She and Lindon had both practically memorized those notes in preparation for today. They tended to be very technical, though they referred back to a “Subject One” as the source of the hunger madra. Lindon very much wanted to know about Subject One, as it seemed the entire purpose of their research in the labyrinth was to duplicate Subject One's unique madra.
“Soulsmithing is blending three elements,” she said. She had given him this lecture before, but he still focused on every word. A mistake here might mean weeks of going without an arm. “You have the binding, the material of the construct itself, and the Soulsmith's madra, hm? But unlike blending physical materials, you are working with the stuff of souls. Madra lives. It changes. Even the same Path, taken from two different people, can have subtly different properties.”
She traded her halfsilver tongs out for her goldsteel set. These could seize immaterial madra without damaging the subject. She opened the small box, which let a feeling of ravenous hunger wash over the both of them.
Then she withdrew a finger-sized shard from within. It was one of the pieces left over from the Ancestor's Spear.
“A Soulsmith must learn to predict those changes, hm? It's no good making a weapon that will turn on its owner. But even with the best drudge in the world and years of experience, we are working with living components. No two constructs are exactly the same.”
Gingerly, she placed the shard of white within the bubble at the center of the room. The transparent arm and the shard of bright white orbited one another, though the smaller piece seemed to be squirming through the air toward the larger.
Gesha crossed her arms. “Now,” she commanded.
Lindon reached out with his perception, sensing both the arm and the piece of hunger madra. They gave him very different impressions, but he didn't focus on that, instead pouring pure madra into combining them.
They drifted together faster than he'd expected, and he focused on Forging them like he would a scale. He held the shape in his mind, pushing it together with his will.
The shard entered the clear-as-glass surface of the arm, staining six inches of the forearm white. Pale strands ran through the limb like veins, and the sharp fingers shuddered.
Fisher Gesha gestured, and her spider scurried up beneath the floating boundary field. It lifted two legs, poking at the substance of the construct, spinning it around as though spinning a web.
After a moment, it hissed in three sharp patterns and withdrew its legs.
“Unstable,” Gesha reported. “Keep holding it.” She produced another shard of the Ancestor's Spear, and Lindon repeated the process.
The stress of holding onto the construct felt like cycling the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel for too long: his soul was under pressure, every breath was heavy, and he was having trouble holding onto the appropriate breathing pattern. Sweat had begun to bead on his face.
But there was a distinct difference. The presence of the arm had begun to change, as the Shifting Skies madra in the original limb was suffused with the power of the hungry white madra. Instead of tapping, the fingers now flexed, grasping, and he sensed...
Well, he wasn't sure what he was picking up on. Maybe Fisher Gesha could tell him, if he could spare the attention to ask. It felt as though the arm wanted something, and it twisted in the floating bubble like a hunting snake.
It must have been an effect of the hunger madra, as she added more samples inside and Lindon used his pure madra to Forge them together into one. With every piece, it seemed to become more aware, like they were building a Remnant instead of a Remnant arm.
This time, when Fisher Gesha's drudge tested the limb, it gave a high whistle. Immediately, she withdrew a shiny, twisted form of pure white light with a corkscrew pattern. The binding.
A crystallized technique, the binding was the heart of any construct. Without it, a construct would only have the properties of its material and whatever scripts they added on top. That would make it no better than any scripted object.
Ideally, this binding would allow him to feed on someone else's madra, though Fisher Gesha insisted that it would only allow him to pull another's power into his arm and then vent it elsewhere.
Either way. Both ideas intrigued him.
As the binding approached, the arm squirmed toward it, fighting against the hold of his spirit. He tried to ask her to wait, but the word came out as a croak.
Then the binding slid into the arm, and he had to absorb it.
The actual process of completing the arm was simple. He worked it into the Forging, and the arm flared with a brilliant white. Now it was all spotless and pale, and the claws had smoothed out into fingertips—Lindon didn't want to use an arm with needle-sharp fingers. It looked almost skeletal in shape, though it was thick enough to fit on his arm.
Fisher Gesha let out a breath. “Good. Now, normally we would add scripts at this point, but it will be attached to your body. Your own spirit will do the maintenance, protecting it from decay. It seems stable, but for a while you'll have to...prepare for...”
Her words drifted off as she watched the arm.
Lindon was staring at it too.
It had gone wild, twisting and writhing as it pushed its hand at the edge of the boundary field. He could almost hear a snarling in his head, as it sought to devour...something.
An instant later, the boundary field vanished.
The hand lunged for Lindon's head. No...not for his head. The link he shared with the arm gave him an instinctive understanding, and rather than ducking, he threw himself to the side.
It wasn't after him. It was after the Sylvan Riverseed.
Little Blue scurried down the side of his head, hiding in his robe, peeking her sapphire head out of his collar and trembling. Lindon reached out with his power again, but the arm wouldn't respond to him anymore. All he could sense from it was a boundless hunger.
“What now?” he asked, his voice creaking from disuse.
“It's out of control,” Gesha said sourly, pulling the goldsteel hook from her back. Sharp on the inside and as big as her torso, it was more of a sickle than a hook, and it gleamed white in the light of the room. “This is why you don't use unique parts, hm? Something goes wrong, and you can't learn from it and try again. You have to give up all your wasted time.”
She stepped forward, preparing to swing her weapon, but the arm was still scurrying across the floor on its fingertips. Toward Lindon.
Lindon kept his attention on the limb. There had to be something he could do to salvage this—it would be a waste of not only irreplaceable materials, but also far too much time. And a unique opportunity.
He held out a hand to Fisher Gesha, begging for restraint, even as he studied the arm. What he called hunger wasn't just that. It felt similar to hunger, but it was more textured, with deeper layers. He felt ambition, greed, gluttony, an endless desire to reach for more and more.
The hand lunged at him, but he caught it by the wrist. It burned his palm, as though he'd grabbed onto solid ice, but he kept his attention on it.
Without context, the arm was out of control. It needed a mind to control it. A will to keep it in check.
And it fit him. There was a little of this hunger in him already.
He focused on that, stoking his desire for power, the feelings of envy and awe he'd felt when Suriel had demonstrated absolute authority, the aching helplessness of living as Unsouled and his desire to get stronger. As strong as he could.