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Carna     Carna has been without proper weapons for some time now. Scavenged blades, and a few gifts, do not quite substitute for tools with which one is familiar. But even familiarity can fail before the rigours of battle in Lumiere. What she needs now is something special. Something unique. With the discovery of the God Forge (or one of them, at least, based upon Enark's prior commentary), the means to develop such a weapon locally are now available.

    The heated anvil glows more strongly once the adventurers arrive, and specifically as Priscilla and Kord increase their proximity to it. Accompanying them, as before, are Crow and Enark. Crow because of the strange connection he seems to possess to the Forge, and Enark due to his knowledge. Though he has admitted that he knows little of God Forges, having only come across mention a few times during all his countles aeons of study. Instruments forged by gods, or potentially just one, modelled after the First Forge used by Los, the Eternal Prophet, to craft his many and varied wonders, as well as some tools of horror that haunt Lumiere to this day.

    The forging of life itself was partially what inspired Enark to develop Mimic Craft, though he made sure it was clear that what he can do is not even part of the same circle of powers that goes into smithing or gods. His water magic is more divine than his Fauxomancy.

    Crow decided to call Enark's Mimic Craft 'Fauxomancy' and has been told not to.

    "Hey, what are we using to make the weapon?" Crow asks as it detaches from Enark's shadow in order to start scooting around the platform.

    Enark takes his time inspecting the floor for signs of trap doors or anything so he can avoid standing on them and says, "I presumed the soul of the Chains of the Dusk Sun would suffice."

    Crow 'twists' its shadowy body around by turning its face from one part of its head to another and then flipping it upside-down. "Yeah, okay, but what's the vessel going to be made out of?"

    Enark stares blankly. "Err?"

    Crow says impatiently, "The vessel to hold the soul. The weapon itself. We need a vessel to make sure the soul is contained."

    The suspicious degree of knowlege Crow has about forging could just be a result of all it has read so far, or some former experience that is gradually coming back into its awareness. But the Shadow makes a good point.

    Carna looks to the scattered pieces of metal from the weapon-golems that Toph destroyed, and the stained cooling troughs. She inhales the coppery scent, and then she says, "We will use blood."
Count Kord     "..."

    Kord followed the rest to the forge, and he is staring up at the anvil, somewhat questioning his role here if a human-sized creature can't even REACH the anvil, let alone hold anything. He finds himself frowning behind his mask as well, because he has absolutely no proficiency in smithery. None. Not even as a hobby.

    When Carna says what she wants the container to be, he turns his head and fixates her with a look of confusion.

    "... but /how/?"

    If he was any more confused he might manifest question marks over his head. But, with that in mind, "If that is a viable idea... I may volunteer some of my own blood. If the legends of how someone like me is born are true then I have god blood. It could be... useful." He then adds, "Only enough to 'alloy' it," with some quickness that nips the 'Carna thinks about exsanguinating him' issue in the bud.
Priscilla     Well, Carna had asked her specifically for this, and what kind of person would Priscilla be, to deny the good-faith request of a loyal ally and follower, who wishes to wield the strength of her world's mightiest, and so become better able to conquer its greatest obstacles? Some form of hypocrite or another, most likely.

    There's no real point to sticking to a sociall convenient size, and so this time, Priscilla can look over the anvil without much issue, though only after a heavily misgiving pause of the rusting, blood-splattered shrapnel from last time. "If thou requireth some means of . . ." she trails off in the direction of Kord, wanting to avoid the awkward situation of flat out asking him if he needs a booster seat.

    Either way, she's hear for a reason, and she gets to it quick. Like a magician producing a hand of cards, Priscilla turns her palm, and from it, lights up the scarlet-hued phantasmal eye that represents the spiritual essentia she had taken from the Marble Guardian, somehow managing to remain hideous despite its insubstantial and iconographic appearance, dripping little bits of spectral blood.
Carna     Carna looks to Kord speculatively as he proposes using his own blood. Then she begins gathering up the metal fragments in her arms, gathering piles of twisted metal and bent plate, she walks over to Kord and says. "That might be necessary, but first I wish to try something."

    Then she turns her head towards Enark and says, "That lever there by the grate in the floor, and says, "Pull the switch, if you possess the strength to."

    Enark huffs, mildly offended and says, "Please, just bcause I am not a--hggk--swordy mcstabberson who--huff puff--runs around punching boulders into--GGGHHH--rivers of lava doesn't mean that I can't--"

    Crow pops up as Enark struggles with the lever. "Do you need help?"

    Enark finally pulls the large metal rod through the groove in the platform and with a loud *CLICK* and the sound of machinery working, the grate begins to fill with flaming blood at a rapid pace until it starts to fill the 'bowl-shaped' indentation in the platform that Enark was standing in. The Blue Scholar panickedly says, "YES NOW PLEASE THANK YOU."

    Crow grabs Enark's shadow and pulls him away from the rapidly-filling pool. The pool starts to flow along hidden channels, invisible pathways that blended seamlessly in the floor until the currents of smoldering iron and hemoglobin and whatever else is in there were released.

    Carna dumps all the metal in her arms into one of the deeper channels, as the intricate, almost circuit-board-like pattern on the floor continue to spread and surround the edges of the platform. The spread stops after completing about a 330 degree loop. There are some untouched places they can still walk normally, and this leaves them with a pathway in and out.

    Carna then looks as the metal melts down at a very quick rate, into slag. Then she looks around for a means of extraction, and can find none. "It appears your contribution will be needed after all. Something to quench the heat, at least enough to extract it. The blood of gods may be stronger than the blood of monsters."

    Then she looks up towards Priscilla. "Crow, you touched the anvil before and something happened to your hand. It seemed important enough to write down. But this is where my knowledge and instinct for forging ends and the expertise of Queen Priscilla and the ingenuity of Sir Kord take over. Can you still serve as their instrument, as you proposed originally?"

    Crow stares long at Carna. D: Then it looks to Priscilla, Kord, and Enark in turn.

    Enark tries to offer Crow an encouraging smile. "We will pull you free if anything strange happens." Or, rather, the person who can grab shadows will do so, most likely. "And there ARE blacksmithing tools here. If you can not help, then they can be used instead--"

    Crow shakes its head. "I'll try. I feel like I've done this before. Been here before. Or some place like it. I don't know when though." The Shadow looks down. Then it stretches up and up to look at the anvil and white-hot glow that radiates from it.

    "When the vessel is ready to be shaped, I'll be ready."
Priscilla     Priscilla has to watch with some degree of fascination as incendiary blood fills the oil troughs, and traces is complicated way around the floor, doubtlessly filling out some arcane geometry based well outside of her current understanding. Their skillful concealment in the metal impresses her to some degree, though her thoughts are filled more with contemplation as to what the Chains had to do with this, as apparently, it was bleeding the molten lifeblood of creation this entire time, or something similar.

    "Interesting." she remarks far more blankly than both the situation, and her own feelings, demand. "It is not terribly dissimilar to a kiln meant for transposition, though of far more grandiose and fantastic design in its entirety than any Ember. I wonder, whence the blood cometh, and how much yet remains, if its source hath been slain."

    What she has to do with the soul isn't fancy, however; at least not visually. To those with more spiritually attuned senses, its forced corporeality, as it is severed of its connections to Priscilla's 'soul gravity' and left to bob weightlessly in the very real air, is a little more interesting to watch. Either way, it results in an angry red little fiery bloodball that is maneuverable, to some extend, by anyone, like pushing a thick bubble around with one's finger. She lays it out on the anvil, for the time being.
Count Kord     Kord watches the blood flow into place, ignoring the unfinished statement from the boss lady beyond a baffled glance at what she was trying to say to him. Without much to go off of, it's not worth pursuing until she feels like clarifying, and given the awkward way she trailed off, it doesn't feel worth worrying about. He is slightly more world-weary than some and knows a vocal cue like that.

    Once the blood stops flowing and they discover no means to extract anything from the molten metal, the man lets out a little sigh to himself. Not because it is bothersome but because he's about to inflict a bit of pain on himself.

    The 'Son of Yveltal' steps up to the edge of the molten blood and metal, and pulls his gauntlet off. Then he pulls his scythe from its holster, unfolds it, and holds his hand up and places the blade of the scythe gently against his palm. And he cuts his skin jussst enough to draw blood. He grunts under the sensation, but appears to bear through it just fine. Then he pulls some cloth from somewhere on his person to bind his hand after dribbling plenty of his god blood into the mix.

    It hisses on contact, naturally.

    He's still busy binding his hand while he watches for any kind of cooling effect. The aspect of death might stabilize blood in a realm of death, but he isn't exactly an expert in these things.

    "An arcane contraption, this," he muses, in this case 'arcane' meaning 'beyond comprehension,' based on how he said it.
Carna     Kord's blood turns the molten fluid black where it touches. Initially just spots of ebony like some food burning after being left on heat for too long, the blackness spreads slowly until it outlines a smoldering lump of metal and blood. Fairly shapeless, it is simply a mass that is, for the moment, cooler than the surrounding material. But left in for too long, it might melt down once again. With the available blacksmithing tools, even if sized for someone fairly larger than Kord, it should be possible to seize and lift the oblong mass out of the channel.

    If Kord can fly it up to the anvil, then the death-blackened iron can start to be worked over.

    Crow, more hesitantly than the first time it touched the anvil, during their initial discovery of the place, reaches out a hand, pointy-tipped shadowy extremity stretching and stretching as the owner of such leans its upper body away.

    Moments before contact is made, a ghostly panorama plays out around them, barely-visible outlines of humanoid shapes, some working at tables or at the blood troughs, some at the anvil, and three in particular gathered together. The outline on one should seem familiar to those who witness it, despite the height difference from whom they have seen possess it prior. The outline of Luc as his ghostly image stands there is closer to Priscilla's height than that of Carna or Kord. Taller even. There is also the outline of a woman met once before, in a recreation of past events, and as a fragment of herself trapped within the Wall of Cruel Customs, and yet who refused to fight them even when reduced to a weak echo of herself. Constance Lorethal stands across from Luc, with another outline between them. Her height, as well, is closer to Priscilla's than the rather human-sized scale she existed as within the illusion of an ancient Hallow's Eve party. The middle outlone, the one between Luc and Constance is both familiar and not. On the one hand, the head bears two small 'horns' that are all too recognizable. But the barely-visible superimposed details of the rest of the body seem much different from the normal bearer of such.

    "There has to be a way to bring him back."

    "There is. We know it already. Only HE will not cooperate."

    "Cooperation is not the problem here and you know it. It is INABILITY."

    Constance's outline steps aggressively towards Luc's, her disembodied, distant-sounding voice saying, "You are unwilling to even try! You REFUSED to die to bring him back!"

    "You dare much, making such an accusation." Luc then seems to walk around the anvil and start leaving, walking right through the space that Carna occupies on his way out.

    "AND YET YOU DO NOT EVEN DENY IT!? RETURN HERE, COWARD! RETURN AND DIE FOR HIM AS HE DID FOR YOU!"

    "Let him go." A voice deeper than Crow's and yet identifiably his cautions. "I shall find a way. This is what I was made to do."

    Then Crow touches the anvil, and that entire scene that played out, within a single eye blink, is gone. And some explanation of the mysterious outline that 'other' Crow possessed is provided. For as shadow fingers touch divine steel, golden sparks fly up in a greaze blade, a ring of light and sun-hued flame spreading up the appendage, and leaving behind intricate golden armor in its wake. The spread stops at about Crow's upper arm, but it is clearly an unpleasant sensation to have one's form burned away and replaced with armor, and Crow's expression demonstrates such. "L-let's keep going, g-guys!" Crow tries to offer in an attempt to conceal its suffering.
Count Kord     Kord picks up the tongs just as a sight begins to play out nearby. The tongs are likely larger than they should be, and so it is quite a feat to heft them away from their resting spot. He then jams the tongs down into the blood and wrenches free the deathly iron with a great growl. Then his wings manifest, and he flaps just the once, floating over to the anvil to slam the iron down into place, spattering molten blood harmlessly here and there. The mishapen iron is placed beneath the soul of the Marble Guardian.

    He holds it like that, his boots resting on the edge of the anvil and his wings spread out behind him. He looks similar to some kind of odd angel the way he's placed himself. His blood trickles down from the wrap on his hand, running in a single line down the handle of the tongs, the pressure forcing a bit of it out. He growls to himself.

    "Bear through it," he tells Crow, recognizing the suffering, whether by the shadow's pain or fear. "It will pass." He has a certain confidence about him as he says that, kind of gruff, but it's the nearest thing to 'I'm here with you' that he can convey. His bloodied palm and all that casts a kinder context on his words and behavior.
Priscilla     Suffering, to say the least, is not a beast unknown to Priscilla, nor unrecognized. At the same time, the flash of the past, and especially of the key relation between Luc and Lorethal, demands much of her attention, even in the proverbial aftershock. She had always assumed a purpose for Crow, and doubly so ever since the origin of the Shadows was hinted at back at the temporal 'party' in Lostrata, where Lorethal had coincidentally appeared, but it always troubles her to see Luc wound deeper and deeper into Lumiere's mythos. She had liked him better when he was a random, power hungry madman.

    "Of course. There is little point in ceasing now." Priscilla reassures Crow, even if everything going on seems to be pure assumption, instinct, and coincidence, more than as part of anyone's conscious plan. Without her usual, occultic furnace of souls, and the odd tools that go with it, even Priscilla is left to rely on bits of supposition, and what rare, firsthand knowledge she has of the origin of soul transposition, destined to only be remembered for its roots in crystallization and its association with 'a great white being' in some far-flung, hypothetical future.

    Hopefully, the near-molten blood iron will serve as something close enough to Titanite. Priscilla exhales deeply as Kord wields the tongs to her awkward, lofty position, which has the effect of freezing the blood droplets into so much grey glass, as her breath comes out glittering and blue, as if it were fogging in the cold. The magically charged dust that comes with it, settles on the iron, and suffuses the floating 'soul', which she takes in hand, and physically presses into the doubtlessly hot metal. Unpleasant, to say the least, it's something like kneading the deathly substance into the material, where the faint, temporary sheen of crystal slowly entraps it.
Carna     Crow holds out one shadowy appendage, shaping it into a hammer and offering it to Kord. The heat emanating from the anvil, while immense, seems to be relatively contained to close proximity, keeping those nearby from being incinerated unless they actually are foolish enough to touch it. The golden light that traces up Crow's body from the armor encasing one arm is somewhat similar to the pattern on the floor of the platform, subtle lines of radiance like the light of a setting sun, woven through the darkness, and granting a semi-substance appearance.

Herss Priscilla presses the soul into the metal, and cools it with her breath, infusing crystals into it, the anvil beneath it simultaneously heats the material, keeping it hot even as it cools, ready to be molded again.

    Carna witnessed the ghostly images the same as the others, but she knows little of what to make of them. The bloody, alien eye that has been condensed into a bubble and then fused into a mix of iron and life's fluid, she is glad to no longer have to look at. Though she now wonders if the resultant weapon will have an eye as well. That would be just her luck, to have to wield something that watches her constantly. At least it will keep her sharp.

    Enark, does not appear to have pieced together all of that macabre tableau despite his learning, though enough of it meant something that he looks quite pale. Paler than normal, anyway.

    Crow, a thing that does not breathe, nonetheless lets out short little breaths like a hyperventilating kitten, steam issuing forth in small clouds from a mouth that bears signs of pointy black tooth-like extensions on upper and lower 'jaws'.

    Though the Shadow is remaining in place for whatever it may be needed for, if anything, touching a white-hot surface is probably not only the top-ten list of things most would be willing or able to endure. Though perhaps the pain comes more from the gauntlet that is making contact and has partially-replaced Crow's body than the anvil itself.

    The metal, even as it heats and softens, produces small pockets of blood that boil inside of a crystalline coating. Any sensation of that strange monstrous soul as an independent thing, the despair that emanated from it, is gradually becoming subsumed into the physical vessel. Though some sort of 'despair weapon' is probably not the most pleasant of things to work upon either, it is under control. The divine essence of the anvil keeps the false divinity of the tarnished Grail monster unable to act even to discomfit the smiths and their helper.
Count Kord     Kord reaches out with his other hand and grabs the hammer offered to him, glancing aside at Crow. He looks to the gauntlet of light, something almost the polar opposite of the creature they have been journeying with until now, and moves his attention back on the task. Holding the metal in place while he watches Priscilla transpose the soul of a terrible being of despair into the weapon, the winged Count can't help but feel something like exhiliration.

    He grins madly and lifts the hammer likely still attached to Crow. He always wanted to do this. To do something meant for divine creatures. Anyone can kill and conquer, but this... this is special.

    The hammer goes down on the metal, and whatever sound it makes, he carries a mental image in his mind, and his inhuman eyes barely blink. He slams the hammer down again and again, hoping that Crow can hold out.

    With any luck, his inexperience in blacksmithing will mean nothing when guided by Crow's innate understanding and the metaphysical properties of the act. He is trying to shape a familiar weapon. No, it is not actually a scythe. Appropriately, he is trying to shape a sword.

    He is trying to shape a sword in the style of those wielded by the Swords of Justice in his world. A knightly weapon. At least that's his mental image.
Priscilla     Priscilla, meanwhile, is much less profoundly ecstatic. Her own hands burn from her work, though the scorching heat is only flesh deep, and tolerable with her her ability to temper it, and pull out of its reach when necessary; nothing like the way Crow has to bear the heat peeling away his very form.

    Where she can finally relinquish the metal, suffused with its bloody glow and crystal skin, Priscilla's fingers draw back taut with ghostly red chains, like a puppeteer's strings, anchored to points inside the ingot that shift about where Kord strikes with the hammer. Where he physically beats the material of the coalescing blade into shape, Priscilla closes her eyes, and envisions the heat of the soul within it, slowly being subsumed into the steel, tugging and sliding its strings with each hammer blow, to lay its spiritual substance throughout the blade in an orderly, even, and symmetrical fashion, without twists or breaks in its conduits of power.

    As he envisions the knightly ideal of justice, in defiance of the creature that had tried to twist the concept so, Priscilla's thoughts linger on Arthur's vows to seal the creature, and the stoic efforts of his endlessly loyal knights, who surrendered their mythos, and their freedom, to serve as the links that would bind it, at the cost of their own sanity and souls.
Carna     Crow endures as the weapon takes shape. Blade and chains, two different images within the minds of those forging the weapon, gradually melding together, overlapping in the forging of a new vessel, a new container, a new existence. A dull red sheen is in the blade, like a dying star, moments from going out forever. A short length of chain of faded black metal that mutes the light that falls upon it, extends from the hilt. Sometimes the chain seems to twitch or move on its own, like living things. Or maybe that's the imagery of ghostly faces trapped within, the curses of the fallen and the suffering that manifest as sourceless reflections in the depths of the pitch steel.

    The essence of the despair monster is imprisoned within this vessel, bound by power, by oath, by steadfast protectors, by those who forged it, and soon by its new wielder.

    The Chains of the Dusk Sun have been put to a productive use instead of the endless suffering and soul-sucking evil that it previously embodied.
Count Kord     With the flames of the Forge having shaped a new weapon, Kord pulls away and floats down to set the tongs down on a convenient spot, and he pulls the bird-like helmet and underlying mask off of his face to wipe his sweating face down with a cloth he pulls from elsewhere in his outfit. Being a medieval noble he seems to have several hankerchiefs for purposes such as these. All of the fire and the warmth radiating off of boiling blood and the effort of forging have caught up with him.

    "Crow." His tone his concerned, directing his attention immediately to the shadow and his inhumanly red eyebrows furrowing.
Priscilla     Priscilla concentrates up until the last, where the crystal sheen on the gradually forming weapon thins, warps, and steadily smokes away with the cursed heat beneath it. Until finally, as Kord hammers home the final blow, it breaks completely and Priscilla releases the ghostly, string-like chains from her fingers.

    The crossbreed sighs heavily, but quietly, as she receives the opportunity to let her tension slip, shaking her head to clear space for happier thoughts. Regarding the chained sword, she can't help but remark "A weapon as malevolent in appearance as its origin, and yet possessed of a certain knightly virtue. One that standeth out against it, rather than be subsumed. It is most fitting."
Carna     Crow seems glad to pull its hand away from the anvil finally once the work is finished. The golden armor seemingly exposed by its heat gradually becoming shrouded in shadow once again, formless, massless darkness coiling around the gleaming of protectives with a distinct moon motif to them.

    Now that moon is eclipsed once more.

    Crow doesn't seem to have suffered any lingering damage though seems a bit... 'Wobbly' about the edges. "Haa... Haha...! That was pretty intense... Haa... Hey... This is the first time I've seen you without your helmet, huh?" the drained Shadow replies to Kord, trying to avoid making a big deal of what happened to it.

    Enark says, "Well, that was... Certainly something. I know of Lady Lorethal, of course. She is a legendary heroine. Despite unknown origins, she has fought to protect the Dead of Lumiere and served as an example of what we can still be even without the attachments of life, since long before I came here. She was the instructor of King Solumnus, one of the current Lords of Silence, and she was active before that, with great certainty. I actually... Do not recall off-hand how many stories of her I've read." Enark scratches his cheek somewhat meekly. "I am something of a fan of hers."

    Carna listens with half an ear as she advances on the anvil, eagerness in her step as she waits to see the weapon that has been made for her, lying just out of sight.

    "There are events she was part of, the details and signficance of which are unknown, except that she was involved in them. She splintered the Crystal Needle, ended the War of Red, salvaged the Heart of Dragons from the Abyss, and faced Albion the Primordial Man in the Battle of the Unmaker, alongside many other gods and legendary figures, as wel as the original Lords of Silence, Orc, Urizen, Los, and Lord Tharmas. And all of those events among countless thousands of others, we have almost no context or details of, except that they shaped the history of Lumiere--"

    "Sir Enark, would you mind not talking for a little bit?" Carna asks as she stands at the foot of the glowing anvil, feeling the light and heat scarcely compared to those who are closer. It barely extends beyond a few feet from the surface, but the greater the proximity, the more intense. Perhaps to keep the heat needed to forge souls from melting the very platform it rests upon.

    Enark huffs offendedly and says, "I was only trying to get to the fact that for someone like her to be affiliated with that other fellow, and that..." He looks towards Crow. "...Other, is most unusual. I have read no records of either, unlike Lady Constance."

    Carna turns slowly to look at Enark.

    Enark closes his mouth.

    Carna looks back upwards at Priscilla. "And you think that is what I embody? That those are appropriate to me and my goals? My nature?"
Priscilla     Had Priscilla a notepad, she'd be scribbling this all down, but her memory is accursedly sharp as always. Instead, she looks to Carna, lifting the sword from its resting place once it begins to cool, and ferrying it down. "Of knightly virtue, I cannot say, but it is certainly uniquely within thine nature to stare into this howling dark from which nothing returns, and decide to venture sword-first against it, rather than give in and becometh a part of its grand pattern of tragedy. It is suiting enough, perhaps."
Count Kord     "What you embody..."

    Kord lowers his eyes as he folds his hankerchief and stuffs it back where it was under his cape. Pensive is a good word for the look he has, though he has nothing to contribute to the topic since it was a question directed at Priscilla. Seems to trouble him.

    He wasn't paying overly much attention, seemingly, to what Enark was saying. The rambling about the ghostly figures did reach his ears.

    Kord without his helmet is a fair bit different than one might expect from his voice. He looks young. He looks abnormally young, in his early twenties. And he's pale, and his hair is far too red, red enough to contrast his skin. Red enough to not be a natural hair color. His facial expressions are fairly ordinary, though. He knits his brow and glowers somewhat at Crow, that grimace the less personable make toward the light-hearted. He chooses to overlook the observation, waving it off silently.

    "If you have no records," he begins, his head turning to fixate on Enark, "Does that mean they come from Lumiere itself? Not Dead or Lanterns or Unlit..." He spares another glance to Crow, letting the implications sink in.

    "Are you a god?" he asks Crow. This came up when they originally found the Forge, of course, but now the evidence is far more glaring.
Carna     Carna reaches up to accept the weapon, taking the blade in hand carefully, even as chains coil out from the handle to wrap around her arm. She shakes the limb a few times, finds the chains keep the weapon in her grip even when she lets go of it, and then tries swinging the weapon in the air, and watching the blade leave behind a streak of black and red in its wake, like splatteed ink and blood, or black fog with glowing red eyes gleaming within. Speaking of eyes, an eye opens in the crossbar and looks at the Lantern. She stares back at it. The eye's gaze shifts to afix on something else. And then to something else. Maybe it was never really staring at Carna so much as looking at things at random. Or maybe there's still something in there with a form of awareness, looking for a way out.

    Too bad. It no longer has that option. It has been remade. Its own form, its own existence, is its cage, as surely as a body is the cage for the soul. Maybe more so, since body and soul are now physically fused.

    Carna throws the sword and it flies out from her hand, the chain extending to keep it linked to her arm. The chainsaw retracts back into her hand with a ratcheting sound as the metal cord vanishes into the hilt once more. She repeats this a few times, and starts attempting some tricky maneuvers, sending it arcing and swinging all around her in a web of black and dull, dying red.

    Then Carna remembers that Priscilla is right next to her after several seconds and stops swinging the weapon around to avoid cutting one of its makers to ribbons.

    "Thank you. I will use this instrument to great effect moving forward."

    Enark moves closer once he's sure Carna is done testing her new acquisition, but then halts when Kord asks his question.

    The expression on Enark's face is... Tense. But not betraying any surprise. He is carefully controlling what he reveals, but the very fact he's doing so implies he either knows or suspects something.

    Crow blinks owlishly at Kord. "I think the proper response when someone asks if you're a god is to say 'yes', but... I dunno'? How do I check?" The Shadow shrugs helplessly and makes a face like a shrugging emoji. ¯\_(``/)_/¯
Count Kord     The suddenness of Enark's halting catches Kord's attention, making him turn his attention away from the frustration of talking to the shadow whose memory is just gone. A piercing gaze falls on the scholar, and he slowly approaches the man. He makes no sound as he moves, as usual, but the absence of sound is combined with the intimidating fact that a warrior is coming to a halt in front of the scholar.

    He leers at Enark expectantly. Kord has only a suspicion that Enark knows something, only the glimmer of hope that he can get an answer.

    Kord subtly leans in toward Enark and his eyes slowly narrow.

    Did the shadows just get darker around his face.
Carna     Enark to his credit, despite being not much of a combatant, and not being the most stalwart of figures, does not retreat before Kord's advance, no matter how intimidated he may be. He puts his chin up defiantly, though there is a small degree of shaking as well. Crow can tell something is going on, but doesn't know what prompted it, so just watches from the sidelines in confusion.

    Enark asks, "What would you do if Crow WAS some form of god? Your opinion of such beings has been expressed as less than amiable." Enark's eyes dart to Crow and then back to Kord. "Would your ally become your enemy?"

    Crow slides over to where Kord and Enark are, no longer possessing the strength to remain stretched up so high off the ground. "What? No way! Kord would never be my enemy! He's my friend!" :D

    Enark looks down at the Shadow with a hint of sadness. "And what if he didn't feel the same way?"

    Crow, without hesitation just says, "Nah, I trust him." :>

    Enark then looks back at Kord, fighting to maintain eye contact. Though he is just looking in the face someone he has worked with and fought alongside for months now... Has it been a year already? The confrontation inspires great fear in him. But he stands his ground regardless. "There you have it. If he were a god, what would that change for you?" It's emotionally manipulative to be certain.

    Then, screwing up his courage, Enark says, "Well, Counter of Shadows? Will you 'stop' your friend? Or will you be the one to lift him up, and help him rise to what he has the potential to be? Assuming he is a 'god' of course."

    And throwing the prophetic words in Kord's face may not be the wisest decision, given the man's dislike of others determining his fate. But this is about all Enark can do. He can do little else, if Kord decides to resolve this with combat.
Count Kord     Kord doesn't even flinch. He just stares the whole time, neeeearly unblinking, but he isn't dead like some of the others present.

    He doesn't react to the defensiveness. He doesn't seem to so much as frown at Enark's wording. He just lets the man talk and talk.

    When he's done, the solid stare Enark uses and the usage of something Kord dislikes about this realm does get a frown out of him.

    He crosses his arms.

    "You have not a single shred of understanding of who I am and why I feel that anger to the divine," he states with certainty.

    "/My/ hatred is born of /their/ ignorance. Their rejection of those with even a streak of what they see as evil. Gods are uncompromising, and they presume to understand mortal beings, and that arrogance is what allows them to toy with us without guilt or even a second thought. They behave in ways we see as evil among ourselves, as tyrants and monsters with far too much power. We are insects to them. That prophecy angers me because it is the arrogance of a being that knows very little about me. Much like you, Enark. You are very smart... but you don't understand anything about who I am, and where my hatred comes from. There is more to it than even what I have told you now."

    His arms unfold, and he turns away from Enark, giving the impression that he is just too tired to be angry about this. Enark just didn't know, and Kord isn't about to lose his temper with someone that has proven useful in the past. He is, ultimately, trying to protect someone, too, and Kord can see that.

    "There is no reason to hate a god that embraces mortal kind so easily," he tells Enark, as he reaches down to pat the living shadow on the head, finally just... smiling.

    "As with many scholars," he mentions to Enark, as if this comment is what is keeping Kord from decking him right here and now, like an old man talking to someone fairly young, "You only use what you have already read, and haven't looked deeper than that."
Carna     Enark looks at Priscilla, fatigued seeming, or at least worn by the heat of the God Forge's anvil. Then to Carna standing off to the side and staring back at him with more intensity than any that has been shown by Kord in this interaction. She may not be as accepting of things being hidden from her as Kord apparently is. Then Enark looks back to Kord and his tired acceptance even as he offers a gentle rebuke. Then to Crow. Crow smiles blankly back at Enark, pleased to be patted, without apparently ever having had any concern that Kord could turn on it. Then Enark looks back to Kord and says. "I apologize for assuming then. And I will endeavour to learn more about those whom I am allied with."

    Then he looks to Crow.

    "Crow, please tell him how your name is spelled."

    Crow's smile fades away and drops into an aghast expression. "But... You told me not to." D:

    "It's okay now. Go ahead." Enark reassures.

    But the Shadow is visibly distressed as it draws up appendages of depthless faded black in an attempt to pull itself up off the ground with what strength it has left. "You made me promise! You said not ever!"

    Enark tries to soothe his companion, making comforting noises even as Crow keeps yelling, 'You made me promise not to tell anyone!' until the Shadow quiets down. "I wanted to keep you safe. I was not certain who could be trusted not to try to... Use that information for bad things. I think the people here can be trusted."

    Crow looks around at everone, blinks a couple times, then shakes its head. "I can't. I promised. But you can."

    Hm. So Crow is actually bound by promises it makes somehow. It can not violate its word. Enark makes a mental note of that, and then looks to Kord. "Crow's name is spelled with only three letters." He then just leaves it at that. Either people will figure it out or they won't. He doesn't want to upset Crow any further.

    Or rather, 'Cro'.
Count Kord     Kord keeps patting Crow, and idly considers what it would be like to actually have a Pokemon that would look like him. He is quite happy to do this until... until Crow starts freaking out about a promise that Crow made that they were unaware of. Kord straightens up, clearly baffled by this exchange.

    His brow knits as he thinks on it.

    And then his eyes widen and he looks at Crow again, now aware of a fact that has been kept from them.

    "... you're Orc," he says aloud, and his head turns, eyes squinting at the forge, and then he turns back toward 'Crow.'

    "You... you're one of the original Lords."

    And then Kord just starts to laugh. It's quite a joke to be travelling with someone that important, who doesn't even remember it himself. He laughs and he laughs and he even places his hand against his face.

    When he stops laughing, he's rubbing at his face tiredly.
Priscilla     Priscilla stands a respectable distance from Carna, flinging her sword around. She is not keen to be in the way of a malevolent soul-weapon she'd just finished having a hand in creating. She is quite severely tempted to say something on the subject of asking about godhood, but she is a little bit taken aback first, that Kord had finally shown her face. Priscilla is quite used to people who perpetually keep some sort of helmet or mask on all the time, so it's a little weird.

    A whirl of bitingly chill wind punctuates the awkward tension between Enark and Kord, and when they look back, Priscilla will have assumed a size that doesn't require her to lean over them like the metaphorical insects Kord espouses in metaphor, in order to make eye contact, ridding the forge of her influence at the same time.

    "I am to admit, I had little knowledge of thine . . . positions, upon the subject of divinity either, Count Kord. It is not an unusual one, for certain breeds of men, but most peculiar for one who hast been chosen as the champion of one. I am very well versed in the flaws and follies of gods all too mortal in thought, even if not deed nor countenance. I am, however as well versed in those who follow them, those who despise them, and those they choose."

    And oh boy, does it click in her head at what must be exactly the same time. Of those books of prophecy, the ephemeral visions, the machinations of the knights and the ancient ball. Her reaction, of all things, is to join in laughing. Hers is a quiet, stilted sort of amusement, strange and a little wrong, as if she had never learned to vocalize such a natural human sound, but it is recognizable as benign all the same. "I see then, it was something in thee that I saw, on that day, more than mere amiability. It is spoken that a Lord hath always eye for another. I supposeth, then, that our path is greatly less circuitously hopeless than I had thought. What say thee, Cro, as one Lord to another, of an adventure of thine own?"
Carna     Crow or Cro or whatever seems confusedly pleased that there is no hostile response to this revelation, though perhaps not fully grasping the nature of it. "...Sure, I guess?" :D It's not as though Cro hasn't been there for the discussions of the Lords of Silence, or the explanation of Orc, and so on and so forth. It's not as though it shouldn't be able to piece it together. But for some reason it's not. The Shadow isn't connecting the dots at all. Kord is laughing, Prsicilla is laughing (even if kind of weirdly, but cutely in its own way, like Cro itself), Enark seems relieved that no one seems to be flipping out, so sure whatever!

    Maybe there's a mental disconnect here somewhere. A block preventing it from remembering or realizing. Priscilla makes her formal address to Cro and it slumps back down onto the platform, the glow of the blood flowing through the grooves in the floor gradually restoring some solidity to the faded black the Shadow took on after exposing itself to the anvil. "Um. Well, I--" Cro starts, but then it suddenly jerks aside, bending out of the path of Carna's blade as it strikes the ground, producing a flash of dull-crimson sparks. "WHOAH!"

    Carna is still in a throwing position, starting intently at Cro, as the chainsaw retracts back to her hand.

    "Haha! Be careful, you almost hit me with that, Miss Carna!" Cro laughs the accident off weakly.

    Carna just says, "Yes. It seems I missed." Then she pulls back her hand back again. "I'll have to be more careful this time."

    Cro's mouth turns very down. D:

    Enark dashes to stand in the way, arms spread. "What are you doing!?"

    Carna remains in a stance ready to throw the Chainsword again, saying nothing.

    "This is an ally! A friend! We have traveled and explored and fought alongsi--"

    "If you think I will not attack because you are in the way," Carna interrupts without a hint of emotion in her voice. "Then you are mistaken. Move or I will attack with use sufficient force to go through you."

    Enark pales, his cold, dead blood draining from his face, as he sees no indication in what little he can see of Carna's wide-eyed, predatory expression, that she is not being completely serious.

    "G-guys? What's going on?" Crow asks. "I thought we already did the will-he/won't-he betray a friend thing? I know Carna's call a she, nor a he, but I think it still applies--"

    Carna lashes out with her arm, throwing the blade again, and Enark lets out a yell of fear as Cro grabs Enark's shadow and pulls him down flat on the ground, causing the blade to sail over the mage's haad.

    Crow's head rises up off the ground, a fierce expresion on its face, and yells, "Stop it, Miss Carna!"

    This is getting out of hand.
Count Kord     That first strike puts Kord from zero to impending violence in a hurry, his helmet ending up back on his head and his hand calmly reaching under his cape during the exchange. He's so silent that it may have been overlooked, but as Carna flicks her arm to throw the weapon at Enark again, his own body moves like a spring and his scythe unfolds in a smooth motion, and he just throws it at her as hard as he can with no hesitation in his actions at all. And that is ESPECIALLY dangerous because this man has an incredibly strong throwing arm and he's aiming to bury the blade into Carna's chest as mercilessly as he would with any Unlit he's come across.

    He reacted. He didn't think. It was clearly a trained reflex.