so i’m not super confident with the journal entries in this post, buuuut, i’m happy with the rest of it~
also i think this is the first Talitha POV excerpt I’ve posted. how ‘bout that?
Finally, her fingers caught on one titled, ‘Notes on Weaver’s Bane.’ Her smile turned giddy, and she plucked the book off the shelf. It was leather bound, embossed with golden thread. She slipped over to a comfy-looking chair, gave it an experimental press with her hands, and then plopped down. It groaned with her weight, but took it. She would just have to not wriggle around too much.
The others took up various positions around the room, but Talitha paid them no mind. Instead, she flipped the book open, and began to read. She skimmed over the creation of the sword—she would happily read over that, alongside the diagrams on the enchantment, later. For now, she wanted to hear about the trials. Specifically, the ones that had led to the sword being locked away as it had.
When she finally found them, it didn’t take long for her smile to fall.
The sword’s trials were highly successful. No matter how far away from the sword I got, it always returned to my side within 8 hours. Sooner, if I spoke the phrase to call it. None of the shadowken who have met it’s blade have survived, nor returned. Knicking someone possessed kills the possessor, leaving the possessed free of their influence. It absorbs all spells it has come into contact with. Sending the magic back out of it is as simple as a mental touch, a sort of flick. The blasts are getting easier for me to control, as I begin to understand how the magic works. (See further notes on how it works.)
It has passed all of the trials I and my colleagues could think to test it with.
It is time for the final trial: to take it agains the shadowken prince, Ansai.
The prince is dead, or so the general populace has been told.
His death came with a terrible price.
There is so much about the shadowken we do not understand. It was foolish to test the blade on one—but what other creature could come close to the divine energy of the Spider?
The test went wrong. The prince died, yes—but part of him lives on… inside the sword. I can feel his influence in my mind. Can feel his dark thoughts pulsing. Urging me to hurt, to kill.
The more things the sword hurts, the stronger he grows. I worry that one day he will escape.
This experiment was to be my greatest achievement. Instead I believe it was my greatest failure. Tonight, we will seal it away. Cut off from magic, it will not be able to reappear to me.
Precautions must be taken to ensure the room is never opened, after I die. For then, the next person to pick up the sword will find it—and Ansai—bound to them for the rest of their life. However long that may be.
The rest of the journal was filled with the notes, on how to control the magic stored within. Talitha snapped it shut.
She didn’t know what the shadowken were. She didn’t know anything about the prince, this Ansai. She didn’t know who the Spider was, or what their significance was to the Anari—other than obviously being some kind of villain they had ambitions of killing.
What she did know was that the sword worked.
What would happen to the being within when it happened…
Talitha didn’t want to think about it. She knew that she should. She knew that would be the responsible thing to do. But if she did, if she thought about it, if she brought it up to the others, and they decided it wasn’t worth it—and they would—then they were still left with a problem: Kai’os’s perma-death.
She wasn’t going to wait another 10 years to find out how to kill him. She wasn’t going to make Alinora, or Aishlynn, or Lyr, or Ava, or the Myneran survivors wait another 10 years either.
She would use the blade to kill Kai’os, and then she would return it here. And hopefully no shadowy-demons would wake up and slaughter everyone she loved.
“You okay, Tali?” Lyr. Of course. He was always so observant, especially when it came to her. He’d been like that since they were kids.
Despite that, though, he was still frustratingly easy to lie to. She gave him a smile. “Fine. Just thinking.”
“Find anything interesting?” He nodded to the book.
You have no idea. “Yeah. This is the sword we’re looking for. It bonds with it’s wielder. No matter where I leave it, it’ll always come back.” She grinned. “Can’t transfer it, either.” Lies. There was a phrase that would allow her to do so, but this was her burden now. No one else’s. “Only way to do so is for the wielder to die. I think that’s why they left it in the anti-magic chamber.” She shrugged. “When the Anari disappeared, or whatever, they wanted to make sure the sword could still be found, for emergencies.”
The others nodded, like this made sense. Not even Aishlynn looked suspicious, and Talitha’s stomach flipped. Fuck, she hated lying.
“Anyway. Um, the sword can be given to someone else for about 12 hours. After that it snaps back to it’s wielder. It can also do Alinora’s thing, with the absorbing and releasing magic. Which, pretty cool.” Talitha stood, bouncing on her toes, like she always did when she was excited. “Neat stuff. There’s also some information on how to replicate it in here, so I think I’mma just take this with us, yeah? Just in case any more Slaeyr get funny ideas.” She gave Lyr and Ava a grin. Lyr shook his head, but Ava looked amused. Usually it was the other way around. Her grin stretched, became more real.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I miss Flint’s cooking. And my pillows. D’ya know I have over a hundred pillows? A hundred thirty six, at last count.” She kept talking as they left, hoping no one noticed the way her grip on the book was white-knuckled.
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