Raphael didn't linger on the sword. He filed the pull it exerted on him under noted and walked in beside Evelyn.
The man staffing the armory was old, white-streaked beard, deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He rose from his chair with the careful deliberateness of someone whose body had opinions about sudden movement.
But his eyes when they found Raphael were sharp and entirely clear, none of the cloudiness that usually came with that much age.
"Which unit?"
Raphael handed over his credentials. "A-9. Raphael Alanster."
The old man took the card to the terminal on his desk and picked up a slim band, something between a bracelet and a miniaturized watch, and connected it to the system. He typed for a moment, then set it aside.
"There. You can check your merit balance, accept commissions, and access intelligence reports through it anytime." He picked it up again and turned it over in his hands, showing Raphael the inner edge where a fine needle was set into the casing.
"We call it the life band. Beyond the information functions, it monitors your vitals in real time."
He paused.
"And it might save your life once. Inside is two milligrams of Liberation Draught. Simple effect, it induces a burst of strength beyond anything your body would otherwise be capable of. The kind of output that doesn't have a ceiling you'd recognize."
He looked at Raphael steadily.
"The cost is proportionate. Eighty percent fatality rate on use. Those who survive typically carry some degree of lasting psychological damage. Mild to severe, depending."
He set the band in Raphael's palm and put a hand briefly on his shoulder, not an instruction, just a gesture, and left it at that.
Raphael looked at Evelyn and Eva. They were already wearing identical bands. He'd noticed them before and assumed they were personal accessories.
"Understood."
He put it on and headed deeper into the storehouse.
The silver sword was where he'd left it, on a display rack between more standard equipment. Up close, even Evelyn, who had no particular history with bladed weapons, stopped to look at it properly.
The proportions were right. The edge had been kept. The grip was ergonomically sound and made from a material that didn't read as either metal or leather.
The silver throughout had been reinforced with carved runes that weren't decorative.
Then she found the price tag and drew a slow breath.
189 merit. The equivalent of 189,000 Federation coin.
"Partner." She measured her words. "We're in an era of firearms. This sword is well-made, I won't argue that, but the price doesn't follow."
She gestured around the storehouse. Silver weapons were well-stocked here, given their effectiveness against Demons. The standard range ran from thirty to eighty merit, functional and proven.
"Your recovery draught from last night? Strong effect, and it costs five to ten merit per dose. That's the reference point."
Raphael had already done the same comparison in his head. He looked at the sword again.
"Can I try it?"
The old man at the desk looked mildly surprised, most people who came through here weren't reaching for cold steel first. But he nodded. "Go ahead."
Raphael lifted it from the rack. The weight arrived in his hand and immediately stopped feeling like weight, it settled, distributed along the blade and through the grip in a way that made the sword feel like an extension of a decision rather than an object.
He turned his wrist once and let it move. The edge parted the air with a sound that was cleaner than it had any right to be.
Light. Balanced. The center of mass exactly where it needed to be.
"Good sword."
[Analyzing... Complete.]
[Relic: Sword of Lyndon.]
[Description: One of the blades carried by the hero Lyndon Alanster, two centuries prior. Decades of sustained combat have soaked it in the blood of hundreds of sinners. The number of Demons destroyed by this weapon is not on record.]
[Effect: Activates in the presence of any arcane fluctuation. During use, the swordsmanship of Lyndon Alanster can be gradually inherited by the wielder.]
[Relic Cardinal Sin: Superbia.]
[Matching sin — effect doubled. Non-matching sin — effect halved.]
Raphael read through it once and lowered the blade.
Alanster. Not a common name. He'd known that since he was old enough to understand that most people didn't share it.
His father Frank had brothers, and somewhere above that generation a grandfather who nobody seemed to speak about at length or with particular clarity. That was the extent of what he had.
A hero from two hundred years ago. The same name. The same Cardinal Sin.
It wouldn't tell him where his father was. But it was a thread, and threads had ends.
"I'll take it."
Evelyn opened her mouth, reconsidered, and said nothing. She trusted his judgment. That had always been the foundation of how they worked.
The old man looked at him for a long moment, the assessing kind, the kind that was measuring something that wasn't written on any credential.
Then he moved toward the rack with his careful steps and pressed his hand against something invisible beside the sword.
The resistance Raphael had been feeling since he first saw it, a subtle withholding, something the blade had been holding in reserve, released.
The pull he'd felt from across the room became solid and immediate, a clean certainty rather than an ambient suggestion.
"This sword came from an ancient battlefield. A century of exposure and it hasn't marked. Nothing has touched it." The old man stepped back. "From today, it belongs to you."
Raphael accepted the scabbard that came with it and slung it across his back. The weight of it settled between his shoulder blades and felt correct in a way that was difficult to rationalize and easy to accept.
With 31 merit remaining, anything significant was out of reach. The three of them drifted to the consumables section and resupplied at sensible prices.
Raphael spent 21 merit on three recovery draughts at seven each, and the remaining ten on two containers of blade oil.
The first was spirit oil, a rendered preparation of dog tallow and ritual herbs that, applied to a silver edge, would allow it to strike incorporeal entities that would otherwise pass through physical material untouched.
The second was a toxin compound, assembled from high-potency plant derivatives, capable of producing a range of poisoning effects on contact.
The limitation on both was the same: single-use per container. Not because the volume was small, there was enough for multiple applications.
But because once the seal broke, the preparation began to degrade. Open it once, use what you needed, and the rest was on a clock.
Evelyn and Eva finished their own resupply and the three of them left the armory with a thoroughness about their preparation that the previous night hadn't quite allowed for.
Eva, as before, was staying at the base for remote support. She handed both Raphael and Evelyn a projection device at the door and pulled up the commission details on her tablet as they walked out.
"Commission originated from a small town to the north. Multiple fatalities in a short window, all of them occurring in the late night hours.
Cause of death in each case is extensive tearing, the kind consistent with large animal attack."
The blue sedan was waiting in the lot. Raphael got in on the passenger side. Through the windscreen, the sun was already moving toward the afternoon horizon.
Eva's voice came through as Evelyn started the engine.
"No confirmed supernatural elements yet. But the pattern's wrong for an ordinary animal, and the timing is too consistent.
Someone filed it with us rather than local enforcement, which tells you something about what they think is actually out there."
Evelyn pulled out of the lot.
"Understood. We'll assess on arrival."