The Dragon’s Neck, he had come to call it in his mind, for its towering height and the flame which would billow out of its top. It was not built to last. One use, and it would be worthless. Its purpose was to burn up and become a spent husk in the process of alloying the immaculate homogeneity of a fallen star’s heart with the unique structure and sublime arcane power of metal taken from a dragon’s own body. There was no other option, this was a ritual implement as much as it was an alloying tool. His humble request for the beast’s blood and rods made of its bones had been fulfilled by the Revenant King’s magnanimity, stoking unending gratitude in his heart.

It was not lost on him; the terrible tragedy that had transpired to make this possible. He was well aware that thousands had lost their lives, that Oasis City and Borea as a whole had been wounded by the unraveling of the conspirator-clans’ wretched plot. Ingvald would’ve put himself to task in aiding the repairs, had circumstances been different, but this wasn’t his choice to make.

The Great Work demanded to be done. Within his breast, the Forgemother’s fragment burned and drove him on. This was the price of his union with the Forgemother, to render himself vulnerable to being overtaken by the deific archetype. Ingvald knew, even back then, and he had chosen to do it anyway. There was no regret in his heart.

Only a burning desire to see it through. Even without the Forgemother forcing him forward, he would’ve done this. Of that much, he was certain.

All this magic, the Jade Dragons and Huén, would be a small facet of the myriad means by which the blade would be empowered, but that facet would be utterly vital. The supporting enchantments would stem from them, allowing the full brunt of Eldartha to be dedicated solely to tempering the blade’s strength. And the Seven Suns Equinox… Ingvald had no tangible proof, but he had grown convinced that anything forged beneath the Seven Suns’s twilit glow would be blessed by them. He was no astral smith, but even he knew of magical blades forged beneath and empowered by blue moons and eclipses.

There was no weapon more worthy of calling a Great Work than this one. Just the circumstances of its creation would be sung of in sagas for millennia to come. Ingvald could scarcely imagine what feats would be achieved by that blade and its wielder.

Under any other circumstances, Ingvald would’ve ground up the metals he meant to alloy, so best combine them even before subjecting them to the flame. That was not an option. It was fortunate, then, that he could cheat; at least, that’s how he thought of it. Through the Forgemother’s power, he could even forgeweld ice-cold metal and turn scrap into cold-iron. When he was sure the preparations were ready, he called on his protegé, finding that the boy had just completed the body work on one of Newman’s sturmgandrs. He felt out the limits of his stock, sky-high as they were,

For days on end, great tongues of blue-gold flame would issue forth from the ritual site near Ingvald’s smithy.

The displays of divine smithing would only grow greater now that he at last had his alloy, a black mass of tarnished metal that seethed with draconic power.

When Zel brought up Ingvald’s offer with Victor, the redhead seemed hesitant at first, clearly not wanting to part with the memento that Duma’s Spear was to him. His tone changed rather quickly when he learned that Forgehand’s powers of divine smithing meant he could reforge the spearhead with dragonsteel and have it come out with its identity intact.

Ingvald called Zelsys to his smithy, with the rest of her party coming with. There she handed over the Broken Butcher to him so that he might ascertain how its final reforging would take place and how to create its new form. It was a real conundrum, given how clearly unstable the blade’s weapon spirit had become from having to dwell within an unsuitable vessel. He’d put a great deal of thought into how such a delicate identity transfer would be achieved, and Eldartha would certainly make it easier, but this was choosing between a tightrope or a rotten wood beam over a bottomless abyss.

It wasn’t until his eyes chanced upon the aquamarine gem embedded in the chest of her young protegé that he knew he had his solution.

“Boy. Is that a soulstone? A… An Antediluvian Gem?” he asked.

When he received a nod, he lit up and immediately began sketching the design for a device that would let the gem act as an intermediary for the blade’s spirit during the transfer… Only to realize that he couldn’t expect Zelsys to perform such a delicate operation. Nobody in Borea could do that. None besides him. As he turned to racking his brain once more, the answer came to him like a flash from the blue; or rather, a very literal blue flash. The fragment of the Forgemother which dwelt in his chest interceded, his arm blazing blue for a moment when it did so.

A partial reforging. He would replace the damaged, lower-grade metal which remained of the original blade with the first segment of the new one, and in that same act he would prepare the blade for its final unification. Its segmented design would facilitate its rebirth. However, there was still the problem of the handle.

“It is… Bonded to the blade as only blackstone could be. I would marvel at such a handle if I weren’t tasked with separating it from the blade without harming the weapon spirit.”

Zel exchanged glances with her companions and a tacit decision was made.

“I know of one in Oasis City who can manipulate blackstone to the same degree as a Dungeon Core. Would you accept her assistance?” she said somewhat reluctantly, not particularly eager to subject her precious weapon to Red’s hands.