The roaring rustle of a forest clearing greeted Arwin as his eyes opened. Towering trees rose all around him, their shadows dancing to the tune of the wind. Blood-red sunlight cast the world around him in crimson hues and the smell of viscera and carrion hung in the air. It was a familiar stench. One that Arwin had been subject to many times before, and one that he’d hoped to never smell again. The rancid mark of war. The mark of a corpse-splattered battlefield. But there were no bodies. There was no blood, and there were no dead men. There was only the forest and the clearing around him. A vision — but he’d never gotten one before he’d made an item. Something was off. Arwin’s hands tightened and he instinctively called for Verdant Inferno. The hammer didn’t respond. His palms found nothing but his fingers. There was no sign of his armor or equipment either. Arwin stood alone, clad in only plain clothes. He turned in a circle and scanned his surroundings. There was nothing. The back of his neck prickled. Something was different. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just the sickly colors of the light. This was different from previous visions he’d had. Arwin glanced over his shoulder. He backed up until he was pressed against a tree, peeled his ears in search of a presence that his eyes had failed to see. Before, his visions had immediately tested his strength. They’d fought to break him. To find a way to force him to give in with relentless, mindless power. It had been a straight forward challenge of will. But now, the forest simply waited. “What are you hiding from?” Arwin asked, his voice carving through the rustling wind like an executioner’s blade. The wind ground to a halt. The sounds of the forest vanished in a split instant. It was so quiet that Arwin could hear the beat of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. His fists tightened at his sides. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, preparing to burst into motion the moment — A tree shattered. Fragments of wood spun through the air and a heavy step slammed into the dirt behind him. Arwin flung himself into a dive. He hit the ground in a roll and shot to his feet, spinning just in time to see massive claws wrap around the thick trunk. Wood crunched and splintered around them. I need my equipment. I can’t fight like — A claw swept through the air. Arwin was forced to fling himself to safety once more. [Scourge] was beyond his reach. None of his abilities worked. His titles were blocked. It was nothing but him versus the Wyrm, and he was at every single disadvantage. The claw crashed into the ground right behind him. Arwin rose, but the Wyrm didn’t let him recover. It lurched forward and its jaws yawned open. For a brief instant, they locked eyes. Then its mouth snapped shut around him. There was no time to dodge. Arwin thrust his hands out with a roar. Fangs drove into his palms. His blood sizzled as it contacted the Wyrm’s saliva. Tremors shook his arms as he fought desperately to keep the monster’s jaws from closing on his body. His teeth clenched so tightly that he could taste blood in his mouth and the back of his throat. I need my equipment. I can’t win the fight — but I’ll be damned if I give up. Arwin reared back and drove his foot into the Wyrm’s tongue. The monster let out a surprised hiss. The pressure on him relented for an instant. He flung himself back, ripping his arms free of the teeth impaling them. The Wyrm’s mouth slammed closed on nothing but air. Blood splattered across the ground and he landed on his back with a pained grunt. He rolled to the side. One of the monster’s huge paws slammed into the ground where he’d been. The other crashed down before he could move, driving him into the dirt and knocking free what little breath remained in his lungs. Its claws closed around him like a cage. Arwin grabbed at them, his blood smearing across their surface and making his grip slick. He strained, letting out a roar of defiance, but the Wyrm didn’t budge. It was too heavy — too strong. The Wyrm’s head lowered. Its lips pulled back in a sneer. Arwin could still see red on the monster’s teeth from where it had bit him just moments before. That wasn’t going to work a second time. His muscles just didn’t have the strength. He couldn’t win . There had to be more. Arwin wasn’t a warrior anymore. He was a smith. His power was his equipment and his allies, but here, he had neither. Verdant Blaze wouldn’t answer to his call. His armor was silent, and nobody could enter the vision to save him. A final, hissing laugh slipped from the Wyrm’s scarred throat. It lifted its claw. Its head shot down. He lifted his arms before him, left with no option but to attempt to block once more as he desperately called out to his equipment. And, in the instant that the Wyrm’s jaws started to shut, a faint response tickled the back of Arwin’s mind. It was distant. Foreign. But it was something, and he drew on it with the strength of a drowning man clutching onto a thrown rope. Something blurred before him. A weight affixed itself to his left arm. The monster’s hot, rancid breath washed over him and its mouth snapped shut. Its teeth never found their mark. A loud clang echoed through the clearing. The Wyrm screamed in pain, one of its fangs cracked straight down the middle. Blood poured from its lips like saliva. It staggered back, whipping its head in pain and fury, sending blood splattering in every direction. Arwin stared down in surprise. Attached to his arm was a deep blue tower shield easily as tall as he was. It was rectangular, with two extended flaps on its sides that stretched past his sides when he positioned it directly before himself. The shield’s surface was completely plain and without design. But, affixed directly in its center was a single, brilliant green Wyrm scale. A dim link to the shield hummed in the back of Arwin’s mind. It felt like an extension of his body, but there was more. Curiosity flowed down their connection. Not from him, but from the shield. A slow smile crossed over Arwin’s features. A test. The shield — or perhaps the scale itself — wanted to see what he was capable of. What he could do without it, and what he could do with it. “So that’s how it is?” Arwin asked, driving the shield down into the ground and pulling himself to his feet. The Wyrm hissed at him, uncertainty and anger playing through its dead eyes. It recognized the scale — knew where it had come from. Despite the monster’s anger, it made no move forward. It was scared. Arwin shifted from foot to foot as he adjusted to the weight of the shield. He’d never used anything quite this large, but it had quite a satisfying heft to it. It felt right, which was quite odd. The item didn’t even exist. He hadn’t made it yet. But, as Arwin stood across from the Wyrm, understanding slowly settled in. This was a vision. All that mattered here was will. His will. The Wyrm’s will — and the will of the Cursed item that he was forging. They were all testing each other. What existed in the real world didn’t matter. Here, all that mattered was what had been and what could be. “You want to see what I can do with you, do you?” Arwin asked the shield.