It was five days later when Arwin finished his first Core. It was one of the most simultaneously difficult and straightforward projects he’d ever worked on. The constraints on it were so general, so indeterminate, that he had no idea what would work or what wouldn’t. All he knew was that he needed a heart for his Soul Guardians. A source that was more than just power. It had to be an artificial soul. He knew how to make an item with a soul. He’d made one for Reya. The only difference was that he had to make one for a suit of armor instead. In theory, it shouldn’t have been too different. Things were more than a bit harder in practice. The core was meant to be part of a larger being. It was simultaneously a piece of the guardian and also its own item. Arwin couldn’t just stick one of his own hairs into it, but he couldn’t just modify the suit of armor made from the Ivory Executioner Armor and add the core in. The armor had to serve the role that Reya did, providing him with energy and giving him a way to make the item its own item. Figuring out how to do that took Arwin three of the four days. He spent practically every waking moment he had in the Infernal Armory, emerging only to get food for it and himself and to sleep. He spoke with everyone in the Menagerie to see if they had advice. Wallace swung by at one point and lent him a few pointers on working with more intelligent items, but in the end, the solution turned out to be far simpler than Arwin had thought. Every step he’d tried had been one where he tried to replace the source of power that Reya had provided for her item. After all, he’d been convinced that no piece of metal could ever actually provide magic. That was his job. Metal was nothing but that. Metal. He sat in an endless white void, clad in nothing but plain gray robes. There was no end to the infinite plane. It was just… white. White that stretched on as far as the eye could see. Even his mind felt still. There was no panic. No stress. No worry. He could still feel them lurking beneath the surface, but every emotion seemed to have had a thick, wet blanket thrown over them. A man stood before him where there had been nothing. There was nothing about the man that could have been adequately described. He was of average height, with average posture and features. His hair was the kind that could blend into any crowd and his skin could have been any color or none at all. There wasn’t a single discernable feature on his face. Arwin could have sworn that the man’s appearance was constantly changing, and yet, when he squinted, it was the same as it had always been. “What is this?” Arwin asked. His words sounded strange to his ears, as if someone else had spoken them. A flicker of panic broke through the wall that blocked him from his emotions. “Am I…” “Dead?” the man asked, the corner of a lip pulling up in the faintest bit of amusement. His voice was vaguely melodic, and a distant part of Arwin’s mind noted that he would probably be a fantastic singer. “What do you think?” “I’d certainly hope not. I was really busy, and there’s still too much I have to do with Lillia. We’ve only slept together a few times, you know. I want to taste more of her cooking. I want to see monster towns with her. I want to do everything with her. She’d be really damn pissed at me if I killed myself making an item. The rest of the Menagerie, too. I can’t die right now.” “I think I might have dialed the haze up a bit too much,” the man said, extending a hand toward Arwin. Something popped in the back of his head. Arwin drew in a sharp breath and staggered. “You were a little too loopy. That’s what happens when you get slammed with that much magical energy at once, but you didn’t give me much choice.” “I — what?” Arwin shook his head. “Hold on. Am I dead? I can’t be dead! I —” “Please, Arwin.” The main raised his hands. “Relax. You aren’t dead.” “Oh, thank god.” Arwin blew out a relieved breath. The panic had gripped him so suddenly that it had threatened to choke him on the spot. “Where is this, then? What’s going on? Who are you?” “One thing at a time. You’re still in the Infernal Armory. We’re just having a little discussion inside your soul. You’ll be back to the real world soon enough.” “Are you the item I just made?” The man let out a soft laugh. “That would have been interesting. No, you aren’t quite at that level yet. You could not make something like me. But we do have something important to discuss.” “About you.” The man crossed his arms behind his back. “You’ve put me in quite the conundrum.” “You first,” the man said. “I’ll give you a question at the end of our discussion. I’d say you deserve it at this point. Really, you’ve been fascinating. But I have other tasks I am called to do. I can’t sit around here forever, so we’ll have to solve your little conundrum quickly.” “My… what now? I’m still not sure what’s going on.” “You did too much,” the man said flatly. “You shouldn’t have been able to make that Core, Arwin. It was too early. Reflecting someone’s soul into a weapon… that’s in your power. Well done, by the way. But what you’ve just done was creating a soul.” Arwin stared in disbelief. “What? But that’s impossible. I can’t—” “Oh, it’s quite possible. It’s not a soul in the manner that you’re thinking. A soul is a bundle of beliefs and goals. Love and hate and life. That sort of thing is borne of desire and experience… and power. A great amount of power. Armor for Olive… you could have made that. But this? It should have been beyond you.” “But it wasn’t?” Arwin asked carefully, still completely lost. “I succeeded?” “You succeeded. You had a little help. Help I didn’t foresee.” “You didn’t foresee?” Arwin’s brow furrowed and he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers as he tried to force his muddy brain to work. “From who?” The presence I felt? And how does this guy know so much about me? Who is he? Hell, how is he in my soul? “That’s not a question for me to answer.” The man shook his head. “It doesn’t matter who. What matters is that you succeeded. That’s an immense accomplishment. One that cannot be handled so simply.”