Lillene

Enjoy!

“I don’t claim peoples’ lives,” Serenity protested. “And that’s not my name.” How was he supposed to deal with this? 

Amani sneaked a peek at his face through her lashes. She clearly thought she was being stealthy, but she wasn’t. “You woke the Weapon of Dis,” Amani whispered. 

Serenity glanced in the direction she indicated. As he’d expected, it was the direction of the annoying pitchfork. It was glowing a little, now that she mentioned it. He sighed and shook his head. “I am not Dis, whoever that is. As for the weapon, I probably can use it, but I’m not going to. It’s not my preferred type of weapon and I’d rather not make the healers’ jobs worse. Heh. I’d rather not fight people at all; there isn’t always a way to avoid it, but that doesn’t mean I want to.”

“Whoever that is?” Amani seemed to shiver. “Dis is the Lord of the Dead, the one who holds sway over the lands of the dead. He uses many names, but he is not one to dismiss lightly. If you can use his weapon and even see what it is, he has blessed you greatly.”

Serenity was fairly confident he hadn’t been blessed by the Lord of the Dead, at least not directly. Instead, he was chosen as an Incarnate by Death Himself. If he thought about it the right way, he probably outranked Lord Dis. Serenity chuckled at the thought. 

“Can you tell me about the rest of the weapons?” With luck, that would relax Amani a little more. He wanted to learn more about her past and especially what she knew about A’Atla. That would be easier if she’d talk to him.

Amani looked at him, then the weapons. “A few of them. I don’t know them all.”

Serenity nodded encouragingly.

She pointed at the pitchfork again. “You know that’s the weapon of Dis. That’s the only name we have for it, but the legend says that it was a farming tool that became a tool of Death in his hands. It brings bad fortune and final death.”

Serenity nodded. That wasn’t that unusual a story, though he wasn’t certain why it was a pitchfork specifically.

Amani picked out a bow next. “The Bow of Obsession. It’s supposed to be able to influence the feelings of others, but may also influence the wielder. Anyone can use it if they can draw it, but every tale of it is a tale of someone who becomes lost to the bow, desiring only to use it. It’s supposed to be useful in a large fight since every strike can change an enemy, but outside that it’s more dangerous to its user than anyone else.”

Serenity grunted. “Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s still more dangerous to the user than the enemy in a large fight, but one person for the many they can handle, especially if they can cause fighting on the other side, is a trade many generals would take.” He didn’t like it, but there were times when sacrifices had to be made. He could easily see someone reaching the conclusion that almost any war was one of those times.

Amani nodded but didn’t say anything else about the bow. Instead, she moved on to a shield. “The Adamant Aegis is supposed to have been made from a single stone, polished to a mirror sheen. It cannot be marred or broken. Unlike the bow, it’s probably the safest weapon here; it can be used by anyone without trouble. It’s here more for safekeeping than because it really belongs.”

Serenity grinned at that. It made some sort of sense that a shield wouldn’t be innately dangerous.

The next weapon Amani pointed out was a sword. Unlike most of the other weapons, it was in a sheath. Even more unusually, it was actually tied into the sheath. “The Thirsty Sword cannot be sheathed or dropped once it has been drawn until it has taken a life. It will find its mark even for the unskilled; wounds it makes will never heal and therefore will eventually always cause death.”

Serenity was pretty sure he recognized that myth, though not by the name “thirsty sword.” A sword that couldn’t be sheathed until it took a life was not unknown in mythology.

Amani’s list grew longer and longer. There were boots of stone that couldn’t be penetrated, the Hammer called Thunderbolt that would turn into a strike of lightning when thrown, a staff that could induce slumber or wake someone just as easily, a trident that could move water, even though the earth, and a sword that could fight without a wielder. Each of them had their own downsides, but Serenity could see how most of them could be useful if they were managed properly. 

Most of the items seemed to pay attention as Amani described them. That made Serenity cautious about them, even the relatively straightforward ones. Intelligent items were never as simple as “cannot be broken.” For the right user, that might well not be a problem, but for the wrong user it could be deadly or worse.

With each item she named, Amani seemed to become a little more comfortable with the situation. By the time she reached the Unbreakable Ribbon (which was apparently untied rather than cut), she seemed more relaxed in his presence than she had been the entire time he’d known her. 

Admittedly, that was only a little over an hour.

She seemed to wind down after she pointed out the Scythe of Cronos, which can cut Time and was apparently used as a model for the time-locking features of the Vault. That seemed like a good time to head out; Serenity had enough of an idea of what was in the Vault to make decisions about it.

Now he had to decide what to do with Amani. As useful as controlling part of A’Atla had been, he didn’t want to do it forever. He’d need to either pass off being the Wizard or hire competent subordinates. Someone who could already build something like the Vault was the perfect candidate, as long as he could trust her. 

“Amani? Tell me about yourself. You make things; is that your primary Path?” That seemed like a good place to start the job interview. He didn’t want to start with “and your family is completely gone,” even if he’d have to get to that eventually.

Amani looked puzzled for a moment as she cocked her head to the side. “I guess you could call it that. I grew up in A’Atla’s interior; I learned to move around without the aid of someone authorized. That naturally turned into learning about A’Atla’s controls as I grew older and she became less forgiving of lapses. She’ll accept a lot from a child that she won’t accept from an adult.”

Puzzlement was not the reaction Serenity expected to a question about Paths. Surely the translator was good enough for that. 

Unless she didn’t have one? The Voice should have grabbed her along with everyone else on Earth, but what if being trapped in the Vault meant the Voice didn’t find her?

It was a lot to hang on a single odd look, but at least there was an easy way to check. It might make him look a bit silly if he was wrong, but that wouldn’t be the first time. “Do you have a Status?”

Amani frowned at Serenity. “A status? For what?”

Well, shoot. Serenity reached out to the Voice; trying to live on modern Earth as a Tier Zero with no help advancing was probably a very bad idea, but saddling her with a Species path she should always have completed wasn’t a good answer either.

Lillene

Every single one of the weapons in the Vault is based on an actual item from a myth. Some of them are warped a bit, but others are straight out of the original story.