The Twice-Enchanted Blade: Part 1

After much deliberation, I have decided to, for now, focus on a few of the more important journeys I took as a member of the Royal Treasure Hunters. Maybe I will one day return to this early period of my second life, but covering every single adventure now would make for a monotonous, overly bloated read. Besides, there are certain unpleasant events (older or well-educated readers are likely to know what I’m talking about) which I am eager to cover as soon as possible, and I already dread having to rummage through my memories and relive those terrible moments.

The previous notable adventure I described was my very first one, so it was a logical choice to cover it. I hope the reader will forgive me for skipping over the time we climbed the Northern Colossus, looking for the legendary Quicksilver Tear, or our quest for the Gilded Marionette and subsequent conflict with the Puppetmasters of Baranda. Our story will skip straight to our search for the sword of Manean king Orion, the Twice-Enchanted Blade.

As the reader undoubtedly knows, King Orion was a legendary figure who brought Manea to the height of its power, conquering large swaths of land and creating an empire that spanned multiple continents. After he died, the legend has it, he demanded to be buried beyond the borders of Manea, along with his magic sword, allegedly saying, “My blade is not to be inherited by the weak, but to be claimed by those stronger than myself”. Alas, none of his successors fulfilled his criteria, his empire fell apart within two generations, and the location of the tomb was seemingly lost.

This would change after a hidden basement was discovered in the small township of Curriculum. It turned out to have belonged to a historian called Decimus, Orion’s contemporary and the author of a comprehensive ten-volume biography of the legendary king. In the basement, a manuscript was found, an unpublished draft of the final part of the biography, which described Orion’s funeral in great detail. It also provided the reason this information wasn’t in the final release – Decimus was sworn to secrecy, as finding the location was a key part of the challenge for those claiming to be stronger than Orion.

Dispatching a small expedition to claim the sword from a well-described location likely wasn’t quite in the spirit of what the legendary king had intended. However, with the country still fairly weak and the threat of the Sorcerous League merely postponed, Philoctetes felt that recovering such an artifact would boost the country’s morale, both in peacetime and when brandished on the battlefield.

The description of the journey one would have to undertake in order to reach the king’s final resting place was described in exquisite detail, and can be read in its eternity as this version of the biography has since been published, but the gist of it is: Orion’s funeral procession, consisting of hundreds of soldiers, workers and their families, went up the Torcus river on the southern continent, until they reached a canyon and, eventually, a stone arch allowing passage to the west. They then passed through a desert of stone, a desert of sand, and a desert of glass, after which they climbed a plateau to the south and found it covered in greenery. There, upon a small island on a great lake, a tomb was constructed. Some of the soldiers and workers, including Decimus, elected to return to Manea, but most stayed behind to guard the King’s resting place.

Knowing where we needed to go, we soon found ourselves aboard an ironclad ship, moving south. We were to make our first stop in the Emirate of Al-Teina. They were Manea’s allies during the wars against the Sorcerous League, and the two realms remained friendly ever since, but His Majesty thought it prudent not to send an entire military unit to foreign soil. Thus, Spiridon Nixon, promoted to lieutenant in the meantime, was the only soldier to escort us, given for this purpose an honorary membership in the Royal Treasure Hunters. It was his job to recruit a suitable group of mercenary bodyguards, ideally someone familiar with the rough terrain of the southern continent. He actually volunteered for this job, having discovered, much to his surprise, that he enjoyed these swashbuckling adventures and found them a suitable substitute for proper military action.

The rest of the party was all familiar faces. Civet remained a non-combatant, but managed to gain some semblance of a survival instinct. In a shocking twist, he managed to get Iocasta involved in his academic pursuits and, whenever there wasn’t any Treasure Hunters’ work in sight, they took frequent trips to catalogue Manean flora and fauna. Annabel had, since our first outing, lost her naive youthful enthusiasm, and by now had the bearings of a seasoned adventurer; as I mentioned earlier, she was also a somewhat competent field medic by now. As for Rhombus and Gandor, they were pretty much the same as before.

We were fortunate not to run into any storms during our trip across the sea. Most of our time was spent on the deck – studying, practicing martial arts, and engaging in various other pursuits. One day, near sunset, I just ended a sparring match against Spiridon when I noticed an unusual density of birds and pterosaurs. Civet and Iocasta were standing near the railing; she was pestering him about the various species of flying critters, and he was positively beaming while describing them. I also found that topic interesting, but decided not to ruin the moment. Instead, I went to the ship’s bow, wondering whether we would see land before nightfall.

“We’re almost there”, Annabel appeared suddenly beside me. “I wonder how things will go from here”.

“Smoothly until Bataya at least”, I answered. Bataya was the southernmost settlement of Al-Teina. Merchants from further south did come there to trade, but we had no idea what those lands looked like besides legend and hearsay. That was doubly true if one were to leave Torcus and head into the desert – as we were planning to do.

“We will have to arrange transport up to there”, she pointed out. “Our ship cannot enter the river”.

“How hard can it be?” I laughed it off. “We’ve dealt with worse things than boatmen”.

“We know how to deal with things trying to kill us, true, but we are all woefully inexperienced against things trying to swindle us. The fabled glass desert is likely to be a welcome respite from shrewd Al-Teinan merchants”.

“True enough. And you can patch us up if something attacks us in the wild – but no one can patch a hole in our coin purse”.

“Just don’t go deliberately getting hurt in order to get me to pamper you”, she giggled, “but I am mostly worried about the boat’s crew. We can’t operate a riverboat ourselves, we can’t drag them through the desert, and if we don’t take them with us, we’ll risk them leaving us stranded while – oh! Look!”

I glanced in the direction she was pointing. As the sun’s last crimson rays were about to disappear in the west, a single bright light appeared above the southern horizon. A lighthouse – in a few hours' time, we would be reaching the docks of S’urchin, Al-Teina’s northernmost port.