35 Hephaestus
A.N. For some, it is now or it is going to be the 27th...which means it is my birthday!
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"You appear to have seen a ghost, Lady Hephaestus." Finn exclaimed as he saw how pale the goddess's face had become, but it was also accompanied by a mad sparkle in her singular visible eye. Finn then shifted Fleinn'leptr a bit, eyeing his gift from Steve before looking between it and the goddess. "Tsubaki indicated that this was something special, but I didn't expect a reaction like THAT coming from someone so dignified as you."
"What are those?" Hephaestus breathed, ignoring Finn's comments as she quickly zoomed around her desk, and speed-walked over to them, leaning down and staring at them intently. Her expressions disturbed them a little. "Where did you get them?" Hephaestus grabbed a fistful of Finn's sleeve. "Answer me!"
"Calm down boss." Tsubaki said as she laid a hand on the goddess's own and gently pried her fingers off of Finn. "How about you let him speak if you want answers from him, huh? And please, he has a point. Calm down."
"Heh?" The gleam in Hephaestus's eye disappeared all of a sudden as she whipped her head between Tsubaki and Finn who could only give her a strained smile. She gasped and back-tracked a little. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise. I was just-" She tried to apologise before Finn put his hand up.
"Don't worry about it." He assured. "Everybody's been giving me that kind of look ever since I came back from the Dungeon with this beauty. I should have expected that a goddess of smithing would have possessed a little bit more than just intrigue."
"Yes." Hephaestus said before she looked away from him and back to the spear and the axe. The magic that flowed off of them permeated her senses, intoxicated her and unconsciously she reached out for the spearhead, the unfamiliar magic and the smithing technique she couldn't identify calling out to her again to just look at them. "I couldn't blame any good smith worth his craft for being captivated by this spear of yours...it's so beautiful..."
"Hephy." Tsubaki said dryly. "You're doing it again."
"Huh...OH!...sorry. I just can't help it." Hephaestus put a hand behind her head as she reluctantly tore her gaze away from the spear again. "It's just...where did you get it from Finn? Who sold it to you?"
"It wasn't sold to me." Finn said. "It was a gift."
"A GIFT?!" Hephaestus exclaimed as she pointed to the spear. "THAT was a gift! Which madman would give away something like that as a gift to you Finn?!"
"You really aren't acting like yourself." Tsubaki chided. "That's not the best part of the story."
"It isn't?" Hephaestus raised her eyebrow. "What could be more absurd than that?"
Gareth chose to make his input now.
"My axe was just enchanted." The dwarf grinned. "Finn's new spear however, was forged. Right in front of us too."
...
"Someone forged that for you?" Hephaestus asked in disbelief and pointed to the spear. "You're telling me that another mortal forged that thing for you?"
"Not just any mortal." Tsubaki commented. "Have you been hearing the rumours about that new level 9?" Hephaestus nodded. "Well, apparently it was him that did it."
"You jest." Hephaestus said, to which Gareth and Finn shook their heads.
"He's a level 9 alright." Finn said. "We've seen it, we've sworn on it and he was that one that made this spear for me. And as Steve would put it, you can tell whether or not I'd be lying. Am I?"
Hephaestus blinked as she also realized this, and saw that Finn had not lied at all.
"No. You're not." Hephaestus conceded as she looked at Tsubaki. "I'm guessing they wanted you to share an expert opinion but you couldn't appraise it right?"
"Nope." Tsubaki shook her head. "I tried. Can't even begin to figure out what this thing is exactly, let alone what it would be worth."
"And so we thought, who better than the goddess Hephaestus herself to tell us the truth behind this weapon." Finn held Fleinn'leptr out. Hephaestus arms floated towards the spear, her fingers shaking in the urge to grab ahold of it, before she warily pulled back a little.
"Can I?" Hephaestus asked tentatively.
"That is why we brought it." Gareth said flatly.
Hephaestus sighed heavily, her chest rocking a little as she hesitated before finally closing her hands around the magnificent spear and pulled it from the Pallum's hands. As soon as she did so, she had the intense inclination to not return it to him, not as a wealth of information flooded her mind about what she was holding and her divine senses went into overdrive, working furiously to figure out the complexities of this new spear.
She inspected it from every angle, brushing her fingers over inch of the long shaft as she breathed heavily.
Finn and Gareth looked at each other with raised eyebrows while Tsubaki let out a strained laugh and shook her head. Hephaestus finally reached the spearhead, the point of which seemed to possess the most concentration of magic and there she tried unravelling the mysterious supernatural power, trying to determine what it meant.
The spearhead suddenly glowed brighter, and that same light travelled down the shaft of the spear, lighting up the notches with glowing light as she made out the runes carved and laid with gem shards. Hephaestus gasped and held it horizontally at length, as her breathing intensified yet again.
"Impossible!" She whispered sharply.
"What?" Finn asked. "What's wrong?"
"These runes." Hephaestus stated as she turned the spear over and over to show them all the runes carved into the side of the spear. "Do you know them Finn? Gareth?"
"No." Finn said as he looked to Gareth. he dwarf also shook his head to clarify that he didn't know the runes either. "No we don't."
"Of course you wouldn't." Hephaestus said. "They are runes not of the mortal world Finn. It's a tongue NONE of you should know. And you tell me that this alleged level 9 forged it for you?"
"He carved it right in front of us, Lady." Gareth said. "More than that, we saw him smash apart gemstones and lay them in those little grooves you're calling runes. What's so special about it."
"It's a language of heaven Gareth, that's what." Tsubaki said as she set the spear upright on the floor. "It is the common runes tongue of Yggdrasil, the realm of heaven that your goddess's Pantheon belongs to. The pantheon of both Freya and Loki, as well as Odin and Thor. It's a written language no mortal hand in this realm has ever drawn, and yet a mere mortal smith knows of it."
"...Okay, that I didn't know." Gareth said as he looked at Finn. "Steve always has a few surprises up his sleeves now doesn't he?"
"Steve?" Hephaestus questioned. "Is that his name?"
"Yes. Stephen Hewer." Finn said. "In all honesty, we don't know much about his past or where he came from. He shares some very incredulous stories, Goddess Hephaestus. But from all that we have seen of him so far and the feats he has pulled off, we can't really find much reason to oppose what he says. After all..." Finn and Gareth shared a look. "...he's shattered our common sense dozens of times in the last two weeks alone."
"Did he say where he learned to make weapons like this?" Hephaestus said. "Did he study under a god? Do you know if any god taught him how to make something like this spear? Because there is no way a mortal learnt this by himself."
"I wouldn't know that." Finn said truthfully. "Even if I did, the Alliance between us and his Familia would forbid me from sharing such information. What I can say though is that he claims to have been an explorer before he came to Orario. Apparently he travelled to distant lands where he fought all kinds of monsters and discovered new arts and practises. I would assume he may have learned this level of craft from a god there if not the one he is serving under at the moment. He only joined a Familia in Orario recently."
"And which god would that be?" Hephaestus asked.
"Oh yeah! I don't think I asked you that myself." Tsubaki said as she placed a hand on her hip and looked at the two men. "Who is the lucky god that scored this level nine."
"Well our goddess seems to be quite afraid of him." Gareth grunted. "A small guy named Ptah if I remember correctly."
"Ptah!" Hephaestus exclaimed. "Small, wears a large shirt and sandals with a shoulder rest? Shaved bald except for a single braid on his head? Golden eyes? That Ptah?"
"I don't think I've ever met another Ptah." Gareth gruffed. "He's one of a kind he is, amongst gods it seems considering how jittery Loki is around him."
"You have very little idea of how much of an understatement that is Elgarm." Hephaestus said.
"You know him too?" Finn asked.
The goddess sighed as she looked back at her desk, thinking back to how only just a few minutes ago, the diminutive god was on her mind, how she was wishing that he would find a Familia for himself. And now it turned out that he had a child who was not only just supposedly the highest level adventurer in all the city but someone who could also create magic weapons that defied reality.
"Ptah is a god of craftsmen." She explained. "That includes blacksmiths, and he was a blacksmith god for even longer than I've existed before the day I was even 'formed'. As a matter of fact, much of what I know right now, I accredit to him because he taught me those secret arts. Beyond that, Ptah is a Primordial and perhaps the strongest one out there all things considered."
Finn and Gareth's jaws dropped open.
"You're telling me that...'kid' god is a Primordial?" Finn exclaimed. "Aren't they supposed to be super old looking? Like Ouranos?"
"Not always." Hephaestus said. "Ptah is one of the few gods who is a completely pure and noble being. Mortal eyes don't really understand what they are seeing when they look upon such a creature, so your brains tell you that you are only seeing a child." Hephaestus sighed and sat in one of her guest seats since she still had not picked her own up. "But make no mistake, these beings come with power exceptional even amongst their peers. Ptah was once so powerful, a singular word from his lips brought Loki's entire Pantheon to it's knees. That's why she's so scared of him."
"...Makes sense." Finn laughed a little nervously. "I guess only a god like that could ever be the patron of a powerhouse like Steve."
"And only someone like Ptah could ever be the patron of someone who could by himself forge weapons like this." Hephaestus held up the spear. "What the runes say is this; 'Fleinn'leptr- May the Arrow of Lightning strike judgement upon those that threaten its Integrity'. Put simply, this Steve wove with magic into this spear a prayer, one that would protect this Alliance you have with him. One that I presume is what this spear is supposed to symbolise?"
"That was the impression." Finn said. "Can you appraise it for us now?"
"Oh Braver." Hephaestus shook her head. "You can't put a price on this thing. It is perhaps the equivalent of a Divine Artifact. The weapon of a god, perhaps."
""WHAT?!!""
The three adventurers shouted at her.
"It's true." Hephaestus said as she stood up again and balanced Fleinn'leptr on her finger. "See? Perfect balance. More than that, the shaft is absolutely free of any impurities. It is simply, 100 percent, pure and refined Orichalcum."
"That's impossible!" Tsubaki exclaimed. "Even the best extraction methods can't remove impurities 100 percent! As a matter of fact, they are what make a weapon more strong and solid."
"Indeed." Hephaestus said. "But this adventurer compensated for that lack of sturdiness by compressing a very large amount of Orichalcum, and tightly compounding it into this shaft. Such quantity of it he's compacted together, it would take physical strength and dexterity unlike any other, perhaps that which only gods are capable of to squeeze all that metal into this tiny shape."
"Well he is very strong." Gareth said. "We saw him lift up the forest on the 18th floor. Then he manhandled all the monster rexes, including Balor with his bare hands like they were petulant children before he made the 49th floor shatter and collapse onto the safe-zone. If awesome physical strength is what you're expecting of him, then he's got it."
"You're kidding." Tsubaki breathed.
"I wish we were." Finn said. "You will have to see his strength to believe it yourself. I bet you if his hands were big enough, he could crush the entire Beol mountain range with one squeeze."
"Now you're just exaggerating." Tsubaki said. Finn just shrugged.
...
If only they knew how much of a lowball that estimation was. Little did they know that Steve in his Creative mode had the physical strength needed to squeeze their entire universe like a lemon if his hands were big enough.
...
"More than that though is this." Hephaestus continued as she pointed at the spearhead. "You know what this is Tsubaki? Gentleman?"
"It's a gemstone." Tsubaki said while the other two nodded. "At first I thought it was a crystal but now I'm not so sure."
"Children, this is a diamond." Hephaestus said plainly.
""...What?"" They chorused again.
"Yes. A diamond big enough to act as a spearhead. Have you any concept of the worth of this spearhead alone? The whole city's wealth put together would not be enough to afford this spearhead Braver." The goddess said eerily as Finn's blood began to run cold all of a sudden.
"And that's not even the best of it." Hephaestus said. "The magic woven into this is something completely new. It penetrates every atom in this spear, but it is so different to everything we know."
"Oh yeah. You said something about foreign magic when we came in." Tsubaki recalled. "What did you mean by that?"
"I assume that this Steve would want it under wraps, given the implications of what I'm about to reveal to you." Hephaestus said as she leaned forwards while lowering her voice, the adventurers mirroring her. "The magic in this spear...is not of this world. This type of magical energy, this signature, the operations of it...does not belong to the mortal world or any realm in heaven. It has absolutely nothing in common with any of us, god or mortal. It is simply...otherworldly."
"...What are you saying?" Finn asked. "What does that mean?"
"...If he hasn't told you, then I assume he doesn't want you to know." Hephaestus straightened her back again. "But you will soon enough. Finn, the enchantment on this spear is conditional. It doesn't channel ordinary lightning magic. It will force Nature itself to strike lightning down on your enemy. In other words, it will call upon the lightning of the gods to smite your enemy. That spell alone is priceless, because it seems to me that the level of enchantment here is a one-hit-kill regardless of who your enemy is." Hephaestus finished off with her last statement. "Loki Familia, your captain wields such a treasure, every kingdom, every nation in the world, even if they were to put all their treasures together, they could not afford this spear. For it is a Durandal weapon that can never be damaged, is true to its mark, loyal to its wielder, made from the finest materials and is imbued with supernatural power only the gods can bring forth. THAT is my appraisal."
.
.
.
"Holy sh*t." Finn swore to the surprise of them all since it was not a habit of the Pallum's. The Loki Familia captain himself swayed a little in his standing position as the weight of Hephaestus's words hit him and he realized what he had been carrying in his hands for the past few days. "I knew this was a valuable and exceptional weapon...just watching it being created was amazing enough...but to this extent? Steve...what in the name of Fianna ARE you?"
"Boss..." Tsubaki breathed. "Weapons like that?...He's going to crash the whole market! More than that, if it ever got out that he's able to make such things, Orario will be at WAR. Every nation will be banging at our doorstep because they will NEVER tolerate the existence of such things. Our own Familia already walks on thin ice with Elven nations because of you-know-who in our Familia. If they ever got even a whiff of THIS..."
"I have to meet with him." Hephaestus stated as she handed the spear back to a numb Finn. "I have to go and speak to Ptah as well. I need to see how he does it!"
"HEPHY!" Tsubaki chided. "Haven't you been listening?!"
"I heard you." Hephaestus said. "But such information will only be harmful if it slips past our lips. These two are bound by an Alliance so they can't say anything. We don't have to say anything either. But you are right, they will run our businesses to the ground if they were to just hand out weapons like this so freely. But I'm sure nobody would be that careless."
"Let me guess, you want an alliance with them too?" Tsubaki asked. "Even if you want to go now, look at all the work you have to do." The half-dwarf pointed to the table where stacks of papers lay.
"Who said I was going now?" Hephaestus without looking pulled a letter of her table with the seal of the Ganesha Familia on it. "Have you forgotten what tonight is?"
"The party!" Finn said. "Loki's going there with Ais tonight. You want to meet them there?"
"Of course." Hephaestus giggled a bit. "Knowing Ptah, he'll be there just for the party food. And since this is one where you bring a member of your Familia along, he'll have to bring the only Familia member he's got...I'm assuming Stephen Hewer is his only child, correct?"
"To our knowledge, yes." Gareth nodded. "You women don't need to be afraid of anything. Steve is a reasonable person and he's very friendly. He's not like all the other powerful adventurers of the past. He's very open and always willing to give his ear to learned people. I think you'll like him."
"Tsubaki?" Hephaestus looked at her own Captain.
The half-dwarf sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Why not? I usually hate those kind of parties, but I am interested in meeting this guy, so what the hells? Let's just go."
"Great." Hephaestus said before she looked over the three. "It goes unsaid that what we discussed stays in this room, right?"
They nodded in response. Of course they would shut up about it. The last thing they needed was a political hullaballoo shaking Orario to it's core. The emergence of a new level 9 already had people shaking in their seats as demands of a War Game continued to fly into the mailboxes of powerful Familia around the city, mainly the Freya Familia's since the Loki Familia bore witness on him.
The knowledge that said level 9 could create god level weapons would do very well to stay under the rug for now...because the gamer was going to pull the rug off the whole thing anyway at his own appointed time.
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A few shorter chapters from this point on. Not really sure when the the next long chapter is but these chapters are still longer that what I used to do in the past.
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