Chapter 437 The Hollow Stone

Kilot took a swig of his water, then splashed the rest onto his ash-covered face. 'I must be getting old,' he thought. 'I could have sworn the ground shook for a moment there.' He threw the empty waterskin into his spatial ring and returned to the cooling rack, where a half-dozen medallions awaited their finishing touches. Normally, weapons and armor were Kilot's first priority. He had already made a dagger as a warm-up, but Doevm had specified the medallions first, for whatever reason. Kilot didn't care enough to ask why.

Kilot hovered the back of his hand over a medallion, moved to the second, and so on until he reached the end. Five of them were still too hot to work with, as expected, yet the sixth must have fallen off the rack. It stared at him from the ground, as if asking him how it had gotten there. Kilot frowned.

If it were the morning, he would have picked the medallion up without so much as a peep from his back. On good days he could manage it in the evening, with slight back pain. But now it was late. Usually he would have called it a day, sitting on his front porch with a bottle of ale and watching the Bloodwood forest sway with the breeze.

Red robins often gathered on his lawn to annoy him with their shrill songs, and he would pay them back with drunken insults and ramblings. "Why isn't anything…legendary? What even is "legendary"? Don't I make a-amazing stuff? I can shat out a spear better than any Dwarf I know! It's not my fault that people use it wrong. That must be it. They aren't handling my shit right. That's why I haven't made anything "legendary", and why I never will. It's all their fault. Arthur was the only one who could, but he's gone so why should I care about other people? Why care about "legendary", when it's all…all…all…fuck! What are you feathered idiots staring at? This ain't a show."

Kilot didn't understand why, but the robins' whimsical visits formed a tradition that was to be inherited by future generations of robins. He began to distinguish them by the way they sang and flew, even after their migrations. He also discovered, over the decades, that their lives spanned two-years. Whenever a robin vanished, he would pour a bit of his bottle out, and the robins' shrill songs would be a little less lively.

The day Kilot arrived in the Bloodwood, there were four robins: two adults and two children. The day he lost his arm, thirty. The day the Bloodwood was set ablaze, there should have been thirty-three big, red ones and ten small, brown ones.

The reflection of the forge's flames danced across the medallion's surface, and Kilot found himself at a loss. He could have called it a day. A drink at the Canary inn was well deserved, but it wouldn't be the same without a shrill song to accompany him.

Kilot's back tensed as he scooped the medallion off the ground, a warning of what was to come. He held tight to the table's edge and propped himself up, his back cracking and pain flaring. "Stupid pyromaniacs," he muttered to himself. He promised himself to add some "special" enchantments to the groups' blades so that, if they find the remaining bastards who burnt his forest, they would die delightfully painful deaths. That thought kept him going.

Kilot secured the medallion in a bench vice at the other end of the table and…where was the powerstone? He stroked his beard. The only time his powerstone was more than a foot away from the vice was if he dropped it, and he knew he hadn't dropped it. He scanned the workshop, confirming that he was paranoidly alone, and shrugged.

Kilot slid his hand below the bench vice. He pulled out drawers and scrounged through the loose boxes of bolts and screws and nails. The powerstone wasn't there, nor in the toolbox, nor in any of his spatial rings, nor within his beard. He found it, to his horror, in the hand of a godly figure.

The Goddess floated in front of the furnace, and the flames shifted to a bright white as if in response to her ethereal radiance. Her healing aura invoked a comforting warmth that washed throughout the workshop, easing the day's physical strain on Kilot. "An evil has surfaced, old friend," she said in a gentle voice. "I require your aid once again."

Kilot scanned around for his powerstone.

The Goddess interpreted Kilot's silence as a sign to continue: "The paradise I wish to bring you all into is finally within reach, but I have need for your skills and faith." From within her white dress, she produced two powerstones: one pulsed an immensely powerful energy and the other was Kilot's.

Kilot narrowed his eyes, but he couldn't help his curiosity regarding the other powerstone. His experience told him, with a single look, that it was an object of legend, something he could never get his hands on. That made it dangerous. The more powerful the powerstone, the more powerful the enchantment, but that made it exponentially harder to use. If energy in Kilot's powerstone could destroy a small town, the other one could level a kingdom. He didn't even want to imagine the god-defying works he could create with it, yet there was an old voice in the back of his head that asked, "What if…I could create a masterpiece?"

Kilot shook his head. "What do you want?"

The Goddess didn't blink. "Your skills as a master blacksmith. You could forge tools of justice without any harm coming your way. I know that, in my absence, you have strayed from the path you once walked with Arthur and Gweniver and Merlin."

"And Mordred," Kilot growled.

"And little Mordred," the Goddess added, as if he had been an afterthought. "...I forgive you for straying from my path. I will even bestow onto you an arm fitting what you've lost." She gestured to his bandaged arm.

Kilot chuckled. "You couldn't have done that earlier?"

"If you had been more patient, it was not an impossibility," the goddess said.

Kilot was hearing none of her usual jargon. 'Because you didn't have a use for me like you do now,' he thought.

"Furthermore," the goddess continued. "I will not use your creations against your new friends, although I promise I will use other means to hunt them down."

Kilot chuckled: "At least that part is truthful. To be honest, they're more employers than friends to me."

The Goddess's smile twitched upwards.

Kilot gestured for the powerstone. "Let me examine it."

As if the powerstone had a mind of its own, it floated to Kilot's outstretched hand, and he turned it over in his palm. 'It should be impossible to have energy this dense, yet still be stable,' he thought. 'If I don't accept, she'll just give it to someone else. There's no reason not to take this deal.'

"Do you find it satisfactory?" the Goddess asked.

Kilot nodded. "All I need to do is make weapons for you with this new powerstone, right?" he asked.

"And…" the Goddess added. Kilot felt something tug at his skeletal arm. "Never let dark magic touch you, my dear follower, again."

Kilot laughed. "If only you were faster at answering my prayers. I did send many your way."

"I heard them," the goddess said. "You must understand, I only act when I am needed."

"That explains why this arm has done more good for me than you've ever done," Kilot remarked.

"You should take my offer," the goddess said. "In my eternal paradise, mortals will have no need for weapons. There will be no evil, no violence, no bloodshed. This will be your last chance to forge anything. Your last products will be remembered throughout the rest of time."

'She's never been this direct,' Kilot thought. 'But it still feels as if she's telling me nothing.' He cursed himself for even considering the offer, but he had to admit it was tempting. He glanced to the far side of his workshop, where a boulder stood dormant. A single slit atop it was just wide enough for a sword's spine to enter.

"Do you need time to consider?" the goddess asked.

"No," Kilot said, placing the powerstone on the anvil. "I've already made my greatest work, and it has already been forgotten, no thanks to you. If I can't use my forge in this "paradise" you're trying to create, then it is no paradise. Now take this and fuck off."

The goddess did not leave.

A crack ran through the powerstone on the anvil, and the energy swirling within it began to expand. Kilot cursed. "You wouldn't!"

…

White dots spread across the face of the planet like chickenpox, and the Mumbling Prophet felt hundreds of divine presences appear throughout the world. The Goddess implored her followers to march towards the Polyglint Mines with a fervency.

The Mumbling Prophet unfolded its coral-like limbs and beckoned its followers, believers of Tausm, henceforth.

Citrus, Ignus, and Dogma stepped forward, their black cloaks billowing behind their study constitutions. They each bowed before their master, but kept their eye on it just in case.

"Listen to my warning," the Mumbling Prophet screeched. Its body opened like a mouth to reveal the visage of a night sky, filled with twinkling stars.

"The broken past cannot stand!" said a different voice within the Mumbling Prophet. A single star twinkled within the thousands.

Another star twinkled as a different voice spoke in a deeper tone. "Love thy demons. Go, Citrus." A coral limb stretched out, gently tapping Citrus on the forehead.

The man named Citrus vanished in a puff of golden life essence.

"Love thy with shared blood. Go, Dogma," The Mumbling Prophet said, tapping Dogma on the forehead.

The man named Dogma slowly stood up, metallic resistance sounding beneath his great robe. He vanished within a puff of golden life essence.

Ignus remained, but the Mumbling Prophet did not call on him. It twisted its mouth shut, then rested motionlessly, waiting for another disturbance.