Inch by inch, the blade was buried in filth. While it stood there, unused and embedded in the stone, the tiny demons built a terrible sort of nest around it, and then multiplied inside that ugly thing like evil wasps. The blade hadn't been able to keep track of the passage of time very well up until now because the hazy daylight never seemed to change or end. Now, though, it was completely blinded as the foul things covered it so completely that it lost sight of everything but the tiny adjoining chambers closest to it.

While it could peer through the threads of its cage at the world beyond, it was so devoid of energy that nothing really showed through. It was claustrophobic, and worse than any of its stays with goblins. At least a goblin could pick it up and carry it somewhere useful; that was impossible for these tiny pests.

It had imagined many grim fates when it tumbled into the pit, but this ignominious one was not among them. It had dreaded being used by demons, but being ignored by them was somehow worse. Blind and helpless, the blade lost track of the passage of time. There were subtle rhythms of life it could have paid attention to, of course, like when the imps left their nest, and when they returned, but it ignored those diabolical pests, and focused inward on its own mind, and the small number of glower souls that it still held in its ruby heart.

Those little parts of creation warmed it like the embers of a campfire as the numbers flickered up and down. Every minute or two, it would drain a life force from one of the imps, and every five or six minutes, it would lose one to preserve itself, because it had no wielder. Those were the only events that marked the passage of time as he ignored the buzzing and screeching of the demons, and it mentally pulled away each time one brushed up against it.

Orcs, beastmen, and goblins had all felt very different from the hands of men and women. Their touch had been irritating but tolerable. Demons, though, weren't just different. They were completely alien, and the slender black threads that made up their ugly, shredded souls chaffed at its very being.

In time, the Ebon Blade tuned them out entirely as it focused on its own thoughts and questions while it basked in the glow of its campfire. It had many questions, and it still had a few souls that could answer them, but the blade didn't dare do that. As much as it might want to devour the king, that was the author of its hardship, it did not want to be left alone in the dark of this awful place.

Still, it took in more life force than it used, and every day that reservoir filled up with that inky black power even more. It tried to ignore the hunger that burned inside it and devour less, but that was too much against its own nature. All it could do was resist devouring the lesser demon souls that it sometimes collected when it accidentally killed one of the tiny vermin.

Even if it only took a little more than it needed, though, its reservoir slowly filled up. Every hour, it would drain ten or twelve Life Force and use six, so most days it gained just over a hundred. A hundred wasn't a lot. It was the value of two human souls. It was the activation of vorpal strike or bolt a couple of times. It sometimes considered using bolt to try to escape its current predicament, but since the lightning came from the tip of the blade, it worried it might accidentally dig itself even deeper beneath the rock it was embedded in, where it would be hidden for all time.

Lost in hell with a hive of shit for a tombstone, the blade considered remorsefully. Wouldn't that be a fitting ending?

It was months, and thousands of Life Force of waiting before the weapon even reflected on the morality of its situation. While it rejected the idea that it was evil, and belonged in hell, the weakest parts of the souls it was constructed from were grateful that at least here it would no longer harm innocents.

A blade that kills is neither good nor evil, it repeated like a mantra. That is the purpose of a weapon.

As the blade was slowly filled by the etheric bile of the demons that it devoured, it knew that eventually it would have to spend that energy, but memories of the throne's golden threads haunted it, and it was not at all sure that it wanted to use the malignant energies of hell in such a way, so it put it off as long as possible.

Still, nothing changed. Imps came and went. They warred with other demonic animals, and sometimes, if the hive grew too numerous, even with each other. Once, something massive moved distantly. The weapon first thought it was an earthquake, but the regular shudders every minute or so indicated the footsteps of an unfathomably large behemoth.

Why couldn't I have fallen and been embedded in that thing, like I had with the dragon so long ago? The blade asked, bemoaning its existence. While it wouldn't have changed anything about its situation, it would have given it a better view and increased the chances of discovery by an actual wielder.

Primary Powers:

Poison Strike 2: 500 Life Force Inferno 2: 1,200 Life Force Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Amplify Wielder 4: 3,000 Life Force Amplify Blade 4: 4,000 Life Force Shifting Blade 5: 8,000 Life Force Disrupt 5: 5,000 Life Force Repair Soul 5: 5,000 Life Force Empower Blade 5: 15000 Life Force (inaccessible) Vorpal Strike 4: 8000 Life Force Bolt 5: 15,000 Life Force Secondary Powers:

Available Giant's Strength 5: 3,000 Life Force Speed of the Shadows 4: 2,000 Life Force

The weapon studied its powers every few days, but even after it crossed 10,000 Life Force, it had no idea how best to spend that bounty. Empowering itself was impossible for the length of its stay in hell, and it definitely wasn't going to repair its soul with the spiritual raw sewage it had been ingesting. That would be a catastrophe.

The rest of the powers weren't any more useful. It had nothing but a collection of situational attacks it could improve on, and none of those would help in its current situation.

Best to experiment with the secondary powers first, then, it told itself. At least I can replace those at some point in the future if I really need to.

The Ebon Blade spent 3,000 Life Force on Giant's Strength 5, then, largely as an experiment to see what would happen. It completed the skill. While the result was interesting, it was more than a little concerned with the way the runes carved on its hilt, which powered that ability, darkened perceptibly.

Giant's Strength 5: +5 strength. This bonus is doubled when facing an enemy that is more than a foot larger than you, and doubles again if you are facing a divine opponent.

Divine? The blade asked itself. What does Giant's Strength have to do with divinity? Does that apply just to gods, or their servants and worshipers as well?

No answers were forthcoming, and the blade waited several more days before it repeated the experiment, spending 6,000 Life Force to increase Speed of the Shadows to level 5. This met with similar results.

Speed of the Shadows 5: +5 agility, +33% speed in dim or darker conditions, and able to spread shadows in your wake, except for on hallowed ground

The results of its second experiment were as disappointing as the first, and for the first time in a long time, the weapon felt defeated. The very energy that kept it alive and strengthened it was changing it. The weapon could see it in the color of its runes and the nature of the magic that was woven through it.

The blade lay there for weeks and months, letting its reservoir slowly fill as it resisted the urge to upgrade any permanent abilities. It was as difficult a fight as it had ever faced, especially once the Life Force Full message started to repeat over and over again. Even its reverie, where it studied the souls of its wielders, couldn't blot that out, and it dealt with its hunger instead.

If you upgrade your core powers, you'll be tainted forever by this, it told itself. It didn't matter, though. The hunger at its core always wanted to grow more powerful, and though it was flooded by evil, and its ruby grew increasingly crowded with the shadowy souls of lesser demons, it still resisted.

It's been at least a year, the weapon told itself. Perhaps my wielder will find a way to summon me from this place.

That was possible, wasn't it? He was a mage, and he knew its true name. Surely there was a way to do just that. The blade comforted itself with that story for a time, telling itself that this was the reason it had spared the boy. The truth was, though, that he was almost certainly dead. Even if the strange forgemaster demon had spared him, he'd never made it back down that mountain unarmed.

Still, trapped between the blade's hunger for power and its desire to resist the corruption that surrounded it, it found solace in that fantasy. One day, Lucian would open a portal, pluck it from the depths, and then they would return to creation and strike down whole armies together, letting it purge its palette with pure, clean Life Force and bloody corpses.

They were nice fantasies, and sometimes they were enough to drive away the buzzing, humming claustrophobia that was its life. The blade had no idea how long it had lived in that squalid little limbo of denial before it heard the first sounds of combat. At first, it thought that it imagined them, but the march of booted feet and the ring of steel against steel was something it knew too well, and as it felt the vibrations as much as heard them, it knew something had changed.

Someone is fighting? Here? Why? The blade asked itself. It got no answers. The only thing that changed was the imps in the nest. They stopped gibbering and cowered fearfully, desperate to avoid whatever was happening out there.

The blade couldn't make much out. Even when it stripped away the physical and looked at things through the etheric threads of magic, it could only see the closest blurred shapes.

It expected this to be a passing event, like the behemoths that strolled by, but it wasn't. Hour by hour, the sounds of battle became louder. This was not another war between imps. There was an army out there now. It had been lying in the same spot for nearly half a year, but something was finally happening.

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