The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Headless Over Heels.

Welcome to day 2! For the next couple weeks, it’ll be one chapter a day for HoH while I chase that Rising Star dragon.

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(...)

“Couldn’t expect you to swing the headtaker around in a pinch. Only reason I do it is so it can harvest hexis, and I’m stingy about letting the stuff go to waste. If it’s not the Verdugo sword it doesn’t count, y’see. Otherwise, I’d keep the fuckin’ thing in the carriage. Or an attic.”

“It does seem cumbersome.”

“Now this little beauty.” She plucked her side sword from the ground. “This is a sword. Got it forged custom in—hmm.” She took it by the blade and squinted at its handle. “That a tooth, you think?”

Seth squinted. “Maybe a piece of one.”

Annalise flicked one of her knives from her baldrick and set about prying the sliver from her sidesword’s handle. “I talked with Charlie about reforging the two-hander into something less stupid a few times. I mean, wouldn’t a nice hand-and-a-half suit better than a fuckoff bluntheaded fucker? Takes a head just as clean if you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Anyway he said awh well ya know Annalise ‘tis a relic from a Promethean age of yadda yadda. And they’re afraid to touch it.” Annalise replaced her dagger and dug the splinter the rest of the way out with two fingers. “Definitely a tooth.”

“Charlie?”

She buckled her sidesword back on. “Charles il Nekropoli, Fifth Sorcerer-General of the United Legion Territories.”

“You call the Sorcerer General Charlie?”

“When I wanna impress muddy little cutpurses, I do.”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...62/19-crud
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2387841/