Huge animals seemingly made of living wood dwelt in the grove, which, as she learned, served as mobile hives for the grove’s monads. There were even leshies just walking around, tending to the trees. In its center, past a small town’s worth of spiritual plants and druidic holy structures, there stood a gigantic, gnarled tree of golden leaves. The trunk and branches twisted such that one could see the images of a dragon’s wings and head all over it, and veins of gleaming amber ran all the way down its trunk, pooling near the roots. Ten giant irminsul obelisks surrounded the dragon tree, and at their bases, on the outer perimeter of the ring they formed, there were equally giant slabs of rune-carved stone. The druids helped Zel in arraying her five sacrificial beasts on five of these slabs so that there was an empty one between each of them; they ran the gamut from a coiled-up springspitter to a beetle the size of a tank and even a brambleback. The druids aided in other preparations as well, but in the end, Zelsys was the one to perform the numerous sacrifices necessary to empower the talismans.

It was not this that stood out to her, nor the number of great beasts that fell for just one part of the Butcher’s rebirth. No, it was the fact that with each sacrifice made and each talisman empowered, she felt a presence reaching out to her. A spirit that dwelt within the Impelling Arm. One of the grove’s druids noticed her looking strangely at the sleeve after the third sacrifice had been consumed by silver brambles. When she brought it up with him, he responded with not an iota of surprise: “Of course, such a thing was inevitable. I know not the full extent of what you are trying to achieve, but it would be best to have a direct understanding with the armament’s spirit before you attempt to make it bend one way or another. I could perform the Rite of Blade’s Awakening for you, should you so wish. If the armament’s spirit possesses a strong-enough self-identity, it shall manifest itself and gain the ability to do so even outside the Spirit Grove.”

Zel had assumed that the armament had likely already developed a spirit of its own, of course; she just hadn’t expected it to make itself known now, of all times. She hoped it wasn’t an attempt at protest.

“...Of course. Once I am finished with these,” she readily accepted, gesturing to the two remaining sacrifices. After doing as she said she would she gave the sleeve over to the druid, who performed a rite of veneration over it and beckoned the Spirit Grove’s vast monad-swarms to give form to whatsoever spirit might dwell within the sleeve. The rite took place on the ground at the dragon tree’s foot, with the druid seated with his back to it, while Zel knelt face-to-face with him and the tree.

Several wooden beasts gathered ‘round, kneeling in a semicircle around the two of them. Tiny motes of light escaped from these forms, which lost their glow and became inanimate as the monads formed into a vast multicoloured swarm swirling around the dragon tree. Their flight rustled its leaves and swayed its branches, and it stirred within Zelsys the strange sense of an inconceivably vast being’s breath underfoot. It was true that similarly golden-leafed trees were scattered about the grove, and for all she knew, even beyond its limits. The dragon tree’s roots probably reached far and wide.

There was no single moment when “it” happened; the Impelling Arm’s spirit didn’t manifest abruptly, as the two halves of Death’s Lieutenant did. Rather, the process took the better part of ten minutes, with an aura of vague light coalescing around the Impelling Arm and slowly flowing into a congruent figure. It took shape starting with its left hand, its arm being a fully-encased, automaton-esque version of the Impelling Arm’s plate armored design, attached to a formless, but clearly masculine figure.

Slowly it stirred into motion, folding its hands behind its back and smoothly shifting to a wide-footed, militaristic stance.

Then it spoke; a stern man’s voice, croaky like a chain smoker’s.

“At last we meet, Commander.”

“Since before the Butcher, I have been thy companion. Forgotten prototype of a forgotten prototype. The seventh son of a seventh son, I am. A heretic prophet’s ballistic messiah. A foolish side project, they called me, waste of developmental resources, they said, those fools at Central Command… We’ve proven them wrong, have we not?”

The rest of its body followed suit; a rune-shod man of steel now stood before her, the lower half of his face resembling a metal skull, but enclosed, more like Zef’s mask. A hole gaped where his nose ought to be. The upper half of his head was still formless.

“Under this skin of steel there lies no flesh, no heart, nor even space between. I have no bones nor blood nor living brain; I have no desire for petty things… And I shall not see my Commander denied the heads of kings.”

Finally, the top half of his head took form. The upper half of his face, everything cheekbones-up, was pale-white skin, and a pair of bright green eyes stared back at her. They were of a natural shade rather than the emerald-green of Homunculus Eyes. A mane of dense blonde hair swept back from his forehead in a mild widow’s peak, falling down just past his shoulders and strands of it framing his face. He blinked a few times, catching himself in the middle of the esoteric monologue.

“Ah… Let us observe proper protocol.”

The spirit held up his right hand in salute.

“Reporting for duty: Thundercannon I. Arm. Heavy Ballistics Specialist for the Free Cities Alliance Irregular Doppelsoldaten Corps, codenamed “Newman Sect”.”

A peaked cap and officer’s trench coat, both made of lightning, manifested upon him, the latter draped about his shoulders as a cloak.