The Unmaker

It wasn’t until another whole week passed that Dahlia banged on the doors of the town chief’s house in the middle of the day, glaring up at the scorching sun and tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for someone to answer the door.

When Dahlia saw it was the little girl who pulled the door open, hobbling on one foot with the chief standing right behind, her face immediately lit up with excitement—with all four arms, she scooped up the little girl and bowed to the chief, closing her eyes briefly.

“Can I… um, I’ll come back with your daughter in a bit!” she said, lifting her head to steal a glance at the chief; naturally, the mother had a worried look on her face. “If you want to watch, though, that’s alright as well! I’ll be in the forge, so… come whenever you want! I promise I won’t disappoint!”

“And what… are you planning on doing with my daughter?” the chief asked, brows furrowing. “You sound feverish. You look dehydrated. Come inside, and I can serve you something cool to drink while you–”

“It’ll just be thirty minutes! I promise I’ll be back!”

Frankly, she was on too much of a high to wait any longer. While Alice was still busy building a trap in the undertown ruin and ignoring her, she’d done nothing the past week but working in Smith Jaleel’s forge, trying to figure out why her blood could dye insect parts gold… and she’d just managed to work it out with Eria an hour ago. If she sat down and unwound now, she’d probably fall asleep, and if that happened, she feared she’d lose her ‘iron fingers’ from having spent the entire week working with blistering hot insect parts.

It was really just going to be thirty minutes.

So, without letting the chief finish, she whirled and raced back towards the forge with the little girl in her arms. There were shouts behind her and the sounds of guards racing out the neighbouring houses to support the chief, but she was faster. She left a small sandstorm in her wake as she kicked through the streets, reminding herself to apologise profusely to everyone she passed by later—for just this one hour before noon, Smith Jaleel was kind enough to close off the forge for public visit so she could have the tools all to herself. She had to make this time count.

[Well, it is not as much that he is ‘kind’ as you are annoying, pestering him to let you use his forge in the middle of the day,] Eria muttered, as the little girl buried her face in Dahlia’s shoulder and tried not to get too much sand in her eye; Dahlia would apologise to her, too, for kidnapping her afterwards.

I’ll pay him back later for the number of customers he would’ve usually gotten in this one hour! It’s no problem!

[That would come out to fifteen hundred silvers. Do you have that much?]

…

[Better make this hour count, then.] Eria sighed. [You could just as easily wait twelve hours and do this in the middle of the night when you would not be disturbing his business, but… well. I can understand the sentiment of wanting to work when you are still in the ‘zone’.]

Eria’s word of encouragement gave her a bit of confidence as she bounded up the stairs to Smith Jaleel’s forge. The burly man was already waiting there, sitting on his workbench with his arms crossed. He looked pointedly at the clock dangling at the doorway as though to say her hour began ten minutes ago, to which she simply returned a grateful nod, gently letting the little girl off on the other workbench she’d pushed to the centre of the forge.

She’d taken the soft bedding from her own room to wrap around the workbench, and hopefully it was more comfortable than the bare wooden table she’d made the little girl lie on in Safi’s tavern. Comfort really wasn’t the highest priority, again, but the forging process was going to take about thirty minutes—she wanted the little girl to watch her the entire time, and, preferably, the chief as well. She didn’t want anyone having any doubts about what she was doing.

With the little girl placed softly onto the workbench and told by Smith Jaleel to stay still, she whirled around the centre of the forge, checking to see if all the necessary parts were here.

Giant locust plates sitting on the ground, check.

Tongs and knives hanging off hooks on the walls, check.

Bright orange flames in the furnace, check.

A bucket filled with quenching oil right next to the anvil, check.

Everything was ready.

[… Beginning construction of locust prosthetic leg, seventh prototype, version twenty-eight,] Eria said, projecting the exact dimensions of the little girl’s current prosthetic onto the anvil next to her. [Good luck, Dahlia Sina.]

And then she was off.

Right as the chief and her guards stepped into the forge, she yanked out four long tongs and grabbed four plates of giant locust chitin off the ground with each of her arms, sticking all of them into the furnace at the same time. The flames were strong, but not strong enough. She turned the tongs around as she stomped on the bellows with all her might, sweat dripping down her brows, her face covered in grime and soot—well, she hadn’t washed herself off for two days straight—and she focused on heating each plate evenly, making sure the flames could get into every nook and cranny and turn the plates bright red. This was the first vital step; if the heat wasn’t just right, the plates wouldn’t soften properly.

Tell me when the temperature is just right, she thought, gritted her teeth as she tried not to focus on the heat spreading through the chitin, through the tongs, and then up into her arms. Not one minute longer, not one second longer.

[Counting down from five minutes.]

Four.

[Three.]

Two.

[One.]

[Now.]

Five minutes of intense bellows stomping passed. She yanked all four plates out of the fire and slammed them down onto the same anvil with a spark of embers, making the chief and the guards flinch; the little girl’s eyes, however, were wide and glimmering. Dahlia smiled softly at the little girl before looking down at Eria’s projection of the prosthetic leg she had to make. It wasn’t exactly like a human leg—the foot was flat and clawed like a locust’s tarsus—but there was no point in making a prosthetic out of insect parts if she was just going to make it completely humanlike.

So, while the plates were still glowing red, she sucked in a sharp breath and smashed them all together with her bare hands.

Instant pain.

They weren’t nine hundred degrees hot, but they were close. She almost flailed and jerked her hands away, but if she did that, she’d fling them all around and hurt everyone around her—she’d most certainly reeled away dozens upon dozens of times the past week while she was practising and experimenting, and it never got easier. Not even once.

‘Ease’ had nothing to do with what she was resolved to do.

Steam sputtered from her palms as she gritted her teeth and pushed through the pain, moulding the malleable plates, working them into a giant glowing ball before stretching it out into the approximate length of the prosthetic leg. It was just like Safi pulling hard candy right out of the fire, and only the Great Makers knew how many hours she’d spent watching him work in the kitchen when she wasn’t working in the forge. From her shoulders down to her elbows and down to the tip of her claws, she controlled the shape of the malleable chitin with her fingers, pulling here, pushing there, carving off excess chitin wherever she saw fit.

If it weren’t for the other tier two mutation she’d unlocked a few days ago, ‘Base Chitin Development’, the black skin on the palm of her hands would’ve been completely burnt off by now. The thin chitin plates that grew over her forearms were just thick enough to make sure her hands couldn’t catch on fire, and they were decently heat-resistant, too. As long as she didn’t stay in contact with the glowing chitin for longer than four seconds at a time, she could endure—she could mould a prosthetic from a single glowing ball of chitin by hand, and it was something only she could make.

This was no generic Swarmsteel.

And as the crowd watched in stunned silence for the next twenty minutes or so, the prosthetic began to take form. She carved the protruding ankle joint. She plucked out the little grippy claws at the base of the foot. She pressed her entire fist into the top of the leg to make a sheathe—that was where the little girl’s stump was going to fit into—and just about time, she ‘sensed’ the chitin was going to enter its rapid cooling phase.

If she just let it rest on the anvil for thirty more minutes, it’d cool and harden into a normal Swarmsteel, no better than the hundreds of prototypes she’d discarded the past week while trying to figure out how to make the ‘right’ Swarmsteel for the little girl.

So, right on the twenty-ninth minute mark, she picked up the burning prosthetic and dumped it into the bucket of quenching oil. The bucket was bolted to the ground, but still it rattled, hissed, and threatened to bubble oil everywhere. Smith Jaleel held out an arm to push the chief and the guards back just in case it exploded. For her part, Dahlia didn’t hesitate—while her arms were still steaming and shaking, she grabbed a knife off the wall and cut deep into one of her palms.

Then, she gripped her bleeding hand into a fist, holding it over the bucket and letting her golden blood squeeze into the oil.

It was like magic.

It was magic.

Because when the quenching oil eventually stopped bubbling and she pulled out the prosthetic with a tong, the leg was a far cry from the muddy, dirty brown chitin it’d been before forging. Now, its surface gleamed with a smooth sheen of gold, streaks of black running along the etchings where she’d twirled her claws across absentmindedly. She hadn’t even intended on those black thread-like streaks, but looking at them now, they certainly made the prosthetic ‘prettier’ by her standards.

To the little girl lying on the workbench, eyes still wide and glimmering, she was sure this prosthetic looked pretty too.

[Desert Locust Prosthetic Leg (Quality = D)(Spd +0/2)(Tou +0/4)(Strain +85)]

… Alright.

Now this is the true test.

Raising the prosthetic above her head, she spun it around to check for any obvious cracks, dents, and deformations. Smith Jaleel swiftly removed the little girl’s current prosthetic in the meantime, so when she was sure this was, by far, her best prosthetic yet, she trudged over to the little girl and looked to the chief for permission.

Naturally, the chief was apprehensive. Looking between the guards and Smith Jaleel, then between Dahlia and her daughter—but when she saw the little girl wasn't even looking back in worry, she turned to Dahlia and swallowed hard.

Dahlia got a slow, pensive nod.

That was the go-ahead she needed to slip the sheathe over the little girl's stump, and the moment she did–

The little girl shivered from head to toe, a jolt rippling up her spine as the prosthetic foot’s claws curled in response to Dahlia’s touch.

…

Smith Jaleel was the first to raise his brow, but before he could say anything, the little girl swung her legs off the table. The golden-black prosthetic remained glued onto her stump. Immediately, she hopped off and leaned all her weight on the prosthetic; the prosthetic held. She kicked her prosthetic out and tried to curl her locust claws around the legs of the workbench; the claws moved in response to her nerves. Then she pursed her lips, face puffing in a way that made her look like a marshmallow, and—she leapt two metres straight into the chief’s arms, surprising even Dahlia as she broke into a triumphant cry.

While Smith Jaleel and the guards and the chief surrounded the little girl, peppering her with a hundred questions in their Sharaji tongue, Dahlia stumbled back into a stool and sat down with a shaky breath.

[... Your blood makes Swarmsteel adaptable,] Eria whispered, as she reached for a bandage and wrapped up her bloody right palm. [An assassin bug, an assassin bug… even before you unlocked your mutation tree, you were already incredibly capable of melding with Swarmsteel. Armour that would normally cost you fifty percent of your strain limit would cost only five percent instead. That is how you managed to equip so many Swarmsteel for your final fight with the firefly without dying at the starting line.]

Thanks.

[But to use your own assassin bug blood as a component in all your future Swarmsteel to make them easier to meld with… I cannot condone it,] Eria said sternly, hopping off her shoulder and onto the empty anvil, shaking its head slowly. [That low-strain prosthetic you just made can grow alongside the girl. If she doubles in strength, her prosthetic would also double in strength. Provided she maintains it every once in a while, she would never have to take it off again for the rest of her life… you do not understand just how powerful Swarmsteel that can grow along with their users are.]

How so?

Eria stared at her like she was stupid. [The weakness of Swarmsteel is always the insanely high strain cost. An untrained human cannot equip more than one Swarmsteel without severely debilitating themselves. To not only be able to make Swarmsteel with a tenth of their usual strain cost, but also be able to make Swarmsteel that can ‘evolve’ depending on the attributes of the user equipping them… there is a reason the Hasharana keep that Lesser Great Mutant’s adaptable parts a closely guarded secret. It is a power worth fighting a war over. If word gets out from this town that your blood can be used to make adaptable Swarmsteel, every notable faction on this continent, human or Swarm, would–]

I’m just making a leg for someone who lost theirs, she thought, smiling softly when she saw the little girl jumping outside the forge, bouncing three, four, five metres into the air without any issues; it appeared her prosthetic also gave its user a fair amount of attribute levels. Don’t worry. I’ll still be careful. I’ll tell the chief to tell the townsfolk not to spread the word around just in case.

I just… that golden-black Swarmsteel is something that only I can make, right?

[...]

Eria sighed again, but it was with a hint of amusement this time. There were other voices in the back as well, and all of them replied at the exact same time.

[You are our ‘Make-Whatever’, after all,] Issam whispered.

[Not bad for your hundredth or something prosthetic,] Raya muttered. [I mean, I figured out your blood could probably be used as a component a long time ago. If your mom was an assassin bug and your dad turned into one because he drank her blood, then you, their blood daughter, would also have the blood of an assassin bug in you. Tch. If only you’d accepted me back in Alshifa. You could’ve made way stronger Swarmsteel than what you–]

[Shut it, Raya. Just congratulate her for once,] Amula snapped, and she giggled a little with her eyes closed, hearing someone getting kicked behind her ears. [Sure, we knew all along your ancestral bloodline could be used to make adaptable Swarmsteel, but it’s meaningless if you didn’t figure it out yourself. ‘Blood and sweat and tears’ isn’t complete without ‘blood’, eh? This is a good, strong step forward, so just keep practising. Ignore Eria’s warnings. I, for one, would love to see what kind of Swarmsteel you can make from now on.]

[Me too!] Ayla said.

[Me three,] Aylee said.

[Thweep!] Jerie chirped, pointless as ever. [Thweep! Thweep thweep, thweep–]

[Don’t listen to ‘them’, Dahlia Sina,] Eria said, voice exceedingly soothing, calming; it felt like a cold blanket being wrapped around her head. [Listen to me. I speak for the good of humanity. You have no doubt unlocked a new level of Swarmsteel making, but if you are reckless with how you use your blood, you can start a war amongst humankind like we have never seen before. For the time being, until I am better able to understand what an ‘assassin bug’ really is, please refrain from making adaptable Swarmsteel again.]

…

Dahlia opened her eyes and nodded slowly, smiling at Eria.

Looking at the little girl now, though, I kinda wanna make a locust Swarmsteel for my own legs.

[A normal Swarmsteel is perfectly fine, yes,] Eria said, nodding quickly. [You should get some rest first, however. It has been two days, fifteen hours, and nineteen minutes since you last washed yourself. Please wash yourself to minimise the risk of open wound infections.]

Got it.

[...]

… Can I just make the Swarmsteel really quick first? I don’t wanna lose the rhythm–

[Please wash yourself to minimise the risk of open wound infections.]