Leafa vanished and reappeared next to Hawk, who was focused on his work. When she held out her hand with an open palm facing up, Hawk was fairly sure that she had snacks for him. That gesture always meant snacks. So, he ate what she offered without hesitation.
The flames of both his body and his [Hellstorm] vortexes immediately turned the same pale blue as Overlord Leafa’s smoke, and a massive surge of power flowed through Hawk’s body as he turned incorporeal.
[Hawk got a new skill? Unfair advantage. 5 yard penalty. Repeat first down.] Remi complained.
Nobody else had any idea what she was talking about, but the sentiment translated well enough.
A mighty keening scream echoed across the farm as Hawk launched into the sky, his incorporeal form surging with energy.
Light blue flames burst from him, creating a small sun in the sky, bright enough that it lit the ground all the way to the horizon and sent a wave of heat across the farm so intense that the soup pot went from a simmer to a boil, and the thatch roof began to smoulder.
Then he began to reform into a massive bird the size of a Roc, but flickering with blue flames in place of feathers, and with a slender body elegant in a way Karl associated more with drawings of a Phoenix than with the overgrown sparrow form of the Rocs.
Leafa turned to Karl and held out her hand for her prize.
She was obviously impatient to have the blade, but it was resisting Karl’s attempt to take it out and hand it to her.
[I know, friend. But we made a deal. I’m sure she will be good to you.]
Karl felt the bond snap as the blade changed hands, and Overlord Leafa surged with power, sending a pillar of pale blue smoke into the sky over her for a moment before it retracted.
“Oh, that is wonderful. Everything that I could have hoped for.”
Her words were eerie, not a threat, but they gave Karl a shiver of premonition that he might have just made a grave mistake of a sort far larger than simply needing a new weapon.
Then, Leafa held out her hand and snapped one of her fingers off. “A replacement for your weapon. Don’t let anyone say that I’m not a fair bargain maker.” She explained. Then she simply vanished, letting the branch drop toward the ground.
Karl grabbed it as it fell, and felt the twig bond with him.
[Haint Claw] Obtained. Artifact Grade Weapon.
{Morphable weapon. Deals Ghostfire damage in addition to skill damage. Haint Claw may grow into a Haint sapling with sufficient soul power.}
Karl was admiring the new weapon in his mental space when the familiar power of a portal opening caused him to turn.
The Oracle ran out of the portal with a massively powerful Troll in rich purple robes, trimmed in white fur, behind him.
“What did you do? Where is she? Tell me you didn’t unbind her.” The Oracle pleaded.
“I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you please give me another clue?” Karl asked.
“The Haint. The ghost weapon. Where. Did. She. Go.” The troll behind the Oracle snarled with a heavy accent that sounded like he was talking with his mouth full.
“She vanished. She does that now and then. She’s likely around here somewhere, fighting boars and Cyclops.”
The Emperor of Newbon roared, and Karl felt the Hellstorm Vortexes shudder as the Totem Rank Troll’s aura shook the energy flow in the area.
“You gon be tellin’ me what you dun, or I gon rip yo arms from yo puny body.” The Emperor roared.
His voice shook the ground like an earthquake spell, and many of the defenders on the other side of the house stumbled.
“She offered a stone to Hawk, and I traded her my sword for it. The stone helped Hawk master a higher level of flame skills, then Overlord Leafa vanished.
We’re in the middle of a battle, but all the enemies are trapped on the other side of the vortexes.” Karl tried to explain.
The big troll looked like he wanted to strangle Karl, but the Oracle had more questions.
“What sort of sword did you trade her?”
“It was an item from a monster spawn. A blade of Champions. It stored life force from enemies and transferred some to the wielder to help them grow. I don’t know how much good it would be to her, as I already absorbed as much of the energy as I could. But the sword’s bond with me transferred to her.” Karl informed him nervously.
That big troll seemed quite intent on tearing him into little bits, and his power level made the Overlords seem like children.
Fortunately for Karl’s life expectancy, the big man was swearing incomprehensibly and casting some sort of shamanistic spell that was making the clouds vanish from the sky.
“She is going west. Oracle, you will pay for your mistake.” The Troll growled, then stepped through the portal, which closed, leaving the Oracle behind.
“Care to explain? We could use our best fighter back.” Karl asked.
“She’s not coming back. You just gave a sentient weapon the soul power to gain full autonomy. A Haint is a sentient energy being in a possessed body of some sort. Almost an undead, but not really, considering the nature of the energy that is inhabiting the body. In her case, the body of a deceased Dryad that was weaponized as a Golem. They have no soul, they’re a purely magical being. But they strip the souls from their enemies to power their growth and sentience. Whatever you gave her allowed her to break free of the Emperor’s bond, and now she’s on the run.”
Karl blinked slowly and adjusted his vortexes to buy time as he tried to comprehend what was going on.
“You’re saying that the Haint Overlord, the one who insisted on being called Princess Leafa, is actually a weapon bonded to the Totem Rank leader of the nation, and now she has what? Gone rogue and taken off?”
The Oracle paled and nodded.
“Worse. I think that she might have broken through to the Totem Rank. A Rogue Totem Rank threat loose in the nation and nobody knows what she wants.”
“Other than snacks. Elven trail rations in particular.” Karl added.
“I don’t see how that is… no, you are right. She might be trying to get off the continent. There are far more Overlord and Totem Rank creatures on the other continents, and she needs to feed on high ranked souls to stabilize her advancement.
If she’s really planning to remain on the run, she needs more souls to give her the power to resist being bonded again.”
It was probably better not to tell the Oracle that he still had a piece of her. Leafa had helped Hawk evolve, and to Karl that meant he owed her a favour larger than a simple sword and a few days on the run.
“Well, you might as well take a seat over by the fire. There are still hundreds of Giant Boars coming for us, and while Hawk’s pretty blue flames are scaring some off, they’re still trying to get through on the other sides.”
The Oracle turned toward the house, then stopped when he saw Hawk circling in the sky.
“That’s a Ghostfire Thunderbird. That isn’t possible. I would have seen it. No, it wasn’t one before, was it? Leafa must have done that with her power. He evolved, didn’t he?” Karl nodded at the wizened Troll, who was looking even more haggard than he had two days ago.
“That’s right. Maybe he needs an updated name. I can’t keep calling him Hawk when he’s no longer a Hawk at all.” Karl joked.
The Oracle sighed. “Hawk is a less ridiculous name now that he isn’t one. I have a cousin named Hawk.”
A troll named Hawk? Karl wondered about the naming sense behind that, but it might be a tribal name based on a personal attribute. The Orcs did that, and gave their warriors a second name based on their skills and reputation. It wasn’t unthinkable that the Trolls might do the same. Karl hadn’t actually asked many of them their names, now that he thought about it.