The idea had come to him when he noticed one of the kindred having holes in its ears. Once the earrings were removed, the skin healed around the pierced pce. Usually, most kindred, if hurt, had their wounds heal with no scarring.

  This is like creating a gap, Schor Magnus thought.

  He had pced wooden posts of equal height about the well-lit room, to be used as reference points. Hanging horizontally in the air, the mighty bde was tightly cmped at the sides, area close to its climax free, a slide system of metal tracks above.

  Long iron chains descended from the ceiling and were attached to the cmps whose sturdy handles allowed for satisfactory control over the suspended archbde.

  He had practiced the procedure twenty times, using the whole apparatus on a wooden frame packed with sand. The frame had been of rough humanoid shape and in dimensions that tried to mimic Kali's statuesque body.

  He had even trimmed his bck cws in the hopes of improving his fingertip precision and sensitivity; removing any potential hindrance to this procedure.

  In another age, the Archcrystal shards were forged into bdes of power. Their imperviousness legendary. Their sharpness eternal.

  Trilex. The bde made of such a remnant unbreakable, the bde Genesis-forged from a shard of god-crystal.

  Forged long ago out of the Blue Archcrystal's shard, Trilex was an archbde that had been, one could imagine, worth an imperial province or two.

  Despite what some forgotten, human-written codex—or half a dozen of them—might have cimed, archbdes were not always glowing with their mild, celestial light.

  Their glow once eternal, these weaponized shards, these remains of the hallowed Archcrystal could not be fed by the sun's radiance, and could only shine when specially-shaped, ordinary crystals were put inside the handle.

  There were only a few or so archbdes in the world—swords of various shapes, maybe a spear, and a few daggers. All closely guarded.

  Even Maker did not know how to make an Archcrystal bde. This knowledge was lost, and he only possessed a few of these human era's most malevolent remains.

  The arcane knowledge of how to make more archbdes became lost with the downfall of humans. Many secrets taken by the Void. And perhaps Maker is not too keen on researching about such vicious things that may undo even him, Magnus thought.

  Despite being unenhanced and not glowing—the reting gold- and silver-filled manuscripts he had pored over often portrayed archbdes in full radiant splendor—the hanging sword was regardless visually appealing to Magnus. Unnervingly so. Its color was velvet-blue, rich and deep, and its surface a fwless expanse, divine and dreadful.

  He had marked the depth of the intended cavity with a silk ribbon glued to the long bde's side: no point in trying to wrap the fabric around an allcuting bde. At almost seven feet, the bde itself was nearly Kindred Kali's height—obviously far more than enough to create the cavity—and was about two times wider than a man's wrist at the crossguard, the archbde tapering gently toward the tip.

  He needed to be careful not to lose his hand or fingers. Not to mention I could easily maim her.

  The procedure was not easy, she was among the strongest of crystalborn, close in might to even Maker himself. But unlike him she can be cut, although with great difficulty. To his astonishment, the unenhanced Archcrystal bde was experiencing just that. Struggling, having great difficulty in piercing her flesh. He wanted to avoid using it while augmented and enhanced; there were risks involved when employing an object of such unimaginable power. Even the greatsword Pentacore, Maker's own bde, was forever left in its dormant state.

  He grabbed the bottom part of the archbde's handle, unscrewed the pommel, and pulled out a gold case—its indentations specially-crafted to house the twelve-faced shapes. The bde's pommel was well-wrought, proudly dispying the shape of an eagle's head.

  He then moved to a nearby table and opened an artisanal, small, wooden, cquerware chest pced there.

  Right after taking one of the interesting-looking shapes out, his thumb rolled the shape across his three sylphlike fingers, his hand feeling the many edges.

  There were less than a dozen crystalcrafters with the knowledge and skill needed to create these pentagon-dice-shaped common-crystals. And those few kindred will only make them with great reluctance, only if Maker himself commands it, Magnus thought.

  Demanding great skill and patience, it was difficult to carve an ordinary crystal into a pentagonal dodecahedron shape. In addition, with its twelve matching faces and thirty edges, this shape had to be exactly the correct size so as to fit into the casing's indentations fwlessly. Each of the twelve faces had one delicately-etched Genesis symbol upon it. The etching shallow.

  When he needed blood for the Genesis process, Maker had used an archbde dagger, one of the few things in existence that could cut him, to bleed himself. And after the small, common crystals in the dagger's hilt became spent they cracked and turned to crystal dust. In either of its two forms, an archbde was sharper than even the sharpest of bloodsteel swords, but only when enhanced could it, with effort, cut Maker.

  For a moment, Magnus felt weak at the knees. An image of Maker, bleeding, disconcerting his mind.

  As the schor was inserting them, the yellow-crystal pentagon dice fitted the gilded case so snugly that their corresponding edges appeared as though fused with the case seamlessly, inid-like and clean of any interstices. Only the dice's etched faces betraying their presence. Each of the three pentagonal dodecahedrons was locked into pce with a nice, crisp click-cck sound—the simple mechanism of the golden casing embracing the top edges. A fwless union.

  The chains clinked gently as Magnus inserted the gold casing back into the handle, and screwed the eagle-pommel back into position.

  After screwing the pommel he watched the light dance inside the archbde, now transformed into something vile, something unspeakable. A weapon that can kill Maker, Magnus thought. He suppressed a shudder. This is the time for steady fingers and a cold head.

  The bde's surface was a glow of molten fire. A power, a divine cymore made by fallen gods and glowing with a dancing, swirling, evershifting, soft, golden light—the glow mild, that of ember.

  The yellow light danced inside the bde. The pale glow was alive with the colors of liquid gold and orange and molten bronze, all overflowing each other.

  The archbde resembled a fantastical narrow window into an expanse of glowing yellow-orange mist, trapped inside the bde. Endlessly, the mist was swirling, coiling, reappearing, and then disappearing again into nothingness. The mist's illumination was an ember's dying glimmer eternally reborn, aroused again and again by a gentle breeze's whisperings.

  How visually appealing...for an abomination, he thought.

  The cuts were made now almost with no resistance.

  A weapon known to cut through steel as if it were air was meeting some resistance against Kali's flesh. Fascinating! Schor Magnus thought, enthralled momentarily. Ironically, this slight resistance helped him with the procedure: giving him a sense of bearing.

  As the bde was doing its work, there was no gushing of blood, the flow was slow and it slowly turned into shiny dust, her blood thick like honey or even thicker, dark purple, bck almost.

  It had taken months of research and preparation to get to this point. The blood that flowed from her was viscous and there was not too much of it, but still, he knew he must not waste time. After the procedure's bloody part is finished, she must be exposed to the pale sun and archlight, hastening the healing process. He still wondered how was she able to bring him the archbde. She might have a powerful position, and influence to match; nonetheless, those weapons were rare beyond rare and guarded at all times with rge fervor—selected warriors, amarium-strong and capable, adamant at keeping the weapons safe.

  Undoubtedly, he had done plenty research about human anatomy. The capital's main library was second to none—that was or is—and almost every topic was covered quite voluminously, if one were willing to put in the time to search for the information.

  She remunerated the schor more than handsomely for his help and for his discretion.

  He had asked her if it were possible for him to get a Wraith-crystal just for himself. It would give him copious amounts of material for study and research. Considering the magnitude of his reward, he was fine with waiting for a few years.

  In less than two months Kali had brought him a beautiful, rge Viridian. Not wanting to risk any of the kindred, she had undertaken upon the Hunt alone, with no hunting squads, and drudgingly tracked down the giant beast and slew it.

  In truth, he would have helped her either way. This procedure was one of the most challenging tasks in all his hundred and twenty years. It had required a lot of reading and problem-solving. A treat for a schor of inquisitive nature. And the procedure was proving itself a most fascinating thing. How often do I get to see beneath the skin of my kin? A kin perfect, to boot.

  The procedure was continuing to prove itself difficult. There was thick blood and, as the blood slowly dried, shiny dust came out of her—the bde doing its flesh-slicing work.

  He had warned her many times, had told her about the risks, and was secretly much relieved after she disregarded them all with great nonchance. He had some theories regarding why comparatively only a few kindred possessed abnormal strength. This procedure will likely provide little, but what might prove to be an Archcrystal-precious type of knowledge.

  Even before that first time they spoke at length, he knew of Kali's renown for being strong, and not just physically so. And yet that will of hers, stronger than katadron, the blue-veined glowing rock, had still managed to surprise him—just like these yet-unfolding findings do so now. He made a mental note about the force required to pierce Kali's skin. Later he will test the sword on different materials, both in its enhanced and unenhanced form. Sadly, such revetions can never be published, for obvious reasons—the main one involving Maeve, his head, and a wall. Using an archbde, on top of that enhanced, butchering the Behemoth Syer to make her more human-like, Schor Magnus thought. Yes. Maeve would kill me.

  A sense of dread quickly washed over his green-scaled body. He had heard stories about how Maeve preferred to use her bare hands always, even while hunting for Wraiths.

  He needed to be careful, oh so very much so. Were Kindred Kali to perish during this procedure(a possibility not negligible), not only would all crystalborn lose a great leader and warrior, but also Maker would kill Schor Magnus or, if not, then unleash Maeve, his merciless assassin, his spymaster, upon the unfortunate schor. She would rip my head off. In a quite possibly most literal sense, Magnus thought. He looked at Kali: her mind sailing the Void-realm, her body secured onto the wooden sleeping ptform whose shape matched that of her body, her spyed limbs. Then he looked at Kali's priceless aurichalcum cuirass pced at the room's far side. No...Maker would do it, Maker would kill me.

  The dark blood continued to slowly ooze out of her, steadily drying, turning to shiny dust. It was necessary to cut away some of Kali's very flesh, it too gradually turning to crystal dust, sparkling like the white sands of an untouched oceanfront beach.

  This procedure was not painful, for the schor had found a way of taking away the pain. He had utilized a ptinum diadem that held a dozen small pink, oval-shaped crystals. Resting upon her head, the diadem put Kali into a comatose-like state, she felt no pain. Tiny glyphs, as well as pin-looking geometrical symbols, were etched around each pink-glowing crystal.

  In order to stop the wound from sealing he began inserting a long, cylindrical, aurichalcum rod between her legs, so that her body would heal around that shape.

  Long ago, an aurichalcum—or bloodsteel: a sobriquet that humans generally favored using when talking about this most extraordinary of metals—rod such as this could buy one a decently-sized manor: according to what Magnus had read of humans. Around the time of their downfall the metal became even more rare. Most of the mines had been located in the nds of Arcadia, nds that formed the middle of Equiya, nds unreachable now. Maker had said that those nds are dead now, a thousand seas of nothing but mostly head- and fist-sized rocks, and many scree-cd mountains.

  After a very difficult insertion, this wrist-thick, two-foot-long, stronger-than-steel cylindrical rod gradually narrowed until it unexpectedly became almost fttened at around where it projected out of her body. Out of the few inches of this very tight, narrowing end part only a modicum of the metal was actually protruding outside of her. His ultimate intention was for her to end up possessing a graceful outward appearance not dissimir to that of a human female's crevice.

  As it heals, her body will put incredible pressure on the aurichalcum rod, slightly deforming the metal in pces, and making the interior of her cavity into developing undutions.

  How to get it out? Now that was the question that required some pondering and some more pondering. Magnus knew that everything had a weakness. Even the god-like Maker, perfect and mighty that he is, and yet he too had a bane. The bloodsteel's came in the form of a vile acidic concoction capable of breaking it down.