Even though the Ebon Bde had no wish to get to know this wielder more than its previous one, o was on his hip for a day, it had a pretty good idea of who it was he was dealing with. Between the versation of the prospectors and the darting surface thoughts, he en book.

  Kell was an eager young boy who loo be a hero. That much wasn’t so different from the shepherd he repced. This wielder, though, was blooded and had fought for his life against beast men and bandits more than once. While Gern and Mika were reted, Kell was an orphan, and until he’d grown in size and ferocity over the st couple of years, he’d mostly been Pa’s pack mule on their various adventures.

  From what the sword could gather, they hadn’t met with a lot of success. The group had ransacked a couple of small tombs, but they’d mostly been picked already. They’d also found the remains of a caravan i-so-distant past and taken what the bandits hadn’t. The bde liked those kinds of flexible morals.

  Still, it didn’t drink too much of any of them, and it left its wielder entirely alo didn’t so much as urge that the d leave, even though that was what it wanted most. The st thing it o do oke anyone.

  The three of them took their time, though. The bde didn’t bme them. Humans loved gold. That was half the point of killing a dragon, and this furnace beast’s hoard attered all over the walls and floor, piled in yers so high they’d need a lot more than the hammers and cold chisels they’d brought with them to get to the bottom of those decades-old deposits of metallic shit.

  At one point, they reached the back of the cave, and they finally found the pile of goblins that had died. Strangely, that didn’t spook them like the sword worried it would. Gern just expihat it was bad air caused by the decay of the dragon’s corpse, and they moved their meager camp that much closer to the exit so that no one suffocated in their sleep.

  Still, they got enough good samples to fill a few sacks. They were mostly tin, copper, and other trace metals, but there lenty of gold and a fair bit of ptinum in the mix, which was enough to make this their biggest score of all time.

  “Plus, we e back for even more or just sell the location to some fancy asshole and call it a day!” Gern said. “There’s riches enough in a jackpot like this for everyone as long as we keep it quiet.”

  “Keeping a score like this is going to be a little tough,” Mika answered, but his father blew him off.

  The man said things like that a lot, actually. It was a refrain that was so on that the bde started to tu out. It didn’t care what these people did with their lives, just as long as he had someorong and bloodthirsty to wield it.

  The jury was still out oher that would be Kell or not, at least until their first fight, but for now it was enough to be carried by someone again.

  Ohey started making their way down the mountain, t only took a few days before it looked like it was going to get to taste beastmen blood once more. The group moved fast in the highnds, but ohey were ba the foothills, they quickly rexed.

  Kell was asleep along with everyone else, when the creatures had started to slink in on the camp. In fact, they all had. They’d set a wat the cave because they’d feared moblins, but in the lower reaches of the mountain they were climbing down, they somehow thought themselves safe. That was a huge mistake.

  “Too low for the beasties, too open fobblers, and too far from the roads for bandits,” Gern had pronounced fidently as they’d turned in for the night.

  The Ebon Bde woke its wielder with a sudden surge of danger and urgency, but only after it spent half a minute sidering its options while their lives all hung in the bance. After all, if it left these men to their fate, they might well die before they could stand, and in the hands of one of these beasts, it could surely overpower their weak will. Still, something about it preferred that a human hand wield it, and it was that potential that made it decide to stick with Kell a while longer.

  As the boy woke with a start and shouted an arm even as he drew his sword, the Ebon Bde was equally busy. It had 1893/3000 Life Force, and it wasn’t about to let its wielder use all of that. Its soul ste was nearly full as well, so even as it started to spend its Life Force, it liquidated its eleven goblin souls for 43 more Life Force. Then, even as Kell charged at the first goat man, it spent 600 points to increase its e.

  The bde did not want to deepen its e, but it did want to meet the requirements to improve its trol over those that held it now and iure, so it took the logical step. As it took Increase e 3, its wire wound hilt tightened, and another yer of sensations flooded through it from the man that was wielding it as it was reduced to 1293/3000 Life Force.

  Increase e 3: You have wormed your way deep into the soul of anyone who grips your hilt. Yrip on your wielder tightens, allowing you to uand more about them. This liends past emotions, allowing some level of insight and influeo their very thoughts.

  It could feel the pani his mind and the joy in his heart as he brought the bde down hard through his enemy’s spear. It k could check the boy’s sheet too, and that it would likely get more information, but there was no time for that now.

  The boy shouted in arm to everyone as their o, and the beastman’s on gave away immediately, and the sword bit deeply into its hairy flesh, snapping the colrbone and making its left art useless.

  +19 Life Force.

  You have cimed a lesser monster soul.

  That, on its own, would not have been a fatal blow, but the additional siphon drank deeply of its vitality, and it slumped immediately to the ground. That surprised both the bde and its wielder enough that Kell had trouble lifting the on in time to parry the strike.

  Fortunately, he did, and as he did so he bought time for the other two men who were roused slowly. This pleased the bde because it did not want to waste Life Force healing him. Not when it was so close to reag 1500.

  Its wielder followed the blow-up with a cross-cut across the thing's midse, gutting it and killing it in a siroke. Then he moved on with a wide ssh to his right to gain some breathing room to his right before he killed oo his left. He…

  +12 Life Force.+17 Life Force.

  You have cimed a lesser monster soul.

  The Ebon Bde’s blow-by-blow analysis of the fight tapered off as he realized it was sidering what the optimal move was moments before its wielder actually did it. So I have some trol over the d already, it thought greedily.

  To test the theory, the sword held ba tactical thoughts for the half a mi was not surprised to find out that it had been correct. Though the boy kept fighting fiercely for that time, there was a moment of hesitation before each of his attacks as he decided what the best move was. The fluid grace that he’d borrowed from the bde’s experienced urging was gone.

  It had tle mightly to sway Ren’s bde even an inch or two, but now with more trol, it could sway Kell’s strikes almost without thinking about it. That’s real progress, the bde told itself. Making the boy do things not reted to bat would probably be harder, but making him fight better felt almost natural.

  +19 Life Force.+11 Life Force.

  You have cimed a lesser monster soul.

  By the point that it made those realizations, the fighting was almost done, and the rest of the beasts were ireat. Gern and Mika had killed some of the beasts, too, but they’d also left some maimed and bleeding out, and the Ebon Bde quickly prodded its wielder to finish off each of them, just to be sure, so it could devour what was left of them while the men caught their breath and talked.

  +4 Lesser monster souls.

  “By the Dark Ones, Kell,” Mika said, “If you hadn’t heard them, we’d be cooked.”

  “I ’t believe they’d e down this low,” Gern said, shrugging off the bme. “They musta’ smelled our cookin”

  “And Kell musta’ saved our asses. e on, Pa, ’t you admit the boy did good?” Mika followed up, unwilling to let the issue go.

  “Aye, he did,” the man nodded grumpily as he ed his bde. “Took him the best part of a decade and a magic sword to boot, but he finally did something worth keeping the d around for.”

  The sword was amused by the way the man could turn a pliment into an insult, but that amusement faded instantly the moment its wielder spoke. “I think it was the sword, actually. It warned me in a dream.”

  The sword froze at the words, and it took all that it had to y there still and quiest as the men tio speak. What it wao do was yell at him to

  “Did it now?” Gern asked. “It tell you anything else? Like where we should stake a cim, or which way to go to avoid bandits and the like on the way back.”

  “It's not whispering anything evil to you, is it?” Mika asked, with more than his father.

  If the bde had blood, it would have frozen in its veins at the moment. It immediately regretted saving its wielder. It should have let them get ripped to pieces and taken its ce with a lesser wielder. It didn’t say any of that, though. It just waited, worried about what the young man would say .

  “No, it’s not like that,” Kell said quickly, causing a sensation of relief to wash through the bde. “It hasn’t really done anything else. Maybe using it makes me a better fighter, I’m not sure, but it’s not tellio kill or anything like that.”

  “Well, if it does, you let us know, and I’ll put you down real easy in your sleep,” Gern said with a yawn. “For now, I’m goin’ back to bed, but you stay up and keep pyin’ hero since you’re so good at chopping these things to pieces. You be our watch for a while. Wake Mika at the first signs of false dawn.”

  Kell didn’t protest the obviously unfair treatment. The d had probably had that beaten out of him a long time ago. Still, there were barely even any embers of resehere even after being disrespected so casually, and the bde resolved to fan those fmes os wielder the ime he slept.

  There were no further attacks that night, and though the bde stayed silent while its wielder was awake, it started whispering to it when the young mao sleep. Rather than whispering words that would sew discord as it had to its st wielder, though, the on told the man how well he’d fought, and how the only respect he’d gotten from the men that were supposed to be like family to him in a long time came from that fighting. Fight more, and often it told him. The path to true power and respect is spttered with blood.

  While it was true that Kell was due more credit, the bde wasn’t sure any of its darker message percoted through its wielder’s dreams. As it turned out, though, credit was the ohing the boy didn’t get.

  Not in the day that followed or on any day after that. With Tollin’s Cross still nothing but tents and ashes, the men were making for a town further afield called Trodden. The bde didn’t know where it was exactly, but to it, it looked like they were heading back toward the pce the shepherd and his friends had e from on its first trip. The Ebon Bde couldn’t say with aainty, because it had been asleep for most of that trip, but it found the idea to be an iing one.

  That was good and bad. It was bad in that the local myths might cause more people t, but it was good in that it might get a ce to revisit the temple it had been locked ihe bde didn’t know the exact way to get there, but it could probably make its way back to the shepherd’s vilge, and from there, it couldn’t be too hard.

  Even though it suggested the destination a few times in Kell’s dreams, the men had no i in aours. Not when they were loaded down with metal samples to be smelted and assayed. Unfortunately for the bde, there were no other monsters or bandits to fight, either, and not even the six lesser monster souls it used could quite bring it up to 1500 Life Forbsp;

  At least I’m not dropping anymore, it told itself, as they got closer and closer to their destination. Rather than burning twenty or so Life Force every day that field its existehat cost was now born by its wielder. That would have been almost enough to drop a beastman, a Kell seemed unfazed by the burden.

  That made the Ebon Bde wonder exactly how the cost was being paid. Is it magic? Is it his soul? The on reviewed the man’s status sheet for any answers, but when it found decided it didn’t care.

  Name: Kell

  Occupation: Prospector’s Apprentice

  Toughness: 5 +1

  Strength: 6 +3

  Agility: 5 +2

  Speed: 5 +1

  Intelligence: 5

  Willpower: 5 -1

  Morality: Good

  Bloodlust: Low

  Status: Normal

  Martial Skill: Low

  Armor Proficy: Low

  Dodging: Low

  Athletics: Medium

  Goal: To go on many adventures and strike it rich!

  As soon as the town was in sight, it started siphoning off the other two members of the group. It could only steal five or ten points of Life Force a day from each of them like this without making them noticeably lethargic or weak, but if it kept that up, it would soon reach its goal and unloother tier of trol, and in the hands of a strong wielder, that would always be its objective.