Artifact Blade

The sound of quiet grunting and the ring of steel gliding through the air roused Roger from his sleep.

His eyelids slowly fluttered open, the glow of the sun blinding him momentarily before he adjusted to the brightness.

The warm air felt nice on his skin, although the dried dirt on his shirt felt coarse, causing Roger to miss the prison washrooms.

'They weren't much, but at least they let me clean myself.'

The chirping and chittering of the forest animals filled his ears, occasionally interrupted by the same grunting and ringing that woke him. Hoping not to make much noise, Roger slowly leaned up in his bed, scanning his surroundings to identify the source.

He froze in shock as he realized what the source was.

Lila was standing a dozen meters away holding a strange new sword, effortlessly swinging it around herself in multiple different arcs, creating a captivating dance of skin and steel.

Roger could tell she wasn't yet a master, but the skill she held was nothing to scoff at either. 

'How is that possible? She was barely able to hold the blade yesterday! What changed?'

As if to answer his question, a blue glow suddenly erupted from the blade in her hand, and a tiny bolt of lightning shot from the tip, traveling a few feet before fizzling out.

Surprised by her own action, Lila yipped and fell back awkwardly, causing Roger to burst out in laughter.

Surprisingly, once he started to laugh, he found himself unable to stop, as if watching her fall was the funniest thing Roger had ever seen.

At first, he didn't know why he reacted so intensely, but as his energy petered out he realized he had not had a chance to really smile or feel joy since coming to Avar, so the first real chance he had, his body took it to an extreme.

'Note to self, try and save some time for fun, or else you look like a lunatic in front of the only person who you can talk to!'

Noticing Lila was staring at him, red in the face, Roger suddenly felt slightly ashamed. Smiling sheepishly, he lowered his gaze and scratched the back of his head.

"Sorry for laughing so much, just the way you fell was really funny.

She just turned even more red and turned away from him, marching off into the forest. 

'Great Roger, just great! Now you pissed her off! All because you couldn't control your fat mouth!'

He hit himself in the forehead a few times as he stood up and wiped the dirt off of his clothes, muttering "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" the entire time. 

He also couldn't stop wondering about the strange abilities she had showcased, both her sudden swordsmanship and the lightning she could shoot from her sword. It was magical and mystifying, and he would be lying if he wasn't dying to know how she was able to do it.

Hoping to distract himself from his mistake, Roger cut a few strips of meat off of the prepared tiger carcass and roasted it over the fire, which Lila seemed to have kept going.

It took him almost an entire hour to cook it properly, and he ended up charring the vast majority of the once-red flesh in the process.

Despite the amateur performance, he still savored every bite, preferring it to the food served back in the prison. If that could even be classified as food.

'If I close my eyes, ignore the burnt taste, and try and imagine eating something entirely different, it is almost enjoyable! I should be a chef!'

By the time he finished eating, Lila had returned to their makeshift camp. She had also seemed to choose to ignore him, avoiding him at every possible turn. She instead set herself to preparing the Mind Wraiths, wordlessly grabbing the bodies and dragging them to the side of the fire opposite Roger, causing him to be unable to see her. 

'How long is she going to keep this up? It wasn't that bad, was it?'

Despite his thoughts, Roger tried to remember he had very little social experience and none with the opposite sex. He could have broken dozens of social norms in the short time he had known her, causing her to be unwilling to speak to him.

Hoping to try and solve the problem in front of him, he stood and walked around the fire, trying to be casual about his approach.

She was currently on her knees next to one of the Mind Wraiths, slowly sawing its skin off of the meat using the steel blade. She seemed to be avoiding all of the parts around the tentacles for some reason, although Roger quickly acknowledged she had her reasons.

Unsure how to start a conversation with her, he just said the first thing that came to mind.

"So, I saw you gained your element. It looked pretty cool!"

She paused mid-cut, her hand shaking slightly. Roger noticed it also began to turn from a healthy pink to cherry red.

Realizing his first attempt didn't seem to help anything, he tried a different approach.

"I also wanted to apologize for laughing this morning. I really wasn't expecting to, it just kind of came out like that. I didn't mean to embarrass you, your skills really were impressive."

Lila didn't respond for a few seconds. She kept very still, the only proof she was still alive being her occasional shaking.

After a while of nothing changing, she exhaled deeply, slowly continuing to separate flesh from meat, and finally spoke.

"Apology accepted. I suppose I should apologize too, I did not mean to react so emotionally. I had thought I had a little bit of time to learn my new element before you awoke, and didn't expect to hear laughter during my first attempt at using a sword.

Roger had to stop himself from collapsing at her words.

"First attempt at using a sword? You looked like you had been practicing for months, maybe even years! How did you gain talent like that? Is your family secretly master swordsmen?"

Lila chuckled at that, the sound tickling Roger's brain. She turned to face him, her blue eyes glistening in the sun. Once they made eye contact, her face started to turn red, and she quickly snapped back to focus on her task.

"No nothing like that. My Alpha rank boon wasn't an ability like yours, it was an artifact."

Roger's eyebrows shot up.

"An artifact? What's that?"

She wordlessly placed the sword she was holding down and stuck her hand out. In a sudden burst of blue light, a new sword appeared in it. 

Taking a moment to inspect it, Roger saw that it was a silver shortsword with an engraved handguard. It had two small lightning bolts facing toward the tip of the blade, and the entire weapon seemed to thrum with energy.

After only a few seconds of holding it, she dropped it, and it burst back into light. When Roger's vision cleared, he was shocked to realize it had vanished entirely.

Lila, meanwhile, had picked up the plain sword he had gifted her the day prior and continued preparing the Mind Wraith.

He was about to ask questions when she spoke up.

"Every time you rank up, the System gives you a boon. For most, they gain their first ability at Alpha Rank. However, the System sometimes chooses to give something else, like an artifact. They are usually weapons or armor that relate to the wielder's element, and can grant powerful benefits, some even granting multiple abilities."

Roger greedily absorbed the information, happy to learn more about how the System worked. When she mentioned artifacts possibly granting multiple abilities, Roger couldn't help himself from pointing out how unfair that seemed.

"How does that work? The System decides some people deserve more abilities? Wouldn't it just be better to pray to get an artifact every rank up?"

It made no sense to him, and part of him felt cheated, as he only received a situation ability that didn't seem to help him survive very much.

Lila shook her head before responding.

"You're thinking about it the wrong way. A regular ability can be used anywhere at any time, and doesn't reveal what it is. An artifact needs to be wielded to grant the abilities and is almost always dependent on being summoned to take effect. It's not as useful when you get disarmed, or otherwise impaired from using the artifacts."

She paused as her blade hit a particularly dense section of the corpse, grunting as she sawed through it before continuing.

"The System also only provides a few artifacts throughout the ranks, most people getting one or two. No one knows how it decides when to give one, just that they come eventually."

Roger had to admit her words made sense, and giving it some more thought he decided artifacts definitely had downsides, but he still wished he had one.

Luckily Lila seemed to believe most people gained them, it could just take more time.

A smile slowly spread across his face as he asked his next question.

"So what does your artifact do anyway?"