12 Miles Below

"Did you call for assistance?” An older lady asked, walking up to greet me.

I turned, giving a respectful bow back to the librarian. “Yes, yes I did. I’m looking for access to the software database.”

Last time I only had partial access to the common items. Today, I had walked into that library with my armor. Which meant I was implicitly allowed far more lienance.

The clan library wasn’t very large, a few dozen shelves all lined up carrying older books. I’d spent a good portion of my youth loitering around here. Further out in the next room were a mix of tables and seats in an oddly spacious room compared to the rest of the smaller more compact architecture. There, scavengers of all castes came together to study for different tests or challenges in their respective fields.

It was a cozy place, not quite as opulent as the bath, but still wide and large in its own way. The real size of the library lay hidden inside the terminals however. Inside those, there would be treasures collected over time. The most prized were 3D printing files of various kinds, which were highly controlled. The more exotic files required a librarian to carry the data and supervise the construction. They took their work seriously.

“Master knight, what kind of data are you searching for?” The old librarian asked, clearly used to dealing with knight retainers given the calm in her voice. There was a glint in her eye, almost as if challenging me. No free meals here, my status was not going to make anything easier.

“I’m looking for history on experiments done to examine the Occult weapons.” I said.

That caught her by surprise. Not every day a knight asks for Reacher scrapshit. She recovered quickly, furrowing her brows in thought. “Hmm, not many answers for that master knight. Those aren’t studied every day you know.”

I shrugged at that. “The clan’s old. Surely a few people have tried their hands at figuring out what makes these knives tick.”

She gave a wan smile, the kind given to children. “I’m sure the archives will have a log or two. I’ll go search for it now.”

“Please, I would appreciate it.” I answered back, following behind as she made her way to a terminal.

It has been three days of nearly non-stop work on that knife. I didn’t expect any easy answers of course, I haven’t yet started the batch of more intrusive or outright destructive tests into it just yet. This was the research phase, where I was coming up with a list of possible ways the warlocks could have been sneaky about this.

The obvious first idea to hit my head was that these blades were two separate plates of metal, with one side inscribed with the fractal and then both sides welded together, then polished up to hide the welding. That seemed too simple and easy of a solution.

No, if I were a warlock, it wouldn’t be enough to just hide the fractal. I had to make sure that if anyone tried to sniff it out by testing the blade that the fractal would be either impossible to notice or otherwise erased some way before the tester could reach it.

My running theory was that they’d used two different metal types. The center core would be created of a metal with a high melting temperature, and inscribed with the fractal. Afterwhich, the warlocks would bring out a second metal with a far lower melting temperature and dip the blade into that. The result would be brought out, cooled and then polished up.

If they made the metals to have the same coloration, then the inscription would be completely invisible to the eye. The only issue with that theory is that reversing it would be simple as well - heat up the blade until the weaker metal turns to liquid and flows off, revealing the stronger metal and the fractal as well.

So while this method would hide the fractal correctly, it would not destroy or prevent the fractal from being found if someone got lucky with the strategies. And there could be lost tech that was made to scan metal alloys to discover their composition, those tools would certainly discover two different metals stuck together.

An alternate theory is that the warlocks understood the inscription doesn’t need to be visible to human eyesight, which means any method of forming the pattern would work. It could be sand of some kind perfectly trapped in the right shape and contained by the metal. Once the metal is breached in some way, the sand flows out and breaks the pattern.

For example, a disk of thin white sand with black sand forming the fractal. And then held in place by metal pressing down. The moment that pressure lessens, the sand moves around and the fractal is broken. That sort of convoluted system would open up a lot of problems, but this was just an off the cuff example.

There were too many ways these warlocks had setup their fractal, and I only had one knife. So the tests I made needed to be carefully considered.

“I have three logs of past attempts to discover the secrets of the blades.” The old librarian said, pulling out a small slate with the files loaded into them. “One of the logs comes from outside the clan that was purchased at a heavy price, one from a hobbyist and the last from a group of Reachers who pooled together their wealth in order to take a shot at the mystery.”

“Given we’re not producing the blades, I’m assuming all three failed.” I said, absentmindedly examining the slate she was fiddling with.

“Unfortunately. The hobbyist quit early, too afraid to destroy his knife. The other two logs went to the very end, and then continued with a full autopsy of their destroyed knives. I suppose I don’t need to remind you that this information is highly classified and a treasure that belongs to the clan.”

Information was wealth. If the other clans wanted to take a look at these records, they would need to pay a fee for it. In a way, this was currency, given freely to me out of trust stemming from my station.

The librarian handed me a slate, filled with text. I’d be expected to take that and find a seat in the library and by law I would not be allowed to take this slate anywhere outside the library. “You’ll need to remove your helmet before I can let you read off the slate.” She said.

“Uh, sure.” One armored hand reached out and unclasped the helmet. “Might I know why? I’m a fairly new knight.”

The air was warmer in here, it softly licked at my cheeks. The heaters were kept online through the day, even into the night. There were plenty of people who would spend entire nights studying here.

“It is well known that armors can record video. Would defeat the point of security if you could simply take photos of the slate’s contents.” She chuckled. “Do not take it as a personal slight, master knight. Such is the way things are.”

I gave the old lady a nod, bowing a respectable length. “You have my word, these logs will only be read by me. I don’t mean to have been discourteous, only temporarily ignorant.”

“Such a respectable young knight,” The librarian mused, patting the side of my shoulder fondly. “Speaking of that, please let the other knight of your house know we look forward to his next visit and miss him.”

“Other knight?” I asked, confused.

She pointed at the red sigil on my armor. “That mark there, that’s your house’s insignia, is it not? There was only one other knight that had such a sigil and was a regular here. Not many knights visit the library, so the staff know well the ones that do come.”

Father.

“I… yes... do you know what he looked for?” I asked out of sheer morbid curiosity. I hadn’t pictured him to be much of a reader.

“I remember when I was younger, he’d come in looking for combat manuals and other techniques past warriors wrote out. He’d spend hours reading through those, very studious and dedicated. At least for a few years. He stopped coming in for about a decade, so I suppose he’d read all the manuals we had. Recently, he’d made a return again and become an occasional regular the last three years. His tastes had changed dramatically from combat however.”

“Changed? How so?”

She chuckled at that. “More like you, master knight. Looking into Reacher books.”

There was a pit in my stomach I was pointedly ignoring. “Do… Do you have an example?”

She hummed, turning back to the console and searching through the archives. “He always checked out pairs of books. Let me see what he last brought out… Ah, here they are. ‘The art and secrets of fabric.’ A book that explains different fashions currently in use, their histories and how to tell high quality goods from poor ones. The other book he checked out was ‘An Introduction to electrical knowledge, ninth edition.’ A book written by one of our more famous Reachers from a few decades ago. Considered a cornerstone for electrical engineering, an excellent primer for the youth.”

“I’m familiar with that title.” I said, almost nostalgic. That book had been among the first books Anarii had ordered me to read if I wanted to ‘muck around with his scrapshit.’ It had been written specifically for younger kids, ages ten to fifteen.

The librarian quirked her head to the side. “Oh, you are familiar with that one, are you? How curious. Two knights of the same house dabbling in odder items. I certainly won’t stop anyone from expanding their horizons, though I fail to see how such books would assist in your particular duties as a knight. Others might look down on you for it.”

Shrugging, I gave her a wan smile to keep appearances. “I guess people from my house have strange hobbies. Thank you for your help.” I managed to say, my voice almost cracking for a moment before I got control again. “I might return here for more information later. I’ll… I’ll pass on your words to him when I see him.”

She nodded at that, oblivious. “May the winds be kind to you both, master knight.”

I bowed politely and made my way out of the library, into one of the study coves, walking past the tables and studying clan members, ignoring all the glances being sent my way. The quiet atmosphere, calm and gentle here. I wondered if Father had stood where I did. Or where he had sat down to study. Had he a favorite spot to sit? Was he trying to read these books to understand me better, or for another reason?

I found a seat, then placed the tablet in front and activated it. The logs of past occult tests were all here, and my eyes scanned over them absentmindedly.

It took a while before I could read even the first words written down.

The logs were a treasure trove of information. Smarter people than I had spent months trying to crack the secrets of the Occult blades, and they’d tried dozens of different tests. Certainly saved me a lot of time.

The first logs were from an Othersider of some kind who had tried to solve the occult knife mysteries. From the context clues, he had been a trader of some kind peddling exotic goods between the surface and the undersider cities and was good friends with a metalsmith.

The two decided they had a good shot of possibly cracking the code. At great expense, they procured a blade and set to work on it.

The pair had first exposed the knife blade to some kind of X-ray, using the results to detect metal compositions. With the trader’s connections, they’d been able to dig out a machine specifically made for spectrogramy of metals.

The result had been somewhat conclusive. The majority of the blade was forged of a mix of metals which the metalsmith had concluded were mostly tin, some copper, and trace amounts of antimony. The uniformity in the metal’s composition suggested the metal had been directly printed as is, rather than separately produced and mixed at a later date.

He called the composition pewter. A metal that had a low melting temperature and was far softer compared to other metals like steel. This made it ideal for crafting jewelry, though certainly not a good pick for a knife. The metal had low durability and could be bent easily if hit hard enough.

There was a thin plating of nickel, which the metalsmith determined was likely done for cosmetic reasons using electroplating techniques.

The metal smith had done more tests on the blade, finding out that the voltage needed to pass through the tang of the metal specifically relatively quickly into the experiments. The pair had been detailed enough to document the limit point where electrical currents became too weak to trigger the blade. Low, but not to an insane degree either. About fourteen millivolts as they discovered. Talen hadn’t even mentioned something like that.

The blade could be cut into smaller pieces, and the new edges would still light up and cut correctly - so long as they were connected to the hilt piece. That part, the logs cited an older experiment run by a different clan, one I had no access to.

They kept coming back to the tang being the linchpin that held everything together. And they were onto something, since I knew already whatever fractal powered these weapons, it was housed inside the hilt’s center.

The duo continued, welding new metal pieces to the blade and testing the effects. So long as there was a steep enough angle for an edge, the blade would incorporate the new metal parts as part of itself. They took their time and meticulously recorded progress.

Rounding out an edge caused the blade to simply stop functioning after a certain threshold was passed. The fractal was clearly ambivalent to the type of metal as many different variations were used in those tests without issue. The metalsmith concluded the material of the blade likely didn’t have anything to do with the function and was most likely the warlocks being more economical in using an easy to work with metal. After all, the blade cuts through anything without resistance when powered on. It didn’t need to be greatly durable.

The length of the blue occult edge could only be extended a certain amount, after which the blade would refuse to function until it had been reduced in length. Width of the occult weapon counted, so the pair had concluded there was only a certain amount of ‘surface area’ that the weapon could cut. Increasing the voltage and current sent through did not have any effects on this limitation. However, they theorized that making the blade more thin and making the tang more thin as well would give more surface area to work with. They weren’t willing to do anything to the tang just yet.

Making the blade wider would do odd and unpredictable things to the Occult edge, warping it’s path. The ultimate theory on that is that the ‘magic’ of the hilt would always try to create a closed loop of the destructive occult edge, on the smallest side possible.

Having run out of non-destructive tests, they moved on hesitantly to the next part.

They began to grind down the hilt, centimeter by centimeter, first peeling off the nickel plating and then slowly stripping away pewter. Keeping the blade lit up the whole while and hoping they’d notice something inside or at least have video footage of where the point of no return was.

They’d removed only a few centimeters of metal before the whole blade instantly died off.

After which the pair had tried to figure out what caused the issue, trying all kinds of odd tests and examinations to no avail. The fractal pattern had been broken by their grinding somehow, and they hadn’t been aware of that. When I’d frozen the prior images, the cross section looked clean with small coloration changes sprinkled a little all over the metal with no rhyme or reason that I could tell. The poor duo had absolutely no chance to figure it out from there on.

The second contender that tried to unravel the Occult blades had been a knight himself, from House Ironreach, though his bones were long ago buried by now. He had set out with the goal not to discover the secrets of the occult, but instead to shift his knife into a longsword.

On that part, he’d been lucky. His logs included the same findings as the pair before him, discovering that the actual blade could be worked on without issue. He’d added additional metal, made the blade edge more thin and the project was a success. Wisly picking to run with his winnings, he didn’t mess around with the weapon further, leaving it working.

An additional note had been added at a later time, that the blade had snapped during a mission where it took a blow on the flat of the blade. The tip was ripped off and stopped working, but the hilt and remaining broken blade simply continued to function with the Occult edge lining the broken parts instead. He also noted that the blade still worked while bent, before it had been snapped.

The last group had been the most scientifically accurate group, a full team of Reachers who had been subsidized by the clan lord about a hundred and ten years ago. They’d quickly discovered the same as the past logs had, and then continued to do experiments.

They’d gone further than the first pair, finding that the tang showed signs of heat deformities after they'd tested thermal imaging while running electrical currents through the metal. They speculated that the pewter hadn’t been created wholesale, but piece by piece. Giving the pewter hilt plenty of time to cool off in between each application. They'd subjected the tang to dozens of more tests, anywhere from acid baths to spectrogram.

Unfortunately, their sword stopped working during a harsher heat treatment, when they were experimenting on getting information from compression. With nothing left working, the team cut the tang into slices and tried to see if any of the slices had anything different that had somehow fooled their sensors.

Results were worthless to them, there was nothing other than oddly tempered pewter in every slice. And that was that, they logged their results, and mourned the loss of their investment.

I’d spent four hours studying this slate, my eyes were shot. Sitting up, I made my way back to the old librarian and surrendered the logs.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” She asked, wiping the data off the slate and storing it in the cabinets behind her.

“It gave me a few more directions to experiment on, and let me know what not to do.”

She chuckled at that. “I imagine that last bit is the most important one. Please feel free to return to the archives whenever you wish, master knight.”

The walk home was slow and steady. My predecessors had broken their weapons, one by grinding down and hitting the fractal in some way, and the other by compressing the fractal inside somehow. They’d all concluded that the entire hilt was made of pewter, which meant the fractal has to be made of that too.

Somehow the warlocks had figured out a way to hide a pewter fractal and encase it into pewter. The only hint was that the metal showed signs of temperature deformities, that it hadn’t been done all at once.

My thought was that they’d engraved the fractal on a pewter plate, then filled the grooves with more pewter, slowly covering the rest of the engraving. Reality didn’t care if a human would think that’s illegal, it would see a disturbance in the pewter in the shape of the fractal and that would be that.

After covering the inscriptions, they would continue to melt pewter in covering up the whole, likely deforming the surface layer of the fractal as a cost but leaving the deeper furrows untouched and working.

The only issue with that theory was how the first duo had grinded down the tang slowly until it stopped working all of a sudden. Had the tang followed my plan, the original inscription would have been deep so that the pewter wouldn’t deform the engraving. Grinding down, they would have hit a point where Occult blue would start showing, and that would certainly cause the pair to start a whole new operation.

Instead, the grinding had instantly cut the fractal’s power, without even a hint of Occult glow to point out the fractal itself. Somehow the entire fractal had broken apart before being noticed.

All this was a moot point however. I already knew how they had hidden their fractal the moment I saw the blade die.

There was really only one way they could have done that: The bastards had put the fractal in at an angle.

Next chapter - The first blade of House Winterscar

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