to act as a guide, though he insisted he wouldn’t go into the temple. “Even if you had gold, I wouldn’t go in there! Not for all the gold in your purse, Mister!” he boasted.

  That was a mistake for the shepherd boy, of course, because Kell had quite a lot of gold in his purse, as it turned out. Along the way, Kell asked about Ren, and the boy confirmed several parts of the story, which the bde appreciated, even if it hadn't sensed any suspicion in its wielder's soul. "According to Vara, he died fighting a dragon with a magic bde," the boy expined, "That probably makes him the bravest hero ever to come from our vilge!"

  That afternoon, once the pce was in sight, Kell released their guide. They didn't need him anymore. The bde started to drain him then, but they parted ways before it could siphon enough of his life force to do more than make him tired.

  That it was denied a single immature soul didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that they were finally here, back to where it had all started. The st time it had been here, it had been too weak to even see the world. This time, though, this time it would get the answers it sought, no matter how many goblins yet lingered in the ruins. They might not give it the greater monster souls it needed next, but they would die deliciously.