The Connection

Thrice Prompted

Prompt Five

‘Write from the point of view of a magical object.’

Word count 3,034

It had taken him five years to realise that we were alive. Alive may not be entirely accurate, but we can feel, think, and communicate with each other and now him.

You are probably wondering what or who we are. Who is he or him? As we have so far only referred to him.
The latter is easy, we are referring to Lon our current keeper or guardian. I say current because unless someone deliberately destroys us we will be here for a very long time.

As for us, who are we? What are we? Well we are Death dealer and Sparks. I am Death Dealer, and I am currently telling you of our existence and our tie to Lon. Now as to what are we? A very good question. Now in simple terms we are a pair of finely crafted and balanced magical weapons, namely hand axes, a matched pair. I reside in a very comfortable sheath on Lon’s right hip and Sparks in a similar sheath on his left hip.

We came into existence around fifty years ago, made in the forge of Lon’s father, although at this point we were like any other axes, well maybe not like all, after all we are crafted from the finest steel and now have finely engraved magical runes etched into our surfaces, the runes came a bit later, but the only area not covered with runes is our cutting edges.

We are about eighteen inches in length, a spike at our butt and tip, a two and a half inch beak at the back, our fine blades slope up half an inch above the top of the socket and extend roughly 5 inches to our cutting edge. The cutting edge sweeps down for five inches in a perfect arc to its tip at the bottom then arcs back up to the base of the socket two and half inches above. We do look very impressive even if I do say it myself.

Like I say at this point even though we were a finely smithed pair of balanced axes much of our decoration was missing. That came next.
It is at this point that I feel I must give you a little information about Lon and his family. Lon comes from a long line of magically adept Dwarves. His father and uncle both holding the title of Arch Mage. It was this skill that bought us into being.

Now both the uncle and the father are very strong in their craft individually, but together they are something else entirely. It is a shame that they do not fully realise this yet. They are unique in the fact that there has never been two Dwarfs so highly skilled in thousands of years and never two at the same time. So now they experiment and learn and make progress. The future around these two will be interesting, even more so for us as Lon is stronger still. Well let’s say the potential is there but he must unlock it. The same for his father and uncle, the potential is frightening but that is just it they must work to bring it out or it will sit dormant. Anyway back to us.

Although we are aware and can communicate with each other Lon is the only other one we can communicate with as we are linked to him by magic. When the brothers worked the magic and used it to engrave us with magic runes, and bind the magic into our structure they were just a little bit too good at what they did. We are not sure because we cannot communicate with them, but we feel they are not aware of what they have actually created with us.

It has been many centuries since Dwarven kind have been able to create new weapons and artefacts like us. There is a level that most mages cannot surpass, and it is beyond this level that lies the ability to create such as us. It is not without risks and there has only ever been 1 or 2 every thousand years or so. One main reason mages do not try is, to try and fail is to try and die. The other reason is this skill or ability cannot be learned, you have to be born with the spark. Unlike normal magic most Dwarves can learn to cast simple spells and they can manufacture and wear articles that enhance their spell casting. This is everyday magic so to speak. All can cast fireballs and lightening, they can create weapons to do this for them and they then charge them back up when they run out of magical energy.

The ability to create such as us comes from deep magic, deep inside the mage this spark resides, part of their wellspring of life their innermost being. They put part of themselves into the magic, drain off part of their own life-force to instil it into the artefact, that is what gives us life so to speak, what makes us able to communicate and interact with others. There-in lies part of the first problem, if they put too much of themselves into the magic they do not have enough strength to even breath and what life force you do have gets fully drawn into the artefact taking their soul with it. In essence they get trapped within the artefact with no body to return to even if there was someone strong enough to cast the spell. Separated from the body it withers and dies with no way to communicate with the outside world.

We can feel several of these weapons within the stronghold. Most of the minds trapped have gone mad from isolation which makes any magical properties built into them unpredictable and dark. The Dark Elf mages have ways of tapping into this power and twisting it to their will. We have no idea at this time how they do it.

There is however within the stronghold another two such as us. These are the twin blades of the High mage, Lon’s father. We have had brief contact on several occasions but it is strange, we should not be able to do this, neither should they. They unlike us have not quite made it through to contacting their wielder. We sense frustration, which again is strange we have no ability for these emotions although we know they exist. Once our bond grows stronger with Lon we will ask him to talk to his father and try to find some answers.

Dwarves have always made weapons with magical qualities, the cutting edge that never blunts, the ability to feel lighter to the wielder of the weapon. That is why Dwarven axes seem like such monsters to other races, because they are not made for them, to anyone else they are unwieldy and cumbersome. Ownership can be transferred from one to another but it is a long process.

Magical attacks can be triggered on some weapons but once discharged they have to be charged again, there are various ways of doing this. This is what we think we were meant to be.

The bond between us and Lon is strange it seems to grow stronger the more he uses us, not the physical use, the fighting, the irritating spinning, but the magical use. Let us explain.

Our creation was unintentional or that is what we think. We think we were made as weapons, magical weapons, but weapons nonetheless. We have thoughts on this but at this stage we will keep those to ourselves. The first knowledge we had was that of consciousness, something akin to waking after a deep sleep. One minute there was nothing, the next an awareness of being. I woke knowing my name, my abilities and that I was only part of something bigger. After a while I learned how to cast my mind out and I touched Sparks’ consciousness. Something clicked I felt right, energised, and then our minds touched. This is when we started making progress, slowly at first but getting faster the harder we tried. We did not know at first what we had encountered just that something felt good about being linked to each other. It took us a few months or maybe a year or so but that awareness of each other developed to the point that we knew of each other and what we were. Something was still missing though, as the years slowly passed we were kept in one place until Lon came of an age to start his training with the Dwarven Elite guard. This is when his father had taken us out from where he had been keeping us and given us to Lon.

The moment Lon picked us up it was like a shock shot through us and something felt like it had physically connected. We felt complete, but not quite right there was still something that was off. Now Lon, like most Dwarves loves fighting and he was proficient with most weapons within the Dwarven arsenal. Lon however is a perfectionist, he has to be the best we have since come to realise. He is good with hand axe, double handed axe, sword, throwing daggers and axes, but he could not hit a barn door at 10 paces with a bow. Unless it is his small crossbow pistol.

Now when I say he is good, he is, but with us in his hands he enters a whole new realm of good. This is in part due to the link between us and the magical enhancements placed on us…… I beg forgiveness I digress, back to the link. It started slowly, like I’ve already mentioned we had become aware of ourselves, then each other, and then we were discovering Lon. The first awareness I had of Lon as an entity was the feeling of anger. At the time, I did not know it as anger but I now have come to recognise it. To me it is a hot sensation with a hint of frustration. Anyway that was a while ago now as Lon’s time in the guard passed we became more aware of our own abilities. As we were around more Dwarves and due to the Elite guard’s activities, we were exposed to mages. We realised we could feel what was going on when they used magic. We knew what they were doing, how it was going to work, what they did to make it work. So our magical knowledge started to build up. Both myself and Sparks knew who were magical, we knew that our blades would never need sharpening, that we were light as a feather to Lon. Being smallish axes we were not too heavy anyway but because we were enhanced it gave Lon the advantage over another dwarf using normal weapons.

We also knew there was something more, something that lay locked away within each of us but we did not know what. We now know how to gauge the strength of those around us, so we know we have a lot of powerful magical energy around and within us. We could tell that Lon had the ability to use magic but he could not at that time. Now based on those we could feel around us with the exception of two others Lon was a powerhouse of magical energy. He had not received any training at this point and had not unlocked his abilities. His was not the energy of those who have had to study long and hard for their magical prowess, Lon was one of those very rare naturals within who magic flows freely.

Lon has been training in magic a while now and we are now communicating a lot better. At first, we picked up feelings and emotions, but recently we have started to hear thoughts. That was until last week.

Lon, like we said is a warrior through and through and since his time in the Elite guard he has been at the front of most battles, to his parent’s dismay. About twenty years ago Lon and his father were part of a team who uncovered a hidden entrance to an underworld realm. This realm turned out to be the home of some particularly nasty Dark Elves and their minions the Goblin hordes of the Goblin Prince Sludgegulper. This discovery led to some very nasty small-scale battles, of which until summoned home to commence his magical training Lon was at the forefront of. Due to his natural abilities Lon progressed fast and is by far more advanced than a Dwarf his age should be. Of course, his father and uncle are overjoyed. Because of this instead of training for ten years before he could return to battle he managed to reach the required proficiency in five.

This then brings us to an incident of three months ago and our breakthrough. Although it could have so easily gone the other way.
Lon had been leading ten members of the Elite guard on a routine patrol through the underworld closest to the original entrance. The area through which they were patrolling had been under Dwarven control for a long time and there had been no skirmishes or incidents for a few years.

The patrol was attacked by a goblin war party numbering around a hundred warriors. Now the Elite guard are good but not that good. The two rearmost Dwarves never stood a chance and were cut down from behind by several goblins jumping out of hiding.

Luckily the goblins had made a tactical mistake or they did not expect to run into trouble. The area the fight took place in was narrow the goblins could only attack across a small front. Their advantage had been in their numbers. The guard reacted with the typical ferocity of their kind and held out for a while before they started to lose numbers. The Dwarves were fighting on two narrow fronts the rear battle was more of a distraction to keep the rearmost dwarves occupied, but this had meant that the remaining eight dwarves plus Lon were fighting a losing battle. Lon had got his dwarves rotating into the battle-line so they were grasping small amounts of rest. He had used his arsenal of magic spells and was in the middle of the group catching his breath. The problem was not only was he trying to rotate his dwarves so were the goblins rotating their warriors only theirs were fresh. Lon and his dwarves were getting tired. This is what happened…

Lon’s friends Gus and Fin were at the front fighting like demons when the biggest goblin Lon had ever seen pushed through to the front and attacked Fin with a massive overhand blow from a maul. Fin managed to deflect some of power from the blow but it dropped him to his knees. At this point I felt a white-hot surge of emotion stab through me and the next thing I know I am flying through the air into the forehead of the goblin. I hit and penetrate up to the socket I can tell I am firmly stuck in the creatures’ head. Then I felt a strange lurch and I was back in Lon’s hand! He had unlocked one of my abilities and I was not the only one who he had unleashed. Purple sparks spilled from the front of Spark’s blade, they lanced over the heads of the dwarves in front of him to land amongst the goblins waiting to attack, where they touched the sparks ran from one to another the smell of burnt flesh was strong and a magic charge filled the area around those that burned from the magical attack. Smoke from burned flesh clogged the nostrils and made eyes water. I could still sense the power of the surge but it was now subsiding and so was my connection to Lon it was growing tenuous Lon was close to death and had passed out.

What we found out later was because he had felt a surge of such raw emotion when his friends were in danger and he thought they were all going to die, Lon had somehow tapped into his natural magical store and had unleashed raw magical power. It had been effective, he had done enough to take out the goblin giant and frazzle 45 goblins with his magical energy that spewed from Sparks like hundreds of shooting starts. Add this damage to the already killed goblins they had broken and run, so had the Dwarves they picked up their fallen and had run for home.

The amount of energy Lon had used had nearly killed him. Lon had lain unconscious for four days and then had been as weak as a two-day kitten for two weeks after that. During that time though he had become so much more aware of us and had started to open himself to us we could more freely sense his moods and now clear thoughts were coming through to us. We are so close to making proper two-way communication it is unbearable.

He can now throw me and have me return to him, he can also call on Spark’s magical charge at will. He has not managed to unleash a quarter of the power he did in that battle but he is getting stronger.
The arch mage and his brother have examined us for hours whilst Lon was unconscious, they do not know how he did what he did. I get the feeling they are just starting to realise what they have done when they created us and have now gone to the archive to read and discuss their theories.

As for us, well we wait and get stronger along with Lon, we see a lot of adventures in our future, also a lot of blood, we also are eager for Lon to come into his full power once we can talk with him he will be so much more effective as a warrior.
We leave you now with the promise of our return to regale you with our adventures, just as soon as we start having some.